Marked for Death

Chapter 12

A series of three short screams pierced the night. Each began full-throated with mortal fear, and each was cut horribly short. Deothen made the sign of the flame on his chest at the end of each one by drawing his fingertips down the length of his sternum in a wavering line. With the last, he stood and whispered a silent prayer that the Silver Flame would embrace the screamers with its cleansing tongues.

“By the Host!” Mardak said, leaping up from the head of his dining table, at which he had been hosting a meal with all the knights but Sallah.

The repast had been hastily prepared but tasty. Deothen suspected that Priscinta’s pride wouldn’t allow her to serve her guests a bad meal despite the way her husband had treated her earlier today. She had gone about the task of feeding the knights, her husband, and her son, never meeting their eyes, her cheeks burning with anger and shame. When Deothen had offered his thanks for the meal, she had coughed out a weak response and dashed from the room. He hadn’t seen her since.

“What’s happening out there?” Mardak said, panic stabbing through his voice as he stared out into the darkness through the dining room’s large front window.

“Tira’s tongue,” Deothen cursed as he reached for his sword and his staff. “I thought we had more time.” He turned to the three knights sitting around the table and began to bark out orders. They each complied without question or hesitation, their faces masks that concealed the terror Deothen knew stirred in their hearts. “Gweir, secure the back door!”

The blond-haired knight drew his blade and charged out of the room.

“Brendis, take the front!”

The dark-haired knight dashed for the porch.

“Levritt, you’re in charge of Pradak.”

The young knight nodded as he drew his sword and stood next to Mardak’s son, his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. The dark-haired Pradak trembled so that it seemed as if Levritt’s hand actually held the boy from falling over.

“What should I do?” Mardak asked. The mayor’s blue eyes darted nervously about the room, looking for danger from every quarter.

Deothen glared at the man. “Find your wife.”

Mardak swallowed as he met the eldest knight’s eyes. He reached up and pulled down his sword from where he’d hung it over the entrance to the room. As he’d done that, he’d explained to Deothen that it was a tradition of those who hosted meals in Cyre, designed to show both that the host was skilled in arms but also that he’d put all weapons aside for the meal. Mardak drew the blade from its scabbard slowly, almost ceremonially. Then another scream echoed through the town, and he nearly leaped from his clothes. Without looking back at Deothen, the mayor tossed the sheath and belt to one side and strode from the room.

Deothen closed his eyes and said a quick prayer as he touched the iridescent symbol embroidered across the front of his tabard. “May the power of the Silver Flame protect me against evil in all its forms.” As he spoke, he felt the blessings of his god flow through his hands and throughout his body.

Deothen opened his eyes and listened. More screams sounded in the distance. He hefted his staff, the silver light blazing from its tip and reflecting brilliantly in his icy eyes. Then he drew his sword, which burst into silvery flames as it left its scabbard. “And may we do what we can to protect these innocents,” he said.

The senior knight strode out onto Mardak’s porch. The edges of the crater that cradled the town lay enveloped in darkness. No moonlight broke through the layer of clouds that seemed to always swirl out from the encroaching edges of Mournland.

“The evil that lurks out there is in its element,” Deothen said to Brendis, who stood beside him, peering into the night.

“The light of the Silver Flame will illuminate our path,” the young knight said. Deothen saw the light from his staff glittering in the knight’s eyes.

“Good lad,” Deothen said. He clapped Brendis on his armored shoulder. “You have studied hard and well. Now it is time to put your lessons to the test. Can you feel them out there?”

Brendis concentrated and reached out with his soul. “No,” he shook his head finally.

Deothen nodded. “Sometimes, lad, it’s not a matter of how hard you look.” A scream sounded from the direction of the kitchen behind them, and a shout followed from the backyard. “But where! With me!”

Deothen felt his joints creak as he sprinted into the house. Sometimes it seemed as if they were louder than the jangling of his armor. Brendis followed him into the house, where they bumped into Levritt and Pradak poking their noses out of the dining room. Both young men had their swords at the ready, although neither looked particularly ready to use them.

“Go to the kitchen to support Mardak and Priscinta,” Deothen said to Levritt and his charge. “Brendis and I will lend Gweir our blades out back.”

Deothen and Brendis charged out the rear of the manor.

There they saw Gweir facing off against five of the shambling soldiers from Karrnath. He charged into them, his blade blazing, and the dead things let loose a crackling laugh.

The two knights rushed to join the third, all three swords burning bright in the night, casting strange, silver-edged shadows as their steel lengths danced with those held by long-dead hands. Within moments, the creatures lay in several smoldering piles at the knights’ feet.

Before Deothen could congratulate the younger knights on a battle well fought, another scream pierced the night.

“That came from inside,” said Gweir.

“Priscinta,” Deothen said as he ran back into the house. The high, throaty wail could belong to no one else. The elder knight wound his way through the home into the kitchen, with Gweir and Brendis clanging after him. They found Levritt and Pradak pounding on the kitchen door.

“It’s locked,” Levritt said as Deothen shouldered him aside. Fearful of what he might find inside, Deothen nodded to Gweir and Brendis, and all three lowered their armored shoulders and smashed into the door at once.

