“Why were those elves trying to kill you?” Padair asked.
“You said the village was close,” Ardwin grumbled as he pushed through head-high reeds and knee-deep muck. The bolt wound in his thigh ached and burned as he trudged through the marsh. A jagged laceration just inches away from his neck, covered in a dry paste, made his left arm nearly useless. Too much movement would break the paste and release the blood it kept at bay. Gray clouds covered the skies above. Fog rose from the murky waters, thickening the air. A choir of frogs croaked a raspy song.
“You humans worry too much about distance,” Padair said. The satyr swam through the muck with ease. His stamina was endless, as were his questions. “But you never told me why we’re being hunted. Now would be a good time. I must leave soon, for the people of Eston are not fond of me. Why are we being hunted?”
“Let’s hope they have a healer.” Flesh around the bolt wound in his thigh burned red. An infection festered. “What do the people of Eston have against you?” Ardwin asked a question of his own, leading the satyr astray.
“A cousin of mine lived with a farmer,” Padair began. “The Koogs are no place for a goat. Yes, there’s plenty of good grazing, but deep waters, mires, and nasty creatures waiting in the waters.” The hair on Ardwin’s neck stood up as he scanned the muck's surface. “So I came and took my cousin away, along with his pen mates. The old farmer caught me in the act. That was nearly four centuries ago, but they still remember it. Truth be told, I’m somewhat of a local legend in these parts. They call me ‘Peter the Piper.’ A satyr who steals livestock—a trickster—and an omen of misfortune. They’re a lot of sticks in the mud, is what they are. Very Superstitious.” Padair pulled himself out of the muck and wrestled up the side of a willow’s thick roots onto a dry bank. He shook the water out of his fur.
Ardwin wrapped his uninjured arm around an overhanging willow branch and lifted himself out of the murky waters. Ahead, through shaggy trees and tall reeds, he spotted a slope covered with thick green grass and dotted with more willows. “Peter the Piper?” He eyed the satyr with a smirk.
“I hate that name,” Padair said. “It’s silly. However, if they knew my true name—“ The goat man bleated a half-hearted laugh. “Never mind.”
“Satyrs take pride in their names.” Ardwin rested against the bent trunk of the willow tree. “Men do, as well. I suppose that’s what makes us different from the beasts. We know who and what we are. We understand what we’re capable of and recognize right action from wrong. But it’s different for satyrs, isn’t it?” He eyed Padair. “Names mean more to your kind. You can hear me call your name, even when you’re out of earshot. Is that because of the bond we share?”
“You’re smart, my friend,” Padair said. “Now, why were elves hunting you? Why were you almost killed? What kind of danger are we in, Gus?”
Did he just admit it? He’s bargaining. Ardwin slumped down on the hard, rooty ground. “My father’s rival hired them,” he lied.
“Is your father safe?” Padair asked. “Your mother and sisters?”
“They’re well guarded.” Ardwin waved a dismissive hand.
“You’re not worried about them at all? Not even a little?” The satyr crossed his arms. “That’s not like you. You would help a stranger but run away when your family is in danger?” Padair raised his fuzzy chin. “Are you lying?”
Ardwin felt his cheeks flush. The satyr had never called him out on a lie before. “The elves were assassins hired by my father’s competitor. They did not want his son and heir to return. If I’m not in the city, our rivals have no reason to attack my family. It’s better this way. Safer for everyone.”
“Safer?” Padair’s blocky eyes grew wide. “We’re being hunted!”
Ardwin shot the satyr a hateful glare. “All you do is run away. That’s what satyrs do.” He wrapped his cloak around him, but the first breaths of winter pierced his elf-woven fabric. “So that’s what we’ll do. We’ll keep running.”
Padair shook his head. “We don’t abandon our family, my friend.”
“You’re not my friend!” Ardwin shouted, startling the satyr. “You don’t even know—” A lump formed in his throat. He swallowed. “You don’t even know my name.”
Padair tilted his horns to the side. “What do you mean? Your name is Augustus. That’s your name, right?”
Ardwin dug tears out of his eyes with white knuckles. “No. I am the bastard of King Eric III of Alexandria. The Holy Order took me from an orphanage and gave me a family. They gave me the name ‘Ardwin’ and trained me to be a killer. I was the best at what I did. That’s why they’re hunting me. I abandoned that family and that life many years ago. I have no home, no allegiances, no family, no friends. Only Peter the Piper.” He chuckled.
