“He’s moving too fast,” one voice hissed in the darkness. “The mortal has been possessed by madness. No risk is too great for him and he puts us in danger at every turn. You need to rein him in.”
“Rein him in? You think he listens to me?” another replied, no less vexed. “After I fulfilled the Mistress’ demand and brought him to her, he hasn’t trusted a single thing I’ve had to say!”
“You have to try, you frozen bitch! He’s going to get all of us staked out in the sun, if we’re lucky.”
“He could do it anyway. If we fail in our work, he can burn both of our covens down to the ground in a matter of hours.”
“Are they really so capable?” the first voice sneered. “How strong could they be, the dogs of this city? We could rip their fucking throats out if they came for us.”
“Don’t underestimate them,” the second voice warned, the tone cold and stern, “they are stronger than you think. We could kill dozens of them, sure, but there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of them. And even if we survived that, which we wouldn’t, more would come, the real strength of this empire, jumping over the border from the central province, and they would hunt us down without fail.”
Valk and Yor, the two leaders of rival vampire covens, stood in the dank sewer beneath Veil Street. The latter shuddered with revulsion as foetid water dripped from above and onto her midnight black sable coat.
“Is it really necessary for you to cower in these wretched sewers?” she snapped. “Your coven is already exposed. The least you mutts could do is find a kennel above ground.”
Valk flashed his fangs in a toothy grin, which failed to mask the anger and contempt burning in his eyes.
“We Hounds have our ways, bitch,” he said. “While you indulge in unnecessary shit, we are hunting the only thing that matters: sustenance.”
“While smelling like shit,” Yor sniffed.
“You really want to bicker about this Court bullshit, now?” Valk growled. “This little get-together was your idea!”
Yor mastered herself with difficulty. Millennia of backstabbing and blood-soaked rivalry existed between every faction in the court. Every member was indoctrinated into the endless conflict upon joining, Valk and Yor were no exception. They had crossed blades more than once across the long decades. Being this close to the vampire was enough to make her fangs itch.
Icy cold indifference took hold of her face and she forced herself to push her grudges aside.
“Both of us don’t want this situation to continue, correct?”
“Of course,” Valk snorted. “You think I enjoy being under the thumb of an insane blood bag? I’ve hardly seen him eat or sleep. I’d suspect he was already a lich if he didn’t stink like blood. All the while, he works us like servants. I hate every part of this fucking mess.”
“Are you in any position to contact the Court?”
A heavy silence fell between the two as Valk eyed the other vampire with intense dislike.
“Are you trying to push the risk onto my coven? You think I would just nod my head and agree? Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“I’m just asking the question,” Yor hissed. “I know it’s a risk, which is the only reason I haven’t done so already. All I’m asking is if you are in a better position to enact the ritual than we are.”
“Oh you’d love that,” Valk growled. “You think you can bat your sculpted eyelashes at me and I’ll jump to do your bidding like a filthy mortal? Who do you think shaped that flesh of yours? It has no effect on our kind!”
Yor closed her eyes as she rubbed the point between her eyes. Vampires didn’t suffer from mortal ailments like headaches, but some habits took centuries to die.
“I should have known this would be a waste of time,” she sighed.
“Yes,” Valk agreed, “you should have.”
The only way either of them was going to be free of Tyron was if they killed him, but they couldn’t. Both factions were still interested in recruiting the insane mage. Yor’s Mistress had been interested in him for a long time, and likely wouldn’t allow Yor to murder him. Valk’s Master was most definitely interested in stealing a talent who another faction had shown interest in, but was more likely to permit his death.
A clean and quiet death for the Necromancer would allow both covens to escape detection and ride out the rest of the purge in relative safety. However… making contact with the Court was risky, very risky. With the heightened security and air of paranoia rife in the city, any meddling with the dimensional weave could be detected, and instantly spell doom to the vampires.
Of course, neither one was willing to take the risk, preferring the other coven make the attempt.
“It wouldn’t matter who cast the ritual, you know,” a third voice echoed out down the tunnel, and both vampires flashed around, claws out and fangs extended.
From the darkness, two purple eyes watched them from within the hollow sockets of a skull. Even in the dim light, the two undead could see the newcomer perfectly well.
“Wight,” Valk spat, “what are you doing here?”
His tone was aggressive, but Yor could read the underlying emotions of her fellow night dweller. He was rattled, and truth be told, so was she. How had Tyron known?
“If one of you performs the ritual and gets caught, all of us die. The city will be torn apart until they find all of you bloodsucking leeches.”
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The wight stepped forward, revealing a lighter armour, with a midnight black dagger of bone on either hip. The skeletal undead raised a hand and snapped its fingers. On that totally unnecessary signal, more than a dozen undead rose up out of the sewerage, their purple eyes blazing in the darkness.
“You think you can meet down here and he won’t know?” the wight mocked. “How many centuries have you been alive? This level of intrigue is almost… childish.”
“How about I rip you apart with my bare hands and drink your soul?” Valk growled, eyes burning a deep crimson as he drew on the blood. “Will your master really throw his revenge away over you? I don’t think so.”
“Let’s find out,” the wight replied, spreading their arms wide. “Come and get me. I’m delicious.”
Tension hung heavy in the air, and Yor silently hoped that Valk would go for it. It would be valuable to learn how far they could push Tyron, and it would be to her benefit if the other vampire was the one to take the chance.
Valk seemed to sense this, and hesitated.
Cold, humourless laughter rattled out of the wight. When she spoke, her eerie voice, that seemed to come from halfway beyond the veil, echoed in the narrow sewer tunnel.
