Fifteen
On Route to Myst City
That night, Umbra sat at a table in the abbot's chambers banging his head as his tormentors quoted scripture endlessly, and Marin stayed up all night sifting through the sea of law books in Astralode's library; a sinister force approached the city walls.
A sneaky lizard-faced familiar enshrouded in a nondescript cloak sat at the helm of an overloaded horse-drawn cart.
The cart parked at the bottom of the iron gate of Myst City's main entrance. Towering stone walls dotted with archer's windows stretched out and around the city, a heavily fortified belt.
"This better work, changeling," the concealed passengers whispered from underneath a stack of barrels.
A group of emaciated vampires hid on the wagon, a dozen packed uncomfortably together while a small horde of them lingered in the shadowy forest nearby.
"Your master better be right about this," the Greater Vampiress leader threatened.
"Keep quiet," the changeling, Cassius whispered.
A sleepy guardsman approached the cart clutching an iron halberd, wearing the Myst City colors over chainmail. He scratched his head under his helmet and yawned under lantern light.
The signal light above cast a spotlight on the covered wagon. "What are you carrying?" the gatekeeper inquired, boredom in his voice.
None of the guards liked overnight duty; it was most often boring and event-less.
"Just bringing a late shipment of salted beef from The Southern Townships," Cassius replied in a steady voice.
The guard recognized the cart; the shipment was almost a daily trade. "Where is the usual guy... uh, Mario?" the guard inquired skeptically.
Mario was lying face down with his throat ripped out a mile up the road where his cart had been ambushed.
"He's a bit under the weather. I'm his neighbor doing him a favor," Cassius lied from under his hood.
The lie worked on the bored guard. "Oh well, when you're back, wish him well for us."
The guard waved up to the guards in the archway above the gate to raise it.
The heavy crank was turned and the covered wagon rattled past the battlements and came to a stop on the other side of the wall. One patrolman approached the wagon to give them directions but was dragged under the canopy and shredded to pieces by the hidden vampires.
The vampires poured from the wagon, like a foul black pox and overran the gatehouse before an alarm could be raised, tearing and shredding their way through the guards and snuffing out the lights.
That was the signal for the horde of vampires at the edge of the forest to charge into the city and assemble around the cart to await their orders.
A tall thin woman with pale skin, crimson eyes, a long wooden pendant and a black gown stood in the middle of the pack. "Under cover of night we come. We will sneak into the barracks; extinguish every light we pass and remain unseen!" the leader announced, a prepared speech.
"We are Dark Claw and tonight we feed!" she added to the amusement of her clansmen.
Cassius stood apart from the pack, his mission complete, he was to escort The Dark Claw clan into Myst City and return to his master Lady Crow to report that her plan was in motion.