A bead of sweat trickled down Vendel’s face despite how cold it was in the chamber. Arlen and Orla were already outside, waiting for whoever it was to reach the bottom of the stairs, while Carla leaned in a corner muttering to herself.

“Their numbers are large,” the voice whispered into his ear.

“They won’t be a match for my people,” Vendel replied confidently as he tried to gather his strength.

Even if the pair were able to emerge from the impending battle unscathed, they would all have to make it up to the windmill before the rest of the villagers realized something was amiss and rolled the grindstone over the stairs. Then all they had to do was wait until Vendel and his group starved to death.

Vendel sat bolt upright when he heard shouts coming from the chamber outside, followed by the familiar clang of steel against steel. Carla meanwhile went pale and pressed herself against the cavern’s rock wall, looking as though she was trying to squeeze herself through an unseen crack.

Before Vendel realized it, he found that he was walking swiftly through the water towards the entrance of the chamber. How he had managed this didn’t concern him. He was concerned only with joining the battle. He found that he was thirsting for battle, like a man lost in the desert thirsts for water.

So consumed was he with the prospect of joining the battle, that he didn’t realize he had unsheathed the sword until he looked down and saw the sword in his hand. It was an unremarkable longsword except for a set of runes etched close to the hilt that the prince could not decipher. However, the shock of seeing the naked blade reflecting the chamber’s pale blue light shocked him enough to bring him to his senses.

“Was that your doing?” he growled out loud.

“In a way,” the voice allowed. “Our souls are now linked, and we now hunger. Our instincts know there is no better place to feed than in the heat of battle.”

With great effort, Vendel was able to overcome his bloodlust and came to a halt two steps short of the entrance to the chamber.

“What else are you hiding from me?” he demanded out loud.

“I’m not hiding anything,” the voice replied serenely. “We have only just met. There is much I have to tell you, and there will be plenty of time to do exactly that. But for now, you do not have the luxury of waiting around if you want to save your minions.”

Vendel ground his teeth, not trusting this thing for a second and already regretting having made the deal. Then, Arlen let out a guttural war cry, and Vendel’s train of thought was broken. He looked up and saw the heavyset man grappling with a villager at the foot of the stairs. There were six in all being held up on the stairs by Arlen. Meanwhile, a man armed with a sword had slipped past Arlen’s roadblock and was facing off against Orla, who only had a dagger to hold him at bay. It seemed that they had severely underestimated the villagers’ prowess at fighting.

Arlen grunted as a villager struck him across the chest with his sword. The blow glanced off the cuirass that the heavyset man wore under his cloak, but the force of the impact sent him staggering backwards.

Knowing that the voice was right, Vendel decided to give into his bloodlust and leapt into action. He felt a sharp pain in his legs, as they propelled him forward with surprising speed, closing the roughly hundred yards between him and Orla’s assailant, seemingly in a single leap. Before either Orla or her assailant were aware he was there, Vendel had plunged the sword into the man’s back, burying it to the hilt.

Vendel felt a rush of energy flood through his body as the man shuddered and gasped before going limp. It felt like the first mouthful of soup after the ritual three day fast before his coming of age. He licked his lips and looked up the stairs at the half dozen villagers who were still focused on Arlen.

“Help him!” Orla gasped. “I can’t use my magic, or I risk bringing the whole staircase down on our heads!”

Vendel was already moving towards the stairs before Orla had finished her sentence. Despite the initial pain, his legs felt fine now, and he looked up the stairs and wondered.

“You can, but I wouldn’t recommend it,” the voice whispered. “You aren’t familiar with your newfound strength yet.

The prince looked at the melee at the foot of the stairs where Arlen was using his tremendous bulk to keep the villagers on the stairs. Three of their dead lay at their feet. He decided the only way to get involved was to attack them from the back. Taking a deep breath, Vendel looked up and poised himself to jump.

He leapt up and quickly found that he had used far too much force. He jumped up twenty feet and raised his arms to prevent himself from crashing into the underside of the stairs. He heard a sickening snap, and pain shot through his arms as he crashed into the stone stairs. As he fell, Vendel was certain his arms were broken, but he forced his right arm up to grab onto the ledge of the flight below to prevent himself from falling to the bottom of the pit.

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To his surprise, his arms were not broken, and in fact, never felt better as he grabbed onto the ledge. He hauled himself up easily with one arm and took stock of his position. He had jumped four flights higher than he had intended, and the battle was still raging down below. No one besides Orla, whose mouth was agape as she stared at him in shock, had noticed what he had done.

Vendel hurried down the stairs as quickly as he could and hurled himself into the villager’s rear, cutting half of them down before they realized he was there. The fourth turned around in time for Vendel to skewer him in the eye while Arlen took advantage of the disruption to cut down the remaining two.

