Open Chronicles The Attack on Fort Endurance

[Shisha]

Shisha seized Iber, and was about to turn and bring him back. He was a foolish one for running away when there may be more Wargheits about. She understood his panic; being chased down by something of her size wasn’t anyone’s idea of a good day. She was bigger than most war horses. Two-legs didn’t like being chased and tended to panic. He screamed about someone named Annette, and Shisha saw him draw the knife.

She shook him a bit, but it did no good. He wasn’t aiming at her. He drove the knife under his chin, and the Devourer dropped him in surprise. He’d ended his own life! Suicide wasn’t unheard of with Devourers; she had heard tales of old males suffering from war wounds ending it quietly in a lake. But not a young soldier, and not so swiftly!

Shisha nudged him, but he was dead. She picked him up in her mouth, and carried him back up to the rest of the soldiers. She didn’t understand. She knew he was dead but she didn’t know why. Was he so frightened of the dead Wargheit? What did he mean by Annette? She needed answers.

Zana
Trajan Meng

 

[Zana]

The blade parted its sweet kiss across her cheek and drew first blood.

It was surprise more than skill that allowed Annette to land the blow and Zana cursed herself for her own foolish recklessness. This woman might not have been a true Anirian guard but she must have had some training in order to be allowed on the mission and that meant that she had been trained well. Just because the Guards did not always possess their own magics did not make them easy targets; Talus and the people she had met had shown her that.

It was only a knife so it seemed pointless to draw her blade forged in the flame of a dragons breath. It deserved more worthy opponents than this. Instead she settled back into hand to hand grappling. One hand came up to grab at the girls wrist and she wrenched it hard in an attempt to get her to drop the blade. If she too was unarmed then the immediate threat would be gone; an idiot with a knife was sometimes worse than a skilled fighter. But a scared fighter? That was deadlier.

"Your creatures have been defeated, give it up girl. Tell us why you have done this."

 

[Trajan Meng]

Annette did indeed drop the knife as her thumb lost grip on it. But her desperation was acute, and she did not relent.

She tried to headbutt Zana square in the nose.

* * * * *​

With the Wargheits dead the Guardsmen were being dispersed out with shouted commands from sergeants and officers. Some to stay in the courtyard in case of any strange, undeath-related contingencies, some to reestablish security and man the walls again, some to assess the damage and to begin collecting and organizing the dead. Few were as yet aware to the unfolding drama between Annette and Zana. Commander Farrus, being one of them once he heard Zana talking, had a glance over his shoulder and a moment of alarmed bewilderment as a Guardswoman was attempting to strike the Dreadlord.

* * * * *​

Trajan stared down at the corpse of the fiend as if his gaze were the only thing keeping it dead. It seemed so. That baleful glow in its eyes had gone out and did not emerge again, nor were there any embers or hints of such. He'd a moment to ponder then the meaning behind the attack, strange as it was to think of it with a word like "meaning," considering these creatures. But they had to have come from somewhere. And two of them, at the same time, attacking a fort with a large garrison instead of some small, mostly defenseless town, as was often the wont with these sorts of beasts. It spoke of something sinister, and he'd a mind to confer with Farrus and Zana about it.

But he saw something as he finally did lifted his gaze from the dead fiend. The war beast, carrying a dead Anirian Guardsman. A few nearby Guardsmen were remarking on it, but were otherwise unconcerned and attended afterward to their assigned duties.

Trajan saw the hilt of the knife sticking out of the bottom of the Guardsman's jaw. He narrowed his brow in puzzlement, then approached the beast. It seemed well-trained enough.

"Whoa, whoa," he said, speaking in the only way he knew how to make a trained animal stop. He had his offhand held out and he touched briefly the dead Guardsman's head and helm, moving it about as if there might be some answer to the conundrum from a different angle. But there was none. The man was stabbed by what appeared to be his own knife, given the empty sheath.

"How in the hell did he manage that," Trajan said, musing aloud. He'd not even considered suicide a possibility, not for a Guardsman in the heat of a battle like this one; his first thought was that it was some manner of horrendous accident. Perhaps the body ought to be set aside, the matter investigated.

