BOOK IV: SIEGE-BREAKER
PROLOGUE: METICULOUS BLASPHEMY
“Almural the Mighty, Almural the Wise, Almural the Jotunborn, Almural the King of Harmas and our ur-father. In ages past when the sidewalkers and their thralls rampaged across our ancient home, it was he who led us from the north to this land. It was he who united the horse lords and wattle-daubers upon an island of three. It was he who spoke to rivers and broke bread with Turul. Oh great king, from your bones an oak, and from your seed a line unbroken!” - Inscription found at the base of a ruined statue found buried in Solyokas during the third building of Harmas.
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:: Shortly after Cole and Natalie first met the Shohgard Pack ::
Time had always proved the greatest asset and adversary of vampirekind. Safe from age, disease, and other mortal plights, a vampire might live something close to eternity; watching the epochs slip by as they steadily grow in strength until naught but dragons might challenge them. But surviving those passing centuries was not done easily and just as a vampire had an eternity to gain, they had an eternity to lose. Death stopped being a simple inevitability and became the enemy, an enemy that was fought literally, metaphorically, and metaphysically.
For this reason, any vampire intelligent enough to understand the sheer odds stacked against them inevitably searched for protections against the myriad dangers threatening their promised eternity. Many sought arcane secrets and practices so powerful but abhorrent they lay beyond mortal reach. Others clad themselves in the finest armor and honed their blade skills until none living or dead might match them. Most simply scuttled down the ages, trusting the shadows to protect them, fearing the light of day and discovery in equal measure. But no matter the origin or notions of a vampire, the use of servants, particularly disposable ones, as a way to protect themselves, was near universal. Why should a vampire risk their eternity when an enthralled mortal, beast, or corpse might serve instead? For an immortal, all lives are but resources to be spent in the preservation of their own existence.
This ethos of survival at any cost, particularly another’s cost, flowed through the Blood Duchies like its namesake, permeating every layer of vampire society and inevitably forming clots of excessive caution that could cripple Dracon’s petty empire. But just as the desire to claim eternity drove vampires to flee from risks, other parts of their nature forced them to embrace danger. Most key of these factors was simple paranoia; how could a vampire ever fully trust their minions or ‘allies’ with tasks of the utmost importance? Well simply, they couldn’t. The risks of catastrophe brought on by betrayal, incompetence, or simple misfortune made sure even the most fearful vampires would endanger themselves if they couldn’t safely delegate as task. After all, if one was going to risk themselves, it was better to be the one rolling the dice, trusting your own skill and prowess over some failable thrall or a scheming colleague.
Lord Aloysius Wolfgang, scion of Voivode Igori Gens Suillia and celebrated prodigy of the Voivodeship of Flesh understood this schema of logic better than most. It was why he currently lay in darkness, the stink of fish filling his nostrils and the creak of ill-kept timber surrounding him. Here at the climax of a scheme years in the making, Wolfgang wasn’t going to trust anyone other than himself to add the final ingredient, even if it meant slipping into enemy territory in the bilge of a riverboat.
Staring up at the warped floor planks a handspan from his face, Wolfgang waited, his unliving body coiled like a snake ready to strike. The shoddy cargo barge he hid in was making its final approach to Harmas, and any moment now Wolfgang would learn if all his preparations to sneak into the great city were sufficient. Every settlement within the Holy League larger than a town was draped in protective wards, designed to detect and destroy all those the residents found unseemly. Of course, just like the cities they defended, these arcane protections were each unique; often being an interwoven jumble of spells and rites amassed over centuries of inhabitation and barely kept coherent by the efforts of local mages.
But no matter the ramshackle or ill-made nature of these defenses, here in the Southern Marches, all could sense a vampire. The lands of Alidonar were the battleground between living and dead, if a city couldn’t instantly know if an unliving horror had infiltrated them, then they were doomed. Or at least that’s what the Moroi of Roloyo Duchy worked hard to convince the mortals of.
