Uncivilized

[Belatucadrus]

For days the man lay contentedly in slumber. Never moving, never breathing, never so much as hinting that there were thoughts wheeling about in his mind. A mannequin or a corpse that refused to decompose, immaculately dressed in the same clothes he'd worn for decades. A week long slumber was nothing to him. Servants grew older, accustomed to months or even years without seeing their master's static face.

Sleep, for him, was a peaceful meditation. His mind worked when he commanded it, and like all meditations thoughts cropped up now and then of their own volition, compelled to surface by workings of the mind even he did not yet control.

He thought about his projects. He thought about what to do with his child. He thought about how much time was left.

And so the days passed.

* * *

"Master."

Red eyes snapped open. It was Leyssa, the quarter elven girl he stole from her parents when she was only an infant. Now a young woman, she was his most beautiful servant. Her voice was soft and sweet.

He remembered her - remembered training her as a girl. He could not recall the last time he'd taken a good look at her face to see how old she was. Her pale blue eyes looked back at him and they both knew that her memory of him was better than his of her.

She continued. "The town."

It was all that needed to be said. She knew him as intimately as any lover. There was no wish, no desire, no compulsion that each of his servants did not feel with him. His pain was their pain, and his satisfaction was their lives.

A leather clad hand reached up to touch her face and run fingers across her skin. Even with only a quarter elven blood in her, he could feel the high cheekbones and knew that her ancestry was there. She smiled at his touch, glad that he was pleased with what he saw.

"When is it?" His voice echoed her softness in his own baritone.

"Night."

He nodded, letting his hand drop away. "Tell the others to stay downstairs."

Leyssa nodded and immediately left his side to do his bidding like an obedient puppy so eager to please. He was pleased. Every generation they got so much closer to perfect.

[Lightswords]

Having thoroughly enjoyed themselves at the tavern, several of the armed and armoured did their rounds. These rounds consisted of drunken singing of rediculous songs at high volume, walking back and forth around a few houses as they bellow their tunes. Among the advantages of carrying swords or axes was that few of the locals would be likely to come out and insist they keep the noise down.

This was a new entertainment they picked up, wanting to see if any of the locals would muster the nerve to interfere, and wanting to brawl with those who did. There had been brawls so far, and while this was fun Nurband had forbidden them from getting too organised about this. Mistreating the locals meant nothing to him, but acting on a large scale would force the village to react in numbers.

As a result, the group contented themselves with harrassing a gathering of three or four houses near the hill. Tired of walking, they sat down and continued their bawling while dealing with necessary personal chores. Sharpening weapons, waxing bowstrings, and so on. Eventually one came to relieve himself at the back of a house. This was not a latrine, which only added to their amusement.

While continuing their games, none of them were paying any attention to the outside world, confident in their numbers should any disruption come.

[Belatucadrus]

The cool, dry air of the outdoors hit him like a wall. Though the moonlight hurt his sensitive eyes, the vampire could see the whole town clearly from the balcony of his manor. He could smell the city nearby. The river, the trees, the smelters, even the people.

Turning toward the moon and facing the wind, he looked into its glory. To the vampire, the moon shone as bright as a lantern held a meter away. It hurt his eyes and even his very flesh to be under its rays, but always he tried to resist and feel the reflection of the sun for a short time.

It made him feel ill. It always did. This night it was nearly full, and the only clouds could be seen on the horizon throwing bolts of lightning at the mountains around Zeikonspeire.

"Fitting."

He turned away and the wind carried silken black hair over his face, comfortably masking him from the light. Through the strands of hair he looked at the town below and tried to gauge from where he stood what Leyssa had heard or seen. If she knew more she would have told him.

Scanning the farmhouses he saw little obvious destruction. The majority of them, from where he stood, seemed in order. He could not see the broken windows and doors or the women and children hiding in their rooms away from the bandits. No marauding army had flatted his project - yet.

