Raziel supposed, later while he travelled, that trusting the word of the Seer to direct him was not only stupid it was foolish. He had never trusted Moebius and the Hylden woman had proven herself to be as just as skilled a manipulator as he had been.
Still what other option did he have other than taking Nosgoth apart stone by stone to look for Janos? If there was even the slightest chance that the information she had given him was accurate then he would have to pursue it.
And what was he to make of Ajatar? She was no liar that he saw in a moment but she seemed capable of misdirection if the situation required it. He doubted not that her primary concern was for the temporally displaced Serioli and that concern was what prompted her to agree to the arrangement the Seer proposed.
The grandmaster might be the closest thing to an actual ally he could acquire in this whole mess.
Travelling south, Raziel made his way towards the ocean that was still beyond the horizon. The great southern sea was a seemingly endless expanse of water whipped by violent storms.
In the glory days of Kain’s empire, there had been a few expeditions to sail further and further south to expand the known borders of the land but few had ever come back.
A few myths and legends told of far flung islands and distant shores to visit but few had paid attention to such tales. But then why was a Hylden expedition of its own on its way then?
The territory of Melchiah, the necropolis that extended across the eastern shore of the lake of tears was almost completely abandoned. The Melchiahim, without their leader to hold them together, was beginning to disband and go their separate ways.
It was the same with all of the clans. Their leaders and sires were dead and in their current animalistic state they had nothing to direct them.
It had pained Raziel afresh to see them, having now seen the elegant grace of their blue skinned ancestors. If Janos ever saw what had become of his people it might crush his spirit.
Two days since the start of his journey, Raziel left behind the towering necropolis and wandered down through slanted ground that showed signs of once having being a forest. But any vegetation had long since rotted away, starved of sunlight and nourishment. Now all that was lest was a rolling hillside full of coat like stumps that rose out of the ground like boated corpses.
Nestled in a little valley were more remains of what had once been there. The dust choked almost everything but here and there, as he past through, Raziel could see clearly the crumbling foundations of buildings.
There had once been a small village here, perhaps a town in the forest on an important trade route.
Suddenly he stopped, standing in the centre of the dusty ruin and looks around him afresh. There was no danger here but a deep sense of importance, as if this ruined place was of great significance.
It took the blue wraith a moment to pick the reason why out of his memories.
-
“The ruins of this town, now abandoned and left to be claimed by the elements, was hardly a remarkable milestone at first glance. I however knew of its true significance.”
-
He blinked and looked around again, this time noting the position of the buildings and the location of this ruin in relation to the rest of the land.
Yes, he was right. There could be no doubt as to what this place was.
-
“This decayed stump of rock had once been the wayside town of Ziegsturhl. It was here that Kain’s mortal human life had ended. Brigands hired by the Necromancer Mortanious had trapped the young nobleman and brought him down in a flurry of sword blades.”
-
It had all started here; everything, the set of events that would shape the world and time itself.
Raziel tried to picture it in his minds eye, imagining how the village might have looked back then and what he knew from listening to Kain’s old stories. He imagined the tall pine forest around him and the wooden and stone buildings, returned to life with villagers coming and going about their business.
The scene he had conjured was so simple, so mediocre and so humble that he nearly burst out laughing. The great and mighty Kain, he who would claim this world and make it his own, had started the career of his un-life here.
No glorious start to such a tremendous journey but a common occurrence on a highway riddled with banditry, a murdered nobleman forgotten about by the local populace as soon as he had been interred.
Raziel felt the laughter bubble up inside him and he could not stop it. This was the great joke played on them all and he simply let his head roll back and let the laughter out, almost falling back in his humor.
If Kain’s murder in this place had not come to pass then none of what had occurred since to them all would be.
Raziel would have remained in his crypt, entombed with the other Sarafan warriors.
Janos Audron would still be lying on a stone slab in the decayed ruins of Vorador’s mansion.
Kain himself would have lived out his life as a human and died of old age, lying in a bed surrounded by a grieving and loving family.
That last preserve image sent Raziel off again into gales of almost hysterical laughter and it was some time before he was able to get himself back under control. What would Kain himself have thought of that notion?
-
“The People of this town had then buried his body in a nearby crypt, where the Necromancer had found and revived him using the Heart of Darkness.”
-
As if mention of the heart in the vaults of his mind was a sharp prod from someone to pay attention, Raziel stopped laughing and stood up a little straighter.
He was still a long way from the coast and the sun was beginning to set again, a pale orb through the still thick smoke in the skies.
-
“The Heart… Janos… I am wasting time here.”
-
And so he left the ruins and their joke behind and started out again. It was not the past he had to be mindful of now but the future.
This creed served him well for not long after that he became aware that he was being followed.
His pursuers made little effort to hide the fact from him. He could hear their feet in the dust a short way behind him and one of them was clearly not used to long distance running and was breathing hard.
Quickly Raziel darted behind a rock and waited, sniffing at the air and letting the wind carry the warning scent to him.