No defense was perfect, not even a magical one, and canny predators were always good at spotting weakness. The waxing and waning of Alidonar’s population, fortunes, and even territory left cracks in the land’s various structures. Times and places where dark things could slip in and do their worst without fear of a grand detection ward revealing them. So despite what the mortals liked to think, it was very possible for a vampire to enter a Marcher city unnoticed, all it took was some planning and connections; both of which Wolfgang had in abundance.
But, the paranoia of vampirekind had long served the Black Fly so even with every string pulled and favor earned part of him feared he was about to face discovery and destruction. Eyes flicking about, looking through the glasses that earned him his epithet; Wolfgang watched as the Aether sluggishly roiled around him, its currents reacting to the spiritual breakwaters and dykes erected by generations of mages. Doing his best to ignore what slumbered deeper in the Aether, Wolfgang waited, preparing himself to fight or flee if he was smashed against the wards. But as the riverboat sailed forward and through the defenses, nothing happened, no crackle of magic, no lance of pain or screaming discharge alerting all of his presence. Letting out a breath in a habit he thought forgotten decades ago, Wolfgang relaxed slightly. His challenges weren’t over but from now on he’d be able to rely on his own skill not the boons of others.
After maybe ten more minutes of juddering motion, the riverboat came to a stop, and Wolfgang’s ears could hear the clatter and chatter of sailors docking the vessel. It wouldn’t be long now, he’d just need to wait for the ship to mostly empty and his contact to give the all-clear. Ignoring the whiff of some fishy soup being served on deck that somehow reached him even in the filthy bilge, Wolfgang ran a mental and physical itinerary. Running his hands along the damp wood around him, the Black Fly found the chest he’d brought with him and for perhaps the hundredth time checked the locks and runes covering it. Nothing had changed since the last time Wolfgang had done this and that brought him no small relief. His cargo was obscenely dangerous, and merely having it would be enough to earn him a death sentence in some of the more conservative Duchies. But other more… open-minded members of the higher nobility had seen the merit in what Wolfgang intended with his cargo, including Duke Mika Gens Umbria himself.
The Duke’s spymaster, Lord Yezhov Arici was in fact the chief architect of Wolfgang’s (so far) successful infiltration of Harmas. Despite the Black Fly’s best efforts, he’d been unable to acquire a vial of the ever-precious daywalker ichor; that mysterious substance capable of protecting a vampire from not only the sun but most banes and even detector wards. So instead, Wolfgang had used a backdoor known to the spymaster and available to some of his agents. On the last new moon of the year, a tiny gap in the arcane defenses opened, one requiring specialty knowledge and a little ritual work to exploit.
Following Arici’s instructions, Wolfgang had anointed himself with the blood of a Harmas native before immersing himself in a tub of Alidon river water; washing away the dried ichor, and then swallowing a single broken link of an iron chain. Only then had he boarded the river boat now carrying him, having received a clear and uncompelled invitation into the city by one of the sailors, a man who’d been born in Harmas but long ago sold his allegiance to the Duchies. Only by following all these steps might Wolfgang buy himself a single night undetected in Harmas
That man in question pulled Wolfgang from his thoughts as a rhythmic knock sounded on the other side of the wooden flooring above the vampire. With a scraping sound, the boards separating bilge from steerage were moved apart and Wolfgang stared up into the dim lantern light of the ship’s hold. Looming over him was a heavily bearded man with sunken eyes and a strange mix of gauntness and fat to his body. This was Bosun Ichael, a wretched man who’d long ago willingly entered the service of the dead.
Voice slurred with his missing teeth, Ichael asked. “You ‘right milord?”