Padair looked down at him in disbelief. “What?”
“Everything I told you was a lie,” Ardwin admitted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think we’d travel together for so long or that you would prove—”
“Useful?” Padair grimaced. “Another magical trinket at your disposal? Like your lightning dagger or your cloak of invisibility? I put up with your ridiculous stories for weeks because you seemed like a decent fellow, and, over time, you showed what a great man you could be. That didn’t make it easy, though. I thought I could win you over, but—” He paused. “I don’t even know who you are.” He raised his hands to cradle his horned head and released a guttural roll of frustration. “Fool!”
“I’m sorry.” Ardwin sighed. “My true identity must remain hidden.”
“I’m getting old and restless.” The satyr’s furry shoulders sagged. “I feel my journey is ending. You came along like a hero of old, and I longed to share in your adventures, to carry your tales to the ends of the world before my dying days. That would be Padair’s legacy.”
Ardwin snorted a silent laugh. “I’ve killed men for speaking my name. My secrecy keeps me alive.”
“Then you’re not much better than the assassins sent to kill you.” Padair paced back and forth. “Keep killing to survive—to maintain your secret. Is that what you’re telling me?”
Ardwin met the goat man’s eyes. “If that’s what it takes to survive.”
“Humans can act so monstrous sometimes,” Padair said. “But you treat me like a common animal?” He bleated. “If what you’re telling me is the truth, then you have a choice to make. Is this really who you want to be? A nameless roaming monster devouring to survive? You have the potential to be so much more. To be great! I’ve seen it in others, and I see it in you. You could be a real hero. You could make a difference—”
“This is who I must be!” Ardwin slammed his right fist into the frost-hardened dirt. He blinked away another tear. “They’ll never stop hunting me.”
Padair stopped his pacing and drew in a deep breath. He released his breath into the frigid air. “I was brash.”
“I’m sorry.” Ardwin lowered his eyes. When he lifted them, Padair was nowhere to be seen–vanished. “Padair?” No one responded. He leaned against the tree, listening to the frogs sing. A feverish broil spotted his forehead with thick beads of cold sweat. He shivered. “Goodbye, my friend.”
Ardwin nearly fell asleep under the willow, but the fear of hypothermia kept his eyes wide open, and, after a brief rest, he pushed himself to rise and continue to the grassy hillside ahead. He moved from tree to tree, supporting his weight with their branches, climbing toward the top. As the land folded over and he crested the hill, Ardwin looked across a flat stretch of marshlands pocked with muddy land bars, bristling with reeds and tall grass, separated by splotches of murky water. Two dozen wooden shacks with thatched lean-to roofs and rope bridges between them stood many feet above the ground on crisscrossing scaffolding. Villagers mulled about in the muck, digging with sticks and shovels, or sat dangling their feet from the decks that wrapped their homes, weaving baskets, or cleaning fish. Gray skies lent to the dreary atmosphere.
Ardwin spotted a walking path with thick lumber raised above the water-clogged ground. He descended the hill, limped down the path, and into a valley of scaffolding. Villagers regarded Ardwin with funny looks and blank stares, looking down from their wraparound decks. An old man with a long, scraggly beard leaned against the railings. “What’s your business, stranger?” he spoke in Westernese. He bore a heavy black brow. “Well?”
“I’m seeking shelter,” Ardwin said. “And a healer."
Eavesdroppers whispered to one another. The old man looked Ardwin over. “God smiles on you. A she-elf came to town about a week ago and is pretty good with medicines. What is the nature of your injuries? How did you come about them?”
Is the Imperial Order already here? Ardwin’s guts twisted at the mention of an elf. “Who am I speaking to?” Ardwin asked.
“Mayor Christoff Reimond,” the old man said as he wiped away a glaze of mist from his forehead.
“I prefer a private interrogation.” The fever rattling his bones lent a little more snap to the words than he had meant. Ardwin pulled back his cloak to reveal the bandages wrapped around his thigh, shoulder, and neck. “I only seek shelter.”
The old mayor’s eyes narrowed. “Are you a deserter?”
“No,” Ardwin said.