A pinprick of light stabbed his eye like a needle. Even from half a mile away it hurt. Wincing to shield sensitive lenses, he struggled to continue looking and see what was there. Time made a trail of smoke and men around a fire more obvious. The glint of steel off the fire told of weapons.

But were they alone?

Summoning but a meager portion of his strength, the vampire pulled shadows from the manor around him into a mass of tendrils that wrapped his body like the embrace of an angry Cephalopod. The tendrils lifted him high above the roof and held him there, hugging his features with the intimacy of a lover's fingers.

Once high enough that he could see the majority of the Sooqui plane, he searched again. Through a slit in the shadows that wrapped his face he saw them. More pinpricks of light and shadows moving about. His eyes cut through the darkness as a mortal man's would on the clearest day. They were there. He could not see how many, but there enough to be seen, and that was too many. Staring longer, he began to feel them.

It angered him to see wolves encroaching on his territory. They could test the might of Marn any time they wanted. The Marnians were untouchable by any ragtag force... But Shim. Shim was his business.

The tentacles pulled him back down faster than freefall and back onto the roof where he once more faced those who disturbed the sanctity of his down. Unblinking eyes stared. Grizzly options turned over in his mind.

"Your scouts will learn."

[Belatucadrus]

Gingerly, Belatucadrus removed the fine black coat he wore and let it lay on the balcony rail for the servants to find later. The white shirt he wore beneath followed it, leaving him bare chested. His skin was ivory white, hairless and perfect. The muscles wrapping his skeleton were not real. Frozen in time from his mortal years, a few minor adjustments with his abilities gave him just the right physique - designed to impress or to scare, he had as much muscle as the build of an aristocrat could carry.

The last to come off were the gloves. Leather slid of his hands for the first time in months. He meant to use his powers to their full extent. The time for civility was over. Once the gloves were folded and placed neatly on top of the shirt, it ended.

* * *

He moved through the trees with the speed and grace of a creature from nightmares. Where his physical body limited his movement, the shadows assisted. They hugged the trees and pillowed his limbs, pooling into the ground to fill gaps and spilling over the terrain like a jar of ink toppled from the roof of Kaledin Manor. There was nothing real about the way the vampire moved. A corpse animated by threads of magic.

When the smells and sounds of the mortals became loud enough he slowed his dash and floated silently, inches off the ground. Eventually the trees gave way and he could see them as they engaged in their loutish diversions.

Plebeians. Worthless brutes. Careless. Wolves out of their element. Fodder, wasting the gifts of their lives away and begging him to take that gift back for them. He watched them for some time, listening to them. Smelling them.

Instinct returned. He recalled centuries past.

"Yes..." His voice dripped with lust.

One of the men left the group to relieve himself. Belatucadrus followed behind the line of trees until he had a good position to strike. Once the man's pants were down, he shot forth.

There was no time to react. Clawed fingers were inside the man's neck by the time he looked up, cutting off air to his vocal chords as well as the nerves leading to his arms and legs. The only sound he made was the rattle of blood sputtering from between folds of flesh and once-white fingers.

Easily resiting the temptation to devour his victim, the vampire was not about to let this man's suffering end. Surgical precision and familiarity with anatomy kept the major arteries to his brain untouched. With a thrust of his arm he pushed the man into the back of the house and leaned in close, staring into his eyes.

"You will live."

The another exhale and a spray of blood was all the man could muster as a reply.

When the vampire's free hand touched the man's face, flesh and bone obeyed him of their own volition. Though the man quivered in pain and fear, defecated and urinated, struggled to move any muscle he could to escape the pain, there was no mercy for him. All he found was sadism and a perverse enjoyment of the intimacy required to perform the task at hand without letting him die. Back and forth the eyes rolled, through with their pathetic attempts to plead with the demon.

The demon began to play. He began to create.