Wolfgang started to pull himself from the damp compartment and the bosun shied away, checking the surrounding hold with his held lantern. As the vampire came free of the bilge, Ichael came closer and started to say. “Let me git yur luggage for-”
Wolfgang cut him with a firm gesture and retrieved the chest himself. Ichael cringed away from the vampire’s movements and offered a steady stream of weedling apologies as Wolfgang hoisted the box onto his back using the attached straps. It was heavy and to the vampire’s annoyance, he needed to use a little blood to keep it steady. The cargo itself wasn’t the problem, it was the chest, inside the solid wood wrapped with enchanted chains, was a layer of cold iron and another of stargent, neither thin.
Eyeing his employer warily, the bosun said. “Bit visible with that, lemme grab you something.”
Moving quickly the willing servant, pulled what Wolfgang first thought was a small tarp from nearby, but quickly became identifiable as a long-abused cloak. Gingerly holding it out to the vampire, Ichael explained. “Know it not fitting for a lord, but if people tink you a rag-picker with a big load they won’t look twice.”
As Wolfgang let the stained fabric cover him he grimaced, it stunk of old sweat, older beer, and rotting seaweed. Peering out from beneath the patchwork cowl, Wolfgang climbed to the riverboat’s deck as Ichael rattled off instructions couched as suggestions. The Black Fly clearly hadn’t been the first vampire the bosun had helped into Harmas, Ichael knew how to be both pathetic and useful, exactly how the nobility liked their uncollared servants. Half-ignoring the ‘advice’ offered by the bosun, Wolfgang stood on the deck and stared out at the surrounding city. Snow fell in heavy flakes and a crust of ice clung to the wharf’s struts and moorings. Winter had come hard this year, and Wolfgang was thankful for it, few people would be out in this weather and even fewer would pay any attention to him.
As the Black Fly reached the gangplank Ichael finished his simpering. “The crew has two days of leave so it’ll be just me on the ship for tonight, but I can’t take another watch without arousing suspicion so…”
Nodding, Wolfgang said. “Yes, I should be back in only a few hours. You’ve done well, mortal, I’ll pass along my compliments to your patron.”
Ichael bowed so deep his beard collected snow off the deck. “I-I thank you, milord, that’s very-”
Wolfgang didn’t listen to the rest of the platitudes and stepped off the boat into Harmas. Pulling up the maps he’d memorized from the depths of his mind, the Black Fly set out, leaving the silent dockyard and heading deeper into the city. His destination wasn’t far but every minute spent in Harmas was another unnecessary risk. Making his way through the empty streets, snow crunching beneath his boots, Wolfgang headed towards the center island of Harmas. Known as Solyokas, this third of the city was home to the Elector-Prince’s palace and other important structures, including an ancient shrine key to the Black Fly’s plan.
Heading to the nearest of the three chain bridges, Wolfgang felt an old half-remembered emotion stir within him. At first, he thought it was mere anxiety but the faint taste of anticipation mixing in with the feeling told Wolfgang the truth: in one of the first times since he’d still drawn breath, the Black Fly was excited. If he could enact the ritual and escape Harmas he’d achieve a monumental feat that would surely solidify his place among the Voivode’s favorites and earn him the prestige needed to grow beyond his sire’s fickle patronage.
Again, Wolfgang checked the large chest he carried on his back, the compulsive behavior driven by both his nerves and eagerness. Within it were the components needed to create a plague that would cripple the Holy League on the eve of war. For years now tension between Alidonar and Roloyo had been steadily increasing, as the Elector-Prince of the Southern Marches sought to claim the gold-rich foothills of the western Dragontail Mountains. Strife in the south of the Duchies and Prince John Janic’s clever politicking had kept Duke Umbria from responding, until now that is. But even as he marshaled his legions the Duke sought other weapons, more subtle ones the mortals wouldn’t expect, that might buy him time to prepare and create opportunities when the invasion began in earnest.
