Dracula
Bats were ridiculously underrated, I rapidly came to realize over the past few weeks. In my past life, I had seen them as simple flying rodents and was content to leave it at that. Mere creatures scarcely worthy of notice. Now, after sharing their flesh for weeks, I had come to truly appreciate these remarkable beings.
For one, they had no concept of a predator, which meant in their minds, they were apex hunters. Another fun fact were that they could actually see, Those glowing, insidious red orbs were not merely aesthetic but functional. Most importantly was their ability to navigate through sound. Echolocation was a well-studied phenomenon; I had read of more than one blind person who had learned to do precisely that, navigating as bats did through sonic perception alone.
Unfortunately, echolocation's primary limitation was range. However, I had solved this inadvertently by controlling bats on the scale I did, turning them into a horde and using each creature's sound waves to propagate wider, granting me exponentially greater reach.
It had taken weeks to master the one critical weakness of skin-changing, leaving my true body vulnerable while my consciousness slipped into animal forms. With Dracula's vast intellect alongside my own ingenuity, I had learned to multitask in a manner most would consider impossible: separating my consciousness, leaving the beast horde like a static sound, controlled by a fragment of my mind while the remainder worked to puppet my physical form.
The ease at which i was able to accomplish it told me that Dracula had done something similar before, though his version involved complex mathematical calculations while simultaneously bottle-feeding Alucard and rocking his cradle. Say what you will about Dracula, but he was a man present for his family. Another factor was his innate dominion over nocturnal creatures, which made such magics considerably easier.
A screech echoed through my study and I froze, my hand pausing mid-motion as I prepared to turn the page of the fire magic tome before me. The calculations and theories I had been contemplating scattered like ash as I looked around. It took another second to realize I hadn't heard the sound with my physical ears.
I shifted my consciousness, enough that while completely aware of my body and surroundings, my primary focus settled on the particular bat hanging upside down from one of the last hardy trees before the flatlands that led into the Lands of Always Winter and the everlasting snowstorm shrouding them.
Only a handful of bats remained in position due to the brutal environment. My bats possessed heavy fur that helped them survive the harsh eternal winter, but even they weren't designed to endure proximity to the Lands of Always Winter. Coupled with their nocturnal nature, which I could only partially bypass due to the north's perpetual twilight, rather than leaving the horde exposed to be picked off by the elements, I maintained just a few scouts while the rest sheltered in the castle's deep caves.
Red, animalistic eyes blinked open, revealing the creature shrieking at me. A heavily furred night creature with enlarged eyes capable of seeing farther than any natural animal, one of the reconnaissance and speed-focused beings I'd had Hector create to maintain surveillance of the Lands of Always Winter. Recognizing it had my attention, the night creature pointed an atrophied limb toward the distance before spreading wings, massive pinions fit for a creature twice its size, and shooting into the gloom.
It took me a moment to shake snow from the bat's fur before I let out a calling shriek. A dozen scattered bats replied in kind, and I expanded from one consciousness to two dozen, assimilating the colony. As one, we lifted off, pursuing the night creature.
Nearly a minute passed before we saw what the floating scout indicated. Yet it wasn't our eyes that detected them the moment they entered range, it was echolocation.
Sound waves bounced off alien bodies and stranger armor plating. A picture formed in my mind: slim-limbed riders with hair streaming behind them as their chittering, eight-legged steeds propelled them forward through the snow. This wasn't one or two Others. At least seven of them moved in formation.
I controlled the bats to follow at a distance. Whatever enchantments and illusions they employed, combined with camouflaged armor, meant mundane eyes could barely track them, but echolocation sufficed.
I trailed after them while the night creature maintained its vigil. The Others and their mounts moved through the forest with eerie grace, no sound, no displaced snow. Their light weight and the spear-tipped appendages propelling the giant spiders forward allowed them to pass like phantoms, faster than expected, forcing me to push the bats to their limits to maintain contact with the group's rear guard.
Suddenly, halfway through the forest, they split. Three continued toward the Haunted Forest while the remaining four slowed, angling toward the Fist of the First Men.
Conflict lasted mere seconds. I had never attempted splitting my consciousness three ways and was wary of doing so now. A choice had to be made, and Dracula was nothing if not decisive.
The bats angled left, pursuing the three racing toward the Haunted Forest. Already, suspicion bloomed. The group heading for the Fist had decelerated, and as I chased the others, I recalled what I'd witnessed in the Frost Fangs earlier, I recognized what would unfold. Had I still been human, I would have squirmed at the coming slaughter. Fortunately, I was not, so I dismissed such concerns.
Unlike the predictable four, these three were an unknown quantity. Nothing in my memories or knowledge suggested this deviation, yet as they continued racing through the Haunted Forest, past white trees with blood-red leaves, my suspicions crystallized. They sought Bloodraven.
I blinked, glancing at the half-open grimoire in my hands before gently closing it. Experimentation would wait. Leaning back, my hand rose to stroke my well-maintained goatee as I weighed options. I felt no particular worry, Dracula's influence, perhaps. I had obtained what I needed from Bloodraven; our connection had served its purpose.
