Sky Full of Stars

Chapter 14: The First Mission

    We were up early the next morning, just before sunrise. The plan would only work if the others could trap the vampire spawns outside and in the nearby river, in an unshaded spot. That would deal them plenty of damage, and prevent them from regenerating. We had to time this perfectly.

    Meanwhile, Miznia and I were preparing to face the master vampire and destroy the resting place. With any luck, we'd be in and out before anything terrible happened. Of course, things don't always go as planned, but we were relatively confident in our plan.

    We were expecting the vampire spawns to be finishing up their hunts around that time, and the others decided to block the entrance and wait for the rest of the coven while Miznia and I went in to start dealing with the master and destroying the resting place. It seemed like Etu, the god of luck, would be on our side in this fight.

    Miznia and I left our companions outside the cave where the resting place was and made our way inside. For several long minutes, we walked in silence, the cave growing darker and darker the further in we went. After a few minutes, Miznia touched my arm lightly, drawing my attention to her for the moment. She looked up at me, and despite the darkness, my eyes adjusted after a moment. Her eyes met mine, and I could easily see the fear in her eyes.

    "Don't" I whispered, smiling gently. "Everything is going to be fine."

    "You can't make that promise and you know it..."

    "Hey, I'm your i***t, remember? I'm not going anywhere. I'll be careful, and you have my back" I murmured, reaching up to cup her face between my hands.

    "I... Maybe I should face the master, that way I know your safe... Or we should get Emdrom to fight it... Anyone else, please..." Her voice was strangled and tears were filling her eyes.

    I knew we were already low on time, and there was no way we could go back and get anyone else, especially since I was the most likely one to succeed here.

    "Miznia, we can't do that. We have to go through with the mission. You think I want you in any danger either? If I could, I'd have you safe back in Ravenwallow right now. But we have a part to play, and of course I couldn't stand to be apart from you for a week and a half. We have to go through with this, otherwise our friends will do all their work for nothing."

    She squeezed her eyes shut, a few tears escaping and sliding down her cheeks. I quickly wiped them away with my thumbs and leaned in to press a soft kiss to her lips. She tried to pull me closer, but I pulled back quickly, a teasing grin on my face.

    "That's a taste of what you'll get tonight, after we handle the vampires."

    She rolled her eyes but nodded. "You better not forget about it when we're done with this."

    "How could I ever forget?" I smirked and darted in to kiss her cheek once before pulling my warhammer and shield off my back. "Ready?"

    Miznia nodded. "Be careful, Nimue."

    I smiled lightly. "I will be. Handle those coffins quickly, will ya? I can't kill this thing for good until they're burned."

    She laughed softly and nodded again. "Yeah, yeah. Let's get going."

    We walked side-by-side through the rest of the tunnel until it finally opened up into a massive cavern filled with dozens of different sizes and styles of coffins. I spotted one figure settling into the largest and most elaborate coffin leaning against a massive stalagmite in the near center of the cavern. I signaled to Miznia to sneak around the edge of the cave, and sent a quick prayer to Kareem that she'd stay out of sight.

    I took one more glance around the room and felt my stomach clench when I realized that a handful of the vampire spawn had either returned early or never left. About half a dozen were spread throughout the room, which would cause a major issue for Miznia if she got caught. I needed to draw their attention to me.

    I sucked in a deep breath, knowing she was going to absolutely hate me when she realized what I was doing, and charged forward with a thunderous battle cry. I lifted my hammer over my head, ready to smack the first creature that came close.

    I didn't know where Miznia was, but already I could see part of one of the coffins at the other end of the cavern starting to burn. Which meant that, to her credit, Miznia wasn't being distracted by my... Well, distraction.

    The vampire spawns were fast, incredibly so, but not nearly as fast as the master. Still, two of them were closer to me than the older vampire was, and they were the first to be hit. My hammer went into the one that approached me from the front, and I heard it's skull crunch beneath the hit. My shield slammed into the one coming from my left, and I heard the creatures ribcage shatter. I knew that wouldn't kill them, but it would at least buy me a few seconds. With any luck, that would be enough time to handle the master and end this whole thing.

    The master was on me then, charging into me with the force of a mammoth on it's side. Which, mind you, it shouldn't have based on it's size! This creature was a couple inches shorter than me, and maybe half my weight, yet it was clearly stronger than me in every physical way. This would be a problem.

    As soon as it made contact with me, I went flying back into the wall just above the tunnel we just came through, then fell forward and landed on my stomach with a painful thud that had me biting my tongue. The taste of iron filled my mouth, and I spit some of my own blood on the ground and lifted my head to glare at the master.

    "That the best you got?" I spat with a grin.

    If looks could kill, I'd probably have about a thousand daggers stabbed into every kink of my armor. The beast's dark red eyes flared with obvious rage as it charged forward again, but this time I was ready. Just before it could slam down onto my prone body, I quickly rolled to the side and brought my hammer up to slam down onto it's head.

    The plan almost worked, except rather than landing a hit on it's head, I landed one on it's shoulder. Still, score one for Nimue. I heard the vampire shriek in pain, but I didn't get too long to enjoy it's pain before it was tackling me to the ground, fangs bared far too close to my throat for my liking.

    At this moment I knew that something was very wrong. There were at least four other vampires on their feet in this cavern, six if the two I hit were already up. And not a single one of them was attacking me. I took half a second to scan the room and, to my horror, saw Miznia surrounded on all sides by all six of the vampire spawns. They were snapping and clawing at her, and while she was managing to avoid their attacks for the moment, I could already see her energy waning.

    I felt my anger bubbling up in my chest. That was the woman the gods had blessed me with, the one I was meant to spend my life with. Were I a werecreature of some kind, that would be my mate, and those monsters were trying to hurt her.

    Just like the last couple of times I got really angry, I felt an almost intolerable heat growing around me, until I realized it wasn't growing around me, but from within me.

    I shoved the master vampire off of me in one fluid movement, and heard it screech in pain. I didn't stop to pay attention to why, I was too focused on getting to Miznia. She saw me coming, and her eyes were wide with fear.

    The sound around me was fading fast, and instead I heard a loud ringing in my ears as the heat continued to intensify. I saw Miznia scream something, but I didn't hear it. I simply shoved my way passed the vampires surrounding her, and watched with an odd satisfaction as they all cringed away from me.

    I pulled Miznia in close, shielding her with my body, and everywhere her skin touched mine was suddenly cool, though the rest of me felt as if I was on fire. And then, the cavern began filling with light. Miznia quickly buried her face in the crook of my neck as the light became too much for her to bear. I, however, turned to face the master vampire and his spawns, now cowering where the darkest shadows would conceal them.

    But the light was spreading fast, and the heat was now so intense I was sure I would literally go up in flames. And then, everything went dark.