Raven Wings
Large ravens emerged from the mists, black wings bleeding out of the fog itself. Myra watched as they landed on the slain, hideous beaks plucking at eyes and cheeks. Something grabbed her arm, strong and powerful, unyielding like iron. Pain shot through her bone—one more push and her arm would snap, like all those dry bones that had cracked under her feet in the cave. She pulled against the grip, but it tugged her in the opposite direction. Someone was talking, but she heard nothing beyond all the screaming, gunshots, clashes of swords, and the pounding of her own heart.
“Come!” She finally recognized Nimah’s voice. “We have to go!”
Myra followed down the hill, her mind numb. Could she trust Nimah? She had trusted Vlad, and he had betrayed her. Trust meant nothing. “Where are we going? The bridge…”
“We can’t get to the bridge.” Nimah pulled her arm, dragging her down. “The fighting there is the thickest. We need to find a safe hideout and wait for the fighters to spread out. Only then can we make for one of the bridges.”
Or Nimah could be leading her into a trap. Myra realized her crossbow was missing. When had she lost it? The last moments had become a blur. But she still had a knife and a gun at her belt, and she had to be ready in case Nimah betrayed her.
But why were they running? They had come to fight. They had been prepared. Only, they had never prepared for this. For Prince Vladimir’s forces attacking them at full strength and taking them by surprise. It was the end—the battle was lost before it had even begun.
So much for writing history. Once more, Myra was letting vampires drag her left and right, leaving her no room for her own choices. After countless mistakes, she had again allowed Vlad to manipulate her and turn her into a character in his own story. A story that ended with the destruction of all her friends and allies. Could she ever find a way to fight back?
Nimah shoved her down, and Myra fell hard on the stones, pain shooting through her torn knees. She watched in horror as an arrow flew right through the spot she had occupied a moment ago. Nimah turned around and swung her sword in a large, forceful arc. Myra stared, frozen, as a severed head, red-haired and blue-eyed, rolled next to her, like a ball in a children’s game. She jumped back to her feet and unsheathed her own knife.
Nimah resumed her run down the hill, letting Myra follow on her own. “We’re close to a large cave system. We can hide there. The battle won’t last long. It’s not a fight—it’s a massacre.”
Myra’s heart froze. Nimah had already given up? And now they would hide and wait the battle out, until all of her friends were slaughtered? Her legs grew numb as she followed, her eyes stinging. Vlad had done this. He had wanted her dead. Or maybe not her specifically, but he had wanted to destroy Ila and the Resistance with one stroke and had not cared if she got caught up in all this.
And Armida and Tristan? Surely they had known. And they had agreed to this? And she had thought they were… what? Friends? She had said as much to Sissi but had apparently not believed it herself—Vlad, Armida, and Tristan were not her friends and never could be.
Nimah halted, and Myra stopped in her tracks, gravel rolling down the hill beneath her feet. Yong stood there with two more vampires behind him, drawn swords in their hands. A raven rose from the battlefield, and for a moment it seemed as if his massive black wings emerged from the sides of Yong’s orange hair. Myra’s heart rose to her throat. Three against one. And even though Nimah was ancient and experienced, she had not fed on human blood in ages.
No. Myra’s fingers curled around her knife’s hilt. Not three against one. Three against two.
Suddenly, one of their attackers cried out and clutched at a long arrow stuck in his shoulder. And then there he was, tall, strong, and dangerous, with a bloodied sword in his right hand and a short dagger in his left, his bow lying at his feet.
“Get Myra to safety,” Leo said. “I’ll take care of them.”
Nimah grabbed Myra’s arm and hauled her down the hill. “Come.”
Myra pulled back. “We can’t leave him here. He can’t defeat them all!”
“No, he cannot,” Nimah said as she dragged Myra along her chosen path, and her voice was sad. “But he can delay them.”
Myra halted, this time managing to stop Nimah as well. “They will kill him!”
Nimah turned around, her moves slow and melancholic. Her black eyes met Myra’s, and in them Myra saw a history so dark and deep it made her choke. “They cannot kill him. He is already dead.”
Myra was shaking her head, but Nimah kept speaking. “We are monsters, abominations. But your life and the lives of your friends are bright and precious, burning like little flames in this unending night. Each of them is worth many of ours.”
This was not true. Nimah was lying, lying. Her life was precious, as was Leo’s, and Ila’s, and Alex’s, and everyone’s. “Please, we have to help him.” She tried to drag Nimah back but was powerless as the vampire pulled her further on.
“We can’t help him. All we can do is live and make sure his sacrifice is not in vain.”
