“See for yourselves,” I say, granting them permission.
One-by-one they crawl to the top and witness the same sight I did.
Once they all know what we’re up against, I stand, not bothering to hide anymore. “Who are we?” I demand.
“Knights of the Vorcellian Order!”
“And what is our mission?”
“To rid the world of all darkness!”
“Then with our Lord as my witness, that is what we will do here, today!” I turn to the village and point my sword straight at it. “Show them no mercy! Strike them down in their homes! Kill them while they’re abed, kill them all, because they are creatures of the night, and they have forsaken the light for darkness!”
A monstrous roar goes up among my men. I shift my sword into both hands, angle it in front of me, and scream, “CHARGE!”
We race down the uneven ground. Plumes of smoke rise from the fire around us. The heat is unbelievable. But we’re all human, and even if we don’t have the element of surprise on our side, we should be able to handle the threat of the fire better than the witches.
A quarter of the way there a dark shape streaks by my side. My attention is diverted for a second. When I look, it’s gone.
Suddenly one of my men crashes down. He gives a blood-curdling scream. A second dark shape flashes, just on the other side of my vision. Damien cries and falls, and when I look I see him pinned to the ground by…
By something not entirely human.
Then, from out of the midst of the fires, come a swarm of black shapes. They move too fast for me to register anything more than the most indistinctive blurs.
They’re attacking us. I stop and face the enemy, but wherever I look all I catch is a flash of shadow. It’s like fighting ghosts.
The pained screams of my men rain through the air. The dark shapes keep swarming around us, darting in and out so much faster than any witch or human has any right to move.
One by one my small army goes down around me. Blood stains the necks and the breastplates of my men. I spin in a rage, slashing Witchbane through the air.
It finds nothing but empty space.
The black streaks continue darting around me. For a second one of them stops. Our eyes meet.
It’s a woman.
My breath catches. Her eyes are tinged with red.
I’ve seen many things in my life serving the order. But a monster such as this, I’ve only read about.
Suddenly, she lunges forward. Her arms extend and I see claws at the tips of her fingers.
Claws stained crimson with the blood of my men.
A rage takes me such as I’ve never felt before. The creature is fast, but somehow, I manage to get my sword up in time. It slashes up between our bodies. I feel the briefest flash of satisfaction as the monster’s body is impaled on the blade.
But the creature looks at me… and simply smiles. Her face is a mask of illustrious, maniacal glee.
She grips the sword running through her with both hands and steps into it, pushing it farther through her body.
All my training, all my experience, all that I know fails me then. I’m stupefied. As the woman moves closer to me, my blade stuck in her side, I cannot break eye contact. Some distant part of my mind is screaming at me that this cannot be real, that this must be an illusion cast by the witches to confuse and befuddle me—
But I know that cannot be true, for I’ve drunk the elixir of Mirthnettle that immunizes me from spells that affect the sensory faculties of the mind.
The creature speaks.
“Do I frighten you, Lord Commander?” She knows who I am. “Do I repulse you, as you see me now? Am I not an affront to your God?”
Her face is inches away from mine and coming closer. I can smell her stench—the stench of a battlefield, of putrid blood, of death.
I try to jerk my blade free. But this woman, this being, this… thing… is so much stronger than I am. It’s unfathomable. She should have dropped dead as soon as my blade pierced her flesh. Instead, she’s standing here, mocking me, and defying everything I’ve ever known.
Her hands close over mine on the hilt of the sword. Even through my gauntlets I can feel that hers are ice cold. They steal the heat from my body, sucking it from me like a bat draining blood—
Realization hits. Blood. Blood! Blood on her mouth, blood over her lips, blood all over her body…
She hasn’t just killed my men. She fed on them.
My grip on Witchbane wavers. It hasn’t once left my side since I inherited it over thirty years ago. But now I’m on the verge of letting go, if only to get away from this creature—
Where would I go? My eyes flash past her. There are others of her kind all around. They’re staring, at me, momentarily distracted from their feast on my dead men.