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Sapphire
We walk farther and farther away from The Heart, and the escape tunnel. Eventually the two guards are almost dragging me past inns of lower and lower quality. We come to a rather shady part of the city. The screams are louder and more frequent here. All the windows are boarded, yet I can sense the fearful eyes staring as we pass by.
I'm sure it's been nearly an hour since the three of us left the side door of the building, the others must be at the tunnel by now. I manage to turn around just the smallest degree, enough to notice the light flash coming from the direction of the wall area above the tunnel. Time for me to ditch these slimy creeps (They'd been making suggestive, flirty comments non-stop after we'd passed the first five inns. It's hard to play dumb considering how offensive they were getting).
“Hey, you know what, boys?” I say, pulling my arms out of theirs by stopping, “I've decided not to stay at an inn. I'll just head back home instead. Time to say goodbye.”
“Oh no,” says Ashton, his hungry grin gleaming in the moonlight, fangs extended, “You're coming with us, whether you like it or not.” They start to lean back, like two snakes about to strike. I reach for my sword and runes, then realize I had left them with Alastor to avoid suspicion. I guess I'll just be fighting with my dagger.
I whip the knife from my boot and prepare to fight. Megildur attacks first, rushing at me, fangs bared and prepared to bite. I stand ready, then jump to the side at the last second, grab his arm and flip him onto his back. He lies stunned long enough for me to deal with Ashton, who had rushed up to me. He's trying to get at my dagger hand. We start wrestling, but I manage to gain the upper hand with a knee to his groin. He doubles over in pain, when Megildur recovers from the flip and goes for my throat. I put up my knife just fast enough to stop him from sinking his teeth into my neck. The knife goes straight into his heart, killing him instantly. The knife is made of pure silver forged in the full light of the twin moons; it's capable of killing any vampire instantly, and that's just what it did. Megildur falls to the ground with a sickening thud, landing on top of his agonized comrade. I almost drop my dagger, shocked at what I had just done. I run as far away from them as my feet will take me. I manage to keep enough presence of mind to steer my rushing legs in the direction of the tunnel.
I manage to arrive at the tunnel in a matter of minutes, bloody dagger still in hand, but I know that as soon as Ashton recovers he will sound the alarm, or will start chasing me himself. The others are standing at the entrance waiting for me. No one stops to ask questions, we just start running as an alarm bell starts tolling. We race through the forest behind Alastor, who's carrying two young girls in his arms, to the horses who stand waiting for us in a good location away from the vampires.
Each of us jumps on our horse. The others each have two girls on their horses as well, Alastor has one of the young girls he was carrying with him on his horse, and he gave the other to me. We ride as fast as the horses can take us. It's only a few hours since sunset, and sunrise is a long way away so we have to hurry if we're going to escape the werewolf patrols this time.
After what seems like forever, we manage to get to the edge of the path unharmed. The horses are very tired from running so fast, but other than that everyone's okay. Alastor says he can't hear anyone following us, so we set up camp and let the girls rest. A lot of the women the others rescued look alike, dull, scraggly hair, thin bodies, pale complexions, and wan faces with very little signs of life in them at all. The vampires had given them all the same clothes to wear so the only differences between them are their hair colours. The two young girls that Alastor had found looked much healthier than the women, aside from similarly pale faces. I guess the girls must have just been recently kidnapped, or whatever method the vampires use to get their 'donors'. Ethan had found two men in his tower, I suppose for the female vampires who probably prefer male blood. They looked just as bad as the women, only with clothes much less suitable for the cold and damp.
Seth finally starts to question me about my distraction, when all the shock comes rushing back to me. I feel cold, and the blood draining from my face. I sit down hard on the icy snow-covered ground. Seth kneels down in front of me and asks, “Are you alright? What happened?”
“They took me to the slums,” I manage to say in a small voice, “past every inn there was along the way but not taking me into any of them. Then I saw the signal, so I tried to shake them, but there's no use running from a vampire. I fought them, the one rushed up to me first and I flipped him onto his back. Then the other came at me, trying to get my dagger out of my hand, so I got him below the belt. Then the other got up and started to go for my throat. I lifted my dagger to stop him, and I stopped him, right through the heart. I. . . I k-k-k-killed him.” There's nothing more to say. They can pretty much guess that I had bolted after that, before the other one could recover.
“So it must have been the other vampire who set off the alarm, because you'd killed his fellow guards-man,” says Seth, triumphantly standing up, “and not us freeing the prisoners. Good job.”
I just stare up at him with my mouth open, unable to respond. When it comes time to sleep, Alastor offers to take first watch and my watch. He says that he could tell how upset I was about killing someone, even if it was a vampire trying to suck me dry. The newly freed prisoners sleep on the extra sleeping kits we'd brought. I don't sleep, I just stare. I wait until everyone else is asleep before I creep over to where Starlight is lying. I curl up next to her and stroke her lovely, silver hide. She wraps her neck around me, and I can finally feel sleep wrapping it's warm, comforting arms around me. The last thing I see, as my eyes close and sleep haze starts to envelop me, is Seth walk up and lay my soft travel blanket over top of me.
 Girl of the Dragons · Fri Dec 31, 2010 @ 07:10am · 0 Comments |
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