He came out from his concealment quite openly, moving from the shadows deliberately into the light cast by the cooking fires below. He made no attempt to conceal his approach or even limit the noise he made while doing so. Either hearing him or sensing him finally, both Guardians turned to face him even before he started talking.
“Can it really be so?” He began in as jovial a tone as possible. His posture was relaxed, even friendly, and his smile was wistful. But he kept his eyes on both of them, ready to sense the slightest movement that would be a prelude to violence. “Do the Circle members consider only their own well-being and profit?” The Vampire looked back and forth between the two of them as if considering. “Are they not protectors of the land? Guardians of the aspects with which their Pillars are aligned?” He then smiled rather mockingly at them both, eyes alight with pleasurable malice.  “Or have I been grossly misinformed?”
Nupraptor’s eyes widened and his face tightened into a grimace, not so much in surprise but rather in chagrin that his own mental powers had failed to detect him coming. As Vorador had suspected, Bane’s irascible denunciation had so irritated him that he had been distracted from all else.
“Vorador!” The Mentalist burst out before he tightly shut his lips, trying to cover his confusion and annoyance with forced calm. The consternation on his face was a delight to behold and Vorador savoured the sight of it. Though it was perhaps somewhat petty of him. He had no real quarrel with Nupraptor specifically, but he had always disliked the Human Pillar Guardians.
The Druid’s reaction was much more pedestrian. The man took one look at Vorador, seeing in one glance the unmistakable and unfortunately famous features and swung back, spinning faster than his encumbering fur robes should allow. Both hands grasped the wooden staff out before him, its pearl end pulsing with a sudden inner light. All around the stone floated phantom images of various animals of the forest: prancing deer, snarling wolves and even a lumbering bear. The images formed quickly and spread out, creating a barricade of ghostly fauna. Vorador stood there calmly, completely unmoved by the display. The images, despite how lifelike Bane could make them, were only illusion.
“Keep your distance, unclean thing!” The Druid snapped, tensing, clearly ready to spring at even the slightest hint of impending violence. Vorador regarded him coolly for a long moment, one eyebrow raised. Then quite deliberately, he turned to face the Mentalist, speaking to him in calm, measured tones as if this were nothing more significant than a casual conversation.
“I know why I am here, Nupraptor.” The Vampire began with something of a suspicious note in his voice for Nupraptor’s eyes narrowed in resentment.  “Yet why have you decided to make the journey this far east?” He kept his gaze steady, waiting for the answer.
The Guardian of Mind by now had managed to regain his composure. Vorador could almost feel the man’s enhanced telepathic powers reaching out to attempt to read his mind, but his own defences were quite formidable. The Mentalist could not easily penetrate those mental barriers.
“That is my own concern.” He remarked flatly. “Where I go and what I do are my business and no one else’s. I do not need to explain myself.”
Bane looked over at his fellow Guardian sharply, incredulity written clearly across his face.
“You converse with this thing?!” He demanded in outrage, a tic in one cheek making his face twitch in his clear distress. Keeping one hand tight around his staff, he pointed at Vorador as if he were some sort of sick animal. “This...this Vampire... killed six members of the Circle!”
Vorador rolled his eyes. His massacre of the Circle for their support of the Sarafan crusade and the murder of Janos Audron had not been something he had planned out in great detail. It had been a reactionary attack, prompted by his anger in learning of the death of his sire. He had promptly stormed their stronghold on his own. Finding six members of the Circle surveying the butchery they sponsored, he had killed them in many painful ways. He had flayed them, stabbed them, burned them, ripped their veins and arties from their quivering flesh and feasted deeply on their sundered blood.  Then he had humiliated their supposed protector, Malek the Paladin, leaving him beaten and battered and subject to the consequences of his failure. Accomplishing all this certainly did give him prestige but it also made peacefully approaching others more difficult than it had to be.
“We ought to bring it down, now!” Bane was saying intently to Nupraptor, urging the Mentalist to action with him. Vorador frowned at the man’s constant use of the word ‘It’.