The process took many minutes. Everything he knew about the proper structure of the human figure had to be defiled, but still it had to function. The man's face was ruined first. His mouth sealed shut callously with teeth protruding out at odd angles to provide a tiny hole from which to breathe once the windpipe was reconnected. One eye was also sealed, but the other left permanently open, bulging forth with a size usually hidden.

What happened to the limbs was worse. Bones were twisted and malformed. Joined at odd angles and ended at others. Joints were twisted to bend the wrong way but the muscles were left attached so that when a signal came from the brain to move one way, the opposite gesture resulted. A hand was turned around. Fingers twisted too, mangled as a leper's.

When Belatucadrus was finished, what remained was anything but a man. A quivering lump of flesh that walked on two feet and one hand. As a crowning touch, just to see if it could be done, to see if anyone might get the joke other than him, he placed one of the man's thumbs as a protrusion from what was left of the man's forehead. There was no time to make it work, but it was good enough.

The next part was a tricky task possible only after years of experimentation on hundreds of subjects. Reaching around behind his new creation, close enough to be an embrace, he used his fingers to reattach the nerves in the spine. Immediately the limbs twitched and writhed around.

"Now show them all what a beauty you've become."

Belatucadrus smiled. He turned the body towards the light of the fire and the way to his comrades, pushed his hand into the creature's neck again and grasped the fluid spitting windpipe. When it was pushed into place again, the screaming started. Slowly at first, but the pain and terror was unbearable.

A gentle nudge was enough to send the creature hobbling forward. It could not even fall over. Just enough of the features of the face were left to make it recognizable, and some of the clothes remained, ragged and shredded.

The vampire walked the other way, his chest and arms covered in blood and gore. The night was just beginning.

[Lightswords]

The mercenary lived, but was far from grateful for the fact.

Although the vampire's ministrations left him recognisable, there was the question; as what?

The screaming was most satisfying, both from the first victim and from the onlookers. Those shouts bore mixed terror and anger. A calm, rational mind would register various clues suggesting that this was the fate suffered by their friend, though when confronted by grotesque and shambling horrors seldom brought about calm, rational minds.

Arrows pierced it's form, accompanied by further shouts of alarm. Only once the creature died gurgling in it's own blood did they study the face. Shock and horror ran deeper than compassion in this group, and had they thought to recognise their fellow in advance they may have shot him down in disgust anyway. Stunned by the appearance of this warped abomination, they stood over the body dumbly for several long moments before forming a plan of action. They would scour the shadows around them for more threats and then run back to base.

Base was a cluster of bivouacs used by Captain Nurband and his men. These chose to densely pack their cluster, for the simple reason of security in the weight of numbers - for the 'guests' to discourage their 'hosts' from slashing the throats of sleepers. When a gang of panicked mercenaries burst in looking for the Captain, he forced himself awake and took them seriously.

Gathering his favourite troops, Nurband went to make his own investigations of the body. Those brought with him were hardened, seasoned fighters. Survivors of many battles who had earned themselves better arms and armour than the standard skinflint fare. These wore steel coats of various descriptions and larger swords or axes. The frightened soldiers showed the way.

Upon finding the altered corpse, Nurband changed his plan and began finding every bivuoac he could to rouse others from their beds. Everyone was drafted to the effort of finding the cause of this.

Groups between eight and fifteen patrolled the village, cautiously treading the area and holding weapons in hand. At the very least, there would be little sleep tonight.

[Belatucadrus]

Bela watched the proceedings from relatively plain sight. Lurking not to hide from their eyes, but to hide his own eyes from the lights they needed to see. Their reaction to the mutilated man told him about what kind of men they were and how much combat they'd seen. These barbarians had to die.

He paced behind the retreating party from just off the side of the road, stepping over patches of wet earth and grasses in the ditch on pools like black ice. It was trivial to bend the will and minds of these weaklings so that they didn't see him. Standing off the side of the road made the task of obfuscating himself from them even more so.

While he watched, he listened for information. Not only their names were important, but everything about them gave him clues as to where they were from and what they were doing in Shim. They did not reveal much of value, but the name Nurband came up.