Shisha Zana

 

[Shisha]

Shisha stopped as Trajan held up his hands to her. She’d seen two-legs stop horses in the same way. Did he think of her as some dumb animal? Some cart horse to be stopped before she ran someone over? He was going to be in for a big surprise when she asked her price for killing the Wargheit, then. She let the man examine his companion, and put him down so he could get a better look.

At his musings, she tapped her paw and scratched in the soil. He said Annette before he stabbed himself. She wrote. She sniffed at the man. Well, she was still hungry and they were collecting the dead. There was something off about this one though. He didn’t smell like a freshly dead human. He smelled...different. She sniffed at his face, at the blood under his chin.

Like he’d been dead for weeks. She extended a claw and opened his mouth. If he was rotted on the inside, it would show there first. Instead she saw the fangs. Vampire. This one was undead. She reached out to lip at Trajan, snagging the dead man’s lip in her claw and lifting his head so the other could see the evidence of vampirism. This man had been dead before he’d walked into the fortress! Was that where the Wargheit had come from?

Trajan Meng
Zana

 

[Zana]

This time the Dreadlord would not so easily be caught off guard. As Annette slammed her head forward Zana pivoted on her right foot with an elegance more suited to that of a dancer than a fighter. She didn't release her grip on the woman's wrist however and as she came to a stop behind the woman's back she shoved the arm still in her grasp further up the woman's back. Smartly she brought up her foot in a well aimed kick to the back of the knees with the intention of driving the woman to her knees.

"I will repeat my question; tell us why," Zana's tone was not full of anger or malice but it was no less deadly. Her threat was as lethal as a naked blades edge despite the softness with which she spoke.

Her eyes flickered briefly up to the Commander in front of her then back to the woman under her grip.

"You were trying to kill him, why?"

 

[Trajan Meng]

The war beast was clawing at the dirt--wait. No. Not just clawing. Those were...those were words. Ventor's mighty sword, the beast could write. It was intelligent. And there was a time when Trajan would have saw this as nothing other than a threat, classifying Shisha into that great mass of perceived enemies beset against Mankind. Xenos, such was the pejorative adopted by the Luminari. But that was a time that was past, a long stretch of his life that rested between news of the Battle of Wandering Creek when he was a younger man and a chance encounter with a girl named Rumer in more recent days. He was a changed man, despite any lingering throes of his old way of life that might resurface, like the small crests of waves from the disturbance of a stilled lake.

Even so, a moment of reorienting was required for Trajan. For him to shift out of his prior perception of Shisha into one more appropriately considerate of a clear display of intelligence.

"Annette," he said, again musing aloud. He had killed himself on purpose, and there was significance in that surely, but this mention of someone named Annette was the more pressing unanswered question. Was this man, in truth, no more than a rare cowardly Guardsman, who had killed himself on a foolish whim, speaking the name of his wife or daughter or some other beloved as his last words?

Then the war beast--Trajan was at a lack for what else to call the large, armored creature that could indeed write--caught his attention. Opened the dead man's mouth and...

Fangs. Small, not so different from regular incisors, but fangs.

Trajan crouched, the head of his warhammer down on the ground, and got inspected more closely those fangs. Scoffed. "Vampire. The Dreadlord did suspect that these creatures were vampiric in nature. Yet they are fiends whose boldness extends only as far as the dark they cower within. But here they are, with two massive abominations attacking a stronghold--"

Two. Two massive abominations. And only one dead vampire before them.

Trajan looked as much as he could look at the eyeless war beast. Said, "Does it stand to reason that for two abominations, there could well be two vampires attending them? I fear that it might be so." The war beast had sniffed at man before exposing the fangs. Perhaps. He kept his voice low. If there was another, it could be any one of the Guardsmen about them in the courtyard. "Can you track the other by scent? If it is so, then this other, this Annette, mayhap, could still be--"

It was then that he heard a slight commotion. Commander Farrus even, not so far away, loudly demanding something.

