In the Shadow of the Storm -Chapter 1-15

Prologue

Prologue - Drahcir

The encroaching, suffocating darkness covered the room. The blackness was complete; there was no light within the space at all, so it was immediately obvious when the vampire opened its eyes, the dark orbs still standing out in contrast to the overwhelming gloom. He stepped forwards and motioned to a set of candles on the low table to his right. Flames sprang into existence, casting a dim, flickering glow around the room. There came a heavy clanking at the door, and it swung slowly open.
In came an Attendant, its robes draped over a painfully slight frame, with the hood drawn up. Deep in the recesses of the shadow, there was presumably a head, although the vampire had never seen it, and so did not know for sure. It glided over to another low table, opposite the one with the candles. As it did, the darkness coalesced, forming a plate cuirass, articulated plate gauntlets, greaves, a mail undershirt and great-helm. The armour was entirely black, but for a few white glyphs on the right cheek of the helmet. Each glyph denoted a century of his afterlife. He had nine.

During life, the vampire had been a master of the blade, so his long afterlife had been spent honing. To break up the monotony, he had also taken up the bow and, after nearly a millennium, he was more than proficient.
Drahcir moved from his position near the candles and into the centre of the room, where he came to a halt. The Attendant grasped the dark mail shirt and lifted it with ease. The strength required belied the slight form, but it was able to lower the heavy links over the vampire’s head, so that it came to rest at knee length. There was a slit at the front and back until halfway up his thigh to allow for riding, but the chain links otherwise covered him from neck to knee.
He held up one arm so that the Attendant could help him into the cuirass, complete with overlapping steel plates to protect his shoulders.  Once one arm was through the gap, he held the chest piece in place while the Attendant strapped the two plates together, pulling the strips of tough leather tight before snapping the clasps shut. Drahcir rolled his shoulders a few times so that his shoulder plates settled comfortably.

Next came the gauntlets, with the Attendant pulling one of them on at a time. It tightened the laces on the inside of the forearms, before moving onto the greaves. Although no knee appeared out of the robe, it had to be assumed that the Attendant knelt down to tie the plates onto his shins. The last piece of armour to go on was the steel great helm. As it descended, his vision was reduced to two slits.
Drahcir strode to the door, the sound of metal on metal accompanying every movement and echoing through the space. Immediately outside the door and hanging on a peg was his enormous sword, with a longbow and quiver of arrows hanging on the next one along. He strapped on the sword at his waist, with the quiver and longbow going on his back. Carrying on walking through the dark, winding corridors at the same time, Drahcir soon arrived at a dimly-lit atrium. When he reached a suitable spot, he stood still, and began to speak.
The words that echoed around the hall were of a long forgotten language: guttural and dark as the tongue that uttered them. The very sound of the words themselves seemed to dim the candles, and a cold wind began to gust. The chill did not touch the lone, black-armoured figure, and his outline seemed to blur. The air around him darkened and he began to become indistinguishable but for the glyphs on his cheek, which stood out bright in the darkness.

The blackness swirled around him before, with a gesture, it spread to form a constantly shifting blanket over the ground. As he continued to speak, the shifting shapes began to solidify, forming distinct outlines.
Incorporeal hands slipped and slid at his legs, but Drahcir paid no mind. The hands gradually became flesh, clawing at the rough dirt floor with broken finger nails. Eventually, the animated corpses were able to drag themselves painstakingly out of the broken earth. When Drahcir finally stopped speaking,  there were twenty recently dead bodies standing in ranks around him. With a word, they moved to the walls, retrieving spears and rough wooden shields. So armed, they accompanied Drahcir as he walked from the hall, ascending the steps until the whole strange procession emerged into the shadow of the Darkness.

The sun was attempting to break through, but Drahcir knew his master would never allow that to happen. The country he had emerged into was dying. There was no other way to describe the rapidly changing colour of the surrounding plant life. It was eerily quiet: there were no animals, so the only sounds were those made by the animated corpses as they trudged listlessly through the short, brown grass.
With an almost imperceptible motion from Drahcir, his troops marched off to join the main host in what had once been a green and lively valley to the west. He was left on his own, until another Attendant led his steed to him. The mount was a magnificent if slightly ill-tempered looking beast. The same size as a horse, it was similar, but the things that made it discernible from other horses were the red, startlingly reptilian eyes on either side of its long face. The monster was jet black, and seemed to be the very stuff of darkness.
He quickly mounted up and rode over to where the others of his kind waited. With a slight nod of deference to those older than himself, Drahcir took his position. From the vantage point of the group, the view was spectacular. The valley which opened out below them seemed to boil with activity. The enormous host was constantly shifting; the pale, unarmoured corpses ebbing and flowing around the black pockets of vampires. The next phase of conquest was about to begin, and this would be the most glorious yet. It would cover the lands to the west in darkness.