The mayor jerked his head to the side. “Come on up.” Christoff turned to a young man with brown, shaggy hair. “Go get Morganna.” Ardwin raised his hand to protest, but the mayor walked over to the railing and looked down on his neighbors, shouting: “Get back to work, now! You’ll have your gossip.” Christoff laughed as the villagers slunk away to their daily tasks. He met Ardwin halfway up the wooden stairs and offered his arm. Ardwin took it gratefully. “Those are some nasty wounds. Have you been doctoring them? How long have you been out in the Koogs?”
They stepped up onto the broad wraparound deck. “Must you summon the elf?” Ardwin unshouldered his pack and loosened the straps of his dagger and swords. He handed over his weapons.
Christoff took the dagger, the sword, and the rapier, then stepped toward a two-story shack at the center of the square deck. “I could get my wife, but she’s better at stitching dresses.” The mayor laughed. “No. Morganna is the best around, and you are very fortunate that you arrived not long after she did.”
Ardwin paused in the doorway. Have I made a terrible mistake? The mayor laid Ardwin’s arsenal on a dining table. A central square of cut stones provided a raised fire pit for the dwelling. Christoff took a seat next to the fire. Ardwin stepped inside, then joined the mayor on a pallet of furs and blankets. He began concocting a lie about bandits attacking him on the river and assumed the identity of ‘Rodrick the Ranger.’ Christoff hung on his every word. It was a convincing story.
As Rodrick finished his story, the door of the shack swung open. The brown-haired man he’d seen earlier on the deck burst into the shack, followed by a woman sporting two thick black braids that clung to her scalp on either side of her skull. She wore a cuirass of black boiled leather beneath a large black cloak and tall black boots laced over black trousers. Ardwin immediately recognized her Elven heritage and another side that Mayor Christoff seemed to overlook. A half-elf? There’s no mistaking it. Her features are too round, and her limbs and ears are too short. She’s not a full-blooded elf.
“That’s him.” The brown-haired man pointed at Ardwin.
“Thank you, Nick,” the mayor said. “You are dismissed. Tell your mother that I’ll be home soon. We have a new guest and Da seeing that our guest is taken care of.”
Nick nodded. “Okay, da.” The young man shuffled out of the shack, slamming the door behind him.
Christoff chuckled. “He’s a good boy. Now, Morganna, as you see, we have another guest.” He nodded toward Ardwin, who matched an unwavering glare with the half-elf. “He’s injured. Not by an animal, either. A bolt in the leg and a knife near his neck. Nasty wounds but not… well…” Christoff cleared his throat. “Not unnatural, by any means. Alas, Rodrick here is a ranger. Those bandits chose their mark poorly.”
“Indeed.” Morganna peered down a slightly crooked nose. She stepped toward the fire pit with practiced grace. The half-elf knelt beside Ardwin. She placed a soft hand on the ointment plastered to his collarbone. “Did you concoct this?”
“I did,” Ardwin lied. The ointment had been Padair’s work.
“Rangers are every bit as resourceful as they claim,” Morganna said. “My good mayor, Christoff, would you grant me a private audience with your new guest?”
The old mayor nodded. “I thought you might ask that. He stood up slowly. “Just call if you need me. I’ll be helping ma fix supper. I’ll send Nick over with food for Roderick and yourself.” He walked toward the door, stopping to turn. “And, uhm, perhaps you should ask him about the ‘you know what.’ I didn’t have the chance to. Good luck.” Christoff bowed before opening the door and leaving.
“A gracious host,” Ardwin said. “What was he talking about?”
“Who are you?” The half-elf’s green eyes glimmered in the fire’s light beneath the dismissive set of a thin black brow. She looked like a cat sitting back on its hindquarters, looking over a mouse trapped beneath its paw. “And why have you come here?”
“Roderick the Ranger,” he said. “I belong to the Order of the Green Feather. I was traveling to Coblenz on a barge—”
Morganna laughed in his face. “A simple Ranger?” She sat down entirely. “With four powerful artifacts. Is that correct? I feel like the number is four, but perhaps there are five? Three? It’s hard to discern such a thing, even for me.” She paused. Ardwin maintained his silence. “Bold move, disarming yourself. I’ll give you that.” The half-elf stretched herself out next to the fire, resting on an elbow. “I’m half tempted to take them for myself. You’re certainly in no shape to stop me.”
“What is stopping you?” Ardwin asked.