* * * * *​

Where the hell was Iber when you actually needed him? This was the perfect time for him, if he had any damn sense, to be in a position to stab this mage in the back. Then Annette or him or both them could finish the mission and at least die without dooming all of their fellows of the Mulder clan in the process.

But there Annette was. Alone. Surrounded by the enemy. Brought down to her knees and one arm twisted behind her back. Being questioned and with slim chance of actually being able to wrench some kind of victory from the abyss of defeat.

Yet still, as she struggled, she looked back to Zana and answered with a growling sneer, "I thought his blood would be mighty tasty, you harlot!"

No purpose in hiding her vampirism anymore. It was either known or would be shortly enough.

Commander Farrus then, him along with several ranking Guardsmen, came up to Zana and the captive Annette. He had already made a quick assessment of the situation and he joined in seamlessly with Zana's questioning.

He demanded loudly, "Speak, woman! There is no clemency on offer for you, but we will have our answer. It is only a question of how much persuasion you will be able to endure. NOW SPEAK."

Annette laughed. A tiny, quiet sound, bereft of hope and full of defiant scorn. "Come closer. I'll whisper it in your ear. Commander."

Shisha Zana

 

[Shisha]

Two vampires, two monsters. One controlled by each? How did they sneak in to your fortress? I barely got in, and I had to play the stupid dog. Shisha wrote quickly. If there was another vampire then time was of the essence. He asked her if she could track by scent, and she nodded her chin. She needn’t have put much effort forth...there were shouts coming from the Commander’s direction. Shisha made a small noise in her noise, more of a short bark or bugle, and hurried toward the sounds.

She trotted, hurrying without wanting to seem like she was charging at the already-nervous group. The commander was shouting at a woman, presumably Annette, with the dread lord holding her arm behind her back. Shisha looked back at Trajan, and nodded her head at the captive vampire. That one stank of undeath.

Two vampires wouldn’t attack a fort alone. We’re these two powerful enough to make the monsters? Shisha patted the ground next to her words, and lipped at Trajan. There were more vampires somewhere...or they were under the orders of a more dominant vampire. Like insects sending out scouts.

Trajan Meng
Zana

 

[Zana]

The Dreadlord seized Annette's hair in a fist and yanked her head back. The very knife she had attempted to use on Zana was now in her hand and the sharpened edge pressed against the woman's throat. Of course, as a vampire, it would probably not be much of a threat but in her experience decapitation worked well enough on the vermin. As the knife bit into the woman's undead flesh, Zana couldn't help but find cold satisfaction in the fact the knife would draw the process out longer, painfully so. Reluctantly she pulled her mind back from the dark edge and raised her eyes to the pair who joined them. An eyebrow quirked at the creatures writing in the muck but she didn't comment on it; her travels with Talus had revealed far stranger things than that.

More besides the point it was probably right.

With a flick of her wrist the blade slid away from Annette's neck and in one swift movement came down on the woman's hand instead, driving through the back of her palm pressed against her back. The tip of the blade probably just scratched at the girls back.

"Who are you working with?" she asked coldly.

 

[Trajan Meng]

Trajan watched--still with a low grade amazement--as the war beast wrote in the dirt and the grass with her claw. His fortress? Perhaps in a different life, one in which the Battle of Wandering Creek had not happened or, more so, if he had stayed in the Guard and not gone on his fool's errand to found the Luminari.

The commotion occurred, clear enough to be noticed in the tide of activity about the courtyard. Shisha started toward it and Trajan followed. Seemed as good as place to start as any. And indeed it was.

The Dreadlord, Farrus, and a few higher ranking Guardsmen were in a half-circle around another Guardswoman who was down to her knees. Much like the vampire, the mock Guardsman, with the dagger impaled into his skull, Trajan thought. Dressed as he had feared. The war beast had raised a sound question in this matter. How did they get in? Was it a long scheme, done months or even years prior, or did they use the cover of night and the concealment of chaos to slip in during the attack itself? Or was there some other means? The questions abounded, and Trajan felt that old stirring again, that drive to act. For these wretched creatures with their terrible fiends had struck Mankind and killed good men and women, and this needed to be answered with the appropriate weight of justice.