“Just the two of us?” Nupraptor asked, giving his peer a sceptical glance. He glanced from Bane, to Vorador and back again several times. “The killer of six Guardians, in battle with two?” He gave the Druid a silent, disapproving look. “I knew you were eccentric, Bane, but not stupid.” Then he shrugged in apparent disinterest and unconcern.  “But if you wish to avenge our unlamented predecessors then by all means, go right ahead.”
Vorador smiled, purposely showing off his fangs to the alarmed Guardian of Nature.
“Yes...by all means.” He said with something of an ominous invitation in his voice, daring the Druid to try anything of the sort. Bane glared at him, going scarlet with anger under his beard. Sharply he looked away from Vorador back to Nupraptor.
“Perhaps I ought to let Mortanius know about this little lapse of the duty you so like to tout?” He asked angrily.
“Tattletale.” Nupraptor replied simply.
“Enough!” Vorador interrupted them before they could get back into their asinine argument, gesturing for them to be silent with a wave of his hand. Surprisingly, despite their lofty titles and positions, both Guardians did just that. They stood there staring at him. Vorador held their gaze for a long moment, letting them sense that he would not simply be ignored.
“Druid. I seek information.” He began then, looking at Bane with an icy glare. “Tell me what I want to know and I’ll be gone.” The Druid straightened in defiance, face set with a stubborn determination that in any other circumstance would be a laudable trait, but Vorador simply found it irritating.
“I see no reason why I should tell a Vampire anything.” He replied tartly. “Other than to crawl back under whatever rotten cesspool it came from.”
“The insult was not intimidating from Sarafan knights and it is hardly so from you.” Vorador snapped. “You will tell me what I desire to know, immediately.” It was not a threat. No vague lethal consequences were implied. He was merely stating fact. Bane twisted in resentment and took a small step back. Vorador took one forward.
“I seek the Celestial Arrow and the Lost City.” He said. “Where might I find them?”
At this, the Druid paused in his retreat. His head snapped up and he stared at Vorador as if he had suddenly transformed into something more monstrous than anything spawned in the demon realm. His lips tightened and his eyes widened in utter dismay. That lasted only a moment before his anger returned. With a snarl he whirled, ignoring Vorador completely and turning on Nupraptor.
“What is this?!” He demanded, so outraged that he almost had difficulty forming the words. His grip on his staff was so strong his knuckles had turned white. “Nupraptor, is this some sick joke?!” The Mentalist stared back, blinking rapidly, an expression of incomprehension on his face. Bane was having none of it. He strode right up to his peer and grabbed him by the front of his blue robes, pulling him close.  Nupraptor was so startled by the man’s rage that he did not struggle, his arms out wide.
“You ask me about my own work and then this Vampire turns up demanding the details!?” Bane was livid, his eyes alive with an inner raging fire. The pearl at the end of his staff was flaring once more with light, the images of animals coming so rapidly now it was impossible to tell what was being depicted from one moment to the next. Vorador was quick to take notice. Bane’s control over his powers was diminished when he became angry.
“Bane, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Nupraptor tried to say but the Guardian of Nature cut him short, nearly yanking him down off his feet. The Druid was definitely the stronger of the two physically.
“I am not a fool!” He spat. Then his expression turned wary, guarded and anxious. He let go of Nupraptor and took a quick step away. “This is a conspiracy!” He accused in a now raspy voice, the paranoia in his tone unmistakeable. He glanced between them, backing off.  “Who else have you gotten in to ruin my work, Mentalist?!” He demanded of the still surprised Guardian of Mind. “DeJoule? Moebius?” His eyes widened. “Does Ariel herself sanction this?!”
When the clearly startled Nupraptor did not immediately reply, the Druid brandished his staff forward as if he intended to use it as a crude cudgel. Snarling with suspicious anger, he waved it forth.
“It’s my research! Mine!” Vorador watched him, left taken aback somewhat by his now almost childish temperament. The Druid held up his free hand, arching his fingers. A small point of light appeared in the midst of the curving fingers. “I’ll not be ousted by you! Any of you!”
Before Vorador could do anything to prevent it, Bane unleashed his spell. The Druid’s body was engulfed in the midst of a translocation and he vanished into the mist of light, moving across space to whatever his distant destination might be. The light from the spell wasn’t noticed at all by the men at the base of the tower, their eyes kept on either their own fires or the encampment outside their walls.