The half-elf gazed into the fire. “I prefer to travel unseen. There are people out there who would very much like to find me, and to an elf, those artifacts you carry are like beacons shining under a dark sky. The energy they emit is immense. I sensed your arrival days ago.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Nice try,” Ardwin said. “The boy saw me arrive. He would have told you about my weapons.”
“And your magic cloak? The one draped around your shoulders right now?” Morganna tilted her head. Ardwin sat in shocked silence. “I believe there is something you can help me with,” she said. “If you want healing.”
Unsettled, Ardwin squirmed in his seat. “What the Mayor spoke of?”
“Yes,” Morganna said. “The mayor may have mentioned that I, too, am new in town. I started in the City of Lupeni, visiting an old friend, when I began hearing the strangest rumors circulating local inns and alehouses.” The she-elf sighed. “What I’m about to tell you may seem strange at first, but if you’ve handled those artifacts for a while, you should be used to strange occurrences by now. Listen:” Ardwin sat on the edge of his cushions. “Rumors of mauled cattle and dead farmhands in the north, towards Coblenz. I left the city to investigate. More rumors sprung up along the way, but they were hardly credible. The farmers each had a different story and exaggerated every detail. I thought I had been led on a wild goose chase. Then, one night, as I approached a little homestead overlooking the Twinstone River, howls pierced the night. It was not a gnoll, a wolf, or any I’d familiarized myself with. Its onslaught began in the barn with the family horse. It then killed the dogs who harried it through the yard. A full moon illuminated the entire scene as I watched on in horror. The creature, shaped like a large dog but with furless pale hide and long crooked limbs, swiped the domestic mutts clean in two before I could flinch. As it moved toward the waking household, I closed in and brought the beast down with my magic.”
“And the family?” Ardwin asked. “They saw you use your magic?”
“The beast was dead before they made it out the door to find their poor pets dismembered and littering their yard,” Morganna said. “I hid in a nearby tree and waited for the humans to leave the body of the monster unattended, but when morning came, and sunlight touched its corpse, the monster burned to ash.”
Ardwin’s mind rummaged for folk tales or stories about monsters dying in sunlight. Only one came to mind. “A vampire?”
“No.” Morganna chuckled, passing eyes over him that suggested he was a naïve child. “A vampire would have put up a fight. This was the spawn of a vampire–a victim of the parasite’s feeding cycle. When a vampire feeds, it has two options: turn the victim into a vampire or turn them into a thrall. The former is self-explanatory. The latter path leads to a fork in the road. A vampire can feed off a victim until they drain them dry. At that time, the thrall faces a choice: relinquish their soul to their master or mutate into a ghoul. The beast I killed was such a ghoul.”
“Who spawned the ghoul?” Ardwin asked.
Morganna nodded. “Straight to the point. Unfortunately, I do not know. If I can recover a sample of the ghoul’s blood, I may discover its creator, but, as you recall, the body burst into flames before I could. Which led me to my current predicament.”
“You’re hunting for another ghoul?” Is that your story? “Why don’t you use your elvish senses to track the vampire who spawned the beast? You can track my cloak, even me, why not the vampire?”
“Vampires don’t produce life essence,” Morganna said.
It was Ardwin’s turn to cast a gaze onto the firepit. “Morganna…” He ran his fingers through a grizzly brown beard. “That’s not an elvish name, is it? It comes from Alexandrian lore–the Witch of the Black Bog. You said you like to travel unseen. I suppose your name is an alias?”
“Are you familiar with Alexandrian lore?” Morganna asked. A chill crept up his spine. “Keep your secrets, and I will keep mine. Will you help me?”
“I will need healing,” Ardwin said. Let’s see this magic of yours.
Morganna instructed Ardwin to lay flat on the floor as she hovered both hands over his body. She reached her right hand into a pouch tied to her belt and withdrew a closed fist. Is she holding a stone? The half-elf waved her fist back and forth, eyes closed, breathing deep and steady. She inhaled sharply. Then she released a lungful of air. Her right hand trembled and, whatever device she held, rattled like shaken dice. The hand glowed, showing every vein and bone in the she-elf's hand. A warmth washed over Ardwin as if he were bathing in the sun. The aching of his bones lessened as the burning of his leg quenched. A tingling sensation crawled across the lacerated flesh above his collar. It tickled. The warmth faded away from his flesh. Morganna stuffed her fist into her belt pouch and withdrew an empty hand. Ardwin moved his right hand to his thigh. The pain was gone, as was the bolt hole that nearly severed an artery. He eyed the half-elf. “I wasn’t sure it was possible,” Ardwin said. “Half-elves can use the stones, too?”
