"Blade of the Eagle Clansman" Ch8-C

There will be one more part to this chapter, as time moves on. These two characters are just being stubborn about me not skipping things, and surprising me at what they reveal to me about their world, or this part of it. -D.R. 

Galen snarled as light fled the prairie, staring incredibly at the still glowing line where the head of his mace once supported a fin. Such a thing was thought impossible, that only portions of something would be taken with a teleporting item or person, not all of it, and what it was connected to. Not to mention, this being yet another blade to snap from the head of the mace, another problem to ponder, for it's enchantments were to prevent such incidents due to the design. Without a mage-smith nearby, to look into that matter, he shelved it, mentally.

Tagrun stalked about the circle of dead grass surrounding him, warring emotions dancing across his face. Anger at the escape, grief over the deaths, and relief and worry stuttering between those, over Chanti being alive, but once more beyond his reach to save. His feet moved closer, then farther out, but rarely more than two paces from the circle, as he moved. Something seemed to keep him out of it. Superstitions, perhaps, or an ingrained sense of self-preservation.

The elven assassin glared at him, not sure if the boy's hesitation, suddenly, was cowardice or wisdom. "Enter it. Show the mage you do not fear his spells."

"I seek his footsteps, none are here though." Tagrun raged, casting about for some way to trace his foe.

"The only steps you will find of his lie outside this realm, and mortal eyes cannot trace." Galen sighed. "Fools we were. Thinking we could kill him so easily."

"When he dies, it will be at my hand. The sands said so." Tagrun walked around the circle of death again, stopping to lift up a weakened, but still alive child. "Some trace must be where eyes can see it, for me to follow."

Galen's eyes narrowed, those words too close in his memory to another student's words decades before. "Perhaps. But not where your eyes see the trace of his steps, but the effects of the passage. Like the moving of blades tells of your namesake's stalking of prey?"

Tagrun whipped his head around, eyes seeking for such in the grass, but sighed after a few moments. "No. You are right. This is magic, something beyong the ken of my eyes. Only another mage could trace the foulness he did unto these innocents."

Closing his eyes, Galen nodded silently, thinking hard. It was in the distant desert of volcanic ash and sand his mind sought the answer, amid his memories of that other student, one who did not embrace what he was, but denied it, seeking to quell the gifts the gods had laid upon him, not use them. That boy's gifts, so similar to his own, rose up as an answer.

"There might be a way. Place will not matter, I think. At least, not to find where a trail you can follow for us will resume." Galen smiled, lifting his mace, turning the radiant seam where once a blade projected to his face. "And our prey cannot block it."

"What way is that? A user of the dark powers knows all." Tagrun said.

"Knows them, but not the ways of the user of them." Galen knelt, sifting a handful of dead dust through his fingers. "Nor that a hunter can use them as well as a mage."

Tagrun grunted, still not convinced, but let the matter lie, for the moment. "We must save these, and he will use that time to flee, covering his tracks, having seen a grass stalker follows with you."

"Yes. But he has only a few places in reach, if my own schooling tells true, of a spell only fueled by a few, instead of all these. West, unless he seeks sojourn among the blood drinkers, is out. North would keep him from his goal, but confuse us, so we must consider it." Galen shook his head, standing slowly. "No, East or south is my guess. Kensorthi or Jandalin."

"Kensorthi would expose him. Most there are of the grass, and would not tolerate a mage hiding among them." The boy scoffed, staring down the valley, as the lesser moon at last rose in the east. "Jandalin also gets more ships."

Galen stared at the boy. "I thought you never left the grass of the north before?"

"Once, we traveled to the coast. Trading furs for spear and arrow heads." Tagrun smiled shyly. "I never said I had not left the grass of the Eagle, but Jandalin is on the grass, as is Kensorthi."

"You tribesmen amaze me again." Galen smiled, looking over the slowly reviving clan around them. "Take them to the river. Washing may not be a remedy for their ailments, but it will let them wash the feeling of filth this foe undoubtedly left upon them."

Tagrun grunted, sensing there was more to leaving the place to just his uncle. Galen's face left no room for argument about the decision, though. Moving gently among the survivors, he aided them up from the ground, checked their steadiness, then urged them down the draw. Risking one last glance back, the boy nodded to Galen, even as the older elf closed his eyes, holding the mace's broad head to his own. The hunter moved faster after the others, taking the arm of their shala to aid her over the rocky terrain.

For Galen, only the mace was left in his world. The boy, despite their shared blood, was not part of his true kin. Tagrun felt none of the bonds the numeni held dear, lived his life as one of the clansmen, which might be fine for him, lacking a doni so far. Reaching into his soul, in the spot he once shared with his sister, the boy's mother, the assassin teased at the powers within his mind, calling them out gently, into the mace. The trick would not be invoking the connection between the head and missing fin, but in keeping the connection faint enough to avoid alerting the mage.

Chablys being much sought after by all mages for various rites and spells, not to mention the fact that their foe might even use a magical summoning of the power to drain the mace's enchantments through the portion of it he now possessed, he was sure their prey would not toss it aside.

Reaching out his doni, Galen stirred the power inside the mace, caressing the flow just enough to create a tiny ripple in those currents. A disturbance that fled out from the center of the great ball, finding the jagged seams that once held the missing fins, trickling out them to seek missing parts. Opening his eyes, the assassin shifted his vision from the world of matter to that of energy. Flares of power and life burst all around, swirling whirlwinds of fire marking the creatures, a flow from river to hilltop marking the grass and other scrubs, but over it all, a faint golden stream, marred by darker orange ripples along it, flowed into the heart of the dead circle, disappearing.

Patience, the greatest virtue of a hunter, be he of beasts or men, became Galen's only companion amid that maelstrom of hues, as the world moved about him in ways few others ever saw. Time ceased to exist in the normal sense for the assassin, now intent upon finding his prey and redeeming the knife on his belt. When the returning ripple came, it flowed over the scenery, not through the evaporated portal opening. A long, faint lone, stretching to the south, and a bit west. A line almost washed out when the boy stepped between him and the distant fin by Tagrun's angry red aura.

"Kensorthi." One word said it all, for both of them.

"Good. But we need to get these Otter folk down to help. Their shala is too ill to tend their wounds and sickness for them." Tagrun's rage forced Galen to abandon his effort, and look once more upon the physical, not the spiritual world.

"It will take too much time to find another encampment." He snarled.

"No." Tagrun grinned viciously. "Their main band is in the port, trading. And they were making rafts to join them."

Galen smiled himself, sensing something their foe had not anticipated. The hand of the Parcae, the three goddesses of Fate, being on their side, aiding their hunt. "Well, that changes things. How much more to do?"

"Those able to work managed to help me finish their rafts. A hundred spear throw walk, then the ride down the river." Now Tagrun's face showed worry. "But the river is not an easy thing, from here to the Sandy Grasses below. Many rapids, and rains must have fallen, for the channels here are swollen."

"But swifter than one would think, for this time of year." Galen stared up at the stars, blessing them, as the clouds broke for a few more moments, then sealed them over. "Let us see your rafts, and take a day or so to make them stronger and safer. It will not matter. Our prey is grown over-confident, thinking we were but lucky."

"How would you know this?" Tagrun asked, starting down the draw to the bank of the Kensorthi.

"He did not toss aside the fin of my blade. Instead, he plays with it, hoping to steal its magic, and my life through it." Galen sneered. "Fool, I say, and lucky for us. Even the masters of yore often failed at that."

"But some did it, that implies." Tagrun scowled again, noting flashes in the clouds, distant echoes of lightning to come.

Galen refused to answer, trusting to his goddesses to grant him victory.

Okay, now I have to do some worldbuilding in advance of the final part of the chapter, the river ride you see coming. And on Kensorthi the town, and its surrounds. And the path after that... no, this is not an easy hunt, and will end in frustration, if not for my characters, at least for me. =D.R.

"Blade of the Eagle Clansman" Ch8-two/B - The first Hunt of Scorpio Kenrai.

Moving along the trail their prey left, the signs pointed to another atrocity to be found early. Yet, even by sundown, none was found, save the implication of one to come, by the number of footsteps joining the Necromancer's tread marks. This was not a single gathering, but one marked by well spread out along his trail harvesting of bodies for something worse than before, both hunters knew. Just before sundown, they found an encampment, with fires still burning amid the tents, and knew that this night, the beast they followed would feast, unless they made haste.

Worse, Galen stared at the moons in the sky, as the sun set, knowing the night would grant the one they stalked complete darkness in the hour of dark magics, midway between dusk and dawn. Such a lack of light gave the dark arts greater power. Power enhanced more as clouds streamed north from the Great Water at a rapid pace, cloaking the stars as well.

He barely noticed the boy's sudden stop, nearly running into him, stumbling into a cluster of rattle-tails, whose seed pods gave their namesake sound loudly, drawing ire from his nephew.
"Sha!" Tagrun hissed. "Over this ridge, see it?"

Shifting carefully back to their path, Galen squinted a bit, but noted the faint yellow-orange glow indicating a fire. "Yes." The word was more breath than sound.

"He waits for something. What?" The boy's head turned slowly, taking in the surroundings, eyes glittering in the dark, seeing the land's heat and auras more than it's forms.

"Midnight. As always." Galen whispered, moving in closer to his companion. "That hour marks the zenith of the ars arcanum."

"This will be his last casting amid the Grass, then." The boy's grip tightened upon his spear's shaft, knuckles popping enough for Galen's ears to register the sound.

Hand upon the boy's shoulder, Galen moved around him. "Perhaps. Or it might be he wants us there, to feast upon our anguish as well. Think of what you will feel like if a whole tribe is consumed by his power tonight."

"The only thing I intend for him to feast upon is bile and my spear." Tagrun snarled, crouching down as he slipped past his uncle. The boy's sudden burst of energy shocked Galen, who'd thought the toll of the hunt more than it now seemed. He moved slower, but kept close, hoping to dissuade Tagrun from making a terrible error.

"Tagrun, no..." In a blink, the boy was over the ridge, and sprinting at the fire, where all looked away, facing south towards the heart of the night. The magus stood with his back to them, oblivious to all but his own rising chant, violet and purple flames dancing over his extended hands, reaching out towards the tribe held in thrall before him.

Tagrun hurled his hasta, the long spear whistling through the air, seeking his prey, even as one of the long hunting knives filled his right hand. Galen struggled to free his mace from its belt loop, forced to prance awkwardly down the rock strewn slope, stumbling twice when Nature's caltrops rolled under his steps. The elf waded into the rattle-tails, stirring pods into their namesake call.

The mage turned, eyes glowing with the violet fires necromancy fueled, a snarl creasing his face. "Fool, you cannot stop what is to come. Embrace it, join me."