Silence endured for several startled moments, broken only by the crackling of the cooking fires below, before Nupraptor cleared his throat and adjusted the robes that Bane had creased.
“I’m sure he meant that in the best possible way.” He quipped somewhat weakly. Vorador suppressed a very palpable urge to growl. To help relieve his irritation he clenched his fists tight and did not look at the Mentalist, staring off towards the dark horizon.
“Save your speeches.” He told him flatly, not at all willing to banter pleasantries now. Bane’s reaction to the query had been unexpected but also very telling.  He frowned, going over the Druid’s rant a second time while it was fresh in his memory. Just what research had he been talking about and why had he reacted so at the mention of the Lost City?
“It would seem Bane is the one with the information I seek.” He eventually said. Nupraptor grunted and seemed annoyed himself.
“So it would appear given that paranoid reaction.” The Mentalist replied, frowning with the inner green glow from his cranium fluctuating.
“Why did you not tell me this before?” Vorador demanded, turning his head to fix the Guardian of Mind with a steady glare of dislike.
“I didn’t know.” Nupraptor said simply with a shrug.  “I was certain no one member of the Circle knew anything more about the Lost City than I did.” He paused then and looked back, seeing that Vorador had not changed his distrustful and suspicious expression.
 “Oh, come now.” He said in a partly disgusted voice. “Not everything is a game of deception.” Vorador kept his unfriendly look static.
“It is in Nosgoth.” He stated coldly. Nupraptor grunted in dismissive irritation and turned his head.
“Believe whatever you wish, but you waste time with me.” He said and gestured off vaguely towards the dark horizon. “Surely now you will wish to hunt down the Druid?”
Vorador kept his gaze steadily on the Mentalist.
“Are you reading my intentions from my mind?” He asked with bitterness and realised it sounded a little petty even as it left his mouth.
“No, it’s called logic.” Nupraptor replied glibly without looking around. There was a long moment of silence between them and neither one of them made a move. The pause lengthened painfully. Finally, Nupraptor looked up and said; “Bane conducts his experiments from the safety of his grove, an isolated area sealed by his magical control of natural elements.”
Vorador held his gaze for another lengthy pause, his expression unchanged.  He was not so foolish as to simply take this offered bit of information at face value. Nupraptor had no obvious reason for betraying the location of his peer to a Vampire, much less one so famed for Guardian slaughter. Clearly, he wanted something accomplished and giving him this information was just a means of doing so. Only what was the intended outcome? Did he think he would kill Bane and thus the Mentalist would have vengeance for being so rejected? No, Vorador supposed. Nupraptor seemed more level-headed than that and revenge would not be a practical use of time and resources in his eyes.
Whatever the Mentalist’s intentions were, though, finding Bane and getting the information he needed out of the Druid was now an absolute priority. But he resolved to be wary of any situation that seemed in the least bit suspicious.
“And where is the entrance to this grove?” He asked then. Nupraptor grunted and shrugged one shoulder, resettling his robe over himself.
“That I do not know.” He admitted but before Vorador could say anything in reply, he added; “But the white Werewolves have an arrangement of some nature with Bane. They will know where to find his lair.”
The Vampire paused to digest that. He had noted the erratic behaviour of the Werewolves in their siege of Valeholm and attack on the now dead king, William’s father. Their supposed leader, the alpha male who called himself Remus, had claimed there was some strategy behind their actions. At the time, Vorador had thought it a bluff to hide military ignorance and a feral perception. But if Bane truly did have some alliance with them then that fact lent more credence to Remus’ boast. It also had far-reaching implications. The Werewolves were dangerous enough in a feral pack-like state, but if they were organised and directed by minds with even a faint grasp of the rudiments of strategy they would be a threat to all of Nosgoth. Only why had history failed to record such an event? And why had such events escaped his own notice during this era? Something was very wrong here.
“What arrangement is this?” He asked intently. Nupraptor shrugged again, his mind clearly elsewhere for the moment.
