I land on the floor, rolling on myself and coming to my feet in a well-practiced move, only to exchange spells with another figure in Yann’s boudoir. Our spells devastate the precious furniture, sending shards and upholstery up in the air.

“Bolt.”

“Shield… Flay!”

“Hive. Bind.”

I slash with Rose and a claw to keep the chains at bay. They do not break. I merely manage to fend them off as I spring back.

My foe’s voice is calm and almost bored. I recognize her from the previous battle. She was the Lancaster archmage who tried to trap us, a short lady with black hair and eyes. She shares some of Melusine’s traits, including her voluptuous form.

Bertrand waits by the hole in the wall.

They are toying with me. ARROGANT. And correct. Unfortunately. The sun is still out and will be out for hours. The house is sealed, its only escape route blocked by the lord’s armored form. To be prosaic, I am truly and utterly fucked.

How did it come to this? How could they already be here?

“You know, I have heard that honorable foes are easier to predict than dishonorable ones. I find this simplistic theory amusing,” Bertrand says.

I back up against the wall as the powerful warrior steps forward unhurriedly. The petite Lancaster lady stays where she is and brushes a wood splinter off her dark armored robe. She does not spare me a glance.

“In truth, you can count on scoundrels to act like scoundrels. I always found Yann to be too arrogant for his own good, even when he was but a candidate peddling horses for the royal Musketeers. And I thought I would be the one to kill him.”

What to do, what to do? Can I get past him? I do not believe that I can. Even if I could, the escape tunnel leads outside at some point, where the sun still rules. I cannot stall for reinforcements because it will be days before they arrive.

I am completely done for.

Damn, I thought I would be killed by mortals in a clever trap, or by my sire. Not by them. How very frustrating.

Bertrand still waits by the wall, managing a casual poise in his heavy carmine armor.

“Remember our agreement. I want to know about her quirk,” the Lancaster lady says.

“Yes, yes, I do not forget my promises so easily, woman.”

I frown. My quirk?

“My dear Martha refers to your uncanny ability to charge your claws, and apparently soul weapon, with alien essence. Such techniques are rare outside of the Vanheim bloodline. I am confident that she will manage to… extract all relevant knowledge from your person.”

Not this again.

“Oh no, despair already? I expected more fire from the sane spawn. Let us see if I can revive the flames of hope. Hmm. Do you know why I am so powerful?”

I do not reply. I find him annoying, though I admit to some hypocrisy. After all, I too enjoy toying with my prey.

“My Magna Arqa is simply superior. Although lords are all mighty, some are simply mightier than others. And I am more than most. The length of time one can maintain a Magna Arqa also depends on willpower, and we Roland have that aplenty. The thing with Magna Arqa, is that it cannot be deployed during the day.”

My eyes widen. Does he mean…

“Yes. Right now, it is your magic and blade against my axe. We are both weakened, and the escape tunnel is so close, yes? If you reach it, I will not pursue.”

I expected Martha to protest his decision on account of the risk, but she merely rolls her eyes in an uncharacteristic display of impatience. Her confidence says a lot. She does not think I stand a chance.

I must still try it.

“Martha, do stay out of our little wager.”

“Just get it over with, you insufferable scoundrel.”

IT IS ON.

Lunge. Parry. Quick swipes. Bertrand deflects Rose with minimal movements of his massive battleaxe. His counter-strikes are simply devastating. I block the first and am sent through yet another wall into a receiving room with its French windows mercifully boarded. I deflect the second and it still bites painfully into my gauntleted forearm. I yelp in pain.

“Flay!”

Bertrand let the first spell harmlessly splash against the axe’s wide blade, ducks under the second and brings the axe back, cutting into the tip of my extended right foot. That hurts too.

I try to keep Bertrand at a distance, making full use of Rose’s versatility to remain dangerous, but he always strikes where I will be, or close enough that his Herculean strength alters the trajectory. I feel like fighting someone who is in my head, though I am certain that he is not interfering. Bertrand’s battle experience is simply so massive that he must know what range of motions are available to me at all times. Even denying obvious baits and fake openings is not enough to remain one step ahead. It happens again. I mess up and an axe blow catches me in the flank.

I groan and jump back to my feet. I just thought of something. It is nasty, but I will attempt it anyway. It is FOLLY. No. I must try folly or I will fall.

I remove a smaller revolver from a back pocket, praying that the mud I am still covered in did not damage the mechanism.

“How unusual.”

I aim at Bertrand.

Then to the side.

And I pull the trigger. The magically-enhanced projectile damages the wall and the thinnest, tiniest ray of sunlight pierces the gloom between the Lord and me.