He did not enter their camp for many reasons, primary among them being that he did not know who or what would be there. Already he found more than he expected for a mere scouting party, which led him to believe that this was something else. Recreation perhaps.

A direct confrontation with so many men would ruin his plans. While they talked he remained out of line of sight, and once the second party set out to investigate the scene, he followed again. There and back. His hunger grew. They were all mortals. None alone was a threat - only the group as a whole. And they searched for him in packs.

The vampire knew what to do. The blood on his body smelled so good it made him hungry even as it dried. The men would be a feast, but Nurband was the prize. Nurband would live as well.

* * *

With the bivouacs mostly empty and the men on their patrols, the vampire strode into their camp while casually using one hand to shield his eyes from any torches or fires they had going.

The first man to see him died quickly, brained by a quick swipe of claws that left gore and malformed bone strewn over the side of one of the bivouacs. When the man inside the structure came out to see what had just happened, shadows wrapped around his mouth and limbs and held him down. He struggled valiantly, nearly freeing himself, but this only forced the vampire to continue asphyxiating him until he surrendered. Suffocating a man was easy when you could fill his nose and mouth with something solid.

With the man alive and watching, Bela moved around the encampment and pulled the next person he found out into the open. Silenced by a hole in his windpipe and confused by a blow to the head, the vampire carried him out by the back of the neck and held him up for the living man to see. One by one the man's libs fell to the ground while his body twitched and flailed in protest until he was nothing but a torso and head. Into the pile of limbs went the torso, and into the next bivouac went the vampire.

This one had two men in it. Neither was prepared, but it took considerable effort to bring them outside alive as well. He brought their heads together to stun them, and then dragged them out as before. The vampire held their faces up to their comrade so he could see their expressions while he pushed their heads together like putty. They flailed and one screamed. Bela had to drop them in their half glued-together state to deal with the repercussions of that scream.

Three more men emerged. One was lucky enough to have his heart sliced in half by ebony claws before he knew what was happening. Another took a slap across the face which left him a bloody and disfigured mess on the ground. The third was the unfortunate one.

Still struggling and trying to break free, Bela brought this third and final man back to the captive living one. He bit into this one's neck and began to drink. The struggling stopped immediately, but the man was alive for a time as the vampire feasted. Eventually the blood ran dry and his eyes rolled back into his head, his body left pale and thinner than before. It fell to the ground on top of the severed limbs and torso.

Only partially satiated from his snack, the vampire leaned towards the remaining man.

"Hold still..."

Not offering much of an option otherwise, the vampire suffocated the man again until he was unconscious, lifted him over his head, shoved his hand through the flesh and bone of his lower back, and pulled a long spike of solid bone out. Off came both legs, and then down came the spike of bone - into the soil. There was almost no blood. The man was crucified on his own back and dangled a foot off the ground.

(cont.. )

[Belatucadrus]

The coppery taste of blood always brought back a flood of memories, many of them so old and distant they might have happened to another man. Like comparing fine wine, each man, woman and child had a taste of their own. There were subtle distinctions on a palette only a connoisseur could detect, though the experience was more akin to biting into a ripe fruit than tasting wine. It was fresh and full of life, and it was there to be consumed all at once.

For Bela a single man was little more than a cherry. One was barely a thing. No conscious decision was made to drink him so dry that his heart had nothing left to pump. It would be strange and take effort to eat only half a cherry. The real feast still remained before him. The first taste lingered in his mouth and stained his teeth pink.

In his mind he knew the cherries had souls and that each one had a story to tell. Some sliver of humanity within him, purposefully cared for and groomed as the only means by which he could ever function within a society, made him treat each kill as a work of art in the very least. It romanticized his slaughters as the act of some cruel, divine justice. There was something poetic in taking another life. Each one unique, but too many to remember. That part of him had some respect and understanding for what he was doing. It was an academic acknowledgment rooted in purpose, but not emotion.

