So far, the zealous zombies haven’t given much of a fight, however. My arms ache and my legs are sore from so much flexing and jolting at the sight of new enemies spiraling into view through the fog, yet I don’t have a scratch on me.
I can’t tell how the rest of my army is doing. All I can hear areshlickingsounds of swords biting into bone, gliding through tattered cloth, meaty flesh, and prominent veins. The cries of soldiers in the distance makes my skin crawl. It sounds like not everyone is faring as well as I am.
Then again, not everyone has Garroway Kuffich or Lukain Pierken at their side, protecting their every step. It’s almost overbearing, how swiftly and masterfully they keep pace withme. For every vampire I send to the grim afterworld, they’ve sent two.
It becomes annoying.
It also becomes a challenge.
The fog in front of me bursts like an orange firecracker, green tint mixing with an explosion of fire in a hazy stream, and I know Lukain has turned another enemy into a scorching fireball with his silver saber.
A heatwave splashes across my face as I find a few feet of clearing from the fog. Baring my teeth in a snarl, I block my eyes from the heat with my forearm, peer over the guard of my longsword, and see Lukain spinning and dancing a weave of death down the center of the street.
He takes a long stride forward, eviscerating a Faith vampire and sending a pile of soupy innards plopping onto the street. The beast grabs at its belly before sizzling into a wreath of flames. Avoiding the slickness of the steaming pile, Lukain sidesteps right, crashes an elbow into a charging vampire and stuns it, standing it upright. His blade is halfway through its neck before it explodes, and Lukain is skipping past. Sparks sputter from the road as he drags the tip of his sword along the cobbles, ripping it upward with both hands and a fierce roar at the next vampire in line. Cleaving the beast’s right half from its left, from groin to skull, his sword sings through the vampire like a knife through butter. Lukain marches through the blood-raining crevice of its separated body and continues on.
That was just in ten steps.
I rush after him—
Howling as a great weight drags my left side down. Heart rocketing to my throat, I see three vampires crawling over one another, appearing through a damned hole in the side of a crumbling stone building, emerging like eels.
They take me to the ground and my sword skitters away as I’m forced to put up my hands to keep fangs from meeting my flesh.
Black and yellow spittle oozes onto me from gruesome teeth. Four arms reach around the vampire pressed against me, clawing, scratching, even biting their own kind to get through him and come at my scented blood.
I wrinkle my nose and scream just as loudly, just as enraged as the crazed vampire straddling me. My hands meet its lower and upper jaw, pushing them apart so it can’t bite down.
I feel something give—their skin is waxy and rubbery, so unlike a human or even other vampires. My biceps bulge, my forearms protrude with distended veins—
And the jaw falls apart in my hands. Upper jaw ripped skyward, lower jaw crashing onto the ground, leaving the vampire with only a fucking sputtering tongue a few inches from my face.
With the grotesque wound delivered, I roll hard from the lightweight vampires, squeezing past all three of them while I fling the one whose jaw I just ripped open onto the cobbles.
My fingers find purchase with my sword, two more vampires stuttering toward me, and then I’m on my knees, feeling their raspy presence behind me, and I spin, slashing and hacking at the closest one’s face. Blood sprays all over me as I detach skin from muscle and it wails in agony, pulling at its morose head.
The one behind it stampedes the wailing vampire and comes at me claws-first. I jump to my feet before it can get to me, with a quick “Huh” passing through my lips, reeling back with my arm—
Slamming my sword home into its chest, deep enough that my knuckles meet gooey, bloody flesh and my blade tip juts out the creature’s spine on the other side.
It topples, dead from a pierced heart, and then human soldiers are streaming in around me. A dagger takes the jawless bastard writhing on the ground—Garroway returned to deliver the death blow. Three Grimsons swarm the one whose face I scarred and quickly finish it off.
Garro grabs my shoulders, eyes wide. “You okay, honey badger? Are you bit?”
I’m shaky but relatively unscathed. My knuckles are scraped from dashing my fists across the ground while getting toppled by the trio of zombie-things. My leathers are torn in multiple places, showing pale thigh beneath.
“I’m fine,” I croak. My throat is dry. That was too close, and it was all because I got distracted by Lukain’s prowess.
“Lukain’s up ahead,” he says with a firm nod, pulling my wrist to drag me back into the fog. “Let’s stick together, love.”
“Fucking fine by me, cub.”
Six streets later, we’ve burst through the worst of it. The fog starts to lift, this area higher topographically than the lowest valley depths behind us. There are wounded and determined humans all around me. We’re charging headlong toward the cathedral—no way back, only forward.
Everyone is well aware Aramastun Wyvox’s army likely knows what is happening by now. It won’t be long until we’re swarmed by skilled judgemen and battle-hardened vampire soldiers, much different animals than the mindless things we’ve been fighting.
We’ve left a wake of absolute death and carnage behind us. The cracked cobblestones are slick with red and black blood. The water of the small creeks here has turned brackish and stained by our efforts.
At first count, we’ve lost maybe a handful of soldiers. Possibly more, back in the fog where we can hardly see. Everyone is tired from hacking and having their wits about them for an hour straight.