Myra turned back, and the fight blurred through her tearful gaze. One of the three attackers lay dead, and one knelt on the ground, his arms wrapped around his abdomen, soaked in blood. But Yong was still standing, smiling and confident. Quick as the wind, the vampire raised his knife and struck.
A scream rose in Myra’s throat but froze there, unuttered, suffocating her. The blade moved through the dark mists, cutting through Leo’s eye and sinking deep, as if it was butter. This smiling eye, in which she had seen laughter, and warmth, and stars, was now gone.
Leo cried out, raw and primal, his scream mingling with a raven’s caw. Yong grabbed him by the collar and sank his teeth deep into his neck. Myra saw Leo’s body sag, as if the viselike grip on his neck was the one thing that kept him upright. And when the orange-haired vampire released his victim, Leo collapsed on the ground, unmoving, staring at the black clouds with his single eye. Yong raised a wooden stake and struck true.
Stunned, Myra allowed Nimah to drag her on. Only moments before, she had been talking to Lidia, planning a trip to the beach. And now Lidia was dead, and Leo was dead, and by the end of the day she would be dead too, along with all Resistance members and Ila’s vampires. It was the end of all things.
The only light Myra saw was that the children and some the elderly had stayed in the Resistance. Perhaps they would find another hideout and, years from now, the new generation would strike again. Or… was Vladimir there right now, slaughtering them all?
“Come, we can hide here.”
Myra followed Nimah’s gaze and saw a small cut in the rock. Nimah dragged her on, and she stumbled along a dark and narrow tunnel. Suddenly, Nimah cried out and jumped back. A long sword swung in a narrow arc, working around the stone walls rising on each side. The blade cut through Nimah’s leather armor, passing within a hair’s breadth of her skin.
Myra looked into the deep dark, trying to adjust her eyes. She could barely discern the forms of two large male vampires, long swords in their hands.
Nimah ducked to avoid another swing and pushed her long knife at her attacker’s leg, but he sidestepped it, like a kid jumping over a rope. She dove low and passed underneath the other vampire’s arm to go behind him. The second assailant raised his sword high above his head and swung it down, but Nimah twisted like a dancer, evading the blade and tripping him while he was off-balance. She thrust her own sword into his back as he fell.
The first vampire snarled, and in the split second Nimah needed to rip out her blade, he took advantage and lunged towards her stomach. She twisted around at the last moment, but it was not fast enough, and the knife made a long, deep cut across her back. She wavered on her feet, and the attacker used the moment to grab her and sink his teeth into her neck.
Only then did Myra remember that the uncomfortable weight in her hand was a knife. She had trained for combat for as long as she could hold a blade, but it had only been in artificial, staged situations. Apart from the pathetic skirmish with Casiel’s people and the short-lived fight that had taken Alerie’s life, Myra had never been in a real battle, fearing for her life and the lives of her companions and ready to take a life in return. But now was not the time for doubt. She steadied her trembling hand and pushed the knife into the distracted vampire’s back.
She knew she was not strong. She feared she could not give the blade a proper push, and it would barely scratch the vampire’s skin. To her surprise, the knife entered the undead flesh as if it was soft cheese, the blade screeching as it scraped along a rib.
The vampire cried out, and Nimah used the opportunity to remove her stake from her belt and slide it into her attacker’s heart. She yanked it out and dropped to the ground, pushing the wood into the heart of the second attacker.
Myra noticed that Nimah was shaking. “We need to bind your wounds.”
Nimah shook her head and relaxed on the ground. “It would be useless. I won’t be of any help for the rest of this battle.” Her head turned to the exit, her dark eyes impossibly wide. With a clenched heart, Myra followed her gaze, quite certain she would not like what she would find.
Ah, she hated it when she was right. Three vampires were entering their unsuccessful hideout, eyes fixed on them. Myra sheathed her knife, took out her gun, and aimed at the closest vampire.
Myra had been a decent shot back at the Resistance, during their training sessions. Often, she had hit her target. But she had been calm and in no danger, and the target had been unmoving. Her life and the lives of others had not depended on her aim. Control your breathing, she had learned. Easy to say. And perhaps easy to do as well, when one’s breathing was not ragged and rapid, and one’s heartbeat was not insanely fast.
She missed.
There was no way Nimah could get up and fight. Myra had to face three full-strength vampires alone. A dark laugh bubbled in her throat. Her best choice would be to put a bullet through her own head instead of letting these monsters drink her like some animal.
Before she could decide what to do next, the two vampires closer to the exit froze in their tracks. Myra watched in transfixed horror as their heads separated from their bodies and rolled simultaneously at her feet. The two headless bodies collapsed to the ground as a sword pierced the third vampire’s back while another cut off his head.
“Sorry I’m late,” Prince Vladimir said as he wiped the blood off his twin swords against his victims’ clothes.