Upon hearing of this, Wolfgang had jumped at the chance, he’d been allowed access to the Gens Silva archive for nearly half a decade but wasn’t able to do anything practical with his sire’s boon until now. With a little help from an… unconventional ally, he’d turned his theories into results and even a proposal to his sire and the Duke’s spymaster. Both had seen the value in Wolfgang’s faeborn pestilence and Lord Arici had arranged for this clandestine trip. Now, with success in sight, all Wolfgang had to do was enact the ritual he’d fussed over for years.
One of the great chain bridges soon came into sight, its hulking mass suspended over the river by links of steel each large as an ox. Wolfgang had to admire the engineering involved, even if he found it wildly impractical. Here in the Holy League, such questionable monuments were comically common. The scattered kingdoms making up the patchwork federation all trying to mimic the wonders of the Old Empire through ridiculous civic projects. While the Duchies had their own neuroses brought on by being inadequate inheritors they rarely resulted in anything so… wasteful.
As Wolfgang stepped onto the bridge a whistle caught his attention and his spine stiffened in shock. A pair of guards had been loitering in a toll booth he’d not noticed. Chastizing himself for his vainglorious thoughts, Wolfgang watched the two bundled-up soldiers approach him. Own had his cudgel drawn and in a drawling Marcher accent spat. “Where do you think you’re going picker? Solyokas isn’t for your kind, go scrounge somewhere else.”
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Letting a little tension leave his shoulders, Wolfgang kept moving towards the guards, it seemed his disguise was working. The soldier with the cudgel made an annoyed grunt and moved to intercept Wolfgang, his piggy eyes flaring with anger at being disobeyed. “You deaf or dumb? I said go-”
He stopped mid-sentence as Wolfgang met his eyes and punched through the man’s pitiful defenses. With a head filled with more muscle and bone than brain, the guard utterly failed to stop even a strix’s domination. Letting his gaze sweep over the second soldier, turning both into meat puppets, Wolfgang said. “Follow me.”
They complied, falling into lockstep at the Black Fly’s sides; having an ‘official escort’ would certainly be useful. Once across the bridge, Harmas changed, the buildings becoming grander and more ornate. Space was wasted in ways the less affluent sections of the city would blanche at, with courtyards, gardens, and unnecessarily wide avenues springing up around Wolfgang. Heading south along one of these promenades, the vampire struggled not to run, he was so close, so close to victory, so close to being that much closer to freedom. But self-control was always one of Wolfgang’s strengths and he kept to the slow pace of a wretched mortal, the guards on either side giving the impression of some beggar being escorted back to the gutter.
Eventually, his destination came into sight, near the very southernmost tip of the central island was a small copse of bare-leafed trees; at their center was a massive oak whose naked branches easily towered over the nearby buildings. From a distance, one might think a piece of ancient forest had survived the city’s growth around it but closer inspection told of careful cultivation. This was a garden, one shaped like an idealized woodland meant to honor an idealized man. Almural father of Alidonar and the first king of Harmas lay buried beneath that oak tree. Once the shaman of a nomadic tribe, he commanded his people to settle on the three islands in the river and build a great city. It was from his blood that the Princely lineage came, and an unbroken line could be traced from John Janic back to before the Old Empire and to Almural himself.
Entering the garden and its carefully sculpted facsimile of natural beauty, Wolfgang passed by the myriad trees, seeing the flickers of power flowing between them. From each tree, a king and eventually elector-prince of Alidonar had been grown, their bodies interred with oak seeds sourced from the Almtree itself. Powerful magic flowed through the very ground beneath Wolfgang’s feet, pulses of ancient will traveling between interconnected roots. Legend said the souls of the dead princes did not pass on but instead slumbered within the trees, offering strength and wisdom to their successors. There was some truth to that myth, but also many lies; and in those cultural delusions, lay the secret Wolfgang now would exploit.