As the citizens of Shim knew from the days when they tried to revolt against him, his thoughtfulness did not make him anything but a monster. Everyone involved paid the price then. Whole families were consumed by his hunger. Men, women, and children. It was one of the few times he truly satiated himself. Opportunities for personal indulgence on such a scale were rare.

These bandits, barbarians, or whatever title they chose to brand themselves with, presented him with that opportunity again. After drinking from one with such abandon, the monster within him shook loose of its shackles. It had permission to gorge on the cattle walking his streets. Dozens of large, healthy men.

He wasted no time tracking down the first of the roaming gangs. With so many men looking for him, stealth and surprise were still important. He dispatched them in a hurry to keep their cries from alerting others. By playing with their minds, he kept them too confused to coordinate. When one tried to yell, he found himself without a head immediately. Two others wore armor that prevented a similar fate. They died of suffocation. The rest were carved like butter.

When the fight was over the vampire drank their blood. One after the other, he tore their throats open and feasted. Drinking and drinking, the warm fluid of each one filled his body with the life that was once theirs. He gave in like a starving man seeing food for the first time in days, and soon ecstasy overtook him. By the time he was finished he was holding the decapitated corpse over himself and pouring what came out into his open maw. Rivulets of the red liquid covered his entire body, soaking his pants and hair.

If he were alive, his chest would have been heaving with the combination of pleasure and rage that he felt. Instead he only stood there, wide eyed and staring at the night around him. Distant lights from some of the houses stabbed at his eyes but the pain felt good. His bloodlust hung so thick in the air he could see it tinting his world in shades of red.

He wanted more. He wanted to swim in them while they were still alive.

The gore on his cold skin dried quickly in the night air, but the stench remained and even grew stronger. He reveled in it as it filled his nostrils.

The next party he found saw him coming. He was not thinking clearly and didn't care if they saw him. He wanted them to fight, and fight they did. Upon seeing his visage they formed a tight protective group and called for reinforcements. In the middle of that call he was on top of them like a madman. His complete disregard for his own safety and the ineffectiveness of their attacks caught them by surprise.

Weapons pierced his body and came through the other side. He howled, but not in pain. All teeth and claws, he dug into their group by finding every open patch of vital flesh he could. Muscles and entrails flew through the air. The men fought back, punching and swinging, trying to throw him off their comrades or deal a fatal blow, but he was too fast and too strong. No man could will his body to move like this creature.

The last of the group tried to run and found himself held a few inches off the ground with a hand inside his chest, clutching his still beating heart. The vampire held him there from behind. When a pair of fangs sunk into his neck, he stopped trying to clutch at his shirt.

More arrived just in time to see this. The pool of blood and pile of blanched corpses made them think twice about engaging. Instead, they riddled the monster's back with arrows - one of them finding its place in the base of his skull. It made a sound like striking a wet melon.

It hurt him. All of the wounds did, but there was nobody home to care. Pain while in a rage gave him strength and made him feel alive. The monster was not only feeding off their blood, it was feeding off their strength. If they could kill it, it would still be enjoying itself.

Slowly Belatucadrus turned around and stared at them. With a back like an overgrown porcupine, oozing the concentrated vitae of the dead, his expression was one of pleasure and open invitation. Though his white skin could barely be seen at all in the dim torchlight and through the inches of gore, he was already healed from the earlier wounds. Rather than be tired from the fight, he was more energized than before it began. The blood he consumed far outweighed the blood he'd lost, and he still wanted more.

He wanted more, and he was going to take it from them by force.

[Lightswords]

Plenty of blood could be found, for one willing to fight for it.

The macabre crucifixion had been discovered. A patrol checked back at the bivouac and discovered him dangling above the earth. Stricken with superstitious fear by the events of the night, no one moved to touch him. They did, however, ask him questions. Which were answered.