“Even I cannot understand the mental twists of such debased creatures.” He said dismissively, rubbing one finger thoughtfully down the length of his nose, his gaze far away. “Perhaps Bane casts them the scraps from his dining table.” He was prepared to dismiss the concept as unimportant.  Vorador scowled at him.
“You don’t seem concerned by the ramifications of such an alliance.” He accused. Nupraptor blinked and turned to look around at him, a frown creasing his face.
“Because it makes no difference to me or my current priorities, which are of far great significance than Bane’s pets.” He replied tartly. Vorador narrowed his eyes.
“Which is why I find you here in the East now?” He asked, beginning to see why Nupraptor had told him of Bane’s grove. He had his own endeavour in the East and now that he was clearly not going to get any help from the other Guardians, he was perhaps offering Vorador information as an act of good will. A favour to be repaid later. But beyond that, Vorador perceived something more. Nupraptor had not been staring off into space just now. He had been looking down at the army outside the walls of the settlement.
“It has something to do with this foolish war, doesn’t it?” The Vampire asked. The Mentalist made no reaction, no change of expression or inadvertent movement to confirm or deny, but something about the look of consternation in his eyes made Vorador suspect that his guess had been accurate. Seeming to sense Vorador’s growing certainty, the Guardian of Mind glared back at him balefully.
“My business, Vampire.” He said flatly and nearly all trace of the jovial friendliness he had displayed before was gone.  He began to step away slowly, holding up both hands and cupping them around each other before his chest. His gaze never left Vorador.  “You attend to yours.” A flicker of light appeared between his arching fingers. “And let me attend to mine.”
Vorador watched the Mentalist disappear into his translocation spell, fading away in the hazy light to whatever his destination would be. Now he stood alone atop the tower, staring out at the campfires of William’s army far below. His mind rummaged through all he had learned so far, trying to piece it together like an elaborate jigsaw puzzle. Unfortunately, unlike a jigsaw puzzle, he could not guess what the final picture was going to look like.
Why was Bane supposedly allied with the Werewolves? What did either party get out of this bizarre arrangement? Why did the Werewolves have such a sudden interest in military tactics and why did they attack the army of the Northern Kingdom? What exactly had Nupraptor done here in the East and how was it connected to this conflict? Why had Bane become so enraged when the Lost City had been mentioned? What more of this fabled location did he know? And perhaps more importantly, just what was this Celestial Arrow that the city contained and how did the Seer intend to put it to use? Too many questions.
-0-
“Raziel or Kain might discount such words but I was not them, naive and arrogant as they were. Clearly, secrets were being kept all around and I would do well to keep that in mind. I did not trust Nupraptor, nor the men who I had inadvertently saved in the siege of Valeholm, nor even the Seer who had sent me on this asinine quest in the first place.”
-0-
While being trapped in the past meant he had no choice, at that moment if he had his way he would be shot of this whole business. Let these men and beasts kill each other in the cold and the wet, let blood be spilt everywhere and life needlessly wasted, as long as he was above it all as he had once been. He stopped himself right there, recognising the thought process. It was the same disregard for the events that transpired in the world that had led him to isolate himself in the dank depths of the Black Forest. It was that disinterest and contempt for the world which had led to his own death and the near extinction of the Vampire race.
It was an attitude that he could no longer afford. Not if he wanted to survive. Not if he wanted all the world had taken from him restored. Janos was retrieved from the demon realm, healed and given back some measure of sanity. The Seer had fulfilled this part of her promise at the very least.
But her other promise would prove more difficult to fulfil: the resurrection of Umah. While such a thing was not impossible, he himself reanimated proof of that, it was still not an everyday occurrence. The Seer had not specified exactly how she would bring Umah back, probably so that Vorador could not attempt the feat himself and ignore her own demand.
Quite deliberately, he ran through all his memories of her, one by one. He recalled how he had first found her, the child of a family of Humans who had agreed to go into thraldom under him. Moebius’ crusade had been at its height and the fanatical Time Streamer had wanted to make an example out of any who dared even associate with his quarry.