Streaking through the dusk, a glint of bronze announced the flight of his sister's hasta, as Tagrun tossed his spear towards the Necromancer. The mage blocked its path with a backhanded gesture, shimmering purple field summoned out, as one of the sacrifices dropped, body crumbling to dust, leaving the spear to glance away into taller blades of grass behind him. The man thrust out his right hand, left held before him, cloaked in the field he'd summoned now, pulled in tight to his chest, unleashing a bolt tainted deep blue, almost the indigo of dusk's sky, at the charging boy.

Tagrun dove into a roll beneath it, coming up to his right, long hunter's blade slicking the Necromancer's forearm with an upward slash. The hunter of beasts stepped in, trying to lock the arm outward, but gasped as the mage splayed his fingers into Tagrun's chest, forcing the boy back, gasping for breath, a nimbus of blue static spreading over his torso, abdomen, and neck.

Using the boy's fall as a blockade, the mage snarled, grasping two of his victims, one recognizable as the elven girl, Chanti. Cursing, the mage lowered his head, as the male his right hand rested upon crumbled away to dust, and the mage and girl seemed to stretch away to the south.

Galen reached them before the distancing effect finished into vanishing, swinging his mace at the mage. One blade managed to entangle in the wide sleeves of the mage's loose robe, before a sharp crack, followed by a hollow bang announced their escape. A tendril of smoke rose from the mace's head, hot molten chablys giving the campsite an eerie light. A line that marked where once a blade, now departed with the mage, had been.

Blade of the Eagle Clansman - Chapter 8 (partial)

(You be the judge, vote with comments: Do I have my chops back and have the thread of this story again?)

Three bleak, grey dawns now lay behind them, as Galen stared across the dying coals of their night's fire at the hollowed out boy across from him. Losing two so close to him, and the mess at the Burning Rocks still sore to the boy, left the eyes vacant save the occasional stirring of vengeance's flames within them. Today, the embers of the fire and the eyes were dim, but not for long, the elven assassin thought.

Something would spark a rage, a killing one, and the boy would be lost, every bit the killer the one they hunted obviously wanted to make him. The Necromancer was not just playing a game with primitives, that much had become clear. The creature of darkness wanted them on his trail, and moving through the land in a rage. Each day, near to noon, they would find his camp from the night before, a place of death, even the grasses brown, brittle, and lifeless, adorned with strange trees made of bodies drained of life, that they lost time in burning, to prevent the dead from following them.
Tagrun rarely spoke, only a few words about the trail in the morning, and nothing but gestures in the trade sign-language after they'd dealt with the foul messes left behind by their prey. His eyes died more with each night, but the hate blazed up each noon, when they beheld the new horrors of crucified corpses, some twisted into trees in their own right, before their essences drained into their foe.

His eyes drifted across the prairie around them, the soft, rolling grasslands of the place his folk once called the Eastern Deadlands, ravaged by the remnants of the volcanoes around them, and a sorcerous war three ages before that triggered that cataclysm. The grass was not the green of the northern prairies and plains crossed before reaching the Vault. Dull teal to blue blades swayed in the wind, shorter, cropped often by herds of auroch and bison, among other creatures. The tall spires of the old vents and runs of dykes left behind when the ashes of the eruptions which formed the bowl of the land cast strange shadows, as their gleaming rocks, rich in precious metals, studded by clumps of wind and rain polished gems that sparkled in the sun. Those towers, numerous, but still spread apart by stadia, left him stunned, but the boy ignored their beauty. The tribes all ignored the riches, having paid heavily when they'd overrun the land during the Age of Convulsions, as the Old North Empire collapsed, for trying to harvest such, finding them enchanted against harvest by any not of that fallen nation. Something Galen fought testing, to see if those spells still held out against the fading of power the years passed brought on all such power.

Three days of sporadic sprinkles left the trail still there, but weak, hard to follow. The delays in setting the funeral pyres merely aggravated Tagrun, the boy simmering over the delay, but knowing the cost of not burning the ensorcelled bodies, the young hunter took the time, and did it well. This morning, though, his half open eyes meeting his uncle's.

"We go about this wrong. He wants us wasting time."

Galen grunted, pouring out the last of the pot of kaf, frowning. "Yes. But if we do not find the camps, others will suffer."

Tagrun shook his head. "No. Here there are fewer night hunting beasts to fear. That is what I mean." He leaned back, noting darker bands of clouds to the south. "Tonight, I say we keep on the trail. By torchlight if necessary. Drive him to abandon this, make him hasten to his chosen place to meet us, and perhaps fail to have it ready as a trap to kill his pursuers." Leaning forward, the boy stirred the coals, letting them brighten a bit, before seeking Galen's eyes and judgement.

Galen narrowed his own almond eyes, staring across the waving grasses, noting the increase of shrubs amid the landscape, compared with further north. Sipping his drink, he thought over the suggestion, not liking it. If the clouds broke, the trail would be easier to follow, and the hunters were not known for night tracking, to those outside their lands. Ones who knew them feared the nights they hunted, for the clans proved good in the dark hours at tracking their prey, or maybe more than by the light of the sun. So far, their prey counted on the edge night gave his powers, so perhaps Tagrun was correct. But to confront a sorceror in the dark, or the dim light of dawn might just be too much for them.
"He travels by day, that we know." Tagrun now opined. "Gathering up those he finds out, for his evil. If we push him, perhaps he will not take more of the Otter clan, whose grass we now tread."
"Or perhaps we will meet the Otters themselves, at night." Galen stretched, feeling muscles still tight from their fast pace and short nights protest at the movement. "Against such as this man, we know not what they will be sending out now."

 Tagrun grunted, knowing his elder was right, but feeling his own idea worth trying. "Otter will understand. We know word is spreading, you saw the curse wards they leave, the wands in the rock piles, the staff with the burnt skull of the beast set upon one of their camps." He noted Galen's motions, knowing they meant the elf was ready to move on, but waited only for him to finish his idea. "One night, if it works, and we stop him from destroying souls, we keep it up. If not, back to the day trekking, but longer hours, camping only after the sun sets. The moon of migrations grows rounder each night, let us use that light."

Nodding, Galen admitted that one night would not harm them, if they could catch the horror they stalked. "Very well. One night of tracking him onward, but we do not approach him until dawn. Can you go so long without rest?"

"Once, I followed the tusk-cat I am named for, six days and nights, eating on the run, never sleeping. For this monster, I would run all the days and nights until the moon leaves the night sky. And into the dark, if the lesser moon lets us."

Kicking dirt over the fire as he rose, Galen met his nephew's eyes. "So be it."

What the Re-Write of Predator's Ground was looking like... chap 1 unfinished

The streets of Dhibt- bustled with people, unlike most cities Scorpio visited, despite being past the midnight hour. Hrelgim, humans, even a few of the pale elves from the northland underworld partied, conducted business, or plied their trades. All strangely in darkness only broken a few times, when Kaljorn, the lesser moon, peeked through broken clouds above. Outnumbering the living, the walking dead and demons also prowled, seeking prey. The hunter from the Grass found himself playing such, hiding from those still stirred up by the assassination the red blade his mentor recently left in the headless body of the current lord of the city called for.
But still neither man had a clue whom the golden bladed knifes that came with the crimson one were meant for. Still puzzled, Scorpio eased the sheathed knife from his leather vest, using the faint light of Kaljorn to read again the marks, nine in total. Three marks on the Sheath. At the bottom, the seven blade star pattern that said all members and houses in the Allegiance of the Blades must aid him in all ways, near the opening, the upturned hand marking this as a rescue mission, and between, a bear skull lying upon a broken spear. The middle still puzzled him, as it marked the one he was to save.
The hilt gave three more clues in similar sigils. At the pommel, a wolf and pup were marked, near the narrow guard, a fanged skull of a man, and between them a symbol from maps, but different. Four arc marks used to show hills, three overlapping, with one beneath and to the left.
Skittering of pebbles over the cobble stones in the alley leading to their hiding place drew both Scorpio and Codi's attention. Before the walker came much closer, they heard nails scratching the baked mud walls five times. Then barely a whisper of cloth, as the tall, hyena-headed Hrelgrim called Seth-ma joined them.
"Your acts, though appreciated by the living, have stirred the hornets harshly, Codi." Seth-ma let his tongue twitch out the side of his fanged mouth, a sign of amusement. "But the boy, his acts have the whole city in a fit. Does he have to carry that damned stinger?" A three fingered hand, tipped with long, black claws gestured to Scorpio's back.
Codi Duhn grinned. "You try to get him to leave it. Besides, we all would be dead in that chamber, save for that dammed chained ball of his."
Seth-ma gave a soft bark of agreement, but still shook his head. "All now know who to seek. The Scorpion is too well known, and that stinger well feared. The city is on guard for him." The Hrelgi snarled, as a strong smell of blood tainted the air. "And trying to draw him out. Too many bards tell the tales of how he turns vicious when children are hurt."
Scorpio clenched his fist on the knife hilt, as the screams of little ones began nearby. It was his great weakness according to fellow Blades, but one he refused to set aside. And that pup beside the wolf on the hilt called to that belief that children should be protected at all costs. "Leave me if you must." He whispered.
Codi merely chuckled. "Hell, boy, draw the blade and find out if it is here we must act." His own golden knife lifted from its sheath, as the older man used another short appearance of Kaljorn to read the marks on the steel's business end. His teeth showed suddenly, as the mirth died and anger rose.
Feet padding on stones beyond the crates turned Scorpio's head to the gap, noting two shadows racing down the alley. A woman and a girl, by the hair lengths flowing atop them, but that was not sure. His own coppery mane, fallen from the traditional braids, was nearly as long. The pair slowed as they reached the crates the three assassins hid behind. Years of hunting prey, beasts and men both, let Scorpio stay still, as the two caught their breath. Kaljorn's light lit them for a few breaths, making them flinch. Both wore leather breeches, wide belts that cinched their waists and abdomens gently, and wool tunics. The woman's all deep verdant of a forest, the child's had green bodice and long red sleeves. Their leathers black, save circles etched into those girdles. There the elder sported two green circles, inscribed with black marks of a bear holding a spear, the child's were different, one like the woman's, the other very familiar to Scorpio. A Wolf holding a saber in its teeth. The same design on his mentor's own red and black leathers.
"Kiltyen." The word slipped out, leaving the clansman to star back at his companions, as the runners jumped back, distancing themselves from the crates.
"Blood drinker, you will not have my child." The woman snarled.
A foul curse in the tongue of the short folk burned the air, as Codi rose up, revealing himself. "Yania, we seek not your blood."
The woman's arm, trying to push the girl behind her, halted suddenly. "Codi?" The voice broke into sobs. "Though we were lovers, I cannot trust one of the clan that destroyed Hanval."
Codi stepped carefully from the knife and sheath where they could be seen. "Though I wear the badges of my clan, you know I am outcast for what I do, Yania. And you know what this means." The blade on the dagger was red, not gold. "Who escaped Hanval?"
The woman hesitated, trying to keep the girl behind her, but youth's curiosity overwhelmed her attempt, as the child sidestepped the arm suddenly. Snarling again, she attempted to snag the child's arm, failing. "None I know of, though Katvi was riding circuit of the farms."
"And your sister knows who to speak to amongst the clans, to buy a blade of vengeance." Codi whispered, eyes locking on the young girl, about seven walks of the stars across the sky old. "Eight years ago, the last time we met..."
Nervously silent, the woman merely nodded.
Seth-ma rose suddenly, disturbed. "Who would buy a blade that lets a killer save his own love? Who would take such coin?"
"Dzhino would." Scorpio said, softly. "And the Master of the Blades recently serviced of a blade he would offer to no others, amid the hill-baronies."
Standing up, the moon lit up the great bronze ball of the Scorpion's Sting, upon the hunter's shoulder. "It would be best we find some refuge, and other way from this place."
Seth-ma growled, turning back into the alley they'd used to reach this point, so close to the wharfs and ships that promised escape. "Stealing the fodder of the Asa-amu-mud is foolish. No paths will be left to us, save those into the Ki-Gedim-Du, and the land ghosts walk is not safe for you, Scorpion."
"Nor for the one who raises those ghosts, and owes me a debt of blood and souls." Scorpio whispered, still staring at the pair of Kiltyen females. "But if that is the path for them to be safe, we must take it." Lifting the gold dagger from his vest, he drew it finally, noting the blade was black.
Seth-ma fell silent, turning back. Blades of Vengeance and Succor were rare, never had he seen two at the same time, in all the centuries he had lived.
Along a wall, something stirred. A form rose, one of the tusked swine from the forests and plains around the city. The shoulders of the beast rose nearly to the chest of the half-elf, who stood a full spear tall. The death pig, snorted, eyes glowing a strange yellow in the moonlight. Seth-ma drew in a sharp breath. "Athalani, a namusah!" He roared, grasping a javelin from the quiver on his back. "Run, you fools."
Even as the Hrelgi moved forward, the beast rose on its hind legs, as a sickly saffron glow covered the wiry-haired hide, body twisting into something fouler. "Slayers and fodder, all caught in one grasp." Gravel marked growl sent shivers even up the spine of one used to such foes. Scorpio reached for the end of the chain of his Stinger, knowing this fight would draw more such beasts.