Farrus turned for a moment to address some of the onlooking, lower-ranking Guardsmen, "You have your orders! Now go, execute them."

Trajan watched with a hard expression as Zana stabbed the Guardswoman--the vampire--through the hand. Watched with eyes that knew all too well how to be bereft of sympathy or empathy as the woman's eyes snapped wide open and her lips curled open into a clear grimace of pain. This was ground that he had ceded to become perhaps a better man, but it was still inescapably ground that he was familiar with.

Annette let out a ragged gasp after her wince and grimace passed. And still she held out hope for Iber; so far as she knew, he was still undetected and even inept bastards like him had to get something right every now and again. She didn't know what he could possibly do to rescue her--destabilizing the Mutation Cores wasn't best option for sure. But he might actually have a fluke of genius and come up with something.

Until then, all she had was her defiance, the last thing that it was in her power to do. To Zana, with a trembling smirk that was maybe a touch more morose and agonized than she would have liked rather than collected and mocking as she wished, she said in a strained voice, "You know, I was wondering what would happen if I died again. Maybe you could help me out with that."

Trajan shared a look with Farrus. Shisha, then, caught his attention. More words written on the ground (with Farrus showing no surprise at this, as Trajan had moments ago).

"Maybe, or maybe not. We just don't know," said Farrus.

"But we can find out. Mayhap it is that this creature shares the aversion to fire manifestly evident in one of its fiends. Or mayhap it shares the similar aversion to frost."

"The sun will be rising, soon enough." Farrus crossed his arms. "We could find out how this strain reacts to its radiance."

Trajan let the head of his warhammer drop perilously close to one of Annette's legs, holding the end of the shaft like a cane. "And there are more conventional methods, as always. Of which I am certain that the Endurance houses certain cells for just such purposes."

"And you would be correct."

Annette hid her mounting fear well enough--for now--behind a face that was alternatingly stony and squeezed with pain. Curse these Anirians. She despised them even in life, and she despised them now. Where the hell was Iber?

Trajan looked to Zana. Asked, "What is your recommendation, Dreadlord?"

If any one soul among them would have in the forefront of mind the most potent means of coercion, then it would be Zana. Trajan respected the Dreadlords, what they endured by necessity to become what they needed to be for the good of Vel Anir, but he knew as well as any other Anirian the things they lost for the things they gained.

Shisha Zana

 

[Shisha]

Shisha watched the exchange with some small note of approval. Torture was a good way to get information, but it was also a good way to shut someone up permanently if not done correctly. Annette had been caught but they didn’t need her, they needed her commander. Her pack leader. Humans panicked when they saw their own kind hurt, would it be the same for the vampire? Shisha trotted back to Iber’s body and yanked the knife out with her teeth. She put a paw on his head, and with a swift yank, pulled his lower jaw off. There. Evidence gone.

Shisha gathered the body in her jaws and shook it like a toy. Damaging it, bruising it but not unrecognizably. She carried it back to where the humans were discussing, and held up Iber’s head in her jaws, the rest of his body dangling limply on the ground. She was showing it to Annette, as though she’d caught and killed the vampire herself. She growled and tossed the body aside.

The implication was clear, if untrue. Iber had died slowly and in agony, and Shisha could arrange the same for Annette if she didn’t start talking. There was nothing so terrifying to a prey animal as being eaten alive. She picked up Annette’s feet in her jaws, and held them, threateningly.

Trajan Meng

 

[Zana]

Zana's duty was not to speak unless spoken to. Dreadlords were little more than barely leashed dogs and whilst she knew the Commander and most of the Guard didn't see her as such, she couldn't show her hand and reveal herself to have done too much of her conditioning. If she did word would get back to her House Lord and she would be thrown back into the Academy until she was a docile, obedient pet once more. So instead of engaging in the conversation or asking the questions she wanted to, she quietly twisted the blade in the girls palm and watched the blood ooze down her undead flesh.