Approaching the mighty oak, the Almtree grown from the first Shaman-King of Alidonar, Wolfgang found a set of stairs leading into the hollow beneath the tree and smelled the rich odor of blood. At the base of the stone steps lay a body, its cooling ichor splattered across the holy grotto’s floor. Snow was already covering part of the corpse but Wolfgang knew whose remains he was looking at. Clad in green ritual robes with a headdress made of carved bark and twigs, the body was an old man’s, with a flowing white beard and limbs that once held the gnarled strength of well-spent years. That strength was gone now, along with the aura of wisdom and force of will that had characterized the Treespeaker in life. Mere hours ago the corpse had been the most revered shaman in all Harmas, a wiseman of the royal lineage tasked with communing with one of the great spirits linked to the city. Then an arrow shafted in mistletoe and tipped with stargent had punched clean through his heart; leaving his charge unprotected at a key moment.
While only the Black Fly could conduct the ritual to unleash the plague, other parts of Lord Arici’s plan were beyond the young Strix's ability. Harmas was not a helpless hamlet doomed by even a whiff of pestilence, the way needed to be prepared for the plague, and to that end other agents had been slipped inside the city in the weeks before Wolfgang. One of which was an archer of supernatural skill. Looking behind him, the young vampire wondered where the assassin had loosed from, and if the killer was still there. Uncertain if he felt more or less secure with his ally keeping watch, Wolfgang ordered the two guards to take up position atop the staircase as he descended. Setting the chest down on the blood-slick ground, Wolfgang grabbed the arrow sticking from the Treespeaker’s back and pulled it free with a wet splat. The stargent tip sent clots of cold blood splattering across the ground and Wolfgang got to work hauling the corpse to the far wall of the under-tree grotto.
Finding the questing roots of the Almtree, sticking out of the sculpted earth, Wolfgang set the body among them, letting blood dampen the soil. Returning to the chest, Wolfgang let false-life flow into his throat and digestive tract. Sticking a finger down his throat, he forced himself to dry heave up the three keys he’d swallowed earlier. Working quickly, he undid the chains and arcane locks on the container and slowly opened it. A creaking groan from nearby made Wolfgang’s head whip around to the corpse where some of the roots had started to coil protectively around the Treespeaker’s body. Time was limited, soon the Almtree would consume its caretaker and Wolfgang’s window of opportunity would close.
Hands undoing the final defensive wards on the chest, the Black Fly reached inside and carefully removed the reason for all his precautions. It was a large goat skin folded into a simple knapsack, the animal’s skull dangling acting as a simple clasp. Making sure not to look into the skull’s empty sockets and reminding himself they really were empty, Wolfgang carefully opened the goat’s jaw and started unfolding the skin. Something inside wriggled and twitched waking from an unnatural sleep. It was a rat, a very sick rat, infected with the carefully cultivated plague strain that would form the pestilence’s physical base. Partially shaved, the rodent was marked with eye-hurting runes and shook faintly with the disease running rampant through its flesh.
Aside from the rat, the goat skin contained three other objects. The first was a palm-sized oval of milky coloration that was faintly sticky to the touch; inside it, something with far too many legs shifted within the egg as Wolfgang removed it from the skin. Second was a collection of specially prepared cold iron nails, each inscribed with minute runes in such amounts they gave the nails a rippling texture. Lastly was an acorn from the very tree above Wolfgang, it had been smuggled out of the city years ago and only recently soaked elvish blood for a full lunar month before having a name carved into its nut in alien looping script.
With the main parts of the ritual set, Wolfgang finished emptying the chest, pulling out a special ritual athame, three vials of changeling ichor, rope woven from dried intestines, a collection of notes, some copied from the Gens Silva collection, others in his own hand, and half a dozen other pieces of arcane paraphernalia. Wolfgang was going to attempt a complex rite, part summoning, part binding, part curse, it would take every ounce of the Black Fly’s considerable skill to complete safely. Looking over his equipment, Wolfgang went to the stairs and lay a powerful subtly spell upon them and ordered his suborned guards to stop anyone from getting close. No distraction or interference could be tolerated, not at this final junction. So, with all his preparation finished, the Black Fly approached the Treespeaker’s corpse, athame in hand.