Renegade from the Crimson Inn {chap 7 finale of a complete Hunt of Scorpio Kenrai}

She felt the death of her last warrior, and hoped his failsafe plan would work, knowing in her heart that this fight was truly over. She was well fed, and able to fight, but the hunter had a determination to destroy them all, which she had not counted on. He was like a demon of vengeance, come to gather all the damned in for their time in Hell, and nothing was stopping him.

Each of her children, and those she had freed from Tamiko, had died at his hands. Now, she could see the burning, impaled bodies of the remaining Blood Drinkers in town blazing between the distant shore and the south wall of the town. She could hear others dying here, as the hunter either stumbled upon them by accident or tracked them to their hiding spots. Screams of rage and hate, pain and misery, as he destroyed them to ensure they would not rise as their lovers and mistresses had as damned undead blood sucking demons.

Katlayna had begun to worry she had indeed become a demon, and thus able to banished to hell for eternity. never to return to the world to feast on blood again. Slowly weakening as other demons and devils tortured her. She had scoffed at her upbringing until now. But this moment changed everything, for it might be her last. Now the Pangaluang were real again to her, creatures powered by her ancestors, carp dragons come to slay those who should stain the family honor. To avenge a family destroyed, and lift back up a family broken and scattered when needed.

When the final ones died, she walked to the great central pond the many canals led to in the necropolis, thinking she should wait there for her slayer to come. She never noticed when the hunter stood at the edge of the trees, and fired a shot from his bow to her heart with an arrow of tipped with a saint's blessed medal from behind. All her vision was filled with the ethereal dragon that had come to avenge the family she had betrayed. A family wronged from within.

Scorpio watched as a shadowy beast tore the vampire queen apart, not sure what he was seeing until the spirit wolf, eagle, otter and beaver appeared between him and the beast. It was only then that the cat slits in his eyes opened to round circles, in realization that as his gods were real, so too were those of this place. Surely the lion fore-bodied beast with the tail of a carp was the dreaded Pangaluang, spirit guardian of some family.

The beast gathered the pieces of the vampire, and drew a circle in the dirt around them with a mighty claw. Within that boundary fires so bright and hot suddenly leapt up that the hunter threw an arm before his face to keep the heat from searing his face. When the glow died down, in the light of the moon there was only the beast, fully formed, green in color, with the mark of Itazaki's house upon its forehead.

**You must finish the last of them, hunter. I may not leave the graves, but you must end the last damned one for me. His daughter took him during his mourning for his wife, and turned him into another damned soul.** The voice was louder than the one of the goddess of the glade, full of rage not regret. **They impugn the honor of the clan by staying after death, and not returning to the realm of souls. It will hurt what I ask, but you must do this, for the town as well as me.**

Scorpio nodded, wishing he this night dearly that he was still just Tagrun of the Kenrai, not Scorpio who hunted bounties and the damned.

One last person to slay. Or at least he hoped it was a person, and not what Katlayna had claimed, that he came to face. And get some answers from before it was over, he hoped.

*****

The chimes over the mat hanging over the entrance chimed as he walked into the shop of the merchant in foreign goods and scrolls. Inside was a new thing, a maze of hanging rugs and drapes designed to keep out the sun. An ill omen for what was to come, and omens were deeply in the mind of the no longer young hunter. The Kenrai clansman was worn and battered, only the healing he had gained a few hours ago by the mercy of one of the healing gods had kept him alive so far. He trusted very little in magics now, having seen how twisted things associated with magic had become in this town of late.

Scorpio parted the drapes, but did not rearrange them. If his friend was truly now a vampire, he would no longer be his friend. He drew the chablys saber one more time, ready to use it on his friend.

"There is no need, Scorpio. Just open the drapes, and let the sun do me in. It would be a kindness." Itazaki's voice was soft, not seductive as the other vampires had been, but mournful.

"How did it happen, Itazaki?" The hunter had to know, even if he would regret it forever after.

"Simple, I was a Blood Drinker in my youth. I gave the Leech Witch the books she needed to ascend to glory. I was the keeper of all things damned. In my heart, I knew what I did was evil, but I cared not." The shopkeeper paused. "I twisted the child, I had a sick place in my soul, that never truly healed. I took advantage of her charms. And when she left the inn, she gave them to me again, as she had so many times in past. In our disgrace, I gave her my blood, while she gave me something else."

Rage and anger at the betrayal roiled in the heart of the Kenrai clansman. "The necromancer, you helped him flee town. Yet put me on his trail. Why?"

Itazaki laughed. "There are beings beyond your comprehension, my simple hunter friend. Now open the drapes, and let me burn in the dawn. Do not stain your blade on me. The only thing I ever regretted, was betraying you so many times."

With a move as sudden as the sting of his namesake, the drapes were cut down, and then the bamboo shades to the outer world. The shopkeeper had already opened the doors that barred the eastern arches by night. With the sun rising over the city wall pouring in, the rays of pure light destroyed his best friend. Tears trickled down Scorpio's face, as a gust of wind scattered the ashes around the room, never to be a man or vampire again.

*****

She was hidden in the hard box wagon, draped inside in such a way to prevent the sun from entering the shelter she hid in. Still Tamara, who had lived as Tamiko for so long now, felt unsafe, sure the burning rays would enter, and turn her to dust. Every jolt made her anxiety rise, worrying the top heavy wagon would tip over. She had fled the night the hunter had returned, covered in so much blood and dust that few could stand to be near him. The scent had nearly broke her centuries of control, and driven her over the edge into the same frenzy her wild children had succumbed to.

So she had fled the town of her birth and unbirthing, to find another place for a time, until Cosarali proved safe for her to return. Time was on her side. Being immortal, even if the undead kind, gave her that advantage. But the town would have changed by the time she returned, which would be measured in tens of years, not months this time. She hoped it would not have changed so much she could not re-establish herself as a Mistress of the nightlife, and raise new children to aid her control of the town.

She was jarred mightily as the wagon came to a sudden stop. Outside she heard the sounds of struggle as her few remaining living servants were attacked by something. Panic ruled her, if they opened the door, she would be ended, utterly. The sounds ended, then the wagon moved a short distance, only to stop. A rap on the side, down by the bed, let her know someone knew there was someone who knew she was inside.

Then came the voice, the one she knew would come for her someday. "Sorry, Tamara, but the boy is right, we cannot let your kind continue to live in the town. Even if you were gone a century, it would not be fair to those to come afterwards. But as your friend of old, I take this upon myself. Know this in whatever hell you go to. It was a friend who set the wagon afire."

She screamed in fear and rage. To her this was not an act of friendship, but betrayal. She wished it had been night, but knew that her slayer had chosen day to prevent her escape. A nice, bright, sunny one. She heard the oil being splashed on her mobile tomb, and began to sob tearlessly. The sudden burst of flames and heat that came with the ignition did not startle her, she was already beyond knowing anything but the horror of where she was headed. The flames consumed the wagon, and her long dead flesh, giving her the first taste of the tortures she had earned in the hells.

Jinatozu stood watching the wagon burn to the ground. Tears streaked the face of the Grand Master of the Allegiance of Blades' face. He had warned Tamara when she submitted to the bite of that bastard blood sucker lover of hers. Warned her that some day he would have to take up the blade with the glyph for her on it. But she had never heeded the warnings of any before, so why should she have done that then. Or now.

The Dyermo sighed, feeling his own years of life. But he knew there was one trained now to take his place, not as the leader of the guild, but its conscience. He only hoped the young clansman lived up to the promise he had shown until know, and did not let his hate of the undead and necromancy destroy him. When the wind picked up, and the ashes and dust from the wagon began to stir and scatter, the grey skinned dwarf moved to his pack pony, and led it up hill from the dying embers of a friendship that was not really a friendship, just an walking together for a while.

The knife maker in Cosarali never was seen again in the artisans' ward. Some said he had died at the hands of the vampires, others said he had moved to distant Rahab. Only the hunter and the Mage of Shadows knew the truth, and the latter stayed silent when asked. The former walked back out to the edge of the prairies beyond the Iron Spur, and spread his wings over the grass, as an eagle should. Carrying a wealth of gold coins to his people, of which, for a change, he kept none.

