Out of the Valley
The Hunters of Millette Book One
James Harrison
Chapter 1: First Contact
The sun shone down warm and bright, but not blindingly so. Wisps like ghosts slid across on light winds; the skies were otherwise clear. The wind was light and brought a crispness reminiscent of winter's recent embrace. Only the highest of mountain tops were still dressed in white.
Below the mountains, spread far and wide, lush meadows and forests flourish with flora and fauna. Nestled on the south side of the valley, the northern side of the deep woods was Lake Scrippa. The slight sound of waves lapping against the shore didn’t irritate or annoy; they soothed. Occasionally, birds of prey sliced through the air toward hidden game in the tall grasses or just beneath the lake's surface.
Superstitions kept men at bay. They kept to the northern side of the valley, where they felt safe from the supernatural. Many a band of men of ill repute, badly behaved magicians banished, and even the rare magical beast had claimed these woods as their own throughout history. Blue had no misgivings about the area. He patrolled the lake and southern woods often because of its history.
He stood six feet tall, about two hundred pounds, and covered in sinewy muscle. His shoulder-length hair and short beard were black, both with a touch of grey. His eyes were a smoldering deep blue, hence the name. He was tanned from a lifetime of exposure to the sun. He wore high-quality leathers, not the kind one wore to court but for wearing in rough terrain. Sturdy boots, a short sword, and a knife rounded out his attire.
Spring was in full bloom all about the valley. Life here brought scents and sounds aplenty. But Blue could smell the slight ripple of death that snaked through the flowers, grasses, and trees. Any other might not have noticed. But his senses were keen. He wasn’t like most others.
At first glance, the body seemed to play with the water. The waves moved her hand and tugged at her hair. There was a certain serenity about the scene. If only for a moment. Other details soon swam into focus.
Blue approached the scene with cautionary steps and an eye on the group of trees and then the forest line above the body. There were only about ten feet between the corpse and the copse. Maybe another twenty to the edge of the forest. Whatever happened to her might be waiting to happen to him.
He eased his short sword from its scabbard and held it behind his arm in an invisible stance. He was without a shield and hoped whatever might befall him wasn’t armed with projectiles. As ready as Blue could be in such a situation, he approached slowly, if not eagerly.
Stolen novel; please report.
As he reached the copse of trees, he calmed his thunderous heart and stretched his preternatural senses into the unknown before him. More death in the woods. At least three men and a horse. All cold and empty of self. Long gone and already through the mist. An answer from the dead was not forthcoming.
A tingle from behind. A splash.
Blue swung around and slashed through an arm wielding a cutlass with speed unmatched by any man. Before the arm hit the ground or the hand loosened its grip, Blue was on top of his assailant with a hand tightly on his throat and his sword partially inserted into the other's chest. His eyes burned as bright as the coals in the fires of hell, and his voice was like thunder from lightning that struck this very spot “SPEAK!” Softer, he continued, “Speak now or speak later when I pull the words from your corpse - it’s of no matter to me which you choose.” The fear of undeath tends to loosen tongues.
Realization dawned as the other spoke: his assailant was a vampire!
“Please, I was hunted…” he gasped. “She was hunted. I hid until she was struck down!”
Blue couldn’t necromance this corpse; vampires gave nothing when dead. “Who? How many?”
“There were three, I killed them, I shredded them, they killed her!” he exclaimed through gritted teeth.
Again Blue implored, “Who? Who were the men you killed?”
The other began to shed tears through closed eyes and whimpered, “They killed her. I couldn’t stop them.”
Blue knew this vampire was turned no more than twenty years ago; he could barely stand the sun in his eyes. He didn’t have the power and speed of a full-fledged vampire. He was still mostly a creature of the night. Barely more vital than the average man. Which meant his hunger was too much for this part of the world.
“Who hunted you and why?” Blue asked. Keeping the vampire focused was getting difficult. He was losing much blood and looking hungry. They get feral when starved.
“Vampire hunters from somewhere in the west.” He growled. “Sorrel thought they marked her in Trask. We traveled no roads, no paths. I don’t know how they kept to us.”
There was nothing else of value he could glean from this vampire. He squirmed beneath Blue, thrashing his head and mouth towards Blue's arm.
He snapped through the ribcage and pulled free the vampire's heart with a slight shove of his sword and a wrist flick. He wrapped the fiend's heart in a cloth and would toss it in a fire when he returned home.
The key to killing a vampire was to separate it from its heart. Once the heart was out of the body, there was no coming back. They didn’t tend to survive long without their heads, either. The corpse of a vampire begins to decay at an alarming rate—even the bones decay within a week.
The vampire at the shoreline must have been Sorrel. Blue guessed she turned about fifty years ago. Just old enough to be a fierce fight for three men. They must have been exceptionally well trained and capable to have taken her out. Her heart was missing—the gaping hole in her chest was a pretty solid indicator. If they had her heart, they planned to eat it. Just a bite would do. Then the changes began. Not all survived the changes and turned.
Blue found it amongst the shredded three. They used some weapon he’d never seen before. There was a giant crossbow that looked to need two people to cock. The shaft that took her heart out had cut a large hole in her chest. Her heart and surrounding bones and flesh were inside one of the heads. He grabbed her heart and the shaft. The heart was unbitten. He wouldn’t need to watch over the corpses tonight.
The younger vampire must have lay prone in the water and ambushed them shortly after they killed Sorrel. Much like he attempted to do to Blue.
He knew the hunter's colors, crest, and where they were from. More importantly, he knew what they were after, and it wasn’t just a vampire's heart.