With silent instructions from Ivhon, the oldest vampire, the host was released from the valley as if some invisible dam had been removed. It poured over the countryside; an undisciplined mass bent on slaughter and destruction. The very land itself became a heaving, roiling blanket of living dead. As the horde spilled out westwards, it appeared that corpses were still shambling out of the caves at the base of the very cliff upon which Drahcir sat his mount.

If he had felt emotions, the one that might have been appropriate was awe. It was the largest number of beings he had ever seen in one place. At first he likened them to ants boiling out of their nest but then dismissed the notion. There were far more corpses down there than that. Anyone or anything that stood against them would simply be swallowed up, washed away as surely as if they tried to stand against the sea.

As the last stragglers crawled out of the cliff-side, the command circle turned away to ride down the narrow path to the trough of the valley. On their steeds, it was not long before they caught, and made their way through to the main body of the vampires, in the very centre of the horde.

The backbone of the force was made up of over 40,000 vampires. All of them wore black plate, but they ranged in age, from under a century – with no glyphs – to Ivhon, whose glyphs were on both cheeks of his black steel helm; fifteen in all. Word was that Ivhon was the only surviving original vampire, one those who had been in the camp that night.
To Drahcir’s knowledge, Ivhon had never spoken of what he had seen, or how he had become a vampire. Personally, he had never seen the Darkness closer than it was now, floating like a dark cloud in the sky. The black, irregular shadow blocked out the sun, and extended back as far as the eye could see to the east.

Despite the sluggish pace of the ‘army’, it was merely a few hours before they reached the site of the battle which had ended the last conquest. Bits of metal littered the ground: broken armour and spears. Shattered shields jutted out of the earth, giving the impression of an immensely rutted surface. Drahcir remembered very little of that day, although he had been there.
Images flashed disjointedly through his mind: the blood; the mounds of corpses; disciplined squares of elves standing resolutely against the dark tide; the banner, standing tall above the shimmering armour of the elven nobility. The emerald tree on a cream field had not touched the ground that day, a source of great pride for the elves, he knew. At the end of it all, the remaining vampires had withdrawn quietly into the shadow of the Darkness.

Now was the time for vengeance. It was not a case of feeling wronged: he did not feel anything at all. The Darkness simply willed dominion, and it was his duty to make this so. On the other side of the plain, Drahcir could see the new defensive line which had been thrown up by the elves. Since the terrain was so open, building fortresses would have been impractical. Instead, what lay before them was a row of sharpened stakes which stretched across the horizon. Behind that were lines of trenches, all manned by a mixture of elven infantry. There was no apprehension whatsoever as Drahcir surveyed the defences. The horde around him gave a guttural roar, and lurched into a disjointed, shambolic run. The vampires split into small strike teams, who would then target any weaknesses in the elf lines.
The mass closed quicker than expected, and there were signs of alarm appearing in the trenches. The sunlight reached only the edge of the trenches, but the rays glinted off the silver host. The banner was raised, the large rectangle of cream and emerald fluttering in howling wind blowing out of the east. Drahcir smiled.
The wind seemed to carry tortured screams, and he knew that the elves would already be terrified and demoralised by the time the tide washed over them.

Drahcir and the command vampires took a position on a low rise for a vantage point. Just as they reached the crest, the wave crashed into – and through – the line of stakes. To start with, corpses became impaled, and the charge faltered. It was for less than a second however, as they crashed through by sheer weight. When the horde hit the first trench, it engulfed the line of infantry, not even breaking stride. There was no pause before the momentum carried them into the second trench. It was as if there had been no first trench: the infantry simply ceased to be, torn apart by a scrabbling mass of hands.
At the second trench, the horde slowed as it came up against ranks of pikemen. As the advance stalled, the vampires came to the fore, hacking past the spearheads and deep into the formations. Even from this distance, Drahcir could see their massive swords rising and falling, cleaving through plate armour, flesh and bone with equal indifference. The slaughter lasted less than an hour before the elven line crumpled in on itself as their formations shattered under the sheer press of bodies.
It was impossible to distinguish individuals at this distance, so the horde seemed to rise like a wave, before crashing down on the routing elves. Just like that, the battle was over, the elves dead. As if nothing had happened, the host resumed its shuffling, shambling advance across the dirt plain, towards the grasslands, and the heart of The Empire.
The terrain before them was by and large grass of varying length, although there were small copses of trees dotted around, which forced the walking dead to split around them.