*****

In the stormy seas of the Great Water, the captain sat in his cabin, staring at the three coffins he had taken aboard from a Blood Drinker in the night after leaving the port of Cosarali. He knew what was in them, three beautiful vampire girls, all sixteen winters in age. Ready to rise with the setting of the sun. He picked up the bottles he had been given by the magus who had sent him to that place originally. From each, he filled a chalice with the blood in the bottles, and waited for the Mistresses to Rise, dreaming of the wealth the magus had waiting for him in the Domorushtuun city of Dhibt. And of the blood the Mistresses would let him share with them. His, theirs, and that of many other cattle to the slaughter.

Renegade from the Crimson Inn {chap 6 in a complete Hunt of Scorpio Kenrai}

Scorpio reached the edge of the necropolis as the sun set, and in the twilight, he did something he had rarely done since Hiathuna's death, and prayed to the Totems to give him the power and skill to end this abomination. He was not sure if they could truly hear him here, even after seeing their presence in the glade of the unknown goddess. But that visitation had reminded him of the obligations of a clansman, to honor the Totem of the clan, to respect the Totems of the other clans, and to cherish nature, the source of all that lived. So he said a simple prayer, asking for the strength to deal with the vampires, and the fortune to carry him back to the prairies he loved to die.

It was right after his simple askance of the gods, that Scorpio realized that the gods were here, and listening. As the hunter moved towards the canal again, he came upon the tracks of an otter. Definitely not a native species, for in all his years wandering the forests and swamps around Cosarali, he had never seen them, nor any of their signs. Deep within him, the primal hunter that had been Tagrun thrilled at the totems taking a hand in his life again. But the Scorpion was not so sure. The scorpion knew that night was for the hunters, and traps were not always for prey.

With the stillness learned hunting the beasts across the mountains, he waited, patiently, his eyes tracing out every possible trap, and finding them disarmed or missing. There was something that just did not feel right about the area. He studied the canal, and then caught the head of the otter, looking towards a tomb a few spear throws into the abode of the damned. Following that creature's gaze, he saw a motion of the grass, just a twitch, as if another hunter had felt him out here, and shifted slightly, just as Scorpio's eyes had glanced there.

More patience showed him things as the least moon raced up the sky, fading into a crescent as it chased the sun again. Each movement of the foe told him more. This one was dead, for no mosquitoes clouded over him, and he had a long sword, the kind only the nobles and great warriors of the land held by law, leaning against the mausoleum's wall. A sword he knew.

He sighed, knowing from the first day he had entered the town, this day would come. The day the samurai who had scoffed at his weapons on entering the town would challenge him. But he had never dreamed that warrior would stain his family's honor by submitting to the embrace of the undead to gain more power. But the fool had already been known to believe his destiny was to be the next Daimyo of the prefecture. Pride was driving him to force this fight. Scorpio only hoped he could indeed hold out against the creature he would face once crossing the log.

A movement on the broken roof of the tomb took his attention next. Golden eyes, and the shape he knew so well. Kenrathi, an eagle, the totem of his clan, looking down upon the foe. Down, as it would from the blue when soaring, to find the small creatures of the field or the dead corpses the eagles sometimes scavenged.

He sighed, and adjusted his gear. Making sure of one piece in particular. He had long dreaded this fight, not because of fear, but sorrow. The once-a-man he now would face had the skills he admired, the weapons he lusted for himself from time to time, and class and skill with women the hunter could never gain. Despite their conflict, and the arrogance of Noro Ishi, he had a small case of hero worship for his exploits, which in many ways surpassed his own.

Once satisfied, the hunter moved, silently, stalking his way to the point nearest the fallen tree. He would trust the old ways again, and no longer deny his full heritage. If the Totems guided him to this fight, he would enter it, and hope they were not taking him to his end before the job was done. It took several minutes, and the samurai did not seem to notice the movement he cautiously made. But with one skilled in the arts of war, one could never really tell. Surprise was one of a true soldier's tools, not something one gained by just luck. You had to know how to use it, develop the touch in knowing when to pay close attention, while pretending to ignore what was coming. How to lull an enemy into something rash or thinking they had the element of surprise on their side.

And one had to learn to wait for things to come to them. Had it not been for the presence of the Totem avatars, the Kenrai clansman would have turned back into the woods, and waited to choose another crossing. Ishi had chosen this ground, for some reason, that the hunter could not fathom yet. The samurai wanted this battle here, at this time. Yet so did the gods of the man from the grasses. The man once known as Tagrun could only do what he could do. No more, no less.

But he would not go into the ground without one last look to see what it was that had made the samurai choose this ground and this moment. His eyes strained to see in the pale and waning light of the fast moving moon. The greater moon would not rise for another hand across the sky in the dance of the stars, so only it, the stars and the faint glow of late summer twilight to the northwest still lit the sky to illuminate the ground. It took several moments before he saw the reason. To the south, just right of the trees upturned roots on the necropolis shore, the earth was moving as if alive. And that earth was tinted blue, not by just the twilight, but what moved there.

Kaliangars, the great blue centipedes of the land. A swarm of them, big enough to strip the flesh off a man within minutes of his falling, before he was truly dead. The beasts were of many hues of blue, ranging in size from fingers up to a forearm. They were common in the marshes and various graveyards and cities of the dead of this land, feeding on the corpses given to them in those places. A single sting of even the smallest of them was enough to paralyze a full grown man in a couple hundred heartbeats. And once paralyzed, their feast would begin.

If this was the reason, then the hunter could cross, just trying to keep in mind where that deadly spot was. And attempt to make the foe forget it was there in rage or pain. Scorpio parted the brush in time with a gust of wind from some distant storm, not even visible on the horizon now. He was into the long dead and now brittle branches in short order. Then came the challenge of working his way to the trunk, without making more noise. He was rewarded by a deer dashing along into the brush he had come from, spooked by what creature, the hunter had no clue, but many thanks for.

He could go no further without noise, and was still several steps shy of the trunk. It came to him then, that perhaps this way of silent fighting without words he had seen Ishi use so many times before could be done with words. Scorpio's experiences with his prey in the past had taught him that people often either spoke with some conviction before a fight, or attempted to bluster their way out of a situation. Speaking with conviction, that might work now, but he was not sure. Until the eagle suddenly screeched, and danced on the roof of the mausoleum, as if some creature had come too near it.

The bounty hunter knew this was his moment. He broke through the twigs and branches of dead wood, leapt to the main body of the uprooted tree, and danced across it quickly. Once across the canal and clear of the mud around it, he stepped down to the left, and moved towards the still distracted samurai. It was only once he reached a point two spears lengths from the tomb, that the eagle settled down, and Noro Ishi returned his focus to the crossing, only to find it blocked by the hunter.

"Is it truly a good day to die, Ishi? This argument is one sided, only your false honor has kept it going." Scorpio's voice was a whisper among the singing of crickets, and the faint clicking that reminded the hunter of the danger behind him.

The samurai stood slowly, his features no longer the soft golden brown they had been, but now a pale white. It marked his new status as undead. That and the lack of the mosquitoes that started to rise from the little pools in the weeds and ivy ground cover around the clansman. The sword from the wall was in his hand and drawn in a single, easy movement, and took up the same position Scorpio had held his short sword on the thug in town.

The hunter's answer baffled him, as the barbarian boy stuck his spear in the ground, then removed his belt, balancing it on the upended butt of the spear. The hunter then did something unexpected to the vampire warrior. He reached over his shoulder, and produced another sword. This one was as long as his, also with a slight curve in its length, but thinner, and with a reddish green sheen to the blade. The hiss of the disdain from the undead samurai told Scorpio he had scored. He would fight this battle with his uncle's sword, the elven made blade of a metal blend called by that folk chablys. A metal with no iron, and thus the samurai's disgust.

"Yes, it is the day you will die, boy" The voice was no longer as rough, it had the sibilant tones of seduction built into it. "And my honor is not false, for you and your kind understand nothing of honor." He did not move, as he spoke, but stood like a rock, ready for combat.

The hunter merely shrugged. "Very well, I will have to defend the honor of Kenrai. But this will end eventually."

The samurai spat at the young clansman. "Yes, assassin, it is known, and has been, that you are of the damned group of honor forsaken killers. But here you are alone, there are no others to stab me in the back."

The hunter gave no words back, instead assuming the middle, defensive position with his sword, holding it with both hands, lightly. Neither man moved for a long time afterwards. This was the contest of wills, and the loser would make the first blow, or sheath his weapon. The culture of the tiny empire of Ankhgor was based on the samurai's ways, and their strange codes. To Ishi, this was something he had lived, breathed and ate for all his fifty years on the earth. While that was still four hands of years more than the clansman had, Scorpio had been raised a hunter, drilled in the importance of patience, and waiting until the right moment to strike one's prey. In his past the still living man had faced off for hours with the great sloths of the plains, fang cats, and once, a long-nosed tusk beast.

And the young hunter still stalked his prey. But only twice had he thus faced an undead beast like the vampire before him now. And those fights he had won by luck and the arrogance of his foe. This time he vowed to himself, he would be the victor, by his skill and determination. Occasionally his muscles would twitch at the bite of some insect, but other than that the hunter was still. The samurai turned vampire was utterly motionless. for no such thing plagued him.

Yet it was that very nature that made him immune to the insects that was breaking his will. The feast of the girl had not been enough, nor of the three others afterwards. The blood lust was rising in him now. The desire for blood, and soon. His attempts to reach into the hunter's mind had failed, as he was still learning to project his will onto others. Those seeking the thrill of the draughts of spilled blood when he had feasted were weak minded fools, he was discovering, easily swayed. This half human, half elf was something else. He was neither a peasant to be beaten down, or a coward to be scared off.

A smile touched Scopio's face, tugging at his lips. He sensed the change, even before the movement came. He had one the first engagement. Now all that was left was to survive the trial of metals and skills. Noro Ishi's blade dipped into a feint, followed by the real attack from the recovery. His blade shot to the left, and swung in violently towards the hunter's chest. And met only air, as the young man at last put to use skills he had never had to use, ones taught to him by the elf who had left him the blade.

A fight is as much a dance as a contest of strength, and the hunter had the blood of elves running in his veins as well as that of humans. To him the moves came naturally, and his body was more limber, for without a feast of blood on a regular basis, a vampire lost its youth and vigor. Priming a dying human also took more than he had fed upon afterwards. His reflexes were not what they were only hours before, when he had made the decision that sealed his fate now. But his gods had infused the hunter with fullness of rest and health, as had the unknown goddess.