Vampiric without a doubt and if his memory served him correct, then it was the smell of hungry Dumahim.
Then he could see them. About four of them, a small hunting pack of adults. Their gait was like that of a lopping dog, galloping forward with their large forearms helping them along through the dust.
There was no way he was going to be able to hide from them they had already seen him and clearly hungry they were not going to let him simply slip away.
As such the only method of dealing with them was to strike fast and carry that advance as long as it would stretch.
When they turned a corner, Raziel dove from concealment in a roll. In that same action he picked up a fist sized rock and when he came to his feet he threw it towards the leading vampire.
It hit him straight in the head and the Dumahim collapsed to the ground with a loud cry, clutching at the injury in his thick skull.
The other three slowed, clearly surprised by the sudden attack. That had been the opening Raziel had been waiting for.
He tore straight at them, talons spreading wide and cleaving through flesh straight down to the bone.
When fighting vampires he knew that without a weapon his only option was to not give them a chance to regenerate from their wounds, he had to keep attacking and attacking and to hit something vital inside.
Another Dumahim went down, wounded but not fatally. It lashed out at Raziel with his own talons, trying to cut him across the chest. But the blue wraith was too fast and easily dodged the swipe.
He arched up and down slammed down, his talons stabbing through the large chest and into the heart. The body beneath him quivered but made no sound as it died, already turning to ash even before Raziel withdrew his talons.
Another rushed in from the side, catching Raziel across the shoulder. Its jaws opening and its snake like second mouth emerged, a hideous appendage that snapped at his face as if attempting to pluck out his eyes.
Raziel grabbed a hold of it in one hand and yanked back, tearing the thing out from the mouth in a spray of blood.
The Dumahim screamed in pain, the sound a gargling for its mouth filled with his own blood.
The other two tried to come at him from behind, lunging together in an attempt to catch him from behind. Raziel sensed their attack and ducked, rolling backwards and knocking their feet out from under them.
The two vampires went down together face first into the dirt. Before one of them could rise, Raziel was on him with talons stabbing. One stab, two and then a third, the fourth once bursting through the rib cage to the heart and the body was then still.
Enraged by the loss of another hunting pack-mate the uninjured one of the two left circled Raziel warily, joined soon by its fellow who as in the process of healing the wound it had suffered.
Vampiric regeneration had its limits. It could close flesh as soon as it was cleaved and even grow back small parts of the body, but vampires could not re-grow entire limbs. The second mouth was just within this range and Raziel could see it beginning to slowly reform.
He was the one two attacked first, leaping high into the air and diving at them. They tried to dive out of the way but his talons caught them across the sides, stunning them with the pain of the strike. Raziel rebounded of the ground and came at them again, slicing up through one ribcage tearing bone with a hideous grating noise.
This time Raziel did not simply stab the heart but he grabbed it, his talons gripping it tighly before he yanked it out and held it high.
Screaming the Dumah fell back, its body collapsing into dust and the heart in Raziel’s hand following suit not long after. The devolution of the clans was so acute it seemed that their bodies could not even hold themselves together after death.
The remaining Dumahim, now alone, clearly was beginning to think that there was easier prey elsewhere.
But without its pack to support it in hunting its chances for survival were slim. As such its decision to remain and fight was not so much a mindless savagery but rather a resignation of the inevitable.
When the business was done, the four released souls provided Raziel with the energy necessary to replenish his own strength and to stockpile a surplus should he require it later.
“I wonder…” He began, speaking to himself as he turned to carry on. “… what would my clan have devolved into had they had the opportunity?”
Ziegsturhl had been a town relaying trade from the coastal settlements to the inland cities and sure enough when he looked for it he did indeed find the remains of a road. It was barely distinguishable and vanished entirely in some places but there was enough for him to follow south and later that night as he crested a hill he saw the distant curving outline of the sea.
In the empire, few vampires had traveled on the water if they could avoid it and the crews of those ships had been human slaves. The only navy Kain had been interested in was one sufficient to allow for defense of important ports. With the vampiric weakness to water this was well understandable.
The darkness of night was almost all encompassing now, not even moonlight keeping the land and sea illuminated.
There was another settlement down there, the city of Freeport. That had been a fortress port in Kain’s empire, ruled by the Ruhabim clan. He could make just make out its shape against the increasing darkness of the sky.
There was a guiding light however. Down by the water’s edge and along by the city itself, there were more than a dozen faint green orbs of light, going back and forth and seeing from this distance like fireflies. Raziel had seen such lights before, carried by Hylden soldiers while on night patrol.
-
“Just as the Seer told me, there at the edge of Nosgoth and the beginning of the sea I fought more Hylden. In this instance at least her story held true.”
-
He took a step forward but then he checked himself, stiffening and looking down at the lights with more caution.
-
“I quickly resolved however that this could be a trap and that prudent investigations were required before I simply went for any throats.”