Between Two Blades

The Plague

-Zhou Wenyan-

A maid strode along with me through the long halls of the old mansion, as we discussed the invitation list. “So no trolls or goblins,”, she said, marking things on her little list. “no northern vampires as well. So just your lord´s family and his family, the staff and some villagers.” Again she crossed out lines in her list with her long, pointy finger, dipped in ink.”The total cost would be almost a billion silver with the arrangements made so far!” I sighed, telling her for the third time that I don’t bother spending more than I wanted to spend. “You can leave now.” The maid, named Gon, hurriedly left, her elfish ears visible behind the dark red colored hair.

Spending time on the wedding plans made me more exhausted than I thought. We still have a lot of work to do outside of the event. The monster attacks have been increasing right outside the mansion. The other peasants came running the other day, asking for help. I sent down my best-trained guards to keep everyone safe. The villagers were surprised by my actions but thanked me later on. I made my way to my lover’s room, informing him about the guests. It was hard to find out where his grandparents lived. At first, they wanted to attack me, for barging into their territory without anyone knowing but as they sniffed his smell on my clothes, they began to ask questions about his wellbeing. Quite too many questions for my taste to be fair. I assured them he is alive and alright and lives in the mansion in the west. They then agreed to come to the wedding, overly happy to finally see Xiaodan again, after so many years of his disappearance. They accepted my invite, which is all that counts to me. If they will be happy to see Xiaodan, then I am sure as hell that he will have the same reaction on seeing his family, his kind after so long. At the end of the long hallway, a door was open just a bit to take a peek inside.

I slowly opened it to see a well-dressed Xiaodan stand in front of the huge black mirror, wearing the suit I asked the maids to buy him. He looked stunning in these clothes and I cant do more than just stand there and admire the young man. “Isn’t it said that it brings bad luck to see your bride before the wedding ceremony?”, he mischievously raised an eyebrow, looking at me through the mirror. He learned quite a few things about me when it came to being flirty and hot at the same time. I still noticed his nervousness, behind his mask and sauntered towards him. The mirror reflected my pale skin and my bony cheeks, insulting my slim figure. “After the ceremony…let´s go somewhere…,” I began touching his back, slowly making moves down to his butt. Giving it a little hit, I wandered to the other side, leaning towards his ear, “…somewhere private.” He gulped but nodded slowly and stared at himself in the reflecting surface, tucking at the hem of the suit. “I´ll take my leave now. Be sure to stay this pretty until I can tear it apart from you.”. Steering my way in the direction of my office, where work needs to be taken care of, I kept thinking about how my own family would react to me and my bond.

After all, only my mother would come for sure. As for my father, I wasn’t sure how to tell him that his probably only evil son became a softie for a young demon man. His reaction to it would probably be something close to disappointment, as far as I know, and remember him. I would still be happy to just have my mother with me. This woman never asked for two vampire brothers, nor did she ask to become one as well, after her death. My father still respected her, as a human then, and as a noble vampire now. The only thing that split us all apart was my brother. This idiotic creature wanted to have his own family, right after he tried to take my damn crown away. He was disowned right after I told it to father. That’s what he deserved.

By now I sat in the deep red chair, surrounded by guards telling me about the recent attacks, that they are more aggressive than usual or that mutants, the infected ones, increased massively. “We don’t have enough men to fight them all. But we could sacrifice some hu-” “Enough!”, I roared. Silence hushed over the room as the guard who spoke sank his head low. “We won’t sacrifice another human. They would just come back for more and see this as an opportunity that we would feed them for free instead of trying to get rid of them as fast as possible.” As frustrated as this situation is there are only two options laying on the table. “We have two choices. We take every men who are able to fight and will kill the monsters together.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Or we cooperate with the cycle. They have the strength to manipulate time, weapons, and creatures.” “But we shouldn’t interact with them!”, one of the guards protested. “Do you want to be eaten alive, in full pain?” He was silent again and denied it. Who would want to be eaten by one of these monsters voluntarily? Then I unfolded a map and we marked points where we could set up traps or send troops. Our strategy might even work if enough people would join and train with us to perfection. This won’t go without losing warriors, but we have to take this risk. This way we can reduce the enormous amount of monsters a bit while investigating where the heck they even come from. This also means more hard training hours for the next few days. I ordered some guards to gather strong-willed men and assign them to their duties.

