THE VROL TRILOGY (37 page)

Of course, this created a conflict
between he and his brothers, and he was banished from The Hub,
mostly through the insistence of his brother Draagh. Bitter, he had
been biding his time for countless centuries, waiting until he
could catch his sibling in a situation of weakness. As Draagh had
joined with his grandson Max, that moment had arrived. Marnn was
certain that Draagh would willingly sacrifice anyone and anything -
including himself - in order to protect the young man and thus be
less able to properly engage in a battle of ancient
skills.

Vampire king Vladros trotted along on
his massive steed while Marnn effortlessly floated next to him.
Dressed in ominous-looking black robes, and sporting a black beard
and short hair, he almost appeared to be a negative image of his
kind-hearted brother.

"At last, the moment of retribution has
arrived, o great mage," said Vladros, who was totally without the
intention of honoring any of his promises to the ancient
Primulus.

Marnn was well aware of the vampire's
chicanery and continued playing his own cruel game of
deceit.

"Yes, it shall be good to rid the
universe of my brother's plague once and for all."

Further up ahead, Ryder Johnson was
limping along with the massive throngs of hideous, malformed
vampires. As he had garnered no respect from Vladros, he was forced
to march as a first line of defense. That suited him fine. He
intended to split off from the troops once they had breached
Krynos' castle perimeter, and to go find his other-wordly enemies.
He no longer desired to violate the lovely Jennifer Escalante - he
wanted to kill her while Gunnarsson watched, and then carve the
scientific commander's head off with a dull blade.

What Johnson didn't know until after
Gunnarsson had rescued Jennie Escalante - as he was not privy to
Vladros' inner circle of information - was that the vampire king
had sent the majority of his troops off to hide in caves near
Korlis' dilapidated excuse for a castle, and had done so on
purpose. He was playing a strategic chess match with his mortal
enemy. After deciding to kidnap the lycan girl, he left a small
regiment of troops in the castle - just enough to put up a fight,
but also enable the eventual release of his captives. Feigning
defeat and making Krynos believe that his forces were all but
destroyed, he would lull the lycan leader into a false sense of
security, and then attack when they were most vulnerable - during
the full moon.

"So you say that the lycan mage is
Draagh's grandson?" Vladros asked Marnn. "That would explain his
apparent ease in defeating Ladros and his counterparts."

Marnn floated eerily next to his ally
and said, "Yes, it is rare, but we occasionally procreate. The
father of the boy is Taxiarch Michael, but he has been… indisposed
of for near a quarter century."

"What?" burst out Vladros with no small
amount of trepidation. "His father is Michael? It is bad enough for
the boy's sire to be an archangel, but that lunatic? How are you to
be sure that he will not show up in their defense?"

Marnn smirked and looked
out at the marching fleet of death before them, saying, "He cares
not for the boy, nor for his father. He only cares for himself.
Plus, he has been rendered virtually powerless and stranded on
another world.
But as I said before, worry not. My
brother shall not pose a problem for you."

Vladros looked forward with a dull
gleam in his dying eyes. "Well then, that can only help us, my
friend."

###

Draagh sat in his turret, watching the
moon slowly rise up into the sky, as the muffled sounds of
transformed werewolves came up through ventilation grates. He
enjoyed the full moon while in the Rhönen Dominion, finding it to
be a time where he could be at peace, with no one bothering him to
magically repair a door or to make a love cantus.

He was nearly alone, with only Krynos
running up and sniffing at him occasionally. Although the king
retained his reason during the transformation, he did love running
around and sniffing things, as there was little else to do for
those few hours every lunar cycle.

The ancient Primulus decided to stand
up and walk out to the pathway that connected his turret to the
rest of the castle - just to make sure that none of the night
guards were curled up in a ball and sleeping (as had happened on
many occasions in the past).

His distrust for werewolf soldiers was
probably the only thing that saved the castle, as well as the
entire Rhönen Dominion.

Walking out on the pathway and heading
for the western turret, he found the always-humorous Major Kangor
at his station, gazing out intently at the flat plains and looking
for any sign of disturbance.

"My good major, how are we this
evening?" asked Draagh with a great deal of enthusiasm. The fully
formed werewolf looked casually to his left, where Draagh had
approached from the southern turret.

"Urrrrrm, no good. No enemy. Want
fight," he growled.

Draagh gave the lycan a curious gaze,
but was well aware that he was joking. It was possible to speak in
phase 3, albeit with substantial difficulty. Lycans had a language
of growls, barks and yelps that they used to communicate with each
other while in their third state, but considered it polite to speak
a language understandable to all when in mixed company. Draagh
could understand and speak virtually every language he had
encountered during his eons of existence, but simply enjoyed
listening to werewolves struggle to form words with their lupine
mouths. He found it funny, but that was Draagh.

He watched the major go back to
guarding his post in dutiful fashion, so he turned and walked back
toward his own turret, passing it for the eastern sector where
Lieutenant Conan was posted. Noting that the good lieutenant was
carefully scanning the horizon, and that he was not one to engage
in small talk, Draagh moved on, circling around again, this time to
the northern tower, where Krynos and Donus stood watch.

The northern side was considered the
most important, as that is from where danger would come. All of the
vampire clans were located in the north, but the night was cold,
clear, and the slight northerly breeze gave no sign of anything out
of the ordinary.