Scorpio began to move his feet in the steps he had learned from his mother's brother, in that short time they had been together, hunting a necromancer, after the youth had left his tribe to find the foul mage. With each step he took, the memories of those drills with Galen came back to him. The pace quickened and soon the hunter was pressing the samurai in ways the vampire had not faced before. Metal rang on metal, and the slap of feet on the ground as well as limbs on bodies filled the air.

The samurai got the first good cut on his opponent a hand of the least moons race across the sky, which was less than a finger's motion of the stars. A simple slice on the upper arm, barely breaking the skin, but still enough to draw blood. But it cost him to get the touch, as with a spin away followed by a step in, the chablys blade cut him in the same spot. But deeper, and with something else. Fire raced through the arm of the blood thirsty fiend with that cut, the fires of hell summoning him home. Chablys, Ishi discovered, was made with silver in the mix, and metal seared his undead flesh like a torch. The skin on his exposed arm turned black around the wound, and smoke wafted away. Only the fact that chablys was an alloy, not pure silver, saved the arm from burning away.

He took two great steps back from the hunter to his north, as Scorpio danced out to a stop, several paces away, and towards the canal to the west. The hunter took deep breaths, but was not winded yet, merely finding the right amount of air to sustain the pace of the fight. Eyes met again, this time not in a contest of wills, but a gauging of the others condition. The red fires of hell were dimmed a bit in the vampire, while the bronze, cat's eyes of the hunter seemed to glow to his foe, with something that he could not understand, and never would. It was the power of gods, not the anger of man, and that strength was letting the hunter stand against his own undead might.

The two stood again in silent stillness, waiting again for the moment to attack. This time it was Scorpio who moved first, his coppery skin slick with the sweat of his exertions in the damp air, his face calm, the smile gone, for now he had to slay someone he had once admired, for his skills if not his personality. The beads on his leathers rattled lightly in the motions, like the buzz of the snakes of the distant grey sanded desert. The sound the soles of his boots made on the overgrown cobbles was that of the skittering of his namesake over rocks and barren ground, hunting for its prey.

Ishi blocked the first six blows, two over hands, three slashes and an undercut from a feint so excellent that the samurai smiled in appreciation. He could feel it, he had lost, but at least his final fight would be against an opponent worthy of his skills. The vampire tried his own cut, only to get another agonizing rip on his left thigh. The destroyed flesh would not heal until he had drunk blood, he knew. And there was no others around for him to race off to drain, even if the barbarian let him. He had recognized the style at once, and no admired the skill with which it was executed. The boy was a blade dancer.

In all the years he had known the boy, since that meeting at the gates of Cosarali, he had never dreamed the hunter had learned the ways of the elven fighting techniques. Even in the initial fight, which the boy had lost, no hints of this had come. The samurai was certain he had learned in in the last few months away from town. He was now crippled that in order to win, he would have to resort back to the trick he had set up initially to capture what he had thought was a fool. He made a move to attack, leaving himself open to a rushing thrust, to lure the boy to his doom.

The boy stepped up and lunged, but twisted around to his left, turning it to a flying spin, aimed at the vampire's neck. Ishi back pedaled three steps. Three very damning steps. The vampire felt the surprise he had planned for the crawling up his legs, stinging as they went. The kaliangars swarmed over his body. Being undead the stings were not a problem. But his flesh was already dead, so they began their feast. The bites were horrid, something he had never thought before came over the samurai as he tried to move, finding his body not responding. He knew fear. Fear so great, it forced him to use the only power he had truly mastered, that of turning to the misty ash of the other form. It got him away from the pain, as the centipedes fell to the ground, his substance no longer cohesive enough to support their weight. But they took parts of him with them. And with each missing bite, more of his energy was gone.

The winds were kind, moving the fog he had become to the north, right at the hunter, who had lowered his guard. Ishi concentrated hard, to reform with the sword extended. But in his return to the fullness of the solid world, he heard the sound of steel entering dirt, and knew the fight was over. The out stretched hand was empty, and the assassin had moved to the side as he coalesced.

The chablys blade chopped off the reaching arm, and returned to lop off his head. Then the vampire discovered the disadvantage to his new state of being. He felt each blow, even though his head was no longer physically connected to his body, as the elven blade burned through his distant flesh, cauterizing the wounds it made, to prevent his reassembly. He cursed the half elf with every blow, until his eyes where filled with the face, and a hand shoved a clove of garlic into his mouth to sear his tongue silent.

Scorpio did not laugh or taunt his foe, but moved the body parts to a spot where a game trail crossed the overgrown road into the heart of the necropolis, and slowly drove branches into each, to hold them there, for the rising of the morning sun. As he moved on into the darkening night, he prayed aloud that the spirits of the families of the town would forgive his desecration of their graves, and grant him some aid in stopping their town from being destroyed.

Behind him, the canals and pools boiled, as those prayers were answered, and the lesser gods of the various families awoke from their long slumbers.

Renegade from the Crimson Inn {chap 5 of a complete Hunt of Scorpio Kenrai}

The two Blood Drinkers had followed the one hunting them down until a bend in the road. They were irritated, he had known or suspected being followed. When he got a chance, he took it to lose his pursuit. Neither of the cultists were even slightly comfortable outside the town, and had none of the tracking skills they had heard of. So the men cussed each other for a bit at the bend their foe had disappeared at. They felt like fools here, certain the barbarian had not gone far, and his skills would be no challenge to the abilities of their queen.

"You stay here, I will report back." the older one said, finally.

"Yes, you go back and get the glory, I will stay here to be slain when he returns. I am not a fool, old man." The anger of the youth was deep, as if the young man resented the elder for some time before.

"Do as I say, boy, I am in no mood for your rebellions now. I brought you and your sister into the glory of the Blood Drinkers, and unlike you, I have been chosen before to give my own blood to a master." The old man did not wait. for the youth to reply, but turned away, and walked back slowly, checking the edges of the trees around the trail they had followed the hunter along. It had not taken the words of his son to make the man think the hunter had turned to ambush them.

He knew the barbarian had been severely wounded, perhaps enough to die of his wounds, but he had listened many times to the stories told in the tavern of the dwarves in their enclave across the Kasatur stream. There the warriors had spoken harshly of the dangers of hunting various prey, and all had listened the three times that the Kensori Wildman had spoken, once upon the dangers of auroch gone feral and once on hunting the great red furred long nosed tusk beasts of his homeland. But the room went silent when he stated the most dangerous of them all was man, he had gotten everyone's attention. He had told them that when a man was wounded, he was as dangerous as any beast. It was all the hunter had said, but it told them all he was a hunter of men, not beasts now.

And as a man, even one who had drank of the blood in his Mistress' veins, he was scared. Thirty of the cult, about a quarter of the membership, had died in the fire bombings, as had three mistresses, and five recently risen masters and mistresses. The man scratched the spot on his arm, where the nail of silver had entered during the explosiions, as he tried to duck away from the catapult shot.

No, they were hunting a man, a wounded man. And all the hunters had said that the wounded prey was more deadly than a predator. He was just glad it was not a woman they hunted. The hunters said that made it worse.

The hunter was dreaming, but not like his normal dreams. This dream was of the hunt he was on until that morning, he dreamed of the fight in town, how the thug had tried to slay him first, of the vampires on the necropolis, and their foolish attempts at capturing him to feed, of slaying Jenro, and several other guards he knew because they had the long fangs, blood on their jaws, and red eyes of the fiends. Of seeing a child killed by one of the vampires, dragged from its home, screaming for her mother. And how he had slain the little one out of mercy, when he realized the whore from the Inn of the Crimson Tide had indeed done the worst thing he could think of in her last moments, and poured the blood of her wounds into the child's mouth.

He started to struggle to awaken, not wanting to remember, but something forced him to continue on. The nine shot with holly bolts, the six blood drinkers he had found over a pregnant woman, and how in a rage he had flown in like the samurai of the land he lived in now, decapitating them all before they could finish her, only to discover she too was a Blood Drinker, and they were acting out some foul necromancy. The creature in her belly had clawed its way out, half baby, half demon, all evil incarnate on earth. That dance of death, with a beast that was not truly of earth, was horrid, had cost him wounds he had to cauterize briefly to stop the bleeding.

He relived them all, even the joy he had felt when he entered the tomb of the long dead engineer, whose catapult and sapping mines he had used with such luck. A joy not from himself, but that seemed to the hunter to have come from the very walls of that mausoleum. He remembered the young boy, turned vampire, never to grow any further, who he had thought at first was human and a victim, until as he picked the child up to hurry him to a hiding place, the brat had bit at his neck, only to find the thick leather of the arsiniotherium protecting it as a collar.

He relived his walking away, not to surrender in defeat, but to find a place to rest and regroup. How after many hunts in the area, this place had stuck in his mind as safe, pure, and perhaps even blessed. Scorpio was nearly awake, becoming aware his dreams were not at his own mind's bidding, and worried deeply. He began to twist, turn and try to get away from the dreams, and find reality again, his body pressing against unfamiliar things as he did. His mind was in a panic, the vampires had come, and were sucking out his soul to use in some foul necromancy, and would take his heart, thus denying him the walk of the spirit world after death, binding him to the place he died, to haunt it as Hiathuna, his partner and boyhood friend, had been bound to the spot the mage of the dark arts had tied him too until the hunter called Tagrun then and Scorpio now, had returned that heart to his body, freeing him.

He awoke with a start, no longer under the bench, but in the cradling arms of the idol. His first thoughts were the idol was not as safe and peaceful as he thought, until he looked into its face, and saw the once closed eyelids were open, made of rich sapphires worth enough to fire the coin lust of any merchant's soul, but streaming tears of clear moisture onto her white marble cheeks. The expression was no longer one of peace but sorrow. Yet there was some hint, a remembered thing from when his mother was with him, both as a child, and when he faced his cousin in the Dunes and met her again. They were tears of regret and sorrow, not anger or hate.

*peace, be at ease*

The words filled Scorpio's head but did not tickle his ears. He had learned from others of the mind speaking, his uncle had tried to see if the youngster had the talent, but had died before they could determine how much of his maternal line's gifts he had received from her. Strangely, he was alright with hearing this voice, it was calming, soothing the raw edges of his spirit this hunt had created. The Kenrai clansman stopped struggling, and let the solace behind those words wash over him.

It was then he noticed his wounds were healed, as if they had never been there in the first place. He did not know what to think, but looked around himself slowly, taking in the seemingly changed ruined shrine. The ruins were still there, but the vegetation that had grown over the columns was gone, leaving the pitted but still beautiful grey blue granite of their substance shining in the afternoon sun.