-Rhen Xiaodan-

I listened in horror as I heard some maids and servants murmur right outside the window, near the garden. A new wave of monsters destroyed the market and a lot of women with their children got injured. I couldn’t just sit here and do nothing all day. I changed into more comfortable clothes as quickly as possible and put the suit in the wardrobe. Rushing to Wenyan´s office, I burst in without knocking and fell into the room. As I straightened myself, five people eyed me from the side and I cleared my throat. “I-I can heal the wounded ones. If you allow me, that is.” Not looking him in the eye I expected a rude ´No´ but what follows was “I would love to have you on our side. And it is a great way to keep your training going.” Slowly, I turned my head upwards to see the vampire sitting in his chair, hands folded in front of him and smiling at me.

I eagerly nodded, making my way en route to market, where the chaos happened a few minutes ago. Horrifying screams were heard in the distance as children cried for their mothers and husbands looking for their hopefully living families. A few elves gave me a curious look as I passed by and halted in front of a mother whose child lay in her arms, a limb missing and about to leave this goddamn world. “Dear Lord, please help us.”, she mumbled repeatedly. Kneeling down in front of her, carefully observing the child’s injuries, I felt my powers rise within the deepest part of me. They knew I needed them at this very moment. The mother looked at me, worry in her eyes, but I assured her that her daughter will live on if she would let me heal her. She nodded, tears streaming down her muddy face. She supported the child’s head with both of her hands, leaving a place for me to work my wonders. I tried speaking in perfect Kʼüüpʼamuian

, one of the three dead languages used for healing spells. “V

uumi tø Kø wakhüü pʼe thüm

ø."

May light hush over you.” Soon I felt my heart tickle as a bright blue light shone out of my chest and set its rays onto the child´s wounds. It slowly formed the skin back to its original form. And after the light slowly fades. The kid rises to its feet, immediately stunned by the sight of her weeping mother, and threw her arms around her. “Thank the gods for sending the mighty one!”, she kept praising. She went home to her husband after thanking me again. And while I still looked the woman´s way, I had the feeling of being watched by a dark presence, not belonging in this place. In order not to attract attention, I looked around carefully, only to see the wreckage of wrecked steel horse-drawn wagons and wooden huts full of food and drink. These were now all spread out on the floor, some of them charred and inedible. I also saw a few mages now helping the injured ones. I wandered through the area with quiet steps, into a lonely alley. That was, until a shrieking scream right beside me, destroyed my eardrums and I tumbled over. A banshee spotted me and looked at me with rotten, fancy eyes. Her gaze caught on me and she got ready to attack. I took all my strength to fight it, but the strength of this creature made me fall and managed to scratch my arm.

She was strong, too strong for her kind. It has to be dark magic in the game to change such a monster. Her long, black hair hung in front of her face and her sallow skin peeled off the bones as she dared to attack again. I was too tired to protect myself again. My strength was no longer enough to scream for help. Despite everything, I regained my energy and tried to keep standing, even if we demons were not created for long-lasting fights.

My vision got worse as everything around me slowly began to sway. This b***h has poison in her clutches! I rubbed my eyes with my hands, but nothing worked. When she rushed towards me, I didn’t move. I couldn’t go any further and was completely exhausted. I fell to the ground but still saw with a blurred vision that someone else was fighting the horrific creature. I heard the banshee’s last cry of death before the heroic person lifted me up and hugged me tightly. “You just have to give me trouble, don’t you?” Whispered an overly familiar male voice.

“Wenyan?” I tried to touch him, but couldn’t even raise my lifeless arm.“Shhh, sleep a little now. You need a lot of rest first and then we’ll get you back on your feet.”

I dozed and dreamed of a place where only the two of us were. Just the two of us, and the bloodbath, full of empty souls that threatened to suffocate. And we did nothing.