Vampire Down (Blood Skies, Book 7) (31 page)

Thornn was destroyed early in the war.  Jadira has been allowed to visit its remains, which she viewed stoically.  She misses her home.

Like Daezarkian, Jadira is a trained theurge, a master of manipulating the necrotic energy force which pulses and flows through the veins of the undead.  They tap into the dripping meat of the cosmos and let their minds swim through the echoes of truth.

They see the fall of Krune, the miscalculation that leads not only to the city-state’s destruction but to the crack rendered between worlds.  It was there before, a jagged seam, growing and growing as the war rolled on, every century chiseling deeper into the dread folds of night on the other side: a darker realm, a grisly place of bleeding shadows and grinding screams.  Pain seeps through the wound. 

They’re being invaded.

Daezarkian and Jadira rally their vampires and slaves.  The city-state and its territories mobilize.  Warships and tanks pour smoke into the sky, and legions of the dead assemble weapons and armor to make an exodus out of Rath.  Carriers packed with slaves and Razorwings fill the open squares in the Gothic city streets, pale avenues of snow-colored stone edged with razor lattice and silver pools. 

The atmosphere is somber.  They know there will be no coming back.

Hundreds of miles away, the shadow invades.  Oozing pestilence seethes across the landscape.  The earth burns and corrodes.  Patches of the sky darken and collapse.  The crack is visible now, a fractured rent in the sky, an oozing tear dripping gobs of matter like melted night. 

That is Rath’s destination: they will take the battle to the invaders.  Many vampires will die so the rest may survive, for Daezarkian and Jadira have discovered a way to use the rip in worlds to their advantage, to lead their minions to a new home, another place untouched by these monstrous presences.  There’s little doubt this new land is precisely what the invaders want after they’ve destroyed Malefia, for it is a realm populated with humans and life, a land of slaves waiting to be taken. 

The trip will be dangerous.  The rip to this new world is slight, and to widen it will cause a rupture between realities, but there is little choice if they wish to ensure the survival of the many thousands of vampires, servants, slaves and beasts of Rath. 

The two vampire leaders stand atop Rath’s walls on the day they venture forth to lay claim to their new home.  The air is cold and bleak, and the sky is a mass of shadows like spilled blood.  Frozen grass and rolling hills spread from to the dark waters of Rimefang Loch to the south.  Slim black watchtowers of iron and stone stand in the distance, their troops ready to roll forward and launch the vampire’s final assault. 

Daezarkian looks to his wife.
 
Jadira is beautiful, pale and tall, her dark eyes glittering like icy diamonds.  They have been together for a millennia.  There is much they haven’t agreed upon, especially the notion of how human slaves should be treated, but they have always been united in their desire to ensure the survival and prosperity of their species.  For a time he knows she felt as though she were being held hostage…that she was his prisoner rather than his equal.  Daezarkian did everything he could to change that, tried to bring the comforts of Thornn to Rath, tried to make her feel at home.  A replica of the bone tree shrine she’d grown up with in had been planted in a private garden, and all of her servants and blood slaves were left to the care of her personal entourage of personal attendants and confidants.  She was his wife and his love, and he wanted her to be comfortable, for their union is what has kept their two cities at peace.  Thornn is gone, but she is still his Queen. 

They are joined in this, and both believe vampires can only survive if those few left on Malefia escape to a different world.  They’ve already had conflicts over how they’d subjugate the denizens of their new home, how the newly conquered blood slaves would be treated, but he’s made clear he’ll not deny his kin the rites of blood.  He knows she isn’t comfortable with the notion of a vampire conquest of a living land – that hasn’t happened since The Purging some ten thousand years past – but he is her lord and husband, and she will not oppose him.  She will be given her own assembly of slaves, and she and her Thornn kin will be free to treat those slaves as they want, to elevate them and educate them within the microcosm of her private grounds in whatever palace they choose as their new home. 

