Death After Death-Chapter 226: A Long Time Coming

He didn’t interrupt again for a while, even though he felt the urge to at every new revelation. Charia, as it turned out, was not really a unified Kingdom like Brin or Montain, as he’d thought previously. Instead, it was barely a confederation; It had a king, but the post was nearly ceremonial. It was the Mountain Lords scattered through the region that held the real power.

They finally won against the Murani, eventually, when they banded together. They repelled them from the north, and apparently, even now, several keeps were under construction that would make further wars in the future very unlikely. “Not that they will do us any good in the fighting to come.”

Simon expected to hear more about peace after that, but apparently, as soon as the Murani were pushed back to the deserts of the north and the foreign lands beyond, Brin attacked Charia. Before she’d even explained that it was a crusade against warlocks and other foul magics in any great detail, Simon was already blaming the Unspoken.

“Apparently, the warriors in white cloaks have many techniques for disabling mages,” Ara explained, unaware that he already knew that, “But few of them work against vampires. So, even though they came for my Mistress, they were devoured by her instead.”

“What are your impressions?” he asked. “Have you fought them?”

“I—” she started. “I don’t fight. I don’t kill. I just can’t, even after all of this. I mind Mistress Freya’s castle and attend to her needs. Everything else I leave to her.”

“And she has no other lovers or vampire henchmen or whatever?” Simon asked in his uncomfortably gravelly voice.

“She’s had a few over the years, but none currently. They all died in the crusade at one point or another,” she answered wearily. “I do not think that delving into those details will assist us now.”

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Simon wanted to protest and explain that knowing how their enemies killed vampires was the most valuable information of all, but he shrugged mentally and dropped it. Even after feasting on so much blood, he was already starting to fade. Why do you care about staying alive? He asked himself. Death is exactly what you want.

Apparently, the crusade ended up indecisive and dragged on for years as a series of border skirmishes, just the way that the war with the Murani had turned out for years before. That had been enough to cause a fragile peace enforced only by apathy. Unfortunately, that meant that when the Murani attacked Brin again for the fourth time this century, all of their strength had been spent, and they fell before the horselords. Now, only a few years later, the mountainous region of Charia was poised to do likewise.

“Every Mountain Lord between here and the old border has fallen,” she explained. “Castle Gravenstone is all that stands between this valley and—”

“What about the rest of the nation, though,” Simon asked. “What about Ionar and—”

“I don’t give a damn about any of those places,” Ara spat. “I woke you to save my family. The rest of them can fend for themselves.”

Simon nodded, disappointed by the answer. He would have tried to stand then, but he was too weak to get out of the coffin, and after decades with a severed spinal cord, he could barely feel his toes. “I’d help, he said finally, but I can’t even walk,” he sighed, feeling every year of his advanced age now that time had caught up with him.

“No,” she agreed, “Not yet, but you are a clever man. You escaped from my Mistress’s cell, and such things are not done. Surely you can come up with some kind of plan to help us. Perhaps you could teach all the men we have under arms magic?”

“I-I’m not sure that would go so well,” Simon answered, suppressing his urge to tell her that was the worst plan he could imagine. Teaching two or three dozen men words of power might win a battle, but they’d kill themselves in a few years from the drain, and that was the best-case scenario. Making them all magical weapons would do better, but “The key is the pass, I think. That is where we should be fighting them, not here at the castle walls.”

“We lack the men for that. If we had hundreds, or—” She started answering.

“You just said you have a valley full of families,” Simon interrupted. “That’s all the men you need, right there. Give them weapons and tell them to fight for their homes!”

“The men of the valley have never had to fight,” she said, looking confused. “My Mistress has always protected them. She—”

“She isn’t here,” Simon said. “If you want an army, then you have to make one yourself. It’s the only answer. A double rank of men with spears and as many bows as you can find might be enough if you can get the high ground. It would be even better if you could pick ground that is rough enough to break a charge all on its own.”

“I see,” she said coolly, obviously not impressed with that idea. “How long do you think that would take? Two days? Three?”

“I’d drill them for at least a month together before I put them in the field together,” Simon said, suppressing a laugh, “But in times this desperate, a week perhaps, if you include your castle guards as sergeants and other leaders. Any less, and it would just be a slaughter.”

“We don’t have a week,” she answered in a tone that sounded closer to a frustrated child not getting what she wanted than it did to a ruler who wasn’t getting her way. “We have half that. Maybe. I told you. As soon as they grow bold, it could be over in a single day.”

“Well, I don’t know what miracles you want me to work here,” Simon said, feeling his own frustration starting to rise. “If I could fight, I would, but I can’t use magic. I can’t walk, and I can’t…”

His words trailed off as she turned and left the room without a word. He heard some talking from somewhere further on, perhaps a room or two down the line, and then, a few minutes later, guards returned, pushing a couple more men into the room. The door was then slammed shut and locked, and Ara appeared at the small window while the prisoners scurried back in horror at what was about to happen.

“Feast on as many men as you like tonight. Regain your strength.” she said, “Then tomorrow night, you can buy us the time we will need for your plan.”

“I’m not sure that killing more men will solve this,” Simon said with a shake of his head, not certain how he felt about killing people now that he was more or less in full control of his faculties, even though the blood racing through their veins sang to him. “It’s decades of damage we’re talking about here. It will take time and—”

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“Time is the one thing we do not have,” she said sadly, “Fortunately, I’ve seen the miracles that blood can do. If you drink enough, you will be whole, eventually.”

“Enough?” Simon asked, holding up his arms to show how they were basically skin and bone. He couldn’t see his face, but he knew that he was closer to a ghoul than a vampire. “How many is that? I don’t want to kill dozens just to—”

“My impression of you, brief though it was, is that you are resourceful and are at your best under pressure,” Ara interrupted, her voice going from cool to cold in that moment as she made some decision about whatever it was that had been on her mind this whole time. “The guards are under orders to bring you fresh prisoners each time yours expire. If you are not strong enough to fight tomorrow night, then they will start bringing you children to devour instead.”

Simon couldn’t answer for a long moment. Then he finally stammered, “B-but your sister’s grandchildren…”

“None of them will be related to me, Simon,” she explained. “Why should I care if they live or die? Feast now or feast later. The choice is yours.”

She left after that, and even when he called out to her, she didn’t return. Instead, she left him in the near dark, with only a single lantern between him and the prisoners. He looked at them, then, and though he wasn’t sure they understood what he and Ara had been talking about, he didn’t need to exchange a single word with them to be certain that they knew they were about to die.