*There is no need to worry. The damned may not enter my glade.*

Again the voice in his head. But the phrasing, the healing, it made him realize he had been right all along, this was a place of worship once, and this was the idol of some forgotten goddess. He slowly sat up, noting even the rents in his clothing had been repaired, missing beads replaced, and no sign of battle remained on him. But the pouch hanging from his neck had changed, With the other marks the Uliqua of the Yarocha had set there when he hunted the Leech Witch, there was another mark, one he did not recognize. And it seemed heavier, as if something had been added to the pouch.

*Child of many peoples, you have far to travel yet, before understanding yourself and your true purpose. Let not this part of your life make you bitter and hateful. Learn and grow. But know this, you have chosen the path towards light, and darkness will always assail you along it. Go and end the terrible night these wicked folk bring, and return to me when your journeys say you must.*

The wave of wellness and love that washed over him brought tears to his eyes as Scorpio got to his feet, looking around with the instincts honed by the many hunts, for man and beast both.

There on the column nearest the overgrown trail to this place was an eagle. Not one of the sea eagles common here, but a great golden headed one of his land, staring down at him. At the foot of the column was a wolf, and by a tree nearby was a beaver. An otter came up from the pool between that pillar and the temple's ruins, to dance upon the grass. None of these creatures lived in this land, they did in his home on the prairies east of here, and only a few wolves came across the mountains from time to time, never staying. These were not the real creatures, but aspects of the totems. He had only once seen the eagle, and a few times the otter. But not being of any clan save the Kenrai, he wondered why all these were here.

A skittering on the ground grabbed his attention, and he noted a black scorpion, hunting other bugs on the buckled flagged stones of the floor of the temple. That creature was of this land, and he knew what that totem was telling him. The time to hunt again was upon him. He left not even noticing the eyes of the idol slowly shutting again, as the goddess who was bound in stone returned to sleep, until needed again.

At his belt was his red knife, the badge of his profession, cleaned and ready for use again. He turned to bow to the idol, and then to the totems of his father's peoples. Knowing there would be nothing left to do save the final night of hunting, and the clean up afterwards.

The only problem was, as he saw it, Scorpio was not good at cleaning up messes he made. He tended to leave them for others, to remind them of the price to be paid when a knife was purchased to take a life. Or to end something that no longer lived. The bounty hunter turned assassin gathered his belongings, settled into a gentle pace, and started back to the war he would long have to fight, to let the day come with each rising of the sun.

Tanji Bakin stood on the trail, still waiting for the hunter to come take his life. It had not taken the young boy long to realize he and his sister were mere pawns in their parents' bid for immortality, but still he obeyed, more out of love of his Mistress than filial duty. He was the bait in this trap. More than enough time had passed for his father to reach the necropolis, and gather others not yet dead and risen to the glory of being a nosferatu for the ambush that was to be here. Bakin had no doubts he was meant to die to bring out the hunter, so the other Blood Drinkers could capture him for their Queen to feast on. He only wished his own mistress had survived the night before to drain his blood, refill him with her own blessed ichors, stop his heart and let him rise as a vampire to server her and the queen. But that was not to be, she had burned away to nothingness in the impact of that catapult shot. He cursed the hunter silently, and vowed revenge, hoping as his Mistress' last surviving pawn, the queen would let him destroy the body of the hunter, sealing his soul to her bidding for eternity and beyond.

He was so engrossed in his thoughts, he never noticed the parting of the brush behind him, until the red knife of the assassin was in his throat, giving him a taste of the pain his heroines had done to so many over the last few moons. Unlike the vampires and cultists though, this predator just let his blood flow into the ground he collapsed to, as he tried in vain to stop the gushing flow of his life juice from his nearly severed neck. His last thought was that there was a strong smell, then taste of garlic, as a clove was dropped into his open mouth, as a precaution against his rising as undead.

The Scorpion rose from his kill, and like his namesake, skittered away, to find more prey. It was a good day to die, if you were a vampire or Blood Drinker, he thought. A very good day indeed.

===

Scorpio moved on another trail back to the necropolis, one that paralleled the one he had taken only hours before to the ruined temple of the unknown goddess. He had never been overly religious, despite his upbringing, until today. The sight of the many Totems and the goddess' idol had stirred something in him he had not thought of before, that the gods were real, and personal. He had much to think about when this hunt was over, but until it was, he had the job to do.

Halfway back to the necropolis, he heard voices on the main road his trail echoed. He stopped and listened, smiling when he heard a wagon, and talk of the feast of blood to come once he was dead and all could return to hunting in the town. Those Blood Drinkers thought that the power of a person could be absorbed by all who drank the life giving fluid. It was time to show them a trick he had learned a long time ago. With a silent swiftness, he turned back towards the lowering sun, and found the trees he remembered several li ahead of the fools. The hatchet he had let him finish the job on the westernmost one started by rot and insects quickly. It fell across the road with a loud crash, making the place impassable. Five wagon lengths east was a similar tree, already broken at the base, held up by ropes attached by some concerned caravan master.

He waited ever so patiently for his prey to come to the trap, hatchet in hand to cut the ropes, and his lantern filled with oil and lit, sitting in a low pit he had dug for it. He had the tools of his trade readied, including the old recurve bow he had thought to never use again after getting the hand crossbow the hunter had left behind in the city of the dead that morning. Sure enough the cultists brazenly came down the road, until they encountered the fallen tree. They even obliged him by leaving the wagon placed for something he had never hoped for, lest luck betray the thought. He heard them curse and call for axes and ropes to make a path for the Mistress' chariot.

As most of them were at the forward tree, he rapidly cut the ropes holding up the other dead monster, the thunks blending in with those from the workers at the decayed bulk, until the suspended colossus began its fall. They all stopped, and the hatchet slammed into the skull of the Blood Drinker closest to him after Scorpio cut the last rope. The massive trunk fell across the covered wagon crushing it, and tearing apart the closed over canopy of the still living trees to let in the bright rays of the afternoon sun.

The Kenrai clansman grabbed the lantern and tossed it into the mess of the broken wagon, hearing the glass oil bulb shatter, and the flames grab hold. After that for a few moments he was too busy with the bow, sending arrows into the cultists until they realized where he was and the four remaining charged towards him, swinging their own axes wildly.

Scorpio smiled grimly, drew his short sword, and stepped into the road quickly, intercepting one of the cultists from the side. The fool had been placed off balance and fallen from one of the wild swings, as he got up, his neck was exposed, and a quick thrust severed all his arteries and veins, while the spin the hunter turned out of him in tore out his windpipe. The next one was a simple woman, who had no clue how to use an axe, but was doing so at her Mistress' command. She was lured into exposing her chest with a simple feint, and another stab between the ribs this time ended her life.

The last two were more wary, They knew they faced their death, and did not approach it lightly. These cultists were trained in swordplay, not in axes, and the subtleties of the hew versus stab and slash were lost on them. One fell to the ground after overextending, only to have his hamstrings cut, and the arm with the axe lopped off. The other gave Scorpio no trouble at all, and chopped off his own foot. As he lay screaming on the ground, the hunter walked up slowly, and drew his gutting knife, the wicked hook of it glinting in the sun.

"Today is a good day to die. Be glad, the gods and spirits will grant you mercy, if you die like a man." Scorpio's words were cold, like the wind that brought the snows in the most bitter of winters. This one he knew, and the person had long said the hunter was a drain on the community, who polluted its auras with his cowardice at avoiding fights. So the hunter took time, as he checked to see if the man actually had any guts of his own. And taking the liver and heart out of the chest, to prevent him from rising, as his neck had the tell-tale scars of feeding a vampire before, and thus being infected with their taint.

When he was done with his simple revenge, he stood and looked over at the three still fighting to free the screaming vampire in the ruined wagon. Those fools were so absorbed in saving the former human lady, they never noticed the fight, of the knives stabbing into their backs to end them. Scorpio Kenrai shook off the blood from his sword, and then glanced at the ruined farm wagon, now fully ablaze, igniting slowly the tree that had crippled it. Inside the mess he could hear the whimpers and pleas of the vampire, a voice once loaded with sex appeal and seduction to her ways, now filled with fear and hate. One last scream came, as the wagon sides broke in blaze he had started, allowing the tree to drop into the bed. And silhouetted in the flames was the chest of the vampire, being speared by a burning stub of a branch.

He had only a few more to go. He knew not how many Blood Drinkers, but these fools had spoken of the numbers in terms he could guess. Two of the undead fiends left, and maybe a few dozen cult followers. Already, the hunter had a plan to avoid cleaning the mess he would make up. One the great lady in the castle might not like, but she should have known his reputation. The hunter recovered all his weapons, tossed the bodies and parts into the pyre, and moved on. He had an appointment with death to meet. If not theirs, then his own. That was the code of the Allegiance of the Blades. You take the job, you finish it or die trying.

===

Noro Ishi stepped out from the safety of the tomb as the sun at last went below the horizon. He could see the pall of smoke from a forest fire in the west spreading its orange glow to the sky, and taste the ash of human and vampires both mixed with the soot of burnt vegetation in the air. The samurai had fallen a long time before to the charms of Katlayna, and knew she was his Queen, even before she broke free of the bitch who ran that den of perversions she had been enslaved in. When his lover had left, he had gone to Daimyo Gomi and offered his services to find the rogue vampire. He had never said to the lord he had sworn to that he would slay her, so his honor was still unstained, in his view.

She had been easy to find, only three days after leaving. She had tossed aside all subterfuge, to call the Blood Drinkers to her service. The choice of the necropolis had been obvious, it was where they all seemed to go, the vampires and Blood Drinkers, the Leech Witch and the others over the years. The damned and the undead felt most at home surrounded by the rotting bodies and monuments to those already in hell. They came here like moths to an open flame to die. So he had shown them how to survive dancing with the flames.

When he had come to the archipelago, she had been waiting for him, the lust for his soul in her eyes, which only blazed brighter when he had asked her to make him her servant, so he could protect her from the likes of that which now ravaged their unholy community. Had she known it was not just her will in him, she would never have let him rise from the soil on the third night, to stand by her side and set up her downfall. Always before, save one time, the vampires here had a queen. If they had an emperor, like himself, the whole of the land would be theirs to take. He had been the one to capture the guards, and feed them to the whores, letting them slack their uncontrolled thirsts, while being careful in his own feasts, taking only a few each night, and never raising any servants for himself. He wanted warriors, and one such was coming.

Over the years, Ishi had come to hate the hunter from the prairies, who did the things honor had bound him not to do, or had been unable to achieve by his own skills. Now at last they would get the fight he had wanted all along. The fight of samurai against gaijin, one that could only end, in his opinion, in victory for the more cultured warrior, and the death of the barbarian who could not even read or write his own death poem. But that was fine by Ishi, he would write one for the boy, in his own blood.

