An interfolk miner stumbles out of a nearby tent with a wail, hands raised in surrender. She shows her back to a vampire, fleeing, but she’s weighed down by her helmet and boots, which look oversized on her gangly frame.
The vampire charges, skewers her in the back like Cordea did to our adversary, and finishes the miner off with a quick slice across the throat.
“No!” I howl as the girl’s screams are cut off on a gurgle of blood and agony.
Screaming, I rush forward. Cordea says something I can’t hear past the blasting of my heart in my ears. She’s forced to join me as I charge the murderer head-on. I leap over the dead interfolk’s body and spin with my blades.
The vampire, caught off-guard, seethes and crouches low to avoid my attacks, catching my smaller shortsword across the face. His head whips to the side, a shallow cut on his gaunt cheek, spilling nary a drop of blood from the starved bloodsucker.
Cordea comes in next, her cloak fluttering as she pushes through the smoke and swings her thin blade.
We work in tandem, flanking the vampire—two strikes from me, one from Cordea, our blades blurring with precision and speed.
The vampire is trained well and does an admirable job fending us off, avoiding our deepest cuts and earning only small gashes across his forearms and thighs. Unlike if he was a human, the pain is not enough to stop him, and he goes on the attack.
At the same time, I spy a vampire crouched over a figure to my right. The person on the ground twitches, feet hopping, whilethe vampire lifts his bloody maw from a massive bite and spews blood from his mouth in ecstatic glee.
Growling, I cut right, yelling, “Take care of this one!” to Cordea, hoping she’s skilled enough to take him alone.
I charge at the crouched vampire, passing a tent—
A cry of despair reaches my ears from the tent flap—
Two seconds before a small blur tackles me in the side, taking me to the ground.
With a cry, I topple.
An interfolk miner straddles my chest, teeth bared but looking very human. She has no weapon. Lanky brown hair frames her frightened, angry face. She raises her little fists to beat down on me. “Stop hurting my frien—”
“Iama friend!” I shout, stopping her pounding in midair. A look of confusion crosses her fair, soot-covered face as her lips form a small circle. She starts to give me a smile.
My eyes widen at the shadow looming behind her. “Move!” I cry—
Just as the crouched vampire launches over from his meal and bites into the side of her neck. I witness the fangs dig deep into her throat, five inches above me.
The hope on the interfolk’s face twists into a mien of pain and she screeches. As she spins around, blood jets from her artery, ripping layers of flesh. She flops off me, convulsing, spraying gore across the beige earth, and reaches for her neck with a wide-eyed stun.
“Fuck!” I roll as the vampire dips down to claw at me. Blood drips from his lips onto my face as I avoid him and skitter to my feet.
He charges again, trying to claw into my gut. I swing my blade down in a defensive parry, biting into his wrist. With a squeal, the bloodsucker steps back—
Not before I saw into his wrist with myothersword and dismember him.
He screeches and stumbles back—
Directly into a shadow made flesh.
A hulking figure emerges from the vampire’s shadow like an ogre-sized apparition, towering over the vampire.
My pained heart swells.
Vallan Stellos roars, wraps his giant biceps around the vampire in a bear hug from behind, and lifts the vampire off his feet. He bites into the bloodsucker’s neck with a savage bellow, lost to his bloodrage.
My throat hitches as I take a step forward.
A smaller, quicker form materializes from the shadow of the dying, twitching interfolk girl at my feet.
Garroway catapults out of the shadow like a wraith on fire. His sword flashes at a nearby tent, bringing the tarp down and revealing another vampire feasting on another miner in the hidden confines of the tent.
