The Flame and the Arrow by Emigh Cannaday
Chapter 25
Vladislav
The next day Konstantin took the lead, where the group followed him to a cave. They were met by an enormous draft horse who stood saddled and tied to a tree. The party dismounted their horses and tied them to the trees nearby, and Nikola motioned for them to stand clear of the entrance.
“Can we please stay out here and watch the horses?” Runa begged, grimacing at the darkness of the cave. “Surely we don’t all need to go in there.”
“Konstantin and I both need to go, which means you need to come with. I don’t believe you honestly want to loiter directly outside the entrance to the most popular portal for hundreds of starved vampires, do you?” Nikola asked her. “They’re not all as self-disciplined as Konstantin, you realize.” Runa shook her head. It only made sense to stick together with her armed comrades.
Nikola and Konstantin lead the way into the musty cave, stepping through a thick layer of guano as they found a path leading through it. When the light from outside faded, Dardis flitted above them, carrying a tiny orb of light.
“Be sure not to fly too high,” Nikola quietly reminded her. “You’ll wake them up.”
Immediately, Annika looked up, and her jaw dropped. Then she snapped it shut. There didn’t seem to be a single place above them that wasn’t inhabited by thousands and thousands of sleek, furry bats, all huddled together, twitching ever so slightly.
“Oh my god, are they going to start flying everywhere?” she asked nervously.
“They’re hibernating,” Finn informed her. “They’ll remain like that until spring, unless they’re disturbed.”
“Are you certain that the Dark Horse is in here?” Chivanni whined from inside Nikola’s cloak. “How can anyone, even a vampire, bear to live in such a filthy place?”
“At least you don’t have to walk through bat shit,” Annika grumbled, stepping through the soft, musty piles of feces. “This is disgusting.” The limestone walls closed in around them, and they hand to walk single file.
“Ugh, what is that other smell?” Talvi groaned long before Annika could smell it. When the repugnant odor reached her nose, she almost threw up. It smelled like the time her family had come home from summer vacation to find the freezer in their garage had broken, and all the meat in it had thawed and rotted. Konstantin said something to Dardis and she hovered in place at the head of the line, holding her nose as she illuminated the path.
“Pay attention!” he commanded. “There is a narrow crack in the path, where many have fallen to their death. Don’t be one of them.” He hopped over a three foot crevice and waited on the other side to make sure the others crossed safely. One by one they all hopped over it easily enough. Had there been no light, they might have stepped right into oblivion. It was impossible to tell how far down the crevice went, but the reek of death that rose from the bottom told Annika that it wasn’t far enough.
They pushed on along the narrow path, which was now clear of obstacles and guano, until it opened into a very large room. Dardis and Chivanni used their trick from the birthday party, sending little orbs up as high as they would go and letting them explode into sparkling dust, lighting the place with its warm glow. The sight before everyone’s eyes was breathtaking. A stalactite-covered ceiling rose up to four stories at its highest point, with the longest formations dripping into little pools beneath them, one drop of water at a time. The stalagmites that rose from the ground made the place look like an alien world. Annika was amazed. She had never been in a cave before, and the few pictures she’d seen did this experience little justice.
“What is this place? What are these things? They’re like icicles!” she breathed, as they walked around the bizarre formations that ranged from pointy to bulbous.
“They’re called stalactites and stalagmites,” Finn said.
“What’s the difference?” she asked. Finn pointed upwards.
“The way I’ve always remembered it is that ‘T’ is for top, and stalactites hang from the top of the cave. Stalagmites are on the bottom. They’re mineral deposits.”
“How did they get there?” she asked him, and he was only too happy to tell her.
“Well,” he began, “when rain falls from the sky, it absorbs carbon dioxide from the surrounding air molecules. It becomes slightly acidic as it seeps through the soil and reaches the limestone of the cave’s walls. Eventually the acid dissolves and minute particles of—”
“Don’t do that!” Nikola blurted out suddenly. Talvi had snapped off a skinny stalagmite and was inspecting it closely, much to Nikola’s vexation.
“Do you realize that took hundreds of thousands of years to form? And you destroyed it in less than one second! If you’re so curious, why don’t you stoop down to their level to get a better look? That ought to come naturally for you.” No one had ever seen Nikola be so irritable. He was more upset about the snapping of one stalagmite than the death of a vampire at his own hands. Talvi looked at him with narrow eyes and chucked it among the others, breaking a few more stalagmites before it landed.
