Twenty One
Myst City Town Square
Gladius and Fletcher quickly assembled the dwindling ranks of the militia who were still able to mobilize in time.
It was the middle of the night when the bell tower rang out, Gladius ran immediately to the town square; knocking on every door he passed.
Fletcher had been snoozing in a stinking tavern room when he was instantly woken by the call for battle and sped to mobilize.
Gladius and the militia had practiced emergency drills endlessly before. They were ready and armed in the town square within ten minutes.
"You smell like a sewer," Gladius coughed as he met Fletcher at an intersecting street. Fletcher rolled his eyes.
A small force of soldiers followed each of the knights.
The vampires aren't bothering to hide themselves anymore. They were dragging helpless victims out of their homes and devouring them on the streets.
The Myst City militia, the only remaining defense knew to meet in the town square if no orders came.
Gladius had trained them himself for the last few months, the oldest recruit was in his sixties, and the youngest were teenagers with something to prove.
Tonight, they would be tested to their limits.
Gladius had a sack of wooden stakes on hand for the militia to mount atop their spearheads. He tossed a quiver of freshly-blessed silver tipped arrows to Fletcher.
The militia knew their orders, but Gladius was concerned when the king's best soldiers were absent.
As the two heroes raced through the narrow streets of midtown, the cobbles grew slick with blood.
A nearby vampire was gorging himself on a young maiden. Her eyes were bulged out as she clung to life, her throat was torn out; she was seconds from death.
The vampire was slurping her spewing blood, barely noticing Gladius and Fletcher approach. An unmistakable tattoo of The Dark Claw covered the monster's face.
"You've drank your last drop!" Gladius growled, diving into the fray with a sweep of his blade taking off the vampire's arm at the shoulder.
The fiend leapt back; his stump of an arm crackled with dark magic as it prepared to regenerate itself.
Before he had a chance to recover Fletcher bulls-eyed his heart with a silver arrow turning the beast to ash.
Gladius stood over the now-deceased young woman and uttered a quick prayer of last rights before he closed her eyes over. "Suscipe hunc factorem ad latus tuum usque in sempiternum"
"We have to keep moving!" Fletcher called out as he ran ahead.
Anger fumed inside Gladius as he saw the innocent blood around him. The screams of the townspeople rang out into the night, snuffed out one by one. Gladius threw the sack of stakes over his shoulder and sprinted after his teammate.
The dark figures of vampires darted across the tiled roofs overhead as they closed in on their next victims.
Gladius turned a corner and saw another vampire decay to ash, staked through the heart by Fletcher, another vampire fled the scene.
"We're almost there!" Fletcher called back as the street widened into the wide central square.
A few militias were holding the lines as vampires tried to swarm the square through the side streets. They were relieved to see their commanders on the scene.
"Commander, they are breaking through!" one young militiaman exclaimed.
"Hand these out!" Gladius ordered tossing the sack of wooden stakes to the nearest guard, being sure to keep one handy. "Mount them on your spearheads and aim for the heart!"
Gladius looked around frantically for Marin, but she was nowhere to be seen. He couldn't wait for her to arrive; he had to mobilize the militia now.
"Fletcher, take the bowmen and musketeers down the main street and drive back the bulk of the horde!"
Fletcher nodded and called over the dozen remaining gunners and archers to his side across the square.
Gladius didn't see the fiend coming and found himself knocked to the ground. His ears were ringing; the force of the vampire's tackle had winded him.
"Commander!" a young militiaman, no older than seventeen jumped to Gladius' aid and dove at the vampire.
"Pathetic," the vampire hissed. With a slash of his claws caught the junior guard under the chin taking his head clear off.
Gladius was just finding his feet as the vampire loomed ahead licking blood from its fingers. Gladius recognized the guardsman, no longer an ally, he was sickly white and pallid with crimson eyes, blood oozing from his fanged mouth.
The other guards were locked in struggles with their vampiric foes; Fletcher's squad had left through the main street to break through the horde.
Gladius had never seen so many vampires in the same place, they had a small army at their command, and the barracks had already been turned.
"Not tonight!" Gladius leapt up and ripped his holy medallion from his neck and pressed it down onto the vampire's forehead.
The vampire howled in pain as the sanctified silver medallion burned his skin.
Gladius followed up with a wooden stake to the monster's heart.
He brushed the carpet of ash off himself left behind by his foe. "Who is next?" he roared as he leapt into a nearby skirmish, his sword in one hand, a wooden stake in the other.
The nearby vampires were losing their confidence as the guardsmen were fighting back.
Their leader, Lydia had lied, she promised them an easy feast.
Meanwhile in the Central District...
The next district over Marin had seen the signal fires and knew to assemble at the town square, word had circulated quickly that vampires were sacking the city.
She knew this was her fight, but after attacking two monks in the Tabernacle Umbra had been sent back to the prison cells.
Umbra and the other prisoners were left defenseless, she had to hurry.
To her dismay a telltale smear of blood on the prison walls lay ahead, dripping and fresh.
Umbra!
She kicked the shattered door out of her way and stepped into the dim prison block.
The prisoners were splattered against the walls; the vampires had let them loose only to slaughter them like sheep. The vampires were incredibly sadistic.
Umbra was crouched in the middle of the block surrounded by dismembered vampires and dotted with their black blood.
He was panting deeply; he had burned through a lot of his magic to fend off the vampires and his reserve was almost empty. Scattered blue embers flickered around the carnage.
"Umbra!" Marin called out.
Umbra looked up at her with a tired smile on his face. "No problem at all!" He was clutching his side where a stray slash had caught him midst the carnage.
Marin ran up to him and cradled his back. "Don't you dare give in," she ordered with teary eyes.
Marin hugged him tightly and focused her healing powers, the runes on her staff illuminated. Umbra was rejuvenated and back to his full strength in seconds, his wounds gone completely and his power restored.
"I couldn't save the others," Umbra lamented; his fellow cellmates were splattered on the walls.
"We have to get moving," Marin urged tugging him to his feet.
"I sense an unusually powerful force nearby," Umbra squinted his eyes.
"I can feel it too," Marin confessed.
It was the life force of a higher vampire feasting no further than a street away.
"We need to get to Gladius and Fletcher in the town square." She too had been drilled relentlessly for emergencies.
The two sorcerers ran out onto the streets. A bloodied victim was slumped over nearby; his blood trickled between the cobbles.
A lot of the fighting was taking place in the houses as townsfolk fought back with anything they could find, most of them with ornamental rapiers or brooms.
Umbra grabbed Marin's hand tightly and focused his power. He used a spell he saw Micah use hundreds of times- speed amplification. The two were wrapped in red light as they zipped down the street arriving at the town square in moments.
The spell fizzled out, Umbra didn't know how to sustain it for very long and often it was hours before it could be reused.
"We're here, old man," Umbra announced as he burst onto the scene with Marin.
Gladius looked at him with a frustrated scowl. He knew Umbra would be a great asset to the fight but hated seeing him so smug. Part of him wished Umbra was back behind bars.
"The Dark Claw have turned their attack towards the palace," Gladius panted wiping his sweaty brow.
He looked around for a spare weapon, only a rusted hand-scythe was nearby. "Take that thing and go help Fletcher on the front lines!"
Marin nodded in agreement and ran towards the royal district dragging Umbra behind her.
"Men, press forward, their ranks are falling!"