The fallen noble of Cosarali settled his swords, thinking not of the fight to come, but of the glories that would be, when he slew that weak willed fool Gomi, and took his women and children as feast or servants. After letting his mind wander, he grabbed a young girl of the Blood Drinkers, and pulled her close to him. She would be his insurance of victory.

"All of you, to the west side, slow him down, while I and this one do the ritual of the sharing of bloods, but do not slay him. He is the queen's to slay, or mine at her bidding." The assembled cultists, their numbers thinned by both the hunter and a daylight raid from the town guard, moved off, hefting weapons like the peasants they were. Fodder for the fight to come, to whet the appetites of the real contestants.

He turned to the girl, and told her to disrobe, and then rutted upon her as he drank her blood, and then as she was dying pierced his own chest with a talon to give the real blood of life, still sating his carnal desires in her dying body.

Renegade from the Crimson Inn {chap 4 of a complete Hunt of Scorpio Kenrai}

With the fall of night, two dozen vampires invaded Cosarali, seeking nourishment and recruits. They came crying a wailing song. They moved through town without fear, some of their numbers were former members of a squad of the guard that had been sent to the necropolis to check for the vampires three days before. Closed doors meant nothing, for the siren song of the vampire women was powerful enough to seduce men and women to willingly open them, and present their necks for feeding. Throats were torn out and not just the undead feasted, but many Blood Drinkers joined their Mistresses and Masters in the terrible libations.

Terror echoed off the town walls, as the beasts and the human servants had become nightly callers. The guards no longer even left the confines of the castle, save when one of the bushi would break and give in to the alluring call to their death or snap in rage as a family member was slain before the great gate, the insanity driving the bushi to leap off the wall, to the doom of being slain themselves. The other guards had their orders, try to subdue or incapacitate them, other wise take no chances, and shoot them in the back if they leapt, as a mercy.

The Daimyo stood on the walls with his men, tempted to sortie out and make a final attack to die in. But the Imperial Inspector had refused to allow him that option already. It was irritating to him, this retreat to allow his people to be slowly destroyed. He remembered the destruction of Kvaeg only a few years before, one of the greatest of the city-states of Domorushtuu. It had been an awful thing, when the vampires had struck there, taking over the city, and killing over three quarters of the population. The once great power of that land was now a shadow of its former self. His town could not survive such a disaster.

It was only as the lesser moon reached its zenith, barely a few turns of the glasses of sands into the dark hours, that something gave him hope. The singing ended with shrieks of rage and fear. They saw the vampires turn away, suddenly leaving the town, some flying, many running, to answer some call or summoning. The Blood Drinkers followed, though some were caught to be burned alive by their neighbors, who took heart at the flight.

The great lady was suddenly at the lord's side, a smile on her face. Tension was moving out of her stance visibly. The grin chilled the samurai lord, in a way he could not believe a woman's facial expressions could before this night.

"Good, the hunter has begun to take his prey. They will be back, but their numbers will be reduced, trust me, Sorin. Your town will survive. Now we must rest, then prepare to explain this to the Emperor, together." She sighed, her shoulders sagging. "I feared they had got him."

Behind them, a piece of the shadows stepped forward. "Not yet, but they still might, Yoritoko. When you make those decisions, please, feel free to call on those of us who will aid you. This place has become home to more that are banned than just the assassins." They turned, startled, and realized that the Mage of Shadows was there with them. The shade nodded his head, and moved to them. "And know that not all the magics of the world are evil. Some have been used to mitigate this disaster already, and before it is over, I am sure more will be."

Three sets of eyes looked to the south, where the moonlight showed the rising fogs summoned by one of the blood sucking fiends to cover their return to their sanctuary. A sanctuary they seemed to feel was no longer safe for them, as the town had seemed for the people only moment before. Gomi Sorin smiled at last, remembering a thing a seer had once told him. That in an hour of darkness, evil would leave his home.

===

The least moon had set, and only the stars and greater moon were still in the sky. The shadows of that light made things look like a strange dream world. Scorpio moved through the world, staying on the surface for now, looking for more vampires to slay. Three more had tried his skills already. And paid the price. One shot with a wolfs bane tipped crossbow bolt, one having been staked after assuming her sexual allure really could arouse him to being foolish enough to accept her embrace. The last had been tougher, another of the guards, still seeking his first feast.

The hunter bore the marks of that battle, open wounds from the beast's talons, a torn vest stained with blood from another swipe at his ribs, and a limp from an ankle twisted as Scorpio kicked the foe into the rushing floodwaters coursing through a canal. The beast had died in the water, battered by the debris, until some branch in the flow had been rammed by the storm waters through his back and finding what was left of his dead heart. It was strange to see a vampire turn into a muddy stain in the waters, not dust. Strange, but very satisfying.

The Kenrai clansman had felt the eyes of some foe on him. It was not a psychic ability, to feel a gaze, but something that anyone who spent any time out in the wilderness developed. Survival could depend upon the ability to feel your surroundings and know when some other predator was around them. One could tell by many things, the direction the other creatures were silent in, the place where the leaves or grass either moved against the wind, or did not move at all.

He tried to get a sense of who was watching him, but could not. The undead were masters of deception, and other than the guards, and a select few others, he had not made many friends in the town over his years there. Nor had he ever visited the Inn of the Crimson Tide, which made figuring if it was one of the prostitutes difficult. He knew by the lack of breath sounds, it was not a cultist. The hunter made no effort to force the watcher into a mistake. Time was on his side, if it was a vampire, the watcher would soon need to feed, and thus attack him for his blood. In the attack he would know the demon for what it once was.

Scorpio stopped, something setting his nerves on edge. There was something calling, not in a range he could make out the sound of, but still in the parts of the scales he could feel in his bones. It was the screech of rage of their queen of night, he was sure, finding his sunstone in the tomb that had been very decorated, cleared around and surrounded now by seven very dead Blood Drinkers, impaled on the rusting iron fence around the tomb. The leader of the vampires had at last realized this was not one of her cat and mouse games. This was a challenge to her skills, her power, her authority. A threat to her continued existence.

But it was not their queen who was stalking him. The hunter decided he had enough, soon the island would crawl with vampires and cultists. All seeking to kill him. He had only a finger to a hand of the stars motion across the sky to act. He pinpointed the spot the vampire watching him was at, and spun, throwing his blessed spear with a fury that required a follow through somersault to keep his feet. He rose drawing the short sword he favored for close combat since the days in Kvaeg.

The blood fiend rose up, the spear grasped in her hand. One of the whores, it seemed, though she seemed different. More primal than the others he had encountered so far. Less in control of her urges. She licked her lips and smiled at him. "I always wished you had come to us at the inn, hunter of men. Such strength and determination. Even the Mistress of the Inn could not see that in you. All any saw was the lazy boy from the prairies, sitting at the dock getting drunk all day and night. But I noticed those traits. I almost wish I had come to gather you in. But then, I would not have been able to drink in all of your soul and blood, like I will now." She spiked the weapon into the soft loam of the necropolis, and beckoned to him. "Come, let us dance, stir up that powerful blood of yours, so I may challenge the new Queen of Night and become Empress of Blood."

Scorpio gave her the one thing he rarely gave in town. That smile he reserved for his targets. No teeth showed, it was just a curling of the lips on the left side, more of a smirk than a smile. One that said, "I am better, and we both know it." Neither spoke, Scorpio just stood with his blade at the ready, low and left posture, feet spread shoulder width, knees slightly bent, and the right foot slightly ahead of his right. She in her pose of seduction, legs peeking out of the robe she wore, hands on hips and breasts thrust out. Their eyes met, and the real battle began, the one for the control of his mind.

Sarita smiled and let her gaze and powers bore into his eyes, trying to tear into his soul through its windows, and claim him for her feast. She did not toy with the idea, as her sister in blood had, of making him a slave. He was far more dangerous than any of the others believed. She had studied hard at the brothel, between the layings she had with those women of the town and travelers of like inclinations, to learn the Dark Arts that had made her kind in the first place. Now she applied all that she had learned of the darkness transmitted by the bite and blood and the powers it granted her. She willed him to become calm, forcing her thoughts into his mind, relaxing the muscles by her will over his. The tendrils of the darkness of death magic formed where she could see them between her and the hunter, like the strings of a puppet, leading from his body in many places to her hands.

Strings that refused to attach, no matter how hard she tried. The more she concentrated on the iron rich blood of her opponent, the more they slipped away. It was only at the last moment that she saw the mistake she had made, when she noted that his wounds leaked ichors that were not beautiful, lovely red, nor rich verdant green, but an unholy, to her kind, blend. Samita's body jerked as the realization hit her, that those of the mixed blood of elf and human were immune to the spells and crafting she had tried to bind him in.

The motion set off the predator she faced. With fluid steps he was upon her, swinging the blade with a speed that was unbelievable to her still stunned mind. The stroke sent her head flying into the brush she had spent so long in watching him. Her body stood for a long time, the hands still trying to find the strings to bind her slayer with, not realizing the fight was over, as it no longer had direction. Scorpio laughed harshly, wiping the sword on the body's back, making it spin wildly to seek the source of the touch. He backed away slowly, sheathing the steel grimly, and with no pleasure. Scorpio remembered his first hunt again, the day the necromancer had tried, and succeeded with that little staring trick. That he had grown enough to fight it gave him hope, but the failure and price he had paid for it in the past still haunted him.

The hunter broke a branch off a long dead tree, honed it to a point with the red knife, and slammed it home into the vampire body's chest. The cloud of dust barely slowed the hunter, who searched the brush to find the head, its mouth moving in silent screams of pain and curses. Scorpio knelt, his left arm and the scorpion tattoo on it over his raised knee. He did not smile, gloat or say anything, just reached into his pouch, and pulled out a clove of garlic, and a vial of water so clear it shone in the night sky.

Samita could only watch in horror as he poured the holy water into her mouth, shoved in the garlic and held her jaws shut. The taste of the buds of garlic burned her, but nothing like the blessed vita did. Her eyes were the last flesh left, as her head lost cohesion, and the assassin was left holding a dry brittle skull whose jaws were filled with razor sharp teeth. He ended the possibility of her being revived by lifting the skull up, and tossing it against a nearby tomb wall. He finally smiled at the explosion of dust as the gods took their due from the one who had avoided aging and death for so long.

Scorpio recovered his spear from the ground, cleaning the weapon of the vampire's ashen remains with a piece of cloth he then left on the ground. He wanted no way for them to track him as he walked back to the channel he had crossed to enter the necropolis, removed the traps on one bridge. The scorpion then moved to a place he had noted since his first reconnaissance as a good hiding spot. He then did the hardest thing there is to do in any hunt.