Morganna peered down her crooked nose like an owl, judging her prey. “What do you know?”
Ardwin sat up. His hand moved to his neck, where he rubbed away Padair’s dried paste. Not even a scar remained. “I know elves are forbidden from using magic. What makes you so bold?”
“I’ve said before: there are those who seek me,” Morganna began.
“Purebloods?” She hadn’t denied his first accusation. “Is that why you use magic openly? Because you’re not one of them?”
Morganna rolled her eyes. “I use magic because I can. Yes, Kaelorian and his followers know of my existence and detest me, but magic was in this world before elves, dwarves, and men. Your artifacts contain traces of ancient spirits who predate us all. I find it hard to imagine a simple ranger stumbling upon such unique and exquisite treasures in the wild." She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. "How did they come into your possession?”
“What happened to keeping our secrets?” Ardwin pulled his shirt over his shoulders. He retrieved his weapons and then strapped them to his belt. Then Ardwin tossed his gray cloak overtop. He rejoined Morganna by the fire. “Now, how do we track a ghoul?”
“Thankfully, I did the hard work for you,” Morganna said.
Winter evenings settle quickly. Nick brought an offering of breaded chicken and boiled eggs, a bowl of broth, and two large hunks of hard bread. The pair shared a quiet supper with the awkward boy. Afterward, Ardwin followed Morganna out of town as a cloud-covered moon rose in the east. A ready hand remained on the hilt of his dagger. They followed a wooden walking path eastward over an expanse of marsh, heading for an abandoned farmhouse where Morganna had devised a lure for the ghoul. Two goats and a hen were left to graze the property—a tempting prey.
They turned left a few miles out of town onto another walking path, following it to a bridge, and crossed a little green pond. Trees grew thick on either side of the path beyond. After breaking through the woods, they found another flat stretch of marshlands. A dilapidated farmhouse stood about a quarter of a mile down the path, built upon a swell of raised land. Morganna looked up at the moon. “I hope we’re not too late.” She picked up the pace. “A ghoul would make quick work of a goat.” They arrived at a yard overgrown with grass and tangled brush. They entered through a doorless opening. A chicken clucked overhead, roosting on a high rafter. Ardwin spotted a cot tucked away in the loft and a fireplace with a crumbling foundation climbing the back wall. Morganna spun around in the center of the open room. “Where are the goats?” Boot prints and goat hooves spotted the dusty floor. “A thief must have taken the animals, or perhaps they wandered away?” Morganna sniffed the air. “Their stench remains. The monster is migrating closer to Eston. I found tracks just a few miles out of town. It will circle back around to this area and pick up their scent. Wait and see. The abundance of wildlife in the Koogs and the secluded nature of its towns and settlements make this the perfect place to thrive. Besides, two full-grown people make a more enticing prize than two ornery goats.
Was this Padair’s work? He didn’t mention the satyr. The wind whistled through large cracks in the walls and ceiling. Ardwin shivered. “And what happens if it thrives? Do they multiply?”
“As a vampire drains an enslaved thrall of its last drops of blood, that thrall is given a choice: change or die. Those who choose to continue their miserable existence become ghouls. It’s not just their bodies that are warped,” Morganna explained. “Everything they once were is gone: their memories, personalities, morals. Tormented souls trapped within a prison of twisted and disfigured flesh. They never stop hunting or feeding, but, no, they do not multiply.” Morgana climbed a ladder into the loft and sat on her cot. She yawned. “I’m going to get some rest.” She lay down. “Wake me if anything goes bump in the night, will you?”
“You’re going to sleep?” Ardwin tilted his head.
“With one eye open.” Morganna rolled onto her side, pulling a blanket over her as she turned her back to Ardwin. He sat at the edge of his stool, listening to the hen shuffle its talons along the length of the rafter, the wind passing through the house, and the rustle of tall grass against reeds. Has she bought into local superstitions? Ardwin contemplated. Vampires and ghouls? What am I thinking? Then again, I have seen some strange things lately. An owl hooted in the distance. Ardwin shuffled his feet. He stood and moved toward the cold fireplace, glancing up at Morganna.
What is she planning?