But he will not deny Rath’s vampires their blood, especially with a world of food waiting for them.  The vampires have not brought a civilization to its knees in so very long.  It is their nature, and their destiny, why they wage war with each other and why they’ll continue to do so for time immemorial.  They are meant for battle, for slaughter. 

Her bone-laced dress hugs her body tightly; the fringes are clasped with bits of iron and steel that sway in the dead breeze.  Her pale hair is tightly held back in braids, and her moon-white skin shines blue in the light of the iron sun.  Large black eyes reflect his grizzled visage back at him as he approaches and takes her in his arms.  Their slithering black tongues lash against each another as he kisses her and bites into her lips.  Dark blood wells and runs down their necks.  They both know if things go badly this might be the last time they’ll embrace.

The signal rings out, a dull clarion echoing loud through the streets of Rath.  It’s time.

The battle is fierce.  Blasted remains of vampire warships cascade down in flaming piles of debris.  Reptilian mounts howl with metallic voices as they plummet from the bleeding sky.  Cannons roar with staccato beats of explosive noise.  Smoking bodies casts thick fumes.

Rath’s forces are falling.

The power of The Black is just too great.  The toiling mass of murderous shadows has taken on a simpler form – they are the Maloj once again, tall humanoid wolves capable of incredible speed and violence.  They rip into the vampire ranks with shadow claws and shadow teeth, rending armor and flesh.  Only direct hits from the most powerful weapons seem to have any effect on the marauders, but they’re so fast and dexterous it’s all but impossible to even land a blow. 

Warships train bladed rockets on the source of the oozing darkness, the bleeding rip in the sky.  It runs like a jagged river, a tear in the atmosphere. 

A full division of Rath soldiers and artillery has been sent to meet the invaders.  It’s difficult to gauge The Black’s numbers or power since the source of the invasion is just a wall of darkness, an ebbing tide of onyx fumes and molten ebon which drips through the wounded sky.  Bits of that creeping night slither away like drops of oil and congeal as animalistic killers with iron-white eyes and vorpal canines. 

The battle rages on.  The vampires hold their ground but make little progress against their enemy.  Air-tanks hover in place, driven by heated turbines that turn the plains black; they launch flaming incendiaries and rockets, and hard shells of cold iron pelt and hammer the wolfen ranks.  Every now and again one of the creatures perishes, but a dozen vampires die with it. 

The Maloj tear into the undead soldiers.  They’re silent as they shatter undead bones and sunder steel armor.  The wolves move slow, just silhouettes against the broiling storm.

Vampires know no fear.  They won’t retreat. 

The wind smells of scorched skin and burning fuel.   Shells rip through the earth and razor smoke sweeps across the ground.  Banners burn as the sky rains black fire.

Shadows loom across the horizon, a wall of darkness capped with moon eyes and hollow teeth.  They are giants, they are miniscule.  Their size and shape defy comprehension.  One moment they’re legion, a shifting mass of onyx fumes and burning shadows, and the next they’re a horde of ebon insects, an exploding sea of umbra limbs.  Darkness leaks through the night like an ink stain.  The atmosphere cracks, as if burned.

Rath’s legions have no chance.  The onslaught is fast and brutal.  Undead flesh is burned beneath waves of churning necrotic energies, pale bodies scorched and crystallized into brittle black shells that crumble like dust.  Explosions hammer up and down the landscape, battering the war machines and tanks. 

The shadows melt back into wolf-men and tear through the remaining vampires with their steaming claws.  The battle is over.

But the vampires of Malefia are not lost.

While Rath’s stalwart forces march to their doom against the armies of The Black, Daezarkian and Jadira lead an exodus of the damned.  There are thousands of vampires, the survivors of Rath and its outlying communities, moving under cover of rain and darkness, a congregation of the dead, a caravan of cloaked warships and reptilian beasts.  They pass through shallow valleys of soot and shadow, following a course across the cracked and barren landscape.