He waited.

Eventually, the foes would come to him. And he would meet them, on the ground he had chosen to do so on. He leaned back against some ancient device buried in the vines and trees, until what dangled above him suddenly made him stand up, his wicked smirk twitching to be released again.

The vampires would never think of this being here, he was sure. Even if they did, they would be too arrogant to think he could use such. But what did they know of his times outside the town?

===

As each of her children, adopted and made, arrived, Yariko set them to some task or patrol. She could not let this vile hunter of her kind survive the least moon's waning over the next five days. She made her preparations with a skill learned from the dead husk of a warrior at her feet, as all he had been flowed through his veins and arteries through her fangs and throat to be hers. She had discounted the theories of Samita and her books until the past few days, turning to them to increase her power only as the guards they had taken gave them the word. Knowledge she was sure those in town wanted her to have, that it was a hunter who had successfully slain more of her kind than she had already gathered once before.

The vampire born to Itazaki and Narika as Yariko, known now as Queen of the Night, wished she had gone slower. That she had taken more time to build up a force to face this foe. But when her rampage had started, which she knew now was just the blood lust, the hunter had been gone for a long time, and rumor spoke he would not return. When he had, after three days they kept him in the castel, she was sure the Daimyo had executed him for being an assassin in that time.

Then the Scorpion had been unleashed. He had killed one of her children, then ran. She knew it was a feint, but after seven days, she thought he had fled, and on the tenth day, she had been so sure, after the Daimyo's attack, that she had let her children go wild, holding only those who volunteered on the island to guard her. It had been a foolish mistake. She knew that now, with the wisdom of battle gained from the warrior. With a leather stiletto heeled boot, she kicked aside the corpse, wiping the blood from her jaw and lips with a satin gloved hand.

She was finding she needed to feed more often now that she was using the Dark Arts, which was not how they were talked about by those few books that were the gates of seduction to their path. But the power, the sheer energy, she felt like her skin was not just bloated from feeding, but straining to contain the power she had gathered this day. Her only regret was she had not found a mage or another plainsman to suck into her body. But the warrior had been with the Roshen il-Myrmithions, what many called the mercenary's guild. A member with some stature. He and a few others had landed on the eastern shore of the archipelago that was the city of the dead, only to rapidly be captured and destroyed. She had even let the blood of one particularly virile young man of that group be the feast of her cult followers, after tearing open his throat and taking the first fruits, as it were, of his vessels.

Another raft arrived, this one of cultists, as they started to walk ashore, everyone heard the distinct sound, from the west, of a catapult. Fire arced across the sky, and the luck of the hunter was still with him, as the first and only shot from the ancient catapult struck true on the raft. Fire spread with the explosion of the naphtha pot he had launched, from some old engineer of war's open air tomb.

Katlayna danced away from the spreading flames, cursing the barbarian of the prairies, and herself for not ensuring such things had not been left unguarded. The screams of those not so lucky tore the air. Once she was safely away she barked a command at one of the freshly converted guards. "Find him, engage him, but do not slay him, he is mine, understood?"

The guard, a boy barely able to shave before his conversion, bowed. "As you command." She ignored the way he left, not noticing he made noise, and in the chaos of the explosion, she failed to note he had a heartbeat, faded red hair smeared with dirt, more green blood on his clothing, and walked with a limp. He smiled as the so called queen tried to restore order, ducking behind the nearest tomb, just as the other two naphtha bombs went off. The hunter grinned, thinking that the garlic and silver nails from the coffins in the bombs should have taken a few more. He shook his head growing somber. The catapult had been luck, and one should not rely on it. Take advantage of it, yes, rely, never.

Scorpio faded into the maze of tombs and channels, leaving the barrow he had used to deliver the death with, not out of need for speed, but another trap was rigged to it. One the vampires might not appreciate.

===

In town, the rainbow of fire caught the eyes of all on the wall. Gomi Sorin nearly choked on the cup of wine he had been sipping as the fiery shot slammed home, and twin bursts of light followed saying that some one was unleashing the dogs of war on his enemies. Lady Yoritoko had been looking into the garden below, where she had committed the unforgivable sin of buying an assassination, and missed the arch of the shot, but caught the bursts of light at the ground.

"I had not realized he knew of warfare," was her only comment. They watched for a while, as the fires died on the distant maze of islands and canals, the light of the blazes showing the water a red and orange light to match the blue of the greater moon's glow.

"He has many talents. He spent a year in the army of some Dux of the Vamoi, to get to a target, or so I heard." The Daimyo sighed. "I am tempted to tell the Emperor to catch our young hunter himself, if I am sentenced to death. Let him see what walked into my town and has blossomed into someone I dare not attempt catching, lest I provoke its anger."

Word of the flares spread through the town, where a few of the Blood Drinkers still were incognito among the population, as part of the plan. They gained their careful sips of nourishing blood from victims they feigned helping, or in back rooms hidden from view. Several already were regretting their choices. Others were being ferreted out by the guards and their fellow citizens.

The bad part was that anyone not of the local races was suspect. The Kiltyens had all fled at the first sign of the troubles, knowing the Leech Witch and her actions here were too recent, her having been a member of their clans still a sore spot. The dwarves all left for the relative safety of Gyevo's Enclave across the Kasatur, and the other folk fled by ship over the last week. But a few remained, several Vamoi sailors, who many were sure actually were scouts for the pirates from the isle of Lejui, and two Chigan Roshi, or syndics, died awful deaths in the streets as the cleansing began. The guard was ordered not to leave the walls, to let the townsfolk deal with things, unless they let the fires spread too much.

Few looked to see if the guilty were really guilty, and several Blood Drinkers took advantage of the situation to turn neighbor on neighbor. The town descended into chaos, even as the real threat was being eliminated to the south.

===

Dawn was a welcome relief to Scorpio. Seventeen more vampires and servants had died this night, and if the talk he had overheard was correct, he had over double that many more in the fire attacks at the beach. It was indeed a good night, but he still had to survive the day. He knew that only three of the vampires were left, one of the Blood Drinkers, given the status as a reward for loyal service, and two of the whores. Amongst the Kenrai clan, going without sleep was common, everyone had to take turns watching the herds, patrolling against intruders of the other clans, and many other dangers. Still, this was taking its toll on the hunter, who thought he had been fit, forgetting the troubles associated with nightwalkers.

He still had not a clue as to how many normal folk were left to face him, as the Blood Drinkers were only worried about their masters, and the master-less ones were getting restless, not sure there would be enough victims of the mistresses and master to go around. It had been interesting, listening to those conversations, before he ended their lives, realizing they had no will of their own, really, anymore. He was not so much slaying living people as squashing ants. And the analogy held, as he had to get the queen to finish the job.

Walking deeper into the forest, he headed to a place he hoped would be safe, one he had visited several times over the years in the town. It was a glade, open, with a simple old fallen temple, with a great stone idol of a woman cradling air, as if there was a wounded person in her arms. For the hunter, this place was so special, the peace he felt there gave him the ability to move on each time only reluctantly.

Scorpio did not know who the lady depicted was, whether she was the saint of some ancient order, a goddess or just a heroine of the locals of those days. The temple was gone, save the stone floor, steps leading up to it, and the roof and columns around the statue. It would be safe though, for experience, and a source that might lie, but not about things like this, had told him the undead could not enter the glade easily, and avoided the shelter of the ruined fane like humans did plague ships.

It was a half day walk, and for once he was glad he had started out before the first lightening of the sky to the east. He still had a ways to go, with some of the Blood Drinker cult trailing him he was sure. He felt sorry for them, and hoped the peace of that place would not be denied to him. By now he was sure, after the killings he had done, that the vampire queen bee was angry enough over his one night destruction of her power base, that she might come for him herself. He hoped so, as in the past, cutting the head off the snake had proven a useful ploy for him. The head held the worms together as a snake, which was useful, but once the head was gone, the worms either fled to start their own collection, or fought amongst themselves to be the new head, and rule the snake that survived.

Vampires had proven no different, at least not across the sea at Kvaeg. There it had taken him weeks to identify, even with the help of Tozuru and Railesh, the leaders of the packs of vampires, and learn that slaying them was the key to saving the town. But few indeed had the opportunity to learn about the nosferatu the way he had, from outside, guided by an insider. He only hoped that Railesh did not show this time, for he knew that the bloodbath was sufficient to summon the enforcer of the nightwalker society, but not which way he would decide this time.

The clansman left the main trails with an hand of sun still to walk, losing for the time being those that trailed him. Not for long, he was sure, but holy grounds, while not perfect in protection, would give him at least some sound sleep. He trusted the presence of the lady of the place he headed. He began to move with much more care, avoiding leaving the marks of passage he would look for, but certain with nightfall, unless the afternoon rains washed away his blood spoor scent, the vampires would come to hound him down.

When he reached the glen, the fog of the night that settled here often was just lifting, leaving the open space looking like a wide, white roofed temple. He crossed the close cropped grass swiftly, trusting to the sun's rays to erase the path in the dew and lifting grass to obliterate his footsteps. Once at the stairs he stopped, resting a few moments. Still hoping the presence here would not object to the death that hung around him, the hunter opened his mind to the feel of the world. Scorpio felt no malice, but not being a sensitive type, he was not sure if he would know that feeling if he met it.

As he rested he kept a careful watch, noting the tree line, the brush, the faint trace of the long forgotten road to Rantini further west. Only after he was satisfied he had avoided detection did he walk any further up to the temple. At the top of the stairs, he set down the hand crossbow, his sword, all but three of his knives, and the pack on his back, still carrying the spear, he walked over to the columned area that protected the stone lady, and knelt in respect before entering.

"Forgive the blood and death around me, lady who's name I know not. But I have taken a blade that is just, I hope. If you wish and let me know, I will leave. I have no idea if killing vampires and their minions disturbs your peace." He waited, not knowing what sign she would give, or if someone as faint in religion as him would recognize those signs if they were not big. When nothing bad happened, he entered, and went to one knee again before the statue. "I lay this here for you to judge, lady. I only ask that you let me finish this job, to prevent the complete slaying of Cosarali by the vampires, and clean the town of all taint of the Blood Drinkers for a while."

The hunter waited, and when he got no answer he could discern, he bowed his head. He detached the assassin's blade from his belt, and left it on the cupped hand of the lady. "Take care of this for me while I sleep. If I snore, please forgive me."

He took off his vest, folded it into a pillow, and lay down under the only bench left in the structure. His sleep was sound, for the few hours he got, so he guessed the lady at least was accepting the apology.