"My father's preferred opening," Sebastian continued, his voice remaining unnaturally detached. "Spinal severance precisely between the third and fourth vertebrae. Causes total paralysis while maintaining consciousness. Allows him to feed at leisure while the victim remains aware."
Boarstaff remained perfectly still, though Sebastian could detect his elevated heart rate. It wasn’t fear, but the natural response to a predator's proximity. Around them, the warriors had gone deathly silent, horror dawning as they understood what they were witnessing.
Sebastian moved again, this time demonstrating a strike aimed at Boarstaff's side, directly where Zarek's blade had left its scar years before.
"Zarek's specialty," Sebastian explained, fingers tracing the old wound without actually touching it. "The initial cut appears survivable, but the blade is designed to leave microscopic brass fragments that spread through the bloodstream. Death comesslowly, over days, as the fragments reach the heart. He doesn’t care that the blood is undrinkable."
Each demonstration grew more clinical, more precise. Sebastian moved through the entire repertoire of vampire noble combat techniques; throat strikes, organ targeting, pressure points that would paralyze rather than kill, allowing for extended feeding. Throughout it all, he never actually touched Boarstaff, stopping each lethal movement a fraction before contact.
The watching warriors remained transfixed, their expressions shifting from initial horror to grim understanding. This wasn't just combat… it was calculated predation refined over centuries.
"And this," Sebastian said, his hand positioned over Boarstaff's heart, "is what we're taught from our first training session. The killing strike is never the goal. Pain is. Prolonging consciousness while feeding is. Death is merely the final inconvenience when a resource is depleted."
He stepped back then, the focused intensity fading from his posture. His movements slowed, became more deliberate as he reined in the training that had briefly taken over. Sebastian felt hollow, emptied by the performance. He had accessed parts of himself he'd hoped to leave behind forever, pathways in his mind that led to places he no longer wished to visit. Yet seeing the horror on the warriors' faces, he knew Boarstaff had been right. The young orc warriors needed to understand exactly what they faced.
"That," Sebastian addressed the silent crowd directly, "is what awaits you at the border. Not me playing at a challenge. Not carefully controlled demonstration. But centuries of engineered precision designed for one purpose… efficient predation."
Boarstaff remained in the ring's center, his breathing carefully controlled despite having been the focus of Sebastian's demonstration. "And that," he added, his voice carrying to every warrior present, "is what Sebastian chose not to do when facing Thornmaker. What he chooses not to do every day he remains among us."
Understanding had replaced suspicion in Thornmaker's expression. "You could’ve killed me instantly," he said, reassessment evident in his tone. "Not just defeated me,destroyed me beyond any possibility of defense."
"Yes," Sebastian acknowledged simply. "As could my brothers. As would my father without hesitation." His gaze met Thornmaker's directly. "Which is why your challenge was both brave and foolish. And why Boarstaff was right. You needed to see this."
The warriors exchanged glances, their perception irreversibly altered by what they'd witnessed. Not just vampire capability, but the stark difference between what Sebastian could do and what he chose to do.
"We train against scouts," one warrior observed quietly. "Against hunting parties. We've never..."
"Never seen what awaits if the noble houses decide our territory is worth taking directly," Boarstaff finished for him. "This is what Sebastian has been trying to tell us. What his transformation doesn't change, his knowledge of what comes if his father mobilizes."
Sebastian moved to the ring's edge, deliberately putting distance between himself and the gathered orcs. The demonstration had left him visibly unsettled, his movements guarded and careful. His body remembered those techniques too well, too eagerly. The ease with which he had slipped back into his former mindset frightened him more than he wantedto admit. Had his transformation truly changed him, or merely veiled what he would always be at his core?
"Now you understand," he said, fighting to keep his voice steady. "Why I warned your rescue party about the patrol patterns. Why I fought my brother instead of returning to my father's house. Why the child… Sarah needed to be saved." His voice dropped lower. "And why I can never go back."
Thornmaker approached slowly, his demeanor transformed from earlier hostility. Where before there had been only suspicion and hatred, now there was something more complex, wariness mixed with reluctant respect.
"The way you moved just now," he observed, "it wasn't just technique. It was..."
"Instinct," Sebastian finished. "Trained into me over centuries until it became second nature. My father's instruction, refined into physical memory that never truly leaves." His expression darkened. "No matter how much I might wish otherwise."
Boarstaff rejoined them, his presence somehow easing the tension that had gathered around Sebastian during the demonstration. "Which makes his restraint all the more significant," he stated, his voice carrying to all present. "Not just choice, but constant resistance against what has been carved into his very nature."
The three stood together in the morning light, warchief, spearmaster, and transformed vampire, each representing something their peoples had never imagined possible. Not friendship, not yet. But understanding that transcended centuries of justified hatred.
"Train them," Sebastian said suddenly, the words emerging before he'd fully considered their implications. "Not just against scouts or hunting parties, but against what truly awaits if yourborders are breached. Against what my brothers can do with centuries of engineered precision."
"Such knowledge could save lives," Thornmaker acknowledged, surprise evident in his tone. "If our warriors understood what they truly face..."
"Then they might survive long enough to develop counters," Sebastian finished. "Not perfect ones, my father's enhancements are designed specifically to overcome natural defenses. But better than the ignorance that currently sends them to slaughter."
The proposition hung in the morning air, weighted with implications none of them had considered before this moment. Training that would require trust beyond anything either of their peoples had extended in generations of conflict.
"I will consider it," Boarstaff said finally, his voice carrying the measured caution of leadership. "After the council has been briefed on today's... revelations."
As the gathering began to disperse, Boarstaff turned to Sebastian. "Walk with me," he offered, gesturing toward the path that led to the Heart Tree. "There is much to discuss."
Sebastian shook his head. The performance had taken more from him than he'd anticipated. Accessing those old patterns had brought back not just the movements but the mindset, the clinical detachment, the calculating focus, the way his father had taught him to view living beings as merely resources. He needed solitude to recenter himself, to reaffirm that he was more than the weapon his father had crafted.
"Not now," he said quietly. "I need to be alone."