Bertrand jumps back with a hiss. I am already gone backward and to the side.

THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN. Shut up, me, I know. I made it happen.

The far wall separating the receiving room from the bedroom. It stands in my way.

“Shred.”

The spell blasts away the reinforced partition and I jump through. The bedroom. I rush to the central place. A trapdoor, still open.

There is a crash behind me and my back turns into a sea of fire. It hurts. IT HURTS. I scream.

Blinding pain.

CANNOT MOVE. I do not feel my legs anymore. Just pain. I try to move an arm, and stop with a gasp. It hurts so much.

Footsteps behind my back. I wish I could lose consciousness, but I cannot. This mercy is denied to me.

The man stops. I can only see the edge of the bed. Every movement is agony.

I hear a sound and my body buckles, then I hear a terrible crunching noise of flesh and bone as he tears off something from me, and my mind is lost.

PAIN

“Ahaaaaa.”

The blade of an axe, glistening with dark blood. That bit deep. Fucker threw his weapon and took my spine. I think.

“Not bad, little Devourer. Very astute of you. I like your style. I do not, however, like the sun. I believe that you use it a bit too generously, for a vampire. Perhaps I should instill some fear back into that devious head of yours.”

The axe dematerializes and something drags me back. I can only see the walls and some cabinets now, then I am held upright. We are back in the receiving room. I did not realize it, but we trashed that place completely.

Bertrand holds me by the neck and left arm. I can feel his hand on my neck, but the left arm flops uselessly. He brings it closer to…

Oh no.

“Please…”

Not this again. Not this again.

“Such a double-edged weapon for the likes of us, do you not agree?”

The armored arm gets ever closer to that thin ray of deadly radiance.

“Just a little bit, for the memory.”

Close so close now.

And then it stops.

“Did you feel that?” Martha, the Lancaster lady, asks from the other room. Please please please I only feel pain. Just get me away from that.

“Yes.”

Dragged back again, thank the Watcher. Just please get this horrible radiance away from me.

Still held upright. Still hurts. Back into the bedroom now, I can only focus on keeping my mind together. It takes all my Ekon essence and my experience fending off the insanity of the Thirst to keep paying attention to my surroundings. I perceive a… pulse. It comes from my sarcophagus? It does. But… why?

My old protection. My haven against the day. Loth designed it long ago, and Constantine reinforced it with intricate carvings and protective enchantments. Red light shines ominously along its silvery flanks. Martha grabs the lid and pulls, in vain.

“Keyed to her.”

“Can you crack it?”

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“Not in a reasonable timeframe. The protections here are… impressive. I recognize two different styles, two masters at work. Besides, we do not need it. Simply place her hand against this lever and the artefact will recognize its master.”

So very strange, I do not recall a beacon being placed here and I carefully inspected the workings to make sure that Constantine had not left any surprise. And then I realize it. There are no beacons, this is just Constantine’s essence powering the spells directly.

How is this possible?

As I muse the conundrum, Bertrand places my unresponsive hand against the handle and the lid slides open.

A defensive spell triggers anyway.

Powerful red light crashes against my two foes. I recognize an area-of-effect pain construct.

Bertrand bellows, and drops me.

A chain emerges from inside the lids and fastens around my wrist. I am pulled in just as the lord roars in anger.

Another set of chains emerges from other defensive constructs to attack my assailant. The lid snaps close while they are distracted. I hear powerful magic crashing against the shield spells. They should fail. They do not.

A mighty blow sends the entire sarcophagus flying through the air. My head bonks against the surface.

“Ow!”

I cough some blood. It appears that Bertrand grazed a lung. That would explain the horrible pain. The wound is only now starting to close with excruciating slowness.

An indicator flashes blue above my head. Sunlight exposure.

Hold on.

That moron catapulted me outside! I am safe! Even if he sends mortals, they will be pulverized by the traps. It would take a cannon to breach it.

I really hope that they do not find one. This is Virginia, after all. There are tens of thousands of soldiers around.

In any case, there is little I can do against that eventuality. I should focus on closing the gaping hole in my back, because I am bleeding on the velvet upholstery.

***

Nightfall.

I sigh when I feel the baleful orb dip below the horizon. I have managed to heal myself, though I am now Thirsty as a result. It took more courage than I would like to admit to pass a hand against my back after I was done closing it. I felt normal, if cold flesh, sticky with congealed blood. This section of my armor is now ravaged. Bertrand split me like a log. I find his manhandling aggravating. This is no way to treat a lady! He should have properly struck my heart instead.