The knights stumbled over the threshold, past the splintered latch, and into the dimly lit room. In the red glow of the fire blazing in the fireplace against the far wall, they saw Priscinta brandishing a meat cleaver and a wooden spoon at a tall, pale man dressed in a flowing black cloak. Mardak’s body lay at her feet, gouts of blood spurting from a gash in his neck.

The pale intruder whirled about as the knights burst in, turning his blazing red eyes on them and baring his face full of savage teeth. “Enter, Knights of the Silver Flame,” he said. “I will extinguish your flaming brands with your own blood!”

Priscinta swung her cleaver down and chopped the head off of her wooden spoon, leaving only the pointed remnant of the handle in her hand. She stabbed at the vampire with it as the knights fanned out in the room, but her blow landed wide of its mark, puncturing the creature’s shoulder instead of its heart.

“You’ll pay for that, witch!” the vampire said through its bared fangs as it spun around and backhanded Priscinta away. She crumpled in a heap near the fireplace.

Pradak let loose with a feral howl and dashed past Deothen to hurl himself at the vampire. The creature smirked at the young man’s effort and flung wide its arms to enfold Pradak in his unforgiving embrace.

The vampire cackled as he pulled back Pradak’s head to expose the young man’s unblemished neck. The walls of the kitchen echoed with Priscinta’s horrified scream, a sound so terrible it chilled Deothen’s bones. Before the creature could strike, though, the knight stepped forward and held his burning sword high before him. Its flames licked the ceiling.

“Abomination!” Deothen said to the vampire in a voice that rolled through the room like thunder. “You are an affront to the purity of the Silver Flame, and for that you shall be consumed!”

As Deothen spoke, the vampire froze in place, and his eyes wide in fear. Like a moth to the flame, he seemed unable to wrest his eyes away from the light of the flaming sword before him. He dropped Pradak and unleashed a final, horrifying cry, like metal scraping dry bone. A moment later, it turned into a column of dust that cascaded to the kitchen’s cold stone floor.

Deothen grabbed Pradak by the shoulder and guided him into Levritt’s grasp. “Escort him back to the dining room,” the eldest knight said, “and this time keep him there!”

The young knight jumped to obey.

Deothen glanced around and listened for the sound of further threats. The only sounds were the breathing of the knights and Priscinta whimpering softly near the fire. “We seem to have repulsed the first assault,” he said to Brendis and Gweir. “Resume your posts for the moment and prepare for battle. We will take this fight to them soon.”

As the others left, Deothen knelt down to examine Mardak’s body. The vampire dust coated the mayor’s head and shoulders, the blood and ashen remains mixing into a thick, black paste where they commingled. The knight brushed the mixture aside with his mailed hand.

“I’m impressed that you were able to defend yourself so well,” Deothen remarked to Priscinta as he examined the wound that had laid Mardak low.

“I was once a knight of the Sovereign Host,” said Priscinta through her tears. Her voice was raw with sorrow and, from what Deothen could tell, rage. “I am no stranger to such creatures.”

“It is too bad you couldn’t say the same of your husband.” The knight ran his finger along the length of the wound. The blow had nearly taken off Mardak’s head. The cut was clean. The vampire had carried no weapon. Such creatures usually preferred to kill their prey with their bare hands.

“No,” said Priscinta as she struggled to her knees, the cleaver still clutched in her hand. “He was a creature I knew far too well.”

Deothen nodded and then ducked to the side at the last moment. He knew that Priscinta had seen him examining the wound, that he knew of her guilt. He’d hoped she’d simply confess to him, but she apparently wasn’t going to make it that easy.

The cleaver in Priscinta’s hand glanced off the steel spaulder protecting Deothen’s right shoulder. Still kneeling next to Mardak’s body, he whipped about and planted the point of his sword against the woman’s chest. She froze.

As the knight stood, his blade’s point still on Priscinta, he gazed at the woman. She had barely come out of the kitchen since the knights had arrived to break bread with Mardak. Her right eye was puffy and bruised from when Mardak had struck her earlier in the day. Her lip was broken and bleeding, but that wound was fresh. Fear warred with righteous anger in her eyes.

“It… it was the vampire,” Priscinta said, stumbling over her words.

Deothen didn’t need the favors of his god to know the words were lies. This had been a good woman, he could tell, and such deceptions did not come naturally to her. He winced to hear her continue on.

“It bent Mardak’s mind to its will,” Priscinta said. “He attacked me.” She fought back a dry sob. Madness danced in her eyes. “I had to defend myself.”

Deothen pulled back his blade but held it at the ready. Priscinta dropped the cleaver and sagged. She looked a great deal older than she had that afternoon.

“Did you fear these dusty remains might have done the same to me?” Deothen whispered.

Priscinta shrugged and looked away. A single tear ran down her bruised and beaten face. “We live in a strange and unknowable world. Who can say what is possible?” Her gaze fell on her husband’s corpse. Deothen could see that Mardak’s eyes were frozen wide in surprise, although they were buried blind under a patina of the vampire’s dust.

“Please don’t tell my son,” Priscinta said as she fell back on her knees, tears streaming down her face. She pleaded madly with the knight. “Isn’t it bad enough he’s lost his father?”

Deothen felt ill.