This woman was no mastermind. There had to be some greater plot behind this small attempt on the Commanders life, for that was what she was sure this was. Revenge. Revenge was the only reason this girl would keep her mouth so tightly shut.

Cold green eyes looked up when she was addressed and with a bored expression glanced back to the girl, opening her mouth to speak her piece when the beast dropped the other vampire's body in front of Annette. Zana paused. So he had been the other player in this game; she had suspected from the way he ran but not known of course. Her lips turned down in obvious disgust. Not at the mutilation but at the betrayal.

"I could rip it from her mind," her words were as cold and as heartless as the empty void in her eyes when they returned once more to the Guards. "If the being eaten alive doesn't work."

 

[Trajan Meng]

Rip it from her mind, Trajan thought. And it was an option presented with enough casualness to make it frightening. Could she truly do such a thing, or was she bluffing in an attempt to get the vampire to lose heart, to confess of her own free will in the slim hope of some manner of leniency? Possibly--on both counts. Though it remained best to go along with it even if the truth was that she could not. Better to have one's enemies believe you were capable of more than you were. This coaxed out mistakes. And mistakes could be capitalized upon.

The war beast came back and offered a grisly display. Some of the ranking Guardsmen around Commander Farrus were shocked and appalled at the sight--at first--but then saw in that limp and dangling jawless head those protruding vampiric fangs. A mockery of the image of a Guardsman, and no mistake, for such a foul creature of the night to be dressed as such. Trajan's contempt for the fiend knew no bounds. The one dead, and the one down on her knees.

He watched Annette. Her reaction. The slow, sinking curtain of despair that dragged her features down when she saw the body. That defiance, that fierceness, was gone from her eyes like the last embers of a campfire being smothered underfoot.

Trajan squatted, still holding his warhammer like a cane. He came down to eye level with the captive vampire. Said, "Perhaps we can show her the benevolence of Vel Anir, and allow this creature to choose. What will it be then, hmm? An answer given freely. An answer ripped out painfully." He gestured his head over to Shisha. "Or an answer, one extremity at a time?"

The creature, grimacing from the wrenching knife, eyes darting from Trajan to Shisha and to her feet perched perilously in her jaws and then finally back up to Zana, said, "Victoria O'Connor!" A few panting breaths, and then she spoke further, "Lady Victoria O'Connor, of Greyrock Castle! She provided everything. Everything. We were to be rewarded greatly...if we could just..."

She looked to Commander Farrus, then hung her head, a shuddering gasp escaping her throat.

Trajan, slowly coming up to his feet, shared a considering glance between Zana, Shisha, and Farrus alike.

Shisha Zana

 

[Shisha]

Shisha let her speak. Thankfully, the person was a coward. Most prey animals were when they were caught. The Devourer spat out her feet, glancing at Commander Farrus.

Why just the commander? Why all this for one man? She scribbled furiously and nipped the vampire sharply to get her attention. She didn’t know who the lady of Greyrock Castle was, but there had to be some reason. No one just came after one man for no reason at all. If it was mere vampires looking for a meal, they’d have taken a few guards and left, they wouldn’t have bothered with the entire fort. There was something much deeper going on, a subversive war between two packs of two-legs.

In this, Shisha saw opportunity. She sat proudly, looking down at Annette. Maybe this vampire knew more than just a blurted name. Why take the job? Dangerous for two two legs to take on a whole nest of humans. Humans are wasps. Angry when one is hurt. Shisha wrote.

Trajan Meng
Zana

 

[Zana]

The name frustratingly meant very little to Zana though the only sign of displeasure was a thinning of her lips. She thought she might have seen a flash of recognition in the Commander's eyes but he covered it quickly and it was not right to push for information from a higher ranking officer. Instead she turned her attention back to the knife that still protruded from the girls palm. Torture didn't work if the pain didn't go away when they answered so she ripped it free with a not so gentle touch and casually wiped the blood from her blade off against the girls cheek. The sharp edges drew their own thin red lines across her flawless skin but it was hard to tell to anyone but the girl who was suffering the painful little cuts.