His eyes widened in surprise when he saw Vendel, but he was breathing heavily, and it was a moment before he was able to speak.

“My Prince, how did you get behind them?”

However, Vendel didn’t hear a word he was saying. Instead, he was staring at the bodies of the villagers Arlen had cut down forlornly. It felt very much as though someone had stolen a delicious morsel of food just as he was about to put it into his mouth. He then felt something hard strike him in the arm and looked at where it came from eagerly, thinking another foe had appeared but was sorely disappointed to see that it was Orla, who had hurled a stone at him to get his attention.

“Never mind that!” she snapped as she hurried up the stairs. “We need to get to the top before they close the entrance off!”

The prospect of feeding was all the motivation Vendel needed to go bounding up the stairs. It was as though he was in a dream, as he seemed to clear an entire flight of stairs in a single leap as he hurried up, leaving the others in his wake. Arlen shouted something at him, but the older man was too far away, or Vendel was too consumed by the chase to hear.

Before he knew it, the prince had almost reached the top and saw that the villagers were moving the grindstone back into position. He quickened his pace but heard the latches being secured before he reached the top. He looked at the base of the huge grindstone that now stood between him and more of his prey. He suddenly felt hungry. Hungrier than he had ever felt before in his life. He placed his hand on the stone slab and felt the overwhelming urge to feed. This slab of stone was a small obstacle to his newfound power. He gripped the sword in both hands before taking a step back and was about to swing with all his might when the voice whispered in his ear.

“No, that wouldn’t be wise. We should wait for your companions.”

Vendel blinked and realized what he had just done. He looked down the stairs and saw that the others were still making their way up. They were running as quickly as they could but were still at the first few flights of stairs. The prince then realized that his breathing wasn’t ragged, nor did he feel any weariness despite the climb.

“Why wouldn’t it be a good idea?” Vendel asked out loud. He knew that speaking out loud wouldn’t change the fact that the sword could read his thoughts, but it did make him feel better. “With your power, I could smash that easily.”

“I’m a sword, not a hammer,” the voice snorted indignantly. “Besides, I think you’ve been reckless enough displaying your power in front of your minions.”

“They’re minions, why does what they think matter?” Vendel sniffed.

“You must be careful about how you reveal your newfound powers,” the voice warned. “More than one of my previous masters met an untimely end because others feared it.”

While he waited impatiently for the others to make the ascent, Vendel could hear voices in the windmill up above. Though he could not make out what they were saying, their tone was tense, which wasn’t surprising. Then, there was a loud crash, then the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor.

“They appear to be piling things on top of the grindstone,” Vendel called down the stairs. “Will that be a problem?”

There was a long silence before Orla replied, “I can blast through it so long as they don’t have a conjurer with them, but we risk the debris falling on our heads, or destroying the stairs.”

“Can you do it from there?” Vendel asked, eager to spring into action once again.

Orla bit her lip before nodding. “Yes, you should back down a flight of stairs or two.”

“And wait for me to get closer,” Arlen added, sounding breathless from the exertion of the climb. “You can’t take them all alone. They are cunning fighters.”

“It’ll be fine,” Vendel snapped impatiently. “Orla, do it.”

“But…” she began.

“This is an order from your prince!” Vendel roared. “Do it now!”

There was a brief pause, and Vendel felt the blood rush to his head at his minion’s insubordination. He was considering going down to threaten her when he heard her say, “Here it comes.”

In the corner of his eye, Vendel saw an orange glow that grew quickly as the fireball hurtled upwards. The stone slab shattered as the fireball struck it, sending shards of stone flying in every direction. Vendel felt stinging pain all over as the fragments pelted him. He then used his arm to smash a large chunk aside before it fell on him.

His body hurt all over, and he was sure that the bones in his hands were broken from the impact, but the prince believed in the sword’s power and was eager for only one thing. Blood. And he would soon have it. Orla’s fireball had created a hole that looked large enough for him to fit through. He decided on a short hop to avoid crashing into the ceiling above.

It turned out that he had vastly underestimated his strength, and the hop took him clean through the gap and he felt a sharp pain in his ankle as it twisted on the landing. It healed within seconds, and Vendel took the opportunity to look around. A few villagers lay on the ground close to the grindstone, looking dazed from the explosion, but the bulk of them were close to the door focused on something outside. It looked like everyone in the village was here in the windmill, and Vendel licked his lips in anticipation.

Vendel cut the villagers who were lying on the ground without any hesitation or mercy, savouring the energy their lives gave him before turning his attention to the group crowded at the door. None of them had noticed him yet. Whatever was outside concerned them more than the explosion. More enemies? Good, he smirked to himself.

“We are the soldiers of Prince Vengian,” a voice from outside announced. “Surrender yourselves at once, or your lives are forfeit!”