They knew the thing that done this feasted on blood. They knew the creature reshaped flesh and bone. They knew the creature wielded shadows as a weapon, with which to suffocate or restrain it's victims. They knew what they were fighting was a vampire. A powerful one at that.

Armed with this knowledge, they chose light and fire as their main weapons for this conflict. Each of the men carried torches, which was only wise when searching at night. These now took priority over the short stabbing swords of most. This group found another, and another, they knew which patrols were where. This was not some random, chaotic wandering, but an organised search.

And they found Nurband. His patrol were armoured horsemen, grouped together. These were the best armed and equipped, most with torches as well as blades, and they responded with little doubt to the news after the horrors of the night.

So he did what any captain would have done. He had everyone light bright torches, both for illumination to drive back what horrors might approach, and a ready flame on hand to cause more meaningful wounds to the beast should it attack. Swords seemed meaningless right now. Or so they had been.

Gathering what surviving troops he may, Nurband attempted to bring everyone to the safety of the Red Chalice. A brightly lit room, with a gathered total of more than fourty present, armed with many open flames. There, they would shelter from the siege of the night until they could wait for the dawn.

[Belatucadrus]

Their comrades didn't respond to their yells. If the vampire's mind wasn't so distracted by the immediate situation, he would have been disappointed by that turn. The lot of them attacking him at once would have been a real challenge. A clean swing to the head or enough burning arrows had the potential to kill him outright. He no longer wore the full plate armor and thick metal neck guard of his distant past. That stuff made him invincible to everything but magic, but it was hard to enjoy combat while so restricted.

Without reinforcements the present group of men fell much the same as the others. The few with torches tried to use them to drive him back, and succeeded in keeping the shadows away, but it was hardly enough to stop Bela in a rage. He threw himself at them and took off their torch-wielding hands by crushing them at the wrist. Those who tried to run found their feet entangled in black vines.

A lucky swing from a sword by one of the more skilled and armored opponents connected and severed his own hand. It splattered syrupy red liquid all over the ground and withered into a useless husk in seconds.

This infuriated the vampire. He got in close to his new nemesis, holding the sword hand back with what was left of his stump, and grabbed the top of the man's cuirass with claws that penetrated into his collar. Several powerful bashes with his forehead turned the thug's face into a broken mess, and a few more cracked his skull and killed him outright.

The last of the men down, and none showing up to assist, gave Bela some time to feed and heal. Still straddling the mostly-headless body of the man who removed his hand, he Grabbed the man's sleeve, brought it to his mouth, and bit down to hold it in place. Ebony claws sliced cleanly through the rest of the arm, just below the elbow, so that the top half dangled from the vampire's mouth.

He placed his new hand against the stump of his old one, and after a few seconds of manipulation he could flex the fingers naturally. The hand did not match the rest of him. Its skin colour was off, it was hairy and more muscled. It did not have his wonderful claws, but it would do. In time, it would blend in.

Feeding from the bodies and removing the arrows from his back took some time as well. He could taste the metal from the one that pierced his head. Removing it was quite unpleasant, even in his condition. By the end he had the vitae of well over a dozen fully grown men in him, and had lost much less than half of it through bleeding and using his powers. Only two hours remained of proper darkness, and then the sun would begin to rise and spill its horrible rays like lava over the countryside.

Looking around again, it wasn't hard for him to spot the congregation headed for The Chalice. Their torches gave them away like a beacon, reflecting gold off trees and farmhouses.

Local farmers were awake and watching from behind the pitiful safety of their windows, trying to see without being seen. On his way toward Nurband's party, Bela caught a set of eyes glistening from behind one of those windows. It drew his attention like a magnet. Food for a still hungry beast, it stopped him in his tracks.

Drawn only by his hunger, he stalked towards the window, completely forgetting about the more important goals. The corners of his vision flushed out until all he could see was the window, and the food that sat helplessly inside staring back in innocent curiosity.