“I’m sorry about that, Nikola. It must have slipped,” he said in a sarcastic tone. Annika could hear Finn sigh, before he continued his educational lecture on the creation of caves.
After an hour and a half of following this dark, twisting, treacherous path, Konstantin stopped in front of a wall. He turned around to everyone, looking very stern.
“Don’t touch anything, don’t drink anything, and don’t say anything, even if they speak to you. And put that away,” he said to Sariel, who had drawn her sword. “You will not be harmed here. Not in our present company, at least,” he said, glancing for a second at Nikola. Sariel reluctantly did as she was told, but her fingers were ready to reach for her weapon if she needed to with a second’s notice.
Konstantin turned back to the door, pushing it in a particular spot, and the section of wall in front of them moved to the side, disappearing into the wall. There was a room beyond them, with a handful of men and women standing around. They immediately stopped what they were doing and lifted their noses to the air, the way one does upon stepping into a bakery when the bread is ready to come out of the oven.
Talvi squeezed Annika’s hand so tightly it hurt, but the vampires kept their distance. The creatures were not ugly, hideous Hollywood monsters with giant saber tooth-like fangs jutting from their mouths. Nor were they drop-dead gorgeous supermodels, either. They looked like ordinary people. Very gaunt, hungry, homeless people. Many of them even wore blue jeans and t-shirts, probably taken from their victims, although a few of them dressed considerably worse in torn ragged garb. The only thing that gave them away was their black eyes, empty and dark, sensing the vessels of warm, fresh blood all around them.
“Where is Vaj?” one of the female vampires asked, slipping out of her chair to approach Nikola. Her nostrils were flaring as she looked him up and down, smelling his living flesh, but he only looked bored.
“I killed him,” Konstantin lied. The only reason they accepted this excuse without question was because Konstantin held such a high rank.
“What a shame. Did you bring us something special? Please tell me that you brought the humans for us. A token of your generosity, perhaps?” she asked flirtatiously, running a finger along Nikola’s sleeve, but he gently took her hand away, shaking his head with a slight smile. He truly wasn’t afraid of the vampires, and because of this, Annika felt less on edge as well.
“They are not for you; they are mine,” Konstantin warned her with a cruel smile. “And if you touch them, I will kill you as well. I need to speak with Vladislav.” The woman tried to smile bravely, but her eyes reflected a fear that Annika could only wonder what Konstantin was capable of causing.
“No doubt you do need to see him. I’ll make your presence known.” She turned and walked out of the room to a hallway on the far right. Konstantin bowed down a little, looking at the nymphs and elves and humans. The fairies had shrunken and were hiding in Nikola’s cloak, tremb
The seconds crept by painfully as the other vampires eyed the group, particularly Annika and Nikola. Their eyes were starved, their faces hungered for human blood, and Talvi was squeezing Annika’s hand so hard that she thought it might break. She could feel his pulse quicken through his veins, but when she looked at Nikola, he seemed unconcerned. Maybe he really could handle them with one hand behind his back after all. A door slammed somewhere down the limestone hall and the vampires quickly scattered, retreating to the corners of the room. A shorter man of Nikola’s height suddenly appeared in the doorway, crossing his arms with effortless intimidation. His dark, dirty hair was slicked away from his face, and he might even have been handsome if he didn’t look so wretchedly evil. Even though his eyes were black like all the other vampires, there was something more haunting in them than all the others combined, as though his soul had abandoned him to save itself. Konstantin had reappeared behind him, looking grave, but he said nothing. The other man in the doorway had to be none other than Vladislav.
“Veesoko momichey suss cherna ta dulga co sa…ela took,” he said, turning his soulless eyes to Yuri.
Finn looked alarmed, grabbing his sister close to him. Vladislav waited only a moment before he marched over to them, stopping directly in front of Yuri.
“Ela took!” he boomed in her face, but she either didn’t know what he was saying or was afraid to come to him, which was what he was demanding. He reached out and grabbed her arm, and pushed the sleeve up to her elbow. There was not an area of her skin beyond her wrist that wasn’t bruised or bitten, to everyone’s horror. The bites followed her veins up her arm’s length, and most likely the rest of her body looked the same. He pulled the sleeve back down carefully, gingerly, as if her skin was as delicate as unfired porcelain, and he turned to flash a look of sheer anger at Konstantin. Vladislav reached up and removed Finn’s protective hands as if they belonged to a helpless infant, gently setting them aside as he made her step forward. He walked around her once, stroking her long black hair. The look of restrained panic in her eyes was terrible to behold, and Vladislav looked at her as if he could sense this very fear and was feeding off of it. His mouth curled into the most heinous, sadistic smile Annika could imagine a person wearing. His hand closed slowly around her hair at the base of her neck.
