The glory days of the Sarafan had long since faded, and their stronghold followed suit. Once, this fortress had stood immaculate, protected by the Southern Lake, impenetrable and insurmountable. The Sarafan banners that had once fluttered from its stone heights were now long gone, replaced by those of the hourglass; for now men with a similar cause inhabited this place. Moebius’ hunters had taken this fort for their own.
If any of the hunters patrolling the battlements noticed the unusually large number of bats in the air, they paid it no heed.
The flying rodents circled the stronghold once before, as one, their flock came together in the upper courtyard which had the best view of the Great Southern Lake far below.
One bat connected with another, and then another and another and another. The bats came upon themselves, each reconstituting the larger form, and when they had all united, their combined mass morphed and became solid.
Whole once more, Kain paused just long enough to survey his surroundings and to mentally catch up with the elapsed time and distance. Once satisfied, he glanced at the stronghold and then up at the fluttering hourglass banners above.

“This fortress had long since suffered time’s decay, but its purpose remained: To protect the murderers of my kind from the fierce retribution vampires might bring down upon them if faced in honourable combat. Sarafan and mercenary alike; cowards all, hiding behind aged stone.”

Coming over to the edge of the courtyard, he looked down the flat stone wall to the platforms and battlements below. Even from this high up he could see figures moving about, the faint sunlight gleamed off their weapons.

“If Umah was indeed telling the truth, I would find Vorador’s head within. But she had already betrayed me once in my lifetime and I was wary of her ulterior motives.”

Kain could have made short work of the door, but chose instead to pass through its cracks and gaps, his body fading into mist. Silently, he slid past the obstruction and entered the stronghold.
Time had dulled this place, as it had much of Nosgoth. The stones were not quiet so bright, nor the marble floor so polished. The statues of Sarafan knights, lionised with angelic wings, stood covered in dust in the corners of the halls and corridors. Many of them had suffered cracks due to expose to the elements and a lack of care.
Kain merely smiled at yet another example of decay.
Trying to detect the location of Vorador’s head by scent in this place was futile. It stank of vampire dead, recent and ancient, the smell hanging in the air like a choking miasma.
As Kain came out of a hallway and onto a lower battlement, he came face to face with a hunter who stood there holding a pike.
The vampire and the human locked eyes on each other at the exact same moment and they were suddenly both still.
There was a moment of silence and then the hunter turned, drawing in breath to call for aid. Kain’s reaction was immediate; reaching out with both body and mind he telekinetically closed an iron tight grip around the man’s throat. He stood there, gaggling and trying to claw away the insubstantial hand choking him.
“I would prefer not to have to fight my way through whole platoons of inconsequential soldiers.” Kain explained, approaching the suffocating human. “So your silence is most appreciated.” When he was within reach, he casually laid a hand over the man’s mouth to silence him further. Sharply, his hand draw back and there was the gruesome noise of snapping bone as the human’s neck was broken.
As the human’s life drained from him, Kain pushed his thoughts into his… searching his fading mind for information. Although he was by no means a telepath, while the mental defences were crumbling, it was easy to survey what lay within.
Through the human’s eyes he saw the hunters returning to the Stronghold, directed by Moebius. With them they carried Vorador’s lost head like some pirate loot. With little ceremony they placed the head in the antechamber, in the south west tower of the stronghold beneath the displayed statue of the fallen Sarafan elite.
Having the information he needed, Kain dumped the body over the edge of the parapet, letting it tumble down the fortress wall until it fell into the lake with a faint distant splash.
The doorway into the largest hall, the central cathedral-like refectory, lay a short distance away at the other end of a stone platform. Kain advanced inside, knowing from experience that the southwest tower was on the far side. When he emerged within, he quickly slunk into the shadows, keeping to his insubstantial mist form. There were a great many hunters standing around in here, at least two to three dozen. They were all clustered around a man standing on nearby raised steps. He was dressed in a black robe and had his hands held out imploringly.
“Men of the crusade, hear me. I come from Meridian to call you to battle!” he was saying, his voice echoing in the vaulted chamber.  “The long awaited rise of the new Sarafan begins anew!”
Kain then glanced at the two men that stood behind the robed one and frowned. They wore iron armour of a sort, and their heads were shaved completely bald. They both wore banners, however, that Kain recognised, banners depicting a cross with a hooked top.
The banner of the Sarafan Lord of Meridian.
The two men looked a bit nervous when faced with this many rival hunters, their hands not far from their sword hilts.
“Sarafan? Why bother? The vampires are all dead. We did our job.” one of the hunters replied, dusting his hands.
“Lies! All lies put about by traitors to our race… vampire worshipers!” the recruiter in the black robe declared, waving his hands wildly about. “The dark ones have not been destroyed and even now they regroup, preparing to strike… to murder us all in our sleep!”
As they talked, Kain bypassed them silently on noiseless feet of mist.
“Don’t preach to me. I’m just in this for the money and the thrills.” another hunter spat.
“Ah. If its thrills you seek, then enlisting to serve in the army of the new Sarafan Lord will challenge you to prefer yourself, to become more than you are now… to become the angels of legend.”
The small crowd of hunters buzzed with conversation.
“Sarafan lord, eh?” the first hunter began, looking thoughtful. He tapped a finger against the side of his face before nodding. “Well, if your self-styled knight protector needs a good sword arm, then if he pays well, I’ll join him.”
Kain reached the far end of the hall, leaving the recruiter to his preaching.