Five hours later it was almost done. Forearms covered in gore, mind exhausted by intricate ritual work, Wolfgang stared at his creation. Half-sunken into the grotto wall, wrapped in hungering roots was a mutilated corpse, its chest cavity pulled open and organs replaced with some of the key ingredients. The comatose rat lay where the stomach should have been, the heart was replaced with the acorn, and the dire-flea egg filled the liver’s empty space. But this desecration was only partially visible from where Wolfgang now stood, he’d covered the Treespeaker’s front and face with the goat skin, turning it into a funeral shroud and then affixing it with both the iron nails and gut rope. Symbols in a language requiring multiple mouths to speak were daubed on the goat’s fur with changeling blood while the goat skull sat partially in the corpse’s mouth, held in place by more rope.
Holding up his ritual knife, Wolfgang cut his palm in the traditional way, then smeared his own ichor upon the exposed part of the goat skull, and started to chant. He sang in a fae dialect, calling out to the Grey Beyond and forming a path for what he wished to summon. The bloody runes on the goat skin started to dance, wriggling over the fur, glowing with an eye-aching magenta. A thrum of power pulsed out through the local Aether and all about Wolfgang the roots groaned and creaked. More of the ancient tree wrapped about the Treespeaker, slowly entombing the corpse in an earthen embrace. Magenta light started to boil off the runes and spread to the goat skull’s eye sockets while something within the corpse started to wriggle.
As his chant grew in volume, Wolfgang let more of his precious black ichor flow from the wound on his hand, commanding it to float through the air and form a sigil that burned with darkness. Staring at the symbol, Wolfgang tried not to think of what it meant, of what he’d promised to gain the power associated with it, instead he focused on the sigil's ritual importance not that it was shaped like a reaping scythe.
With his enchanted glasses, Wolfgang could see the Aether around the prepared corpse seethe and churn as something from the depths Beyond pushed itself into this part of reality. Slowly, like a worm pushing through sodden dirt a creature of the Grey started to manifest. Wolfgang watched as the goat skin he’d prepared stretched and twitched as something pressed against it, trying to push free of the Treespeaker’s corpse. With a thought, the Black Fly sent the burning sigil forward and let it strike the skin, his own blood, and the offered power of a goddess reinforcing the ritual bindings. Voice low, Wolfgang kept singing, his words a dolorous muttering that had the magenta runes on the skin cavorting in an eye-watering display. Sensing what was happening the faerie tried to pull back but it was too late, goat skin grew out from the marked hide, wrapping around the prepared corpse and the faerie inside it. Stretched between the Beyond, Aether and Mundane the creature started to shriek, as it found itself within a goat-song binding.
The corners of Wolfgang’s mouth turned up in a cruel smile as he felt victory come near. Acquiring that unique skin hadn’t been easy, but the results were incredible. Flayed from a satyr and now attuned to the Black Fly’s power, the goat-song would trap the faerie and let him control exactly how it manifested or used its abilities. Soon the hide finished growing, having completely enclosed the Treespeaker’s body in a second skin. The goat-song’s skull had also swollen and reformed around the dead shaman’s head like some morbid helmet. Bits of the Treespeaker’s long blood-stained beard stuck out from the skull’s jaw in an almost farcical sight while the eye sockets glowed bright magenta.
Crouching down before the goat-song, Wolfgang ended his ritual chant and waited. The goat skull slowly opened up as something pressed out of the corpse and into the darkness of the grotto. Roughly the size of Wolfgnag’s fist, it was a chimeric face, with rodent, insect, and humanoid features mixed into a strangely artistic form. Beady eyes looked up at Wolfgang and a voice asked. “Why have ye dun tis to me, o’blood child?”
Meeting the faerie’s gaze, Wolfgang replied. “I have need of you Broomaiden, you and your children.”