“Something interesting I’ve noticed about your kind is just how timid you are. When you have eternity to live, risking your life takes on that much more weight, I suppose.”
With a wave of her hand, the skeletons pulled themselves out of the sewerage and up onto the stone walkway on either side of the channel.
“That’s why Tyron was able to control you so easily. He threatened the only thing you will never compromise on: your endless lives. And you can’t really threaten him back because, in his mind, he’s already dead. He doesn’t give a flying fuck about his life. The only thing he cares about is his vengeance, and if you put the tiniest, teeniest little dent in those plans, he will burn you to the fucking ground and dance on the ashes. And you know it.”
“When I am free of his control, you will suffer torment beyond your imagination, slave,” Valk promised. “A spirit can be kept in perpetual pain for an eternity. Your screams will be my music for a thousand years.”
“I look forward to it,” the wight said. “But only when you are free of his control, right?”
Along with her lesser undead, the wight marched off into the darkness of the sewer network, but not without leaving one final parting shot.
“What makes you think you will ever be free?”
~~~
Tyron felt as if his mind was on fire. The weakness of his flesh was a distant thought, a sorrowful wail that he no longer heeded. How could he when he was so close?
The anger and hate and pain that he had tried to suppress for so long were held back no longer and formed a raging conflagration in his heart. It drove him forward, fuelled him, as he pushed and pushed and pushed towards the day his vengeance would be realised.
Things had moved quickly once he’d secured the vampires’ help. Yor and her unparalleled ability to manipulate mortalkind were invaluable, opening doors and putting Tyron in touch with the people he needed. Valk and his coven preferred to act in the shadows, and their mastery of the sewer network and stealth had enabled Tyron to bring his full undead horde into the city.
With every step he took, his revenge drew closer, but the risk became greater.
There was another powerful emotion that rattled through every fibre of his being: fear. One mistake, one slip, and everything he’d worked toward would be ripped out of his grasp. The thought of the world continuing to exist with the killers of his family unpunished was intolerable. Inexcusable!
It couldn’t be allowed to happen, it just couldn’t.
Inside his mind, a terrible alchemy held sway, a fusion and mixture of powerful, rampaging emotions that left him swaying like a leaf on the inside, but as cold and implacable as a glacier outside.
Another set of skeletons was done. The bones were perfectly prepared, the weaving of their spectral sinews completed. All that remained was to cast the ritual that would raise them to unlife, but Tyron chose not to perform it immediately.
Even if he did, the next set of remains wasn’t ready to come into the Ossuary, so there wasn’t any rush. Instead, he ordered the undead he kept with him to tidy up the Altar and the rest of his workspace before he turned and exited the pocket space, returning to his study beneath Almsfield Enchantments.
The rat was there, as it always was. Communicating with Valk was as simple as speaking to the warped rodent, but again, he chose not to do so. He’d been pushing the vampires hard, and they had achieved a lot for him in a short span of time, but he had to be prudent. The storm within urged him to push harder, move faster, but today, temperance was the victor, and he stayed his hand.
He wasn’t ready, yet. The time wasn’t right. It was coming, though; he could almost feel it in the air.
Upstairs, within the store, he found his apprentice hard at work, Cerry sitting with him. Both were downcast, subdued, but he didn’t fail to notice the closeness between them. Despite the terrible things around the two, they took comfort from one another. That was good. They would need it.
“How did your work in the workshop go, Cerry?” he asked, his voice rough from disuse.
“Oh, Master Almsfield! I didn’t hear you come in.”
He turned and looked back toward the empty shop floor. It was night, and the store was closed, not that they were getting many customers off the street anyway. Almost all of the work being done was on commission.
“You don’t need to call me Master Almsfield, Cerry. There isn’t anyone here.”
The young woman hesitated for a long moment.
“Master Steelarm, then,” she said at last.
She carefully avoided looking at him as she spoke, and he sighed. Cerry was clearly terrified of him, and had been ever since he’d revealed the truth of himself. Ultimately, it didn’t matter if she was afraid of him, only that she trusted him.
“Your work, Cerry. How did it go?”
She blinked, her hand sought out Flynn’s, and he held it gently.
“It was… it went well, I think. The spirits are…” she paused and took a long, shaky breath, “... they are very angry. Not that I… not that I can blame them… I suppose.”
There were many spirits in the city, but some clung to their remains, which meant they showed up when Tyron’s ‘workers’ collected them from the Church.
To learn more about her Class and gain levels, it was Cerry’s job to soothe the angry ghosts. To employ her Skills and help them leave this realm. With more levels would come more ability selections, and a clearer picture of just what her Class was capable of.
“Uh, Master… Steelarm,” Flynn spoke up, his voice quiet, and nervous. “Would it be possible for Cerry to stay here tomorrow? I know… I know she said she wanted to train her Class, and help the ghosts if she could, but I think it’s been… wearing on her nerves.”
Tyron turned his eyes to the young apprentice, who wilted before his stare like a delicate flower. Tyron willed the storm in his mind to slow.
“That’s fine. Of course it’s fine. If you want to stop going, Cerry, just say the word. You don’t have to do anything for me to keep sheltering you here.”
He tried to speak gently, but the words came out dead and cold anyway.
Without looking at him, she nodded into Flynn’s chest.
“Thank you, Master… Steelarm.”
Already pushing the discussion from his thoughts, Tyron turned and moved to trudge up the stairs to his rooms.
How long since he’d eaten and slept? He couldn’t remember. A few hours now wouldn’t hurt, but then he’d have to get back to work. There was just so much to do.
And that terrible alchemy… it just never stopped.