I open the lid and jump out just as a crash heralds another dent in the manor’s wall. This side of the mansion is close enough to trees that I could perhaps attempt something, if I can run across a snow-covered lawn. I prepare to run and stop, surprised.

I have never felt such a domineering convergence of essence, even when we fled the field back in the Natalis compound. Power saturates the very air. The fabric of reality is so thin that spells should be empowered if cast here. For a moment, my senses are so overwhelmed that I cannot manage them, and I stumble to my knees. I feel more than hear the snap of a spell at my back.

Someone steps by my side and deflects the incoming blast with a thin foil, her other hand holding a black curved dagger. I see a yellow-dyed banded armor embracing a lithe form, and a curiously antique helmet with a Greek influence. Blonde hair cascade down my protector’s back.

She turns to me and I recognize Sephare’s icy gaze.

“I apologize for the delay, though, to be fair, we expected you to stay in your sarcophagus.”

I, being the rational and smart vampire that I am, formulate a witty answer.

“What?!”

By the Watcher, Ariane, well done. Very smooth.

Before I can get an answer, Bertrand stops a dozen paces away from us, with Martha on his right, and another lord wielding a halberd by his left. For the very first time since we met, I can spot wariness in the way he holds his axe. I do not have to wonder why for very long.

“Well well well, what a good catch,” a voice says from behind.

Constantine walks out of the tree edge, wearing a full plate and robe armor made vibrant with enchantments. His dark glare is the only part of his face I can see from behind a barbaric-looking helmet. His hands wield black chains and a massive obsidian staff that no human could carry. We mostly use gauntlets nowadays, but Constantine has always been a traditionalist, and he is not afraid of being recognized as what he is. Simply the second most powerful mage on the planet.

And he did not come alone.

Ceron in a conquistador garb, then Suarez in an old-fashioned chainmail ensemble emerge from the treeline behind him, then the Roland twins, Adrien and Adam in matching plate armors. Constantine’s two mysterious bodyguards are the last to arrive, standing on either side of the visibly-fuming Progenitor.

“How many layers of deception am I on?” I drily whisper to Sephare.

“I usually stop counting after I run out of fingers. Sorry.”

Across the clearing, Bertrand’s golden mask glitters under the moonlight. The night is clear despite the season, and I have the best seat to witness the prelude to the apocalyptic conflict to come.

“You are not the first one to believe you have trapped me, ‘Speaker’. I have never killed a Progenitor before.”

“I was hoping that you would say that,” Constantine replies with deceptive calm.

Not much for preliminaries then. I take a step back, as discreetly as I can.

“Magna Arqa.”

“Magna Arqa.”

“Magna Arq—”

I run. Once, we found a prairie dog stunned in the middle of a field we were using to conduct artillery tests. I know how the unfortunate creature felt then.

Behind me, reality cracks left and right as indestructible weapons collide, backed by cataclysmic strength. Shockwaves send mounds of soil flying. Pieces of masonry glide through the air as an entire section of the manor is vaporized.

I steal a glance back. I cannot resist.

The battle lords exchange blows faster than I can perceive, Bertrand holding his ground against their superior numbers, but the real show comes from Martha and Constantine.

I knew, intellectually, that the lady had not even made an effort to fend me off. I can now realize how much I was outmatched. Shields and projectiles, disruptor fields and subtle curses, the spells she chains blot the air in a blinding display of color. She could fight off a full army of mages. I cannot help but be impressed by the skill and dedication it must have taken to reach that level of mastery.

And she still cannot hold a candle to the Progenitor.

While Martha is a well-honed tactician, Constantine is an artist. His spells skewer the air with a living quality that turns him into an avatar of magic, half-humanoid, and half liquid essence flaying the world around him. Red chains bind, yellow chains explode, blue chains disrupt and scatter, then red chains scatter as well and other merge and combine effects, before coalescing into a massive, comet-like missile. The spells he weaves change with every moment, all the usual techniques and tricks pointless before the adaptive speed he now demonstrates. I spend only one second watching him work, and realize that I have no idea what he is doing. I would be completely unable to counter his magic, not knowing what tool to use on which spell. I might as well fight him blind for all the good it would do me. He is harnessing chaos.

I slow down and turn on myself, still moving away but unable to detach my sight from the awesome spectacle before me. Those are world-class monsters fighting it out now, immortal beasts centuries-old, at the top of their art. Every moment is a fugacious scene begging to be painted, but I simply cannot capture it. They move too fast! And the light… The light, it lives with them. The fabric is so thin. I would need a canvas that shifts and changes. I behold…

PERFECTION.