“Ela…” he said in a seductive voice, drawing out the last syllable to a long whisper. Yuri refused to walk with Vladislav when he took her by the arm, and he gave her a yank before he stomped back down the hall, dragging Yuri kicking and screaming beside him as if she weighed nothing. Konstantin averted his eyes to the floor as he turned and followed the other two back down the hall. Talvi dropped Annika’s hand and started to run after them, but the other vampires in the room blocked his way.
“Don’t you try to stop me! He’s going to kill her!” he snarled, reaching for the knife in his boot. Nikola leapt in between him and the vampires, holding up his hand when Talvi drew his blade.
“No, he’s not. He’ll bring her back alive.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Talvi demanded. “Can’t you see that she’s terrified?” Now Finn joined Nikola, urging Talvi to put his knife away.
“Of course she is, but she should have known this day would come. If she expected his blessing, well…” he trailed off, not wanting to elaborate on the many tortures that the notorious Vladislav was capable of.
Talvi realized it was useless to fight or argue, and angrily returned his knife to the sheath inside his boot before resuming his place beside Annika. There was nothing to be done. The only good thing about Vladislav’s brief appearance was that it kept the other vampires far away from everyone else. Runa trembled in Zaven’s arms, and Sariel only needed a reason to brandish her sword.
The tension was growing thicker and heavier until the sound of three pairs of footsteps echoed down the hall. A shell-shocked Yuri entered the room with Konstantin, who had his hood drawn so far that no one could see his face. If his expression was anything like Yuri’s, no one dared ask questions. They were just grateful that she appeared uninjured. Yuri and Konstantin were followed by a very muscular man dressed in a knight’s armor. His dark hair was pulled back into a long braid and he wore chain mail under his breastplate and a broadsword strapped to his back that must have been over four feet long. His black leather boots were also protected by armor, and the shoulder pieces had bear-like claws curling upwards, made of metal as well. In one hand he held a large shield, but the thing that struck Annika the most were his pale blue eyes. He walked to the heavy stone door in which they had entered, and Konstantin opened it, ushering them out quickly. When they had found their narrow trail in the dark, Yuri let out a sob that she must have been holding back for a long time.
“What did that monster do to you?” Talvi demanded. Yuri shook with her cries as she continued to stumble forward.
“Nothing. He didn’t do anything to me,” she said, turning her face away from his prying eyes.
“Bollocks he didn’t do anything!” Talvi insisted, but Konstantin gave him a look so severe that it bade him to hold his tongue.
“No time for chit-chat, my friends,” the mysterious knight said with perfect timing. “We need to get out of here as quickly and quietly as possible.”
Ghassan was pawing the ground anxiously when they stepped out of the stale cave air and into the clear, starry night. Midas was pulling on the rope that tethered him to his tree, and the other horses seemed just as eager to get as far away from the cave as they could. It was freezing cold outside, but at least the worst of the tension was gone, as everyone wiped the guano from their boots and untied their horses from the trees under the waning moonlight.
“When did you find the time to acquire so many friends, Nikola? I thought you were too busy climbing trees to meet people,” he rumbled in a great big voice, leaning his shield against a tree. He was downright cheerful, a welcome change from the fear that Annika and the nymphs were experiencing. The burly man walked up to Nikola and grabbed the horns of his helmet before jerking it over his eyes, laughing mightily as he did so.
“Are you going to introduce us, or not?” he asked, and when he saw Sariel standing en garde with her hand on her sword, his eyes shone even brighter. Nikola re-situated his helmet and made the introductions to the man and then turned to the group.
“This is my older brother, Justinian,” he said modestly.
“Your brother?” a few voices cried in disbelief.
“Yes, can you see the resemblance?” Nikola joked. The two men looked absolutely nothing alike. He turned his horned helmet up to the knight. “Now what are you doing, spending time with a crowd like that?”
“I can’t discuss that openly, but I was certainly glad to see Konstantin,” Justinian answered with a jovial smile and hefted himself up onto the back of the sturdy draft horse that had been waiting for him. “He told ol’ Vladi that you were going to need my kind of help. How can I say no to family?”
“I say we get as far away from here as possible. How do we know that those vampires won’t come after us tonight?” Zaven wondered. “They can follow our scent, can’t they?”
