Belladonna held her tongue, then with a sigh and a shake of her head, she jumped up through the gap just as the first screams went up. “Foul creatures! Deniers of holy will! Your blasphemous existence ends today!” Freydis howled her hatred like a banshee, and it would have been counted by anyone listening as ‘over the top’ and ‘dramatic’ save for two things.

The first being that she clearly meant every single word, the second being that every word was punctuated with the smell of old blood filling the stale air of the cave where the tunnel ended.

“Is she… always like this?” Faust asked as Nazari made her own leap up to follow Belladonna.

“Freydis?” Brunwaeld asked as she moved over to the gap to take her turn? When Faust nodded, she answered. “Absolutely. She hates the undead. I mean, we all do? But she takes it to another level.” A shriek of disgust and hatred ripped through the air and a vampire’s howl of pain came with it. “Come on, give us a hand, if you think you can handle it.” She grinned and jumped. Her broad shoulders scraped the earth around her as she made it through the gap and could finally draw her weapon, shaking loose small bits of loose dirt collapsed and rained down on Faust’s face.

His heart raced as he squatted down, [Strength] He used his only martial skill, and the mana coursed through his body. He jumped and sailed easily through the opening to land on the ground of the cave just in time to see the horde of ghoulified servants of the vampire clan charging toward the cave entrance, their mutilated, rotted faces still twisted in the same terror they died in. That was the horrific tragedy of ghouls.

Whatever their final expression when they were turned, they held that face forever until their second death. If they died asleep, their eyes were forever closed. If they died in terror, their final moments were frozen on their faces.

And these? These died in terror and pain, their mouths still open from their final screams, some bore the marks of torment before they passed away, covered in wounds that would never heal on bodies bound to obey those who injured them and took their lives.

Faust drew his sword and charged into the frey, ‘If only I weren’t so weak…’ He cursed himself as he swung his sword in a passably smooth form that took the head off of the body of a ghoul, only for the blade to be caught by the hand of the vampire master. The vampires themselves wore studded armor and cloaks, the claws of their hands moved with unnatural speed, without even the aid of any martial arts.

Brunwaeld was in her natural element, her maul might have been too heavy

for the average man, but to her it was as light as her own arms.

“Tyr’magor!” She howled the name of the human god of war and the swung the long weapon out in a wide arc, it was not just the ‘end’ of her maul that was a danger, the metal length of it swept two bodies away and sent them flying to crash with sickening crunches into the wall of the cave.

With practiced ease the team fell into a rhythm, [Blessed Blade] Freydis shouted as she used her priestly skills to temporarily enchant her weapon with holy magic. With a single thrust it pierced the chest of a vampire as if his studded armor did not exist. The vicious red eyes widened as if he understood his own second death was coming… His flesh sizzled as the holy glow burned his body, but rather than slump or die quietly, he stretched out his arms, howled out his pain, bared his fangs, and charged.

His body ran along the length of the sword, his claws stretched out to bring down his killer, to grab her, bite her, turn her, or take her with him, but as he charged his body burned on, the blight of her light against his body spread, and before his claws could touch her cheek and before she could even so much as blink, he spasmed and his dead and pale flesh turned to gray ashes, then scattered in the breeze. Only ash touched the face of Freydis, and she never flinched away.

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Belladonna held her hands out and sent out blasts of flame from her hands. [Greater flame] She called out, and gouts shot from both hands, as she moved her outstretched arms, the gouts grew to eight paces long, igniting the body of a ghoul who fell backward as the fire consumed his body and added his ash to those of the others.

Thanks to the protective walls of the cave, the superior numbers of vampires and ghouls could not surround the party, and Belladonna the Witch denied them even more ground, forcing them to either back away or to target another, bunching the undead into groups.

“No.” Nazari snapped what might have been a meaningless phrase, only to all but ‘blink’ out of position one moment, and to be in another a moment later just behind Faust himself. Her knife thrust out and a vampire with perfect camouflage shimmered into view, his body spasmed as his blood ran out of his neck and down her blade, she pushed the tip ‘up’ and pierced the pale creature’s brain from underneath, and it fell limp, becoming ash before it could finish crumpling to the ground.

Faust did his best to keep up, but seeing how quickly Nazari slew the creature that must surely have been going for himself, all he could do was mourn his ineptitude. ‘I never even saw it, he was coming for me, for sure. How am I supposed to protect my Princess if I can’t even handle this?!’ he berated himself and kicked the body of a ghoul who came too close, the ribs cracked in the former human’s chest, but all that did was buy Faust space… space he needed. With a roar of impotent frustration he swung his sword and took another head, sending the unfortunate to fall headless on his side, the head rolling away to come to rest against the cave wall.

A half a dozen vampires and another thirty of their ghouls were all but dispatched, and when the last vampire realized with horror that only he and a few ghouls remained, he snarled and bared his teeth at the now more numerous party.

“Kill them! Sacrifice yourselves for Master!” He shouted at the remaining ghouls, then turned about to run.

“Scum!” Freydis snarled, held out her sword, “Fly!” She commanded her sword, and it shot from her hand and pierced the creature through the back, killing him before Freydis’s comrades could even finish his servants.

Belladonna turned her flaming gouts on those, and with a steady, silent gaze, watched them flail and burn to ashes at her feet, then closed her hands into fists, killing the spell.

“We’d better look around, we need to make sure nothing else is here that could pose a problem. Including out in the woods.” She pointed to the forest beyond.

“Did this really come out all the way at the Eternal Forest?” Freydis asked when she sheathed her blade as it returned to her hand.

“No, it couldn’t have. That’s days away at least, even on horseback.” Faust answered and walked out of the cave, “We were in there for a few hours though, I think? We had to be.” He pointed to the sky, the sun had nearly completed its transition across the sky. “We’re probably in the old hunting grounds, a private reserve of the King, it hasn’t been used since…” Faust scratched his head, “I don’t know, years? It’s the perfect place for a vampire to hide. No random travelers, easy to enter and leave, plenty of game and there’s a road, if I remember correctly, that if you follow it, will lead you to a well traveled area for easy prey if they want to feed. As long as they stayed away from populated areas, nobody would ever know they’re here.”

“Foul animals.” Freydis said and spat into a pile of ashes, “They should all be destroyed as soon as possible.”

Nobody argued, but Belladonna pointed toward the woods, “We need to get started, the sooner we begin, the sooner we can be sure the way out will be safe when the time comes. Anything we miss, is one more thing that could slay the ones we want to protect.”

Freydis’s contemptuous face relaxed, “You’re right.” She said with a grave nod. “Let’s get started.”