I couldn't recall the Others attacking him in the books, and in the show, the White Walkers' assault on the cave came much later. This change resulted from my presence, my visit to him. Which meant that on some level, this was my fault.
I searched within myself for that quintessentially human emotion: guilt. I found none, or rather, Dracula was unfamiliar with it. Perhaps it was one of those prey-like feelings his inhumanity had purged. Yet from what i remembered, he had felt guilt about nearly killing Alucard, followed by regret. But that was Alucard.
So I considered further, an attack on Bloodraven meant an attack on the Children of the Forest, and that thought made me frown. A dying species. Some scattered elsewhere, but most of what remained where sheltered in Bloodraven's caves. If those sanctuaries were breached, the Others would slaughter them to the last.
That was enough to get me moving.
I slipped my cloak around my shoulders, clasping it shut before striding toward the stables. However, I stopped at the castle entrance to find a nightmare pawing the ground, waiting. The castle doors opened slowly, Castlevania had sensed my urgency and anticipated my movements. I nodded in acknowledgment before mounting and riding out.
I ignored the rapidly growing settlement down the hill. Hector's pet project progressed well, especially with Isaac's occasional assistance. When questioned, he claimed it was solely to provide meat shields against the Others when they finally came for me.
The sight and presence of a monstrous, muscled, red-eyed beast thundering forward cleared the road effectively as the free folk in my path hurled themselves aside. The gates stood wide open, which meant not even that slowed me. It was only when we crossed the threshold that the nightmare truly began to move.
The nightmare's hooves barely touched the ground as we raced through the night. Behind me, Castlevania's spires faded into darkness, while ahead, the Haunted Forest loomed with its white trees, carved faces, and blood-red leaves. I allowed enough of my consciousness to slip into the still-trailing bats' senses, and through them, I maintained contact with the three Others as they navigated the twisted woodland with inhuman grace and alacrity.
They moved with the patience of immortals and the certainty of those who had walked these paths for millennia. Their spider-steeds picked their way through brambles and between gnarled trunks without disturbing a single twig, leaving no trace of their passage save the faint disturbance my echolocation could detect. Crows along the road watched them, and I imagined Bloodraven watched through their eyes, watched his death approach. I wondered, what did he feel in that moment?
The closer we drew to the heart of the forest, the more I felt it, a thrumming in the very air, like a massive heartbeat buried deep in the earth. The presence of the old gods lingered in the earth, in the trees, in the very air as weirwood roots formed a vast network beneath our feet. Old magic was strongest here, which gave me an idea and brought up the thought, perhaps Brynden had not chosen this part of the Haunted Forest carelessly. Perhaps this was where the Children once lived, where they would have built their homes among the trees they so worshipped.
The nightmare's pace never faltered, even as we entered deeper terrain that would have challenged any ordinary mount. Ice-slicked roots and hidden deadfalls posed no obstacle to a creature born from sorcery, not when it had traversed these particular roads before. Faster than even I had anticipated, we were gaining ground.
Through the bats, I watched the Others reach the plain field beyond the corpse of trees, where the cave should have been. There was nothing. However, the Others were not fooled. The lead Other raised one pale hand, and for the first time since I'd begun tracking them, they made sound.
It was barely a whisper, yet it carried like the cracking of ice on a winter lake, words, I realized a second later. The Other was speaking in a language that stumped even Dracula because it was not a language as we knew it. It was a tongue that predated humanity, a language that had shaped the world when it was young, a language that predated even vampires. I could not understand the words, however, their effects were clear.
I urged the nightmare faster. Whatever they were attempting, it was working.
A gust of cold wind immediately blew from the north, slamming into where the cave was supposed to be. For a second the illusion held, then it was immediately unraveled a heartbeat later in an explosion of magical sparkles that revealed the simple cave entrance. At its mouth stood Children of the Forest, all armed with obsidian-tipped spears. They hissed and growled at the Others, while the Others remained silent, watching them with uncaring blue eyes.
Then the lead Other took a step forward and was immediately forced back. Blue eyes looked to the ground and saw wards burning bright upon the earth. Already some looked burnt out, the ones that had handled the illusion, I assumed, however, the rest stood strong.
The Other reached behind and unsheathed a blade of pure ice. When it took a step forward this time, it began to speak once more. That same unholy sound of ice crackling brought the full weight of winter's fury upon the wards as a localized snowstorm began to bloom in the middle of the forest.
The second and third Others joined the first, their voices harmonizing in a frequency that made the world tremble as the intensity of the snowstorm increased. Ancient wards, laid down by the Children and strengthened by generations of Three-Eyed Ravens, began to fray at the edges. The very trees began to lean away from them, as if the forest itself recoiled from their presence and the cold they brought forth.