“And thus the Hylden play their hand, to revive the Sarafan Order and conquer Nosgoth. With Janos Audron they would open the Hylden gate and begin their re-colonisation of this world. Their rule in this land would be short lived, for I had put down their upstart general centuries ago already. Even so this scene before me was unsettling.”

In the corridors, the smell of the dead of vampire kind was acutely strong. He hoped that this was a good sign that the information he had bled from the mind of the human was accurate. Sometimes the images taken from the dying got muddled and confused.
“Well what else can we do?” a voice up ahead asked. Kain stopped to listen, frowning as he realised that someone was in the corridor. This was the only way into the southwest tower. “Lord Moebius is dead now. We’re not going to get any more money from him, are we?”  
Kain banished his mist form and waited at the bend in the corridor just out of sight. There were three hunters standing on guard, none of them large men. One was armed with a cleaver sword, another with a jagged trident and the third more worryingly with a mortar.
“Well you can sign up for that ‘second Sarafan’ nonsense if you want.” one of them said. “I’m not buying that crap. We got the vampires, all of them, and I’ve made enough to re-tire comfortably on. I’ve no reason to risk my neck anymore.”
Kain groaned deep in his throat, realising there was no way to stealthily move past them. His mist form was hard to spot but not invisible. He would have to deal with them quickly.
Without any pretence to conceal himself, he walked around to face them directly.
When they saw them, they each looked stunned and one even staggered back against the wall.
“Good god! That silly fop was right! There ARE still vampires left!” the one with the sword began in alarm. Their confusion was short lived.
“Not for much longer!” another of them spat in contempt, coming forward with his spiked trident.
Kain drew the Reaver in a single motion, the blade awakening at his touch and eager to be fed.
“Vae Victus.” he said in a sigh and met their charge head on.
A mere three hunters were easy quarry. One fell with the first strike of the Reaver, his soul devoured instantly. Another tried to stab at him with his sword but died as Kain swung back and impaled him on the blade.
The third used the time to load his mortar, preparing to fire, but Kain was faster and smashed a force projectile into him before he could use his weapon. As the human sprawled on the floor, the Reaver danced in the air before plunging down into his chest, the human’s dying moan subsiding into the Reaver’s hungry cry.
Blood seeped across the floor, pooling between the flagstones. Such a waste made Kain’s lips twitch involuntarily in complete distaste. But it could not be helped. He had not the time to spare on cleaning up after himself.
Pausing to wipe the sword clean on their clothes, Kain turned to leave his skirmish behind and carry on.
 Just as he did however, he heard the sounds of movement. Glancing back, he watched as the bodies of those he had just so recently killed began to twitch and shudder.

“Before my very eyes, the corpses of those hunters whom I had already cut down rose back up to their feet.”