The girl knew who he was from the stories her father told her, but she'd never seen the Lord of Shim before. Her father said he was taking care of the bad men ruining their village and stealing their food, and that they had to stay inside, but she forgot all of the other stories. About how he was always angry and ferocious like the things in the woods. It wasn't until the moonlight hit him right and she could see him clearly that she got scared. He was covered in something gooey...

A pair of large hands grabbed the girl from behind and pulled her away from the window, one covering her mouth so she couldn't scream.

Belatucadrus paused. The food was gone, hiding in its home. The home of one of the farmers, one of his people. Bornyn's home.

Bornyn was a simple and honest man - the kind that belonged alive.

The thinker held the monster back, reasoning with it the only way it could. She was only one and she was small. There would be others and the others were big. The others would fight, the girl would be fleeting. Forget about her, she's hiding somewhere by now...

Finally the monster listened and the thinker sat back. Belatucadrus continued on towards the party. They were almost to the Red Chalice with all their torches. They left the others to die because they wanted to hide.

It ran to catch them before they made it inside. If they could huddle in there his only choice would be to set the place ablaze and drive them out. Cowards. Unlike the girl, they knew what they were doing.

When he was closer he could see that there were lots of them still, some on horses. Many armored. Almost all with torches. They left the monster with very few options. It had to be done one at a time until they were few. By then the sun would spill over the hills.

It needed to fulfill its immediate desire for blood. The torchlight made it hard for the shadows to reach them, but enough effort and careful timing and one of the tendrils forced itself forward and snagged the foot of one of the unarmored men at the rear. Before he could even think about using the torch to get it off, it yanked him into some cover at the side of the road, hard enough to twist the ankle into a mess.

The vampire fed quickly. Two seconds and a messy job of desperation split the neck wide open. The men of course reacted in their own way. Belatucadrus' answer was to throw the corpse end over end into their midst and at one of the horses. Only a glimpse of a barely human figure showed before it disappeared from sight, as if vanishing - a play using the shadows and the minds of the humans.

There was no time, there was simply no time. The monster ruined its chance to take them all easily. Confronted with their whole force it knew it could not get all of what it wanted.

The thinker returned. Only it could solve puzzles like this, but the thinker also knew that twenty men was enough for a long time. An orgy of blood was a fleeting opportunity. Such things came and went. Desires needed to be curbed.

This bunch was going to escape if they fought. He needed to convince them fighting was pointless.

Shadows all around the trees and bushes reached up to the night sky, produced like living tar from all the dark places created by torchlight they pooled and coalesced, dancing and pulsing with some ethereal fury. The shape grew large enough to threaten the whole troupe. Whatever was controlling them remained hidden inside.

"Leave my food."

[Lightswords]

"Guys! We hold out until sunrise, and burn the fucker if he comes too close. Then we get the hell out of this dump, and just so we're clear, make sure nothing's left alive. Not a peasant, not livestock, not a fly. Kill everything, and make a forced march through the day. Move across open ground, where there's no shelter from the daylight, so he can't chase us and be back in one night."

Nurband himself was convinced to get the hell out of here, and ransacking the village would replace some of what this damnable venture cost him so far. He'd lose the contract, and half his men. Losing men was not unusual, most new recruits died every year, which was why he was a skinflint in their equipment.

"Or you can give us another option." Nurband barked to the shape of darkness.

"Captain..." one timid voice offered, "Maybe we should do what he says."

"Quiet! We do that we give him the perfect chance to kill us all!" Then he tried to bargain with the creature. "I've lost too much of my company, I've lost too many men now to afford to lose this season's contract, and if I've lost that you lose something too."

"... not kill all the villagers..." muttered one voice.

"It's revenge for your fallen comrades!" shouted Nurband at the dissent he was confronted with. "We don't let this bastard get away with this! So monster, what's it gonna be? Do I get back some of what you took from me, or do we leave only ash behind us for you to feed on?"

Too much... Not what I signed up for... Going mad... These were the mutters in the background. The only reason they quietened was because of the immediate threat of the vampire.