They had travelled for less than an hour – the mass of flesh pulsing around them – before elven cavalry burst out of clumps of trees to both sides. They had cut deeply into the walls of decaying flesh by the time the horde reacted, moving like a single organism to engulf them. On horseback however this was much more difficult to achieve, and the cavalry managed to reach the vampires. Drahcir drew his sword, and rode to meet them. By the time the elves rode down the last rank of corpses, they were battered and bloodied, but showed no sign of tiring. The vampire rode forwards, and dealt a casual backhand with his longsword. The blow smashed the unfortunate elf from his saddle without parting flesh, and he was immediately swarmed over by a mass of dirty, decomposing flesh, and ripped limb from limb in a spray of gore.

Drahcir paid him no mind, swaying out of the way of a clumsy thrust before returning one of his own. The tip of his sword punched through plate, mail and flesh to explode out of his victim’s back. The elf’s body spasmed, curling around the blade, and Drahcir was forced to shake the sword violently before the lifeless body slid from the end. His plate turned another blow, and he dealt a powerful lateral strike to a third elf, parting his head from shoulders. The headless corpse carried on past, its horse galloping on in panic.
One of those advancing looked to be wearing a gilded breastplate – an unusual display of wealth – so Drahcir assumed some sort of grand nobility, and rode to meet him. Their blades met with a crash that sounded like a lightning strike, and Drahcir could tell instantly that his opponent was more than a match for him. Their swords lashed out, connecting and disengaging faster than the eye could see. All the while, the two mounts circled each other, biting and kicking out, adding a slightly random dimension to the encounter. What was simply parry and riposte turned into a graceful dance. The two figures’ very outlines seemed to blur with the speed of their movement, and elf and vampire alike stood off.

With none of the older vampires nearby, Drahcir was the most powerful around, so he would have to at least wound the elf. As this thought entered his mind, he was a fraction of a second too slow, and the elf’s sword skittered off his own to bite into his left shoulder. Drahcir’s face tightened as the cold steel pierced his flesh, and the elf pushed his advantage. His sword began to whip out, blurring as it did, and the attack seemed to come from everywhere at once.
Drahcir was struggling, his sword rising to meet each attack only at the last moment possible. It was then that the hell beast beneath him looked out, and connected with the light brown warhorse of his counterpart. A hoof flicked out at the other horse’s hock, causing it to give out. The horse foundered, trying to support its own weight, and that of its rider. The attempt was doomed to fail, and it fell, seeming to take an age.

The other elves let out an involuntary groan, and began to try and fall back, but as soon as they stopped laying about them, the swarm engulfed them. Dirty hands missing fingernails raked at the heaving flanks of the terrified horses. One by one they fell, succumbing under the sheer weight of numbers. The horde gathered around the fallen riders, beating at them with rough weapons; broken spears, bits of rock, even bare fists.

The elves died horrific deaths: unable to get to their feet or even move under the weight of decaying flesh, they were crushed in their armour, unless they were lucky enough that a chink was found in their armour, and something plunged through.
As the other elves died, Drahcir dismounted, crunching to the ground. He strode through the knee-length grass to the horse still struggling to rise. It had fallen awkwardly, trapping the elf’s leg. Upon reaching the horse, he drew back his sword and drove it into the exposed belly with all the strength in his good arm. The blade penetrated the whole way through to explode out of the other side and spear the elf’s shattered leg. The blow illicited a girlish, bloodcurdling scream from the already-dying elf, and Drahcie moved round the still horse. As he went, he drew a short, black-bladed knife. The elf was still conscious somehow, so his eyes widened in terror when he saw Drahcir coming. With no strength to struggle however, he was forced to witness the vampire kneel down and make a small, light cut in the front of his throat. Deftly, he peeled back the fragile layers of skin to expose the intact vein in his victim’s neck. Drahcir began to speak, the words washing over the elf like a physical blow. The chant rose, until Drahcir was shouting, projecting his words over a large area.
When the incantation reached its climax, Drahcir plunged his head down and sank his teeth into the vein, ripping it open so that warm blood splashed into his mouth. The elf screamed throughout the incantation, and it was cut off abruptly when the vampire ripped out his throat. As he feasted, the pain in his shoulder lessened, before receding altogether. He knew that if he looked beneath the twisted rent in his shoulder plates, the wound would be reduced to a mass of scar tissue. He had taken many wounds in his life, and afterlife – although none for some time – and he body beneath the armour was covered in scars.
***