I was perhaps a mile away when I felt it, the moment the next layer of protection cracked. The Children immediately began hurling their spears, and rune-etched explosive stones, but the snowstorm the Others had called forth meant their projectiles were pushed and led astray in the face of the localized weather. The few that penetrated the heavy wind and snow were deflected off ice breastplates, however, that was enough to slow the Others.
The nightmare and I burst from the treeline just as the Others finally completed their working. The last of the wards burnt out and the Others released their hold on the snowstorm. This close, I could see deeper into the cave and the Children of the Forest guarding it. There were only five of them, and at their lead was Leaf and the more familiar Child of the Forest that had been comfortable in my presence.
Deeper into the cave, I could see the faint glow of weirwood fires and hear the whispered voices of the Children in their death songs.
These five were the only ones capable of combat. The rest had made peace with their deaths.
The Children were struck speechless at my presence, their howling war cries died in their throats as they stared with wide, ancient eyes. Small hands tightened on obsidian spears as they processed my appearance. Leaf's leaf-shaped ears twitched as she whispered something in the Old Tongue, and I caught the word for savior among the syllables. At least I assumed it was correct. My study of the old tongue had taken a back seat compared to magic.
If the Others were surprised by my arrival, they betrayed nothing save for the subtle shift in their positioning, from aggressive advance to wary assessment. The three turned as one with mechanical precision, their pale blue eyes fixing upon me with an intensity that spoke of ancient intelligence. There was something in that gaze, not mere curiosity or amusement, but recognition. They knew what I was, or at least what I represented: an inhuman predator much like themselves.
The temperature plummeted around them and their spider-steeds responded to the shift in atmosphere, eight legs clicking against the forest floor as mandibles gleamed like polished bone.
The lead Other, taller than his companions, with armor that seemed carved from ice itself, spoke in that same language of cracking ice and dying winds. Each word was accompanied by a gesture of his crystalline blade, pointing it at me with the casual authority of one accustomed to being obeyed. The sword itself was a work of beauty: translucent blue-white ice blade.
I simply raised a well-carved and refined eyebrow in response, the gesture deliberately dismissive. Beneath me, the nightmare's muscles coiled like steel cables as it bared fangs in response to the perceived threat, its red eyes boring into the spider-steeds with predatory hunger.
Silence stretched between us for seconds. I could see the moment realization dawned in those ancient blue orbs, we shared no common tongue save our inhumanity and violence. The Other's head tilted with inhuman precision, processing this linguistic barrier with the patience of a man that had all the time in the world. One of his companions made a sound that might have been laughter, a sound much akin to icicles breaking.
"He asks why you are here, cold one," Leaf finally spoke, her voice trembling slightly as she drew my attention. Her golden eyes darted between the Others and myself, centuries of racial memory warning her of the powers at play. Of course, the Children could understand them, they had shared this frozen continent for millennia.
I drew on Dracula's memories as I dismounted with deliberate slowness, each movement calculated to display both confidence and contained violence. Snow crunched beneath my boots as I smoothed my dark hair back, sending the white flakes that had settled upon it away. I let Dracula's predatory instincts surface, the ancient aristocrat who had seemed more legend than real to the humans in Tragoviste.
My cloak billowed around me as I strode forward with regal bearing, imperious gaze fixed upon the lead Other. Behind me, the nightmare pawed the frozen ground, its hooves striking sparks that hissed and steamed in the cold air. The beast was a barely contained storm of muscle and malevolence, ready to charge rip, and tear at a single word from me.
"You overreach," I began, as I locked eyes with the lead Other. Despite their supernatural height, they remained inches shorter than my towering seven feet, a gift that placed me firmly in half-giant territory.
"The Children of the Forest are under my protection and beyond your reach. You will leave at once, or I shall consider this an act of war against my domain."
I came to a stop mere meters from the lead Other, close enough to see the intricate patterns carved into his ice-armor, close enough to smell the scent of endless winter that clung to him like a shroud. This close, I could see that his eyes weren't merely blue, they spoke of age as well
Leaf began to translate my ultimatum, her voice barely above a whisper in the crackling language of the Others. Before she could finish, the lead Other cut her off with a single, sharp word that. The sound needed no translation, refusal in any language carried the same weight.
I felt my lips curve into a smile that had once made Wallachian nobles soil themselves in terror.
"If it is death you seek," I said, my voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carried farther than a shout, "then come forward and I shall deliver it to you. I have been far too long without proper entertainment."
The lead Other stepped forward with that same fluid grace, ice-sword rising to a guard position that spoke of millennia of martial knowledge. In that same instant, a howl split the night, and from the shadows of the forest burst Coldhands astride a scarred direwolf. It looked like Bloodraven was not as unprepared as I initially assumed if he kept Coldhands this close.
My fingers flexed as, for the first time in years, I felt the familiar thrill course through my veins, that electric anticipation that preceded true violence. Not the middling encounter with Coldhands, but true combat against something that might prove an actual challenge to Dracula's prowess. The Lead other charged a second later, with a partner wielding a spear trailing behind him, while the third other spun to face Coldhands.
Two on one were horrible odds… for them.