"And stupid," Zana added to the warbeasts words with her deadpan voice. To the untrained ear it might almost sound as though she were bored of the whole situation now it was done. Her eyes briefly flickered to where the Guards were busy clearing the bodies of the monsters and then turned back to the girl still cowering on her knees. "We should kill her. We do not know this Victoria's powers and she could be listening to our conversation through the vampire."

 

[Trajan Meng]

Behind the gathering of Zana and Shisha and Farrus and Trajan by their captive vampire, half of the Guardsmen ordered to stay in the courtyard were arranging their fallen brethren and the other half were chopping up the slain corpses of the Wargheits. Much like quartering slain game on a hunt, making it far more manageable to move the dead beasts, piece by piece, outside the walls of the fort where the entirety could eventually be burned.

Annette winced sharply when Shisha bit her to get her attention. She just looked at the creature and its hideous maw. She didn't notice the words written below, on the ground, until she saw Farrus and Trajan looking down at them.

The creature wrote more, and Annette answered all of it with a single word: "Revenge."

Trajan shared another look with Farrus. Both men considering the scope of what was going on, each with their own thoughts but none voicing them yet.

Zana (sounding...unconcerned? disinterested?...to Trajan) spoke of a matter that was, by its very nature, pressing. And yes, Trajan was forced to concur. Vampires were often known for their beguiling ways, their trickery, their subtlety--this outright and brazen attack on Fort Endurance being a rare exception. Ancient ones, perhaps like this Lady Victoria, were powerful indeed, and it was not beyond possibility that she was listening--or mayhap even watching--through the nexus that was Annette, her minion. Surely she would be interested in knowing how her attack went.

Commander Farrus, of the same mind as Zana and Trajan, needed to say but two words to latter, "Do it."

Trajan hefted his warhammer. "Gladly."

He swung and the head of the warhammer obliterated Annette's skull, a spray of broken bone and blood and gray matter exploding outward and falling down to the ground in a triangular splatter. One of her eyes had disappeared, popped and turned to slimy paste most likely, and the other hung grotesquely one the red cord of its optic nerve in what little remained of her skull and its former encasing. Her hair along with a ragged strip of scalp flopped backward and hung down by the nape of her neck. A final few twitches from the vampire before true death claimed her. And that was that, a summary execution for an abhorrent creature of the night. Were it so that this creature embodied every last one of her kind, such that they could have all been felled in a singular blow and Arethil freed from the plague of vampirism forever.

"Get a torch," Farrus ordered one of the lieutenants attending him. "Burn that patch of grass and this body as soon as you do."

Now, that it was presumably safer to talk and that there were unlikely to be other vampires among the ranks, Trajan said, "Greyrock Castle. I've not heard of this place, nor of this Lady Victoria O'Connor."

"The Castle," said Farrus, "is a matter that can almost assuredly be narrowed down with precision by the cartographers back in Vel Anir proper. As for the Lady in question..."

He looked to Zana. To Trajan. To their resident Devourer guest, Shisha. Addressed them all, "Have you, aside from this night, fought against vampires before? If so, how often? What were the creatures in question like?" Farrus had a certain prompting look on his face--he was going somewhere with this.

Trajan recalled just such an encounter. A single vampire, along with a Draconian, attacking him and his former faithful of the Luminari in the wizard Rennegast's tower while...admittedly...he was engaged in the preparation of a horrid act, blinded by his zeal to do so. He remembered what she was like, those yellow eyes and those twisted claws. What he had gleaned of her motivations did not seem to align very well with being something useful at present.

"Seldomly," Trajan said. Then elaborated, "Only once, as it were. But she did not command beasts, nor look like this one Annette, nor was her name Victoria or surname O'Connor, nor said anything referencing any of this. I'm afraid my experience will not be of much help, old friend."

Still, Farrus waited on Zana's and Shisha's replies.

Zana Shisha

 

[Shisha]

Shisha stood back as the warhammer swung, sighing. Revenge didn’t answer anything. Revenge for what? Men were complicated in their morality, and humans were often on the wrong side of the equation. Never before had a species been so insistent on stepping on the necks of others to get a few inches higher themselves. Shisha at least had wanted to know what Annette had meant by revenge.

