The Coast of Alden, Nine Hundred and Fifty Years BeforeThey came upon the first village at midday, surprising the fishermen in their long, shallow boats who stood up and shaded their eyes with their hands, talking excitedly to each other before beginning to row for shore. The water was a pure, clear azure, and the fish swimming in its waves seemed to leap into the fisher’s nets as they pulled them in.On the edge of sand and forest, their houses were round in shape, the walls formed by logs planted like trees into the earth, and the rooves constructed of overlapping wooden tile. Around the village, the people working, weaving, preparing food, tending to their young stopped to look and marvel.The alarm was slow to spread as Thaelen’s soldiers moved in, their initial response being curious startlement, but the fight was ferocious once they realized they were being attacked. It was over within minutes, most of the villagers subdued and chained, and the sand bright with the blood of tho
The Coast of Alden, Nine Hundred and Fifty Years BeforeThe new slaves improved, and they resumed with their raids, taking ten more small coastal villages and towns until their ships rode low in the water, the cargo holds overflowing with new treasures and slaves.Gera had selected two young women from the holds to serve as Thaelen’s blood slaves, and Thaelen was amused, as Gera’s selection betrayed his jealous ownership of his vampire as clearly as if he had branded it on the women. Whilst both women were beautiful, they were both very much not of Thaelen’s preference, being long limbed, and lean - lacking the lush curves of the goddess.It was difficult to communicate to the terrified women that his drinking from them would not hurt them, and they trembled and begged and shied away from him each time they were brought to him, but they seemed to trust Gera, and gradually, with begrudging dignity, would hold out their wrist to Thaelen, whilst looking away, unwilling to meet his eyes.
Concordia, Nine Hundred and Fifty Years BeforeGera coughed and sweated his way through the night despite Thaelen giving him blood and using a wet cloth to try to cool him. In the morning, Gera’s eyes were shadowed and sunken, and his breathing whistled in his chest.“Rest,” Thaelen stroked the sweat soaked hair back from Gera’s face.“Thirsty,” Gera croaked, and Thaelen retrieved water from a jug on the table. Gera’s hands shook as he sat up to drink, and Thaelen slid an arm behind him to support him. Coughing again, Gera sloshed water, and Thaelen had to steady his hands.“Drink some more,” Thaelen encouraged, and managed to get most of the cup into his human before easing Gera back down onto the pillows. “How do you feel?” He asked.“I have not felt this unwell since the day we met in Beupraxia’s cells,” Gera sighed.“I remember,” Thaelen wet the cloth and washed Gera’s face.“Half starved and dying,” Gera smiled, his eyes closed. “And then a golden-haired vampire kissed me better
Concordia, Nine Hundred and Fifty Years BeforeThe plague spread with frightening speed amongst any human that had any contact with the new slaves. Meguitte tried desperately to contain it to the harbour and the stronghold, but it leaked out into the city, seeping through the streets and to neighboring strongholds. They did not understand how it did so, how it passed so efficiently between person and person.At some stage, the new slaves also sickened.“I have seen this spoken of before in my mother’s grimoire,” Meguitte said grimly. “I wish that I had it still, but it was long ago burnt. In my mother’s village, there was an illness, a pox. Every year, with the change of season it would return and kill almost everyone who sickened with it, but it grew weaker or the survivors stronger, and soon it was no longer something to be feared, but just a minor inconvenience.“It would have been the same for these new people, Thaelen,” she continued. “Whatever wakes these illnesses would occur,
Concordia, Nine Hundred and Fifty Years BeforeThere was a reason that the vampires raided at certain times of the year. The stretch of ocean between Concordia and the neighbouring continent became treacherous in the wrong seasons. The passage across to the other continent was miserable as a result, spent cramped below deck, or saturated on the slippery deck aiding with adjusting the sails and riggings.They travelled without blood slaves and reached the other shores starved and feral, attacking the villages with a savagery unusual to them. They sated their hunger brutally, reduced to beasts by their thirst, and wasted no time celebrating their conquest or taking valuables from the village. They loaded what food and water they could onto the ship, along with every human, male, female, child, leaving only the sick and elderly behind, before moving on. They took three villages, much closer together than they liked, and turned sail back to Concordia.The slave pens below deck were overcr
The Coast of Alden, Nine Hundred and Forty Five Years Before An army approached the village, but not the army that Thaelen sought. This one came from inland, not from the sea. He watched from the shelter of the trees, squatting in the tangled roots, using his flint-knife to skin the rabbit that had been his breakfast. He had been intending to take the brace of rabbits that he had caught that morning to the little fishing village where he was currently staying. The rabbit’s meat had no value to him. It’s guts and skin, however, were another matter. He would stretch the guts into string and use it to sew the hides into clothing and boots, such as he wore. A brace of rabbits could be traded for many things of value in the village – from clothing made from cloth woven by the village women, blades made of metal, or even coins which, eventually, might buy him a night in a tavern, a glass of wine, a warm bath, and a bed. The arrival of an army from inland disrupted his plans, and he watche
Concordia, Nine Hundred and Forty Five Years Before Thaelen fixed a smile on his face as he walked towards the soldiers. They were laughing and muttering amongst themselves, their attention on the house where the young woman’s screams had changed tone, losing the sharpness, becoming resigned to her fate. I’m sorry, Thaelen thought to her. He had made a callous choice to use her to buy the time to tend the child and old woman. It had been a dispassionate, cruelly efficient prioritization. The guard before him met his eyes, his expression becoming alarmed as he recognized the death in Thaelen’s expression. He began to draw his sword, but Thaelen reached him first, snapping his neck and throwing him into the others, so that they fell under the weight. He caught the arm of a soldier who escaped the burden of the body, preventing his sword from striking, and pulled the arm from the socket, tearing the sword from the hand as the soldier screamed, whilst catching the soldier against him, hi
Concordia, Nine Hundred and Forty Five Years BeforeThaelen heard her follow, her footfalls clumsy through the undergrowth of the forest floor, the noise silencing the wildlife who shared the trees with them. Although he knew that her survival was more assured in his company, she was a complication that he didn’t want to deal with. She had already stabbed him in the stomach in a moment of unexpected treachery. He would be unable to sleep until he delivered her to her destination, or risk that she tried to kill him again.“Why do you have daggers and a bow, if you do not need them?” She asked as they wound their way between the trees. “You did not use a weapon with the soldiers…”“I had the element of surprise today,” he replied as they reached the small campsite where he had been staying on the bank of a fresh-water creek that ran towards the beach. He lifted off his leather tunic and laid it on a rock, hissing in a breath as it stretched his barely-repaired stomach wound. He knelt by