“There is no risk of them following us,” Konstantin assured them.
“How can I believe that, when you let Vladislav terrorize my sister?” Talvi demanded. “It’s bad enough that you left us alone in there.”
“I knew you were safe,” Konstantin casually replied before swinging into the saddle of his horse.
“Safe?” Talvi huffed, jumping onto Ghassan before he rode up beside the vampire. “We could have been killed down there, and you say we were safe?”
“Yes,” Konstantin said, giving him a dirty look. But then it melted into a smirk as he continued. “Nothing could have happened with Nikola standing beside you. He could have killed them all with a mere glance.”
They rode for a few hours, but decided to make camp and continue on their journey after a solid night’s rest. So far on the trip the land had been either rolling hills or open plains, but now the ground grew rocky and unpredictable, much like Talvi’s attitude. It had gotten so cold that finally the tents were pitched to keep out the wind, one for the men, and one for the women and the fairies.
“So,” Sariel said, rubbing her hands together to warm them as the others lay out their bedrolls in a little circle. “What was Vladislav so angry about? Did it have to do with the bites on your arm?”
“Yes,” Yuri replied quietly, making sure the men couldn’t hear her through the tent walls as they stood outside swapping stories of their fiercest battles and greatest victories. It was amusing to Annika, that even among elves, druids, and vampires in a parallel world, that they acted so much like guys on Earth. “Basically he told Konstantin that…” She looked down at the ground and blinked vigorously. “He said that if his loyalty was compromised in any way because of me…he would…he would send my head back to my parents.” There was a fearful silence as the words struck the listeners’ ears.
“Are you’re sure he didn’t hurt you?” asked Dardis.
“Talvi was worried sick. We all were,” Hilda said.
“You have to stop whatever is going on with Konstantin right away,” Sariel hissed. “Is he really worth dying for?”
“You don’t understand what we have, what we are,” she insisted. “Neither does Vladislav. He’s afraid Konstantin will leave him, and then he’ll be alone with only the weaker vampires. Without fresh blood from modern humans, his army will continue to weaken until there’s nothing left of it.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Sariel asked contemptuously. “His era of reign has passed. Nikola was right…he’s an old dog with no teeth; a general over an army of invalids.”
“He looked to me like he had plenty of teeth left,” Annika said, shivering at the thought.
“He can’t stand the thought of losing the power he once held,” Yuri told them while she wrapped herself in warm wool blankets. “Konstantin said Vladislav used to torture the weakest, youngest ones. He would drain them and then only allow them a small amount of blood, and then leave them in the sun to burn. That was his idea of testing their loyalty. He needs Konstantin to help him rebuild his legion.”
“And you’re going to steal him away when he needs him the most?” Runa looked scared.
“You’ve got to stop this, Yuri,” Hilda warned, appearing more like Sariel in her intense gaze than ever before. “You’re too young to die.” Yuri looked at her friend skeptically.
“I’m not planning on it. Konstantin and I have other arrangements.”
“Such as…?” Sariel pressed, but Yuri made a gesture with her hand implying that she was through speaking.
“You know what I’m wondering?” Annika asked, happy to change the subject for Yuri’s sake. “I wonder how Justinian can hang around the Dark Horse, surrounded by a bunch of vampires and not worry about being attacked. Sure he’s a knight, but he’s still a regular human guy like Nikola.”
“Yes, give or take a hundred pounds of pure muscle, which Nikola does not have,” Dardis laughed.
“Nikola has muscles!” Chivanni defended. “He’s just not built like his brother. Justinian is like a great big ox standing next to all those slender deer out there.” All the girls laughed, imagining the comparison. Annika had to admit, Justinian looked like a professional wrestler or bodybuilder underneath all of his armor. Compared to the toned, lithe elves and Nikola, he looked like a brick wall.
“He’s not just a knight. He’s a paladin. It’s different,” Sariel said.
“What’s a paladin?” Annika asked. She had never heard of this word before.
“They’re sacred knights, and very skilled in magic. They have the ability to heal with their touch,” Sariel informed her.
“Like elves?” Annika asked.
“Even more so,” Yuri said.
“They can the harness energy from their surroundings to protect them, and anyone very close to them. They’re bound by loyalty and honor, they’ll fight to their death for what they believe in,” said Sariel.
“I wonder what he believes in?” Dardis said.
“I don’t know. I was meaning to ask,” Sariel said, looking down at her feet. There was definitely a pixie dust-free smile on her face, for the first time in a very long time.