Entering into the largest of the four
main turrets of the castle, Draagh greeted Krynos and Donus with a
nod of his head, causing friendly growls to emanate from their
throats. The old mage quietly stood there, watching out to the
north with his two colleagues, occasionally reaching over and
scratching Krynos behind the ear, which in turn caused the
transformed lycan king to kick his leg out of pleasure, much like a
domesticated dog would do. The three then relaxed and looked out
over the landscape.

###

On the second-to-top level of the
castle, in a large chamber where the walls were lined with
protective cubbyholes, lycan children were quietly passing their
monthly ritual. While many children giggled and played guessing
games through their walls, Liliana sat in hers, playing with
Jennie's wand, making little sparkles of light. Jennie had given
the device to the girl, as her own katana had been recently
converted into a super-powered sword of mass destruction. Liliana
was a quick study, learning cantuses almost immediately, and Jennie
thought it would be nice to give the little lycan something to look
forward to in life. She had not told Liliana that the wand was hers
to keep - she wanted to inform her later, but as far as Jennie was
concerned, the wand belonged to the girl.

Imagining she was a great mage and
fighting epic battles, she made light designs in her small space,
when shadows on the back wall showed what appeared to be a
separation in the wood grain. She ran her little fingers over the
seam, and digging a fingernail into it found that it moved
slightly. Pulling on the seam, a small panel opened, revealing a
tiny passageway just big enough for her to squeeze through. As she
was a child, and most children were mischievous, she crawled into
the passageway and whispered a cantus.

"
Undaincantatio lux
"

Chapter 24 - Battle of the Blood

All of the transformed werewolves were
secured in their cells, making substantial noise, with most peeing
all over the inside of their containment areas. One, a female,
rolled on her back in the blood and pus she had left from her
change in an effort to relieve herself of an itchy back, and only
making a worse mess than was already there. As the cats that lived
in the castle instinctively knew to stay away from the dungeon
areas during the full moon, rats roamed freely, attracted to the
human waste and bile on the floors of the cells. One such rat was
brave (or stupid) enough to enter into a cell, only to become a
quick meal for its occupant.

Further down the long corridor, the
young man, whom Max had surprised the day he was slipping around
the castle, was fully transformed in his cell and furiously
attempting to hump the wall. Max and Jennie had stopped scratching
on their concrete barrier and sat up to the front of their
respective cells, whimpering and keeping their noses as close
together as possible.

Overall it was an uneventful evening,
and Draagh sat back, enjoying his pipe as the moon moved through
the sky. He relaxed and smelled the air, trying not to think of the
task ahead of him and his two young charges. Standing up, he
returned the to northern tower, wanting to make one final check on
Krynos and Donus, the two never staying in one place very long. As
he rounded the castle and passed the west tower he had an odd
feeling, which turned to a suspicion, which then turned to alarm.
He ran as fast as his ancient legs would take him (which was
extremely fast), reaching the northern turret in
seconds.

"Move, my friends!" he commanded, as he
set his staff on the floor, instantly creating a spyglass of sorts.
It was more of a semi-transparent panel, magnifying everything in
its view. Looking out over the horizon he saw what no lycan, phase
3 or otherwise, would have seen - a slight distortion in the air at
near ground level. The distortion was wide, possibly half a
kilometer, and went back nearly the same distance. He could not
smell anything, nor could his lycan counterparts, but he knew it
was there.

They were going to be
attacked.

###

Out on the open plains, Vladros and
Marrn continued forward, one on horse and one floating in the air,
as they trudged on toward Krynos' castle.

"I see our destination, my friend. Will
your enhancement hide my troops if they split off and attack from
all four quarters?"

The fallen Primulus looked
at Vladros, never having liked it when the vampire used the
term
friend
, and
shook his head. "No, they must remain together for the cantus to
function properly. Although I have many abilities, they can only be
spread so thin, and in order to control so much magic I must
attempt to encapsulate it with a certain area.
Still
they have their amulets that shall function as long as I am in the
vicinity."

"Ah, so then there are limitations to
your great power?" The vampire king sneered and looked away, as if
he felt himself superior to the eons-old being at his
side.

"We all suffer limitations. If I had
none I would rule the universe. Only one is without limit, and he
is the Alpha and the Omega."

"Yes, yes, I know," interrupted the
rotting leader, "and it is he who we despise above all."

"Without Jah, you would not
exist."

"Ah, but I do exist, and shall continue
to do so for a very, very long time."

Marnn had an unsettling
feeling, allying himself with such a despicable creature, but as
always, the ends justified the means, and Marnn's end goal was the
termination of Draagh's existence.
He almost regretted
providing Vladros' troops with special amulets that provided them
enhanced strength and protection, but saw it as a necessary evil in
order to complete his task.

The vampires were not completely at fault for
being such a horrible subspecies. They were all well aware of their
race's history, and felt slighted by the sins of their ancestors.
Centuries before, their people had been nearly immortal, just like
their hated lycan cousins, but the lycans were good of heart and
prayed to Jah, while the vampires turned their eyes away from their
creators and sought a path of death and destruction. Unwilling to
participate in the natural balance of Earth, they left their path
as the carrion eaters of the world, and went on a rampage, drinking
and killing every normal they could find. This upset the Prīmulī
greatly, so as punishment they modified the vampires' genome,
stripping them of long life, and causing them to live a short,
futile existence, in a state of constant decomposition.

The vampires were a necessary part of the
ecosystem and could not be completely eliminated, so the Prīmulī
used the only method they could to control the creatures - time. It
was simply controlled collateral damage.

This particular factoid was very much at the
forefront of Vladros' mind, every day of his pathetically short
life. He had spent years scheming to find a way to lengthen his
existence, and felt that Marnn was the key.