She looked at Trajan. I’ve only fought them when they disturbed me. They are only predators. I have not heard this woman’s name. She hesitated, paw hovering above the ground. I think I know how to ask. Don’t burn the body. Lay sprigs of Rosemary, sage, elderberries if you have it, around the body and wait. Then we ask. She wasn’t sure if he would take her suggestion, being human. It was the only thing Shisha could think of to do. The fae had messengers of the dead known as Detritors, who knew who had passed into their realm. Maybe they knew of this Victoria. It was worth a shot in Shisha’s opinion.

We also have to discuss my fee for killing a monster your men couldn’t. She looked pointedly up at Trajan.

Trajan Meng Zana

 

[Zana]

"A few," Zana looked down in disdain at the rotting flesh that now lay at her feet. It was almost hard to imagine that had once been a human. "There was a time a while back in one of the new colonies where people were being attacked by a nest of these creatures. It was burnt to the ground with no survivors and I do not recognise the name either," but then again the undead were a vast kind and not limited to just vampires. Her thoughts went back to the malformed and horrific beasts she had seen in the Black Keep, kept alive by the draining of one man's magic. She had been unable to save or set him free with the kiss of death and the fact he still existed was a constant worry.

Could they have formed some sort of alliance with the Vampires? Or was this a different slight the Anirians had caused?

The war-beast's scrawlings caught her eye once more and she raised a brow at the instructions then snorted at its request for payment. A rare smile slipped past her guard but she wiped it off quickly. Money, it seemed, truly did make the world go round.

"Luana will pay," she said smoothly before the Commander could pitch a fit. "On the condition we can rely on your allegiance to us and not the other Houses in Vel'Anir in the future."

 

[Trajan Meng]

Commander Farrus read Shisha's first message and heard Zana's answer. He sucked at his teeth, a small look of disappointment inside of his open-face helm. He had been wondering how...prolific, for a lack of a better term, this Lady Victoria happened to be. Some vampires were, others were as ghosts even to their own kind. But it seemed that none of the encounters of Trajan and Shisha and Zana had any mention of Lady Victoria nor resemblance to her presumed strain.

The lieutenant who had been ordered to burn the body held the torch--secured from another Guardsmen--in hand, having already set the bloodied patch of grass ablaze, and was prepared to do the same with Annette's body when Shisha finished her second message. The lieutenant, as distrustful as any good Anirian would be of "certain" outsiders, regarded Commander Farrus. And Farrus, though he did not share that distrust with the lieutenant, shifted his eyes from the peculiar message about rosemary and sage and elderberries and nonetheless gave a nod for the lieutenant to proceed.

"And burn the other one," Farrus ordered as the lieutenant squatted down and the flame caught on Annette. Two other lieutenants around Farrus moved Iber's body to the pyre then as Farrus spoke further, "I'd have these creatures and their infected blood purged as soon as possible."

Trajan glanced to Shisha. The war-beast had been tearing into the Wargheit with her teeth. He shuddered to think of the dreadful fate she would suffer should that blood have gotten mixed with hers. A grisly reward for one who showed the daring that Shisha had in the battle. Of the matter with the rosemary and other herbal components, Trajan was at as much a loss as Farrus. But he already had within his mind a course of action that he could pursue.

Then Shisha wrote the message about a fee. His left eye squinted in a mild affront, and there was a stirring of his old Luminari days within him as he regarded the message as something of an insult. But those days were over and he let the creature have its pride without retort.

"They are not my men," Trajan said, then gestured his head to the actual Commander of Fort Endurance, Farrus.

Farrus opened his mouth to speak, but Zana headed him off. Said that House Luana would actually pay the war-beast, with that added condition. Which, to Trajan, was likely for the best. He could already guess at what Farrus would have said: that this was not an already established and authorized bounty or contract, and it would take a month or two to even secure such authorization. If the firmly Anirian bureaucrats above Commander Farrus didn't find some excuse to unjustly dismiss the matter out of hand once they found out the race of the recipient. Trajan's opinion of mercenaries was reserved in general; often they were as despicable as one could expect of a man or woman whose allegiance was to coin first and foremost. But even so, in Trajan's opinion Shisha had indeed earned her fair fee for her actions this night.