He had come himself to the sawmill where they had lived and worked, backed by a crowd of his paid lackeys and frothing religious fanatics. He had locked the family inside their own mill and then had it set on fire. Vorador had seen the plume of rising smoke even from his hidden mansion in the depths of the swampy forest. This family had been one of the very few who had remained loyal despite all the disadvantages Moebius had imposed on the people for such stubbornness. Their bloodline had been his since even before the Sarafan crusades.
Under normal circumstances, Vorador would never have moved himself to come to the aid of mere Humans. They were, after all, beneath him and ought to be of no consequence whatsoever. But Moebius’ crusade had already robbed him of many kin. Vampires who had also been sired by Janos in the time of the Ancients.  One by one, souls who had been with him for centuries and more, Vampires who had survived the wars waged by the Sarafan against them only to fall victim to a mindless, rampaging mob.
The idea of losing something else to Moebius’ thugs, anything else, no matter how insignificant it seemed, had been at that moment more than he could bear. He had transformed into a raven and flown straight there, but even so, he had been too late. The mob, their appetite for wanton violence sated, had departed and left the sawmill a smoking pile of twisted cinders.
For a moment, Vorador had thought he had been too late to salvage anything. Then he had heard a wail, a piteous cry for help coming from within the smouldering mill. He had acted without thinking, pulling open the burning debris to find that trapped inside a storage room was a young girl, perhaps no older than eight. She had escaped the fire but had nearly choked to death on the smoke.
Even to this day, Vorador could not say why he had taken this girl as his adopted daughter. A Vampire adopting a Human did have precedence, but it had certainly not been done since the Dark Gift had been invoked. Somehow, the girl had embodied all of the loss and hurt he had endured over the centuries. Loath to lose her, he had taken her into his home.
He had named her Umah, after a heroine from the ancient war, setting her as his most favoured thrall over all the others. Many of his other servants had not liked that, but they had known better than to argue with him about the appointment. Instead, they had connived to murder the young upstart and make it look like an accident.
Even at such a young age, Umah had proven her mettle. She had known of the conspiracy against her and, perhaps eager to please him and prove herself worthy, she killed each one of her would-be rivals.  Each time one of them died, it had looked like an accident. One had fallen off a balcony and broken his neck. One wandered into the swamps and had drowned in quicksand. Another had died seemingly in his sleep from a heart attack. One more met his end when the stone holding up a gargoyle on the parapet of the mansion had crumbled and the falling gargoyle had smashed him into the ground.
Each time there were perfectly reasonable explanations for the deaths, each time Umah had had a perfect alibi and each time Vorador knew that she was the one responsible. 
In time, she had dominated his Human and even Vampire servants as surely as if she had had his authority and had become a priestess devoted solely to him. She had been a tireless servant, serving his interests so single-mindedly that it bordered on the fanatical. Her loyalty had been unquestioning and her devotion to him so intense that she had endeavoured to revive him once Moebius’ mob had finally tracked him down.
Even though Kain, coming back in time to do so, had been the one to give her the Dark Gift, she had henceforth refereed to him as Sire. She had regarded him as her father and sire both and served as his second-in-command during the resistance movement.
Then when she had died, it was as if all the supports had come down inside himself. Losing Janos at the same time, after seeing him again only briefly, had been a combined assault to his esteem and confidence that had all but destroyed him. That was why he had not resisted when the Cabal had been exiled to the islands off the coast of Nosgoth and why, in his despair, he had sealed himself to sleep away the passing of centuries.
-0-
“But Umah...Umah I trusted and would see restored even if I had to dredge the depths of Purgatory itself.”
-0-
Now there was hope. Hope that burned inside and refused to die away, hope that one day he might see his entire family reunited. That was something worth fighting for. That was something worth any struggle to obtain. Kain could strive for the world but he himself would settle for just his family. Let Nosgoth get by as best it can, just so long as Janos and Umah were in it.
His face creasing into a frown, Vorador turned his head to look down at the gates that barred entry to the city. They were, of course, shut fast against the besieging army outside.
-0-
“And so my quest took another turn. I would find the Druid Bane once again and extract from the unpleasant hermit the whereabouts of the fabled Lost City. But to find the Druid, I would need to find another of the arctic beasts. Perhaps William could direct me to their lair.”