Ardwin planted himself in a corner, relying on his cloak for warmth. He curled his knees in close, thankful for his healed leg, and stared at the cold stones of the fireplace. If a ghoul is like other beasts, a fire may scare it away. He could feel the warmth of a flame dancing before his mind’s eyes. It would only take a few strokes of flint—No! Ardwin rubbed his hands between his knees, watching his breath escape his mouth and nose in large vaporish puffs. This is foolish. Vampires aren’t real. The cold chilled his bones and drained his nose. He looked up at Morganna, sleeping soundly in her cot, and wondered: how? Does her magic keep her warm? Does she need warmth? Perhaps this ‘ghoul’ is the bait, and I am her prey? I know what powers her magic—life essence. What did the old stories say about vampires? They feed off of blood. The last elf who tried to use her magic on me said that blood carries life essence. Ardwin drew his dagger and clutched it close to his chest. She also taught me that lightning is faster than magic.
Ardwin sat in his corner, clutching his dagger and staring up at the lifeless bundle of blankets in the loft. He waited for the shadowy pile of cloth to rise and transform into some kind of monster with a pig’s snout, bat’s wings, and two large sharp fangs to suck his blood with. He felt like a child. Ridiculous!
His fingers and toes tingled.
A distant howl pierced the night. It was shrill—too shrill for a wolf—like a shrieking cat or a mother watching her child drown. Ardwin’s heart leaped into his throat. He stood up, as did the hair on his arms, and moved toward Morganna. “It’s coming!”
She did not stir. Ardwin grabbed the ladder and climbed to the loft, planting his hand on a soft pile of blankets that gave way beneath his touch. “What?” Ardwin pulled the covers back. She’s gone! A second howl sounded much closer. Ardwin shuffled down the ladder, and, as his feet hit the floor, he threw open his cloak to draw Ninathril from its sheath. Of course, it was a trap!
Thumps and thuds resounded outside. Ardwin stood in the center of the room with a dagger in his left hand and Ninathril in his right, peering through the open door down a lane of displaced and mossy lumber. An enormous shadow galloped directly down the road; Ardwin’s heart galloped alongside the monstrous mass. Two red eyes glared in the silver light of the moon. It snarled as it ran. Ardwin’s thumb rested on the pointed pommel of his dagger. A single prick of his thumb and a droplet of blood would grant the monster eternal peace. It would be easy. The shadow grew. Its paws summoned thunder as they dug into the soft earth.
Ardwin pointed his dagger at the beast, pierced his thumb with its pommel, and released a bolt of lightning that streaked through the air, finding the ghoul.
The monster reared back on two legs and yelped like a dog, its silhouette larger than the doorway. The ghoul growled as its front paws found the earth. Ardwin’s heart plummeted into quivering guts. The last three strides of the beast were long, reaching leaps. It burst into the door with a spray of wood chips and broken, half-rotten boards.
Ardwin moved in with Ninathril.
He ducked under a swipe from the beast, then stepped away. Ardwin leaped in and sliced at the monster’s heel. The ghoul lashed out wildly. Ardwin’s sword connected, but a long vascular limb with pale, nearly translucent skin and five fat claws closed in on his throat. A heavy weight slammed into Ardwin’s back, knocking him face down into the dirt. The battle cries of a different beast filled the farmhouse. Ardwin found his feet. A large black cat bounced here and there, pawing at the ghoul, biting its wrists and forearms as the monster tried to protect itself. The panther leaped at the ghoul with wide jaws and two rows of razor-sharp fangs eager to sink into its prey, but the monster was too fast.
The ghoul grappled the black cat, forelegs clasped in two supernaturally strong paws with elongated digits. Ardwin tugged at the edge of his cloak with his dagger hand, summoning a wind that shot him across the room. He sunk Ninathril below the monster’s ribs.
The black cat hit the floor with a heavy thud. Then it vanished.
The ghoul spun on Ardwin, spraying its black blood across the dirt, flailing its arms, snorting and grunting. Ardwin kept up his defense and backed away, placing himself between the ghoul and the door. The monster crouched, then lept at Ardwin. Morganna appeared from the shadows to waylay the ghoul from the left, severing the monster’s head with a curved silverlite blade as it sailed through the air. Its hideous body hit the ground and slid to Ardwin’s feet, a bloody stump of a neck steaming in the cold night air, twitching and convulsing. Morganna cleaned her blade with a moldy rag and then sheathed it. She approached the corpse of the ghoul and knelt beside it, withdrawing an empty vial from her belt pouch. She began gathering samples from the generous supply provided by the severed neck. “What terrifies me most are the lengths we go through to continue suffering,” Morganna said.