The head cocked to the side and a trilling laugh escaped its mouth. “Stranga way ta seek me aid, nights-spawn.”
A bleak snort escaped Wolfgang. “Your kind has long shown their true nature to this world, so forgive me for negotiating from a position of strength.”
Chittering the Broodmaiden replied. “Ta Sidhe are pompous peacocks with peregrine preferences. I’a not-CHCCHHH”
Spasming the Broodmaiden recoiled as her bindings tightened. Watching the faerie recover, Wolfgang said. “I am a vampire, not some gullible bumpkin you can snare with an enchantment bound to wordplay. Now, are you willing to listen to my offer?”
The Broodmaiden glared at him before making a noise of consent. “What tis you wish of me?”
A cold razor of a smile split Wolfgang’s face. “I want to spread your children across an entire continent.”
Silence filled the grotto for a long moment before the faerie whispered. “Ye have me attention.”
It didn’t take long for negotiations to finish, as even with the oppressive bindings Wolfgang enacted on the Broodmaiden, they quickly found common ground. So the Black Fly watched as the Almtree’s roots swallowed up the goat-song bound faerie. Soon nothing of the Treespeaker’s desecrated corpse remained, only a patch of damp dirt and a few questing roots hinting at what had happened. Even the patches of gore and blood from the ritual had been swallowed up by the hungry oak, as the spirit within accepted the tainted offering. Packing up his equipment, Wolfgang hoisted the chest onto his pack and redraped himself in Ichael’s cloak. Leaving the Almtree and the Broodmaiden, he stared out at the surrounding grove, watching through his glasses as the faerie’s influence spread through the interconnected roots. Within days the ancient heart of Harmas would be rotten and no one would be able to stop the spreading plague.
Speaking of, Wolfgang held up the first specimen of his newly unleashed disease. It was a gallarwyll; freshly birthed by the Broodmaiden and the only of her spawn Wolfgang would allow to reach maturity. Approaching the two guards who’d waited this entire time, the Black Fly ordered them to hold out their hands, and then let the gallarwyll bite both. A mix of infected blood and saliva entered the wounds as the pestilence-ridden creature spread its gift. Watching the Aether-touched infection flow through the two watchmen, Wolfgang felt a tight smile cross his face.
Next, the Black Fly let the gallarwyll bite his own thumb, letting it take a drop of vampire blood, binding the creature, and more importantly letting Wolfgang cast a spell upon it. Setting the faerie down, Wolfgang felt his eyes slide off the small monster as it scurried away. The subtlety magic wouldn’t last long, but it would be enough. Over the next week or so, dozens would be bitten by what they thought was an unusually bold mouse. Wolfgang wondered how many might connect that oddity with their growing symptoms, or would the rage drown them before any insights might be gained.
Fishing into his pockets, Wolfgang pulled out a handful of silver coins, handed some to both guards, and said. “Forget about me and go enjoy yourself.”
Blood still dripping from their hands, the two guards left and Wolfgang turned to head back towards the docked barge. It took him longer to reach the waiting boat than he’d have liked. Dominating and commanding the guards had taken a lot of power, such acts weren’t a specialty of the Strix and even if the Voivode had managed to gain a Moroi-level of mastery, Wolfgang was young. He’d been forced to rely on brute power to subjugate the two men, and any inspection by a seer would reveal what had been done to them. But that was unlikely to happen considering the coin the Black Fly had given them. The guards would go drink, whore, and otherwise blur this night’s events while spreading the pestilence that was rapidly growing within them. Wolfgang wondered if the fools would even get to suffer through the inevitable hangover before the screaming rage took them.
Wolfgang found Ichael standing on the dock, pacing back and forth, lantern in hand. Tension visibly left the bosun’s shoulders as he saw the vampire approach. Glancing about, Icahel offered a deep bow upon seeing no one was around. “Is your business finished milord?”
Stepping past the servile human, Wolfgang simply said. “For now.”