They aim for the cleft.  They will willingly enter the break in worlds. 

Heads are downcast as they make the journey.  Weapons are readied, and their supernatural senses are alert.  They move with utter silence across the bitter plains. 

Daezarkian weaves currents of necrotic force, draws power from human slaves tethered to his battle-throne.  Their feet bleed on the salty landscape.  Chains scrape against their tender flesh.

The energies keep them masked and widen the path before them.  The gap in the horizon cracks open like gristle.  Darkness bleeds through the sky. 

It won’t be long now.  They see the battle rage in the distance, hear the artillery shells and explosives.  The shadows loom over Rath’s doomed forces.  The roiling darkness splits off into hunter-wolf shapes which cut their way through the vampire ranks. 

Daezarkian and Jadira see eyes in the storm, pulsing orbs like bitter moons.  They smell burning stars and melting skin.

They march quickly, for they can broker no delay.  The Black is far reaching, but not omnipotent.  It has no reason to believe the citizens of the city have already fled, and by the time it finishes off Rath’s sacrificial defenders the vampires will have left Malefia forever. 

Thousands of slaves die in the exodus, burned to cinders by necrotheurgic energies as their life force is used to conceal the mass of fleeing vampires and widen the dimensional rip. 

They must cross over at a precise point.  If they fail, they’ll spill into the remains of The Black’s home world, a place filled with nothing but shadow and bubbling chaos.  Worse, Daezarkian knows he cannot close the rip even after the last of his kind has gone through.  This new world is not capable of supporting the vampire anatomy, not without some link to Malefia.  Some connection must be maintained.

The humans cry out in pain.  Those who cry too loudly are silenced.  There’s some malcontent among the vampires, for they’re not allowed to feed on their human chattel.  Some whisper that the Grim Father has gone soft, finally taken by the whims of his queen, but those close to him know the truth.

He will kill every last human if necessary.  Whatever must be done in order to save his people. 

They pass through the barrier.

There’s no telling moment, no defining sensation or threshold.  They travel towards the rip for hours, always seeming to move further away even though they know they’re gaining ground.  The grey landscape and steaming fields stretch on endlessly, low broken hills that melt away into sharp valleys and crumbling buttes.  The ghastly procession stays out of sight, watching the battle in the distance from beneath their soul magic shroud. 

The bodies of human slaves litter the valley behind them, bled out and dry, husks of pale skin left to rot in the dust.

Jadira will no longer travel with Daezarkian but maintains her own pace, riding a great lizard with her closest friends and advisors.  The gulf between the monarchs is noticeable. 

The vampires are frightened.  They know their forces are dying to The Black’s overwhelming strength, and they can only hope that the sacking of Rath will take longer than expected.  When their subterfuge is discovered, all will be lost.

And, suddenly, they arrive. 

One moment the rip looms above them like a boiling storm

the next they walk under clear skies.  The ground is brown and damp.  Yellow stalks sway in the wind.  They smell water and honey in the air. 

The storm still looms behind them.  For a moment they think they’ve escaped.  The vampire refugees are all there, an impossible trail of undead and panicked mounts.  Steel vehicles look transposed against the colorful landscape, the fields of wheat crops and corn stalks.  The sky is deep blue, and the hot sun ails them to look upon it.

It all lasts only moments before everything is torn apart.  Daezarkian’s efforts to widen the rip prove to be too much.  The breach tears open, and worlds crash together in a maelstrom of violence.

A sky that had been bright and sunny suddenly roils with thick red clouds.  The ground cracks and melts.  They feel a sense of wrongness, of things pushed together like glass and skin. 

It only takes a few moments for them to begin to forget where they came from.

They hear the devastation from miles out, the collapse of cities and the drying of seas, the burning skies and hordes of people being sucked through the rip.  Things exit the reality, pulled away like debris in a windstorm, and other things are blown through.