-0-
The newly crowned King William would have his scouts watching for the creatures after they had fled from the scene of battle, especially after they had killed his brothers and father. Learning from him where to find the white Werewolves would save him the trouble of scouring the countryside for creatures that could vanish into the wilderness when they so chose.
Siding with the Human again, then, but for Umah it would be worth it.
There was a lightening of the sky in the east, a growing suggestion of colour that was the herald of dawn. He had spent the entire night in melancholy nostalgia and idle chat with the two Guardians. Very soon now, William’s army would begin its siege in earnest, perhaps mounting some assaults on the walls or the gate. Weirstein might hold out for months given its easily defended position.

But, of course, if he were to open the gates from within, William could take the city in one day, sparing himself vital time in his campaign and the lives of his fighting men. Doing such a favour for the young king would make him inclined to grant such vital intelligence, saving Vorador the need to beat it out of him.
“I told Kain not to meddle in the affairs of Man.” He mused aloud to himself, smiling ironically. “I told his blue skeleton the same thing, and yet here I am.” He spread his arms out to either side. “Time will make hypocrites out of us all.”
He flowed into the increasingly familiar form of the spider and began to scuttle down the side of the tower. He quickly leapt off and onto the rooftops. In the coming dawn, a giant spider would be easily seen by the guards. As such, he used the spindly form quickly, covering ground through the maze of grey buildings and slate rooftops.
By the time he reached the towers that protected the mechanism that operated the gates of the settlement, the sun was beginning to peek up over the edge of the horizon. The first shaft of sunlight fell across the length of the land, casting long black shadows. These pools of darkness Vorador found very useful, his arachnid body slipping back and forth between each one soundlessly.
The guards were concentrated heavily around the gates, a small garrison of archers and spearmen and a few with a supply of throwing axes. They were gathering there in anticipation of the attack that would surely come today.
Vorador had no intention of trying to take on that many of them at once, especially not for William’s sake. Instead, he scaled the side of the gate in the shadow cast by a nearby building just out of their sight. Upon reaching a window, he returned to his natural form and slipped inside.
There was a marksman in the room he entered, busy testing his quiver and its supply of arrows before the fighting commenced. The man was facing the Vampire as he climbed in through the window and when he saw him, he took a frightened step back in alarm. That moment of shocked hesitation was all Vorador needed. He closed the distance between them instantly, Marrow whistling out of its sheath and sliding between the man’s ribs. Vorador clamped a hand over his mouth to prevent him from crying out, even in his pain. He held the man steady and then dropped him to the floor as the body went limp.
The mechanism that held the gates shut was a fairly simple collection of thickly oiled gears operated by a set of levers that were protected by a metal grate. Within that room several archers and crossbowmen had gathered, all of them looking out through several arrow slits down at the army below. As such, they had their backs to the door leading into the room. Vorador caught them all by surprise.
He was quick, slipping into the room as swiftly as a breeze. He used Marrow again, slicing through several of the archers in one graceful motion. He cut their throats one after the other, keeping them from crying out and sounding the alarm. As the others in the room turned to look, he was on them as well. Marrow dipped in and out of chest after chest, puncturing at least five hearts in rapid succession before Vorador ended his advance.
There was one crossbowman left, who had used the time to load the bolt into his weapon. That was a foolish thing to do. He ought to have used whatever time he had to call for help. He fired his crossbow, the bolt snapping towards Vorador with a sharp twang. Negligently and with bored ease, the Vampire swung to one side. The bolt passed right by him and slammed into the wooden ceiling beam.
Springing forward, he brought his arm sharply across and Marrow neatly severed the man’s head in a single swing. The body, headless with a blood spurting stump for a neck, wavered for a moment before falling forwards onto the floor. Blood spurted out thickly to form a short red puddle.
With the guards disposed of, no witnesses and no alarm raised, Vorador sheathed his weapon and crossed quickly over to the levers. The grate was easily moved out of the way and after only a moment’s hesitation, he pulled them down.
The entire tower shuddered in response as the mechanism began to work, churning gears beginning to slowly grind and turn. Shouts of surprise and alarm echoed out from those defending the walls as slowly but surely, the gates of Weirstein creaked open.