"Farrus," Trajan said, and the Commander looked to him. "I know that you cannot leave your post to pursue this matter, but I will see it through. I do not care for the nature of this vampire's grievance against Vel Anir but she has sought to end you personally. You are a dear friend, Farrus, and I will not stand for this."

"Aye, Trajan, and you to me," said Farrus as the reflections of the fire shimmered in his eyes. "I've my duties, but I will look forward to your return with whatever tale you might bring with you."

Trajan flicked his eyes to Zana and to the war-beast. The Dreadlord quite likely had her own commitments, and the mercenary beast might well be content with the incoming sum from House Luana. So he assumed.

"I'll return to Vel Anir. Consult with the cartographers to locate Castle Greyrock," Trajan said. "And then I will pay this 'Lady Victoria' a visit."

Him, and however many vampire hunters he could muster to this cause.

Zana Shisha

 

[Shisha]

Shisha eyed Zana and the Commander. Was this what was expected of her? To wait for payment? Men like this didnt have enough gold to pay her with all the men they employed and their gigantic stone fort? She huffed and moved away from the body of the vampire as the men set it alight. Of course they’d ignore her suggestion. Stupid herd animals only followed the head of the herd and didn’t think for themselves. The human stereotype of men who would ride horses off a cliff as long as their general went first seemed to be ringing true.

Shisha fought down frustration. They were dismissing her, without even a thank you. Without her the casualties would have been higher, but what did the dead matter to creatures that bred like rats? She pursed her lips and swept away her words irritably with a paw, her gaze landing on Zana.

Lead me to this Luana. She wrote, ignoring the idea of promising allegiance to one house or another. Shisha worked for people who could pay her, and until she saw a coin from these people she owed them nothing. She backed away to let the humans talk, her gaze expectantly on Zana.

This lady Victoria might pay well to know that a company from Vel Anir was going to find her...and she might even have the decency to pay up front.

Trajan Meng Zana

 

[Zana]

Zana watched the flames as the two men spoke with a thousand thoughts to cloud her eyes and deafen her ears. It was only training that meant despite her worries for her children and her concerns over this Lady Victoria and what is meant for Vel'Anir, she still registered every single word both said and written. As Trajan came to a natural end in his speech she looked up and gave a curt nod in the soldiers direction.

"I wish you luck," it was not in the nature of Dreadlords to offer help even if Zana might have wanted to herself. As of yet she was not a free agent to be able to do as she wanted. One day, but not yet. Still... she could do this one thing that most would not and pay the creature for its services to their defence this day. Her cool green eyes flickered to said war-beast now. The answer to her words was a faint and wary smile.

"I am Luana," at least, the representative here. "Come," she inclined her head back towards the keep. She had enough gold to settle the costs no doubt and more besides to sweeten this new alliance. With rebellion brewing on the horizon it was never a bad thing to make new friends.

 

[Trajan Meng]

"It was an honor and a privilege to meet you, Dreadlord," Trajan said to Zana. "Were it only under better circumstances."

Do not let her fall. She is more important than you know. Farrus's words, echoing in his mind even as the man himself and his command staff stepped off to oversee the aftermath efforts of the attack. Still this left Trajan at a loss. Dreadlords were the mightiest weapon produced by Vel Anir, each a patriot without compare, and Zana's service this night had exemplified these qualities. He could only assume that in Zana's case it was especially so, and that Luana was fortunate indeed to have her pledged to their House.

He shifted his gaze to Shisha. Glanced briefly about the courtyard before returning said gaze. "Though many of my fellow Anirians may be reticent or even loath to say it, I am not. You fought well this night, and have done for us a commendable service. Keep that righteous fire in your heart."

And then to the both of them, "Farewell," as he turned and started to walk across the devastated courtyard of Fort Endurance.

Zana Shisha