“What just happened?” Ardwin asked. “Where were you?”
Morganna looked up, her face bright with amusement, lips curved in a slight smile that made Ardwin’s skin crawl. “Really?”
“The cat?” Ardwin looked over his shoulder toward the center of the room where he’d saved the black cat from the clutches of the ghoul, where he watched the panther vanish before his eyes. He studied Morganna and her black attire. “That was you?”
“Magic.” Morganna returned to collecting her blood samples.
Ardwin snorted false laughter. “You should have let me in on your little trick.” He paced around the space. The hen had flown its roost, performing a disappearing act of its own. Did she really leave goats here? If so, Peter the Piper probably took them away to a land of green pastures and rocky footpaths. Ardwin smiled. His mind wandered as Morganna worked. He pondered who might have lived in such a place, why it was abandoned, and when the Imperial Order and their elves would finally find him. “How long will it take to find out who’s responsible?”
“It’s hard to say,” Morganna admitted. “I’ve never tried to figure that out before, and I don’t know many vampires personally.” She collected a fourth sample.
“How many do you know?” Ardwin stepped away from the corpse and sat on his abandoned stool. “I’ve heard about the Count of Lupeni. Is there any truth to those old tales? It sounds ridiculous to ask.” He rubbed his hands together.
Morganna filled a fifth sample. “Certainly not,” she said playfully. “The Count is almost five hundred years old.”
Ardwin ran a hand down his beard. “And if he is responsible for this creature?” He pointed a finger at the ghoul. “What will you do?”
“He’s not,” Morganna said as she filled her sixth blood sample. “Count Lazzaro is a careful and cunning man who rarely leaves his castle. I’ve known him for two centuries and I can assure you he wouldn’t bring an abomination like this into the world to rampage across the countryside. We believe there’s a rival moving into his territory. They released this horror. Lazzaro asked me to track them down and put an end to them.”
“People do desperate things in times of war,” Ardwin said. “And the County of Lupeni shares a border with Burgundia. Perhaps your Count is trying to weaken his enemy while throwing you off his trail. He commands armies. He could create thousands of these things!”
Morganna capped the sixth vial, stuffed it into her pack, and stood up. “Theoretically, yes.” She looked down at the ghoul’s corpse and then back at Ardwin. “Lazzaro enjoys being in power. He’s remained in control of his city for nearly five centuries because he never compromised his position. The Count rules from the shadows, advising his successors as he lives a private life of luxury. Rivals have tested him in the past, so this is no surprise. Constant warring has weakened the land: bandits, mercenaries, monsters. These are dark times, and monsters thrive in the shadows of civilization.”
Ardwin stood up. “You said they had a choice.”
“Did I?” She grinned. “A vampire takes a thrall and feeds off them for years, keeping them isolated, within a hypnotic trance. At the end of its usefulness, that thrall is presented with a choice: cease to exist, having faced the last years of your life in solemn servitude, or be born as a more powerful entity. Even before a thrall was taken from their lives of squalor, they were farmhands, slaves, and servants—beaten down by their masters and battered by circumstance. The average soul is tortured. The power to be more than they were is not just seductive; it’s logical.”
The ghoul’s body stopped twitching. “My lightning barely singed its flesh,” Ardwin pointed out. “What magic did you use against them?”
“A magic that even Kaelorian isn’t familiar with,” Morganna said. She stepped away from the corpse. “Ghouls inherit a certain degree of immunity to magic from the vampire who turned them. A full-fledged vampire would simply absorb the life essence infused within the magic. Thankfully, ghouls are not as powerful as their masters, and your magic greatly weakened this one. It was quite impressive.”
Ardwin bowed his head. “It appears yours is more powerful.”
Morganna chuckled. “Bring the head. Let Mayor Christoff and his people see what’s been roaming their marshes. They deserve to know.”
Ardwin moved across the room, reached down, and grabbed the ghoul’s head. The creature had a bat’s face with a piggish snout—solid black orbs sat in pale sockets. A nameless roaming monster devouring to survive. But you had a name before, didn’t you?