The bodies, still baring the cuts and impaled wounds made by the Reaver lurched up; standing unsteadily on legs that looks as if they were being forced as one might force a puppet to dance on its strings. The vacant, unseeing eyes began to pulse with an unearthly green glow as the three animated corpses lumbered to face Kain, their feet making a metallic slashing sound on the blood soaked floor.
“What is this sorcery?” he demanded in a low voice.
The first corpse looked at him, green light coming from its eyes and mouth.
“No sorcery, vampire.” it said; the raspy voice was like a distant echo, a call from some immeasurably long distance. “Only the loosening of chains, long held in constriction.”
The second hunched down, arms spread wide.
“The binding is nearly gone now.” it added jubilantly.
“Soon the gate will open.” the third put in, moving to one side to keep Kain surrounded. “And oh, the sweet, untainted air we shall breathe!”
And then Kain understood. His face changed from an expression of shock to become grim and forbidding, his hands tightening on the grip of the Soul Reaver.
“Enjoy it while you may, Hylden.” he told them. “Your freedom is but a tentative reprieve.”
“Foolish creature!” one of them barked, lumbering forward, its hijacked puppet corpse jerking back and forth at the effort. “Our time has come, and your continued existence matters not.” The body it controlled pointed a finger at him. “Your efforts against us have failed before they had even begun!”
One of them tried to leap at him from behind, arms outstretched. Kain swung in time, shouldering the puppet off him and slamming it hard against the side of a wall, splashing in the pooled blood. Before it could rise, he pinned it there with one foot and it lay there struggling weakly and splashing drops of blood all over itself.
“Your minds are liquid if you can not see that my very existence proves that your Sarafan order and your General both will fail!” Kain said, claymore held at the ready with its tip down towards the struggling being.
All three Hylden laughed in response, the rasping noise tainted by the malice and hatred that seemed to seep from them.
“You think we do not know that, Kain?” the one on the floor asked, scratching at his foot with bare nails.
“You think we risked all of our kind in our tampering with causality to have a preordained event stop us?” another added, still laughing hoarsely.
“No, vampire! Our general…our master, is wiser than that.” the third spat. “He will play his role, like us all, and when the binding truly shatters and our umbilical cord is cut… we will take for ourselves the land you left undefended!”
“Enough of this!” Kain snapped with bared fangs, pushed past his patience threshold by their taunting.
“As you say.” the one beneath his heel hissed and took a hold of his ankle. Slowly it and the other two as well began to change, the Hylden possession of the bodies changing them. Bony spikes pushed out along the outside edge of their arms, their nails changing into jagged claws. The mouths distended horribly, filled with row upon row of elongated teeth as their skin changed, becoming though and leathery.
Kain struck before the one underneath his foot could finish transforming, the Reaver wedging itself directly into the skull. The Hylden gargled; the noise drowned out by the Reaver’s scream as it yanked the creature’s soul through the dimensions themselves to feed.
The two remaining warped creatures attacked him from behind, but Kain ducked under their lunges. He kicked one in the stomach, forcing it to back off and slam against the wall. With room to move, he brought the Reaver around so fast it blurred as it swung. There were a hideous tearing noise and the crack of breaking, shearing bone as the Reaver sliced the nearest of the two in half.
As the torso and the legs fell down, collapsing into the ever thickening pool of blood, Kain advanced on the remaining Hylden puppet. Hissing, it brought its claws forward, swiping at him.
The vampire dodged, darting back and forth, fading in and out of mist form as the claws came within reach.
Howling in fury, it gathered its hands together, calling on the green hellfire from their place of banishment, galvanising it between its fingers. The unholy blaze flew from its grasp directly at Kain, who grimly dodged it and came in close with the Reaver.
The Reaver bit through the hands, slicing them both clean off. The demon waved its stumps around futility but Kain ended its struggling by the expediency of knocking its feet out from under it and then slamming his sword through its brain.

“The Reaver screamed its feral hunger, and for a moment I actually saw the Hylden’s soul pulled through the barriers between our world and their living hell. His freedom was tentative, as his essence was swallowed by the blade. T’would seem an easy means for their escape did exist in the blade, although their desire for such a means would only hint at their insanity.”

Kicking the body aside, he took a deep breath to let the exultation of battle fade from his mind so that he could think more clearly.

“And yet this visitation disturbed me. It would seem that the Hyldens’ scheming ended not with the Sarafan lord. His legacy continued amongst them, propelling them forward to what might very well be their final gambit. While the Hylden were a threat, my primary concern was the destruction of the old Parasite and false god who had led my people to disaster. Still, I must be wary.”