One day. One day, I will join and dance with them. And when they are no longer my match, when the illusion falters and I see them for the flawed beings they are, I will go after him.

But for now, time to run!

Amazing how Suarez and Bertrand are almost evenly matched. The old Roland is sporting deep gashes in his living armor where Suarez’ Magna Arqa pierced his strange flesh. The golden mask swivels my way.

Hold on.

Why is it swiveling my way?

“I AM TAKING YOU DOWN WITH ME!”

“Aaaaah! Why can’t you just sod off?!”

An arm flies off, but the lord rushes me and I cannot do anything but go ALL IN. Wait, what?

Bubbling essence. Rupturing vitality.

Ah, no, not again!

A forest of thorny roots erupts from the ground as I spot the axe descending upon my—

----------------------------------------

“She is coming around.”

PAIN. Pain on my forehead. I taste mortal vitality on my tongue.

“Oooooooow.”

I crack an eye open through dried flakes of dark blood. A maid retreats, binding the wound on her wrist. She averts her gaze. I return to see Sephare and Constantine kneeling by my side.

“How are you feeling?” the blonde woman asks.

“Just a skull-splitting headache,” I reply.

“What a coincidence. What is the last thing you remember?”

I have to focus for a moment. I realize that my entire head is covered in blood. Mine, from the smell. I lick my lips and focus.

“Bertrand’s axe falling on my head.”

“Well,” Constantine notes, “gravity followed its course.”

“That bastard brained me?”

“Yes. Although, you seem to have regained your cognitive abilities.”

“That brutish ruffian! How dare he treat my beautiful face as if it were a log. Uncouth! Scandalous!”

“And I see that your personality is intact. I will now allow Sephare to explain everything, as I am myself not entirely sure how we managed to capture Bertrand and one of his lieutenants in one fell swoop. And with this, I bid you goodbye. There are secure coffins I must enchant to provide our guests with safe traveling arrangements. Goodbye.”

The tall vampire stands up and leaves, crimson armored robe swishing majestically as he walks. Very manly. I approve.

I turn to a very pleased, very smug Sephare. She makes no secret as to her satisfaction.

“You used me as bait.”

“Yes.”

“You suspected that Gregory might be a traitor as well.”

“No. I told you the truth. I did not believe that he had time to scheme, and we found his disabled body in his bedroom with a spike through the heart. I did, however, expect the expansion faction to have contact among the staff. Yann’s demise and your presence would be quickly known to our foes, and you were going to be attacked. Bertrand could allow this opportunity to fall through, but your presence was too strong a lure, or that was what I believed. In reality, they were already getting off a blockade runner further on the coast.”

“Constantine and you warned me to stay alive because you expected me to face overwhelming odds.”

“Yes, and you managed to attack the first person you came across instead of staying secured in your sarcophagus, behind, I may add, enchantments that Constantine could reinforce at will from afar.”

“You were nearby all along?”

“Yes, safe in a magically-powered golem construct in the form of a carriage, one of Constantine’s inventions. It allowed us to deploy very close to you, and protect you from a cruel fate.”

“Well, I mean, I just got axed. Twice.”

“And you live to be axed again.”

My glare fails to dampen her mood.

“I assume that we can consider this a major success.”

“Indeed. The enemies are not yet vanquished, but the loss of their war leader will be a terrible blow. One of my best coups.”

“You did not expect to catch Bertrand himself,” I tell her reproachfully.

She has the grace to show some embarrassment, though it is all a farce for my benefit.

“If you bait a trout and land a fat salmon, are you a bad fisherwoman?”

I roll my eyes.

“So what now?” I ask, “do we start negotiating an armistice?”

“That depends on them. We received dire news that Charleston was under attack. Unfortunately, there are chances that the city is lost and the nest captured. If so, we will need to discuss terms. There might be a few more battles before it comes to peace.”

“I guess that I should find a squad.”

“Well, the other lords and I share a different opinion. We believe that you should stay away from the field until you have your… problem… under control.”

She gestures at a few thorny roots, still intact.

“I… I am not incontinent!” I bellow, furious.

“Sorry, we cannot risk having a lord’s back covered by someone who may do an eldritch oopsie when under pressure.”

The Hastings lady turns around and leaves me sputtering on the ground. The indignity!

Unfortunately, she is right, and so I calm down after a few moments. I know what that effect means, though the others pretend to ignore me. The thorns are the first manifestation of a lord’s power, I believe. My next priority, after the war is over, is to become a lady. And I think I know of someone who could help, the only faction I have not contacted yet, and whose training capabilities are renowned across our world.

The Knights.