Chapter 14

• *Erolzwald*
• From the shadows 11 bodies moved from the woods, creeping around. Swiftly moving around the ruined buildings, weaving in and out of the shadows and alleyway. Covered from head to toe in black cloth, only their eyes were visible for others to see. The mysterious individuals did not make a sound. Only the leader motioned with his hands orders that the other 10 were to follow. While two Shadow men followed the leader the other eight fanned out throughout the capital.
• The leader and the other two shadow figures made their way to the castle. Making sure that they did not cause a scene, they entered the front door of the castle. Speaking in their native tongue, a language that was dead to many, one of the Shadow men translated so that the guards would understand what their leader was saying.
• With authority, “Where is the Alpha King?” The male's voice was deep and husky.
• The two guards glanced at one another, not knowing what to do. Again the male voice asked the guards the same question. This time with more demand and less pleasantry. Without saying a word one of the guards opened the door slightly squeezing through. Minutes had gone by with no words spoken. From the other side of the door, someone was opening it fully and completely. Visible to the three shadow men, Craimie Banuhe, an elite warrior introduced himself to them.
• With more irritation in the tone of his voice, the male asked again where the alpha King was. Craimie maintained his composure, telling him that their beta would soon be here. Asking the three Shadow men to follow him to the conference room, where they could meet up with Lord Ascelius and Beta Morris.
• The leader of the group was the first one to take a step forward, with the other two companions following close behind him. Not saying a word they followed Craimie to the conference room. Their wait would not be long, as the three shadow men stood in the conference room Beta Morris along with Lord Ascelius entered the room quickly shutting the door behind them.
• The leader spoke in the ancient language asking where the alpha King was. Lord Ascelius, understanding the language, responded to the leader of the small group. Informing them that the Alpha King had travelled to the northern countries to complete a necessary task. Only revealing any information that was required to be released.
• The Shadow leader was about to continue the conversation when there was a knock on the door.
• “No one should be bothering us!” Beta Morris commented, “I made it clear that no one was to disturb us!” He was not pleased with the turn of events. Roughly opening the door, the beta was greeted with eight more shadow men. Each of them holding a severed head in their hands.
• One of the males spoke to the leader in the old language. The leader of the group asked a question which made Lord Ascelius scowl, “Beta Morris, do you know this man?” Pointing to the head he was speaking of.
• Inhaling once, “no!” Beta Morris replied, “I have a feeling I am not going to like this!” He commented.
• The man who was holding the head of the dead vampire explained in the old language that he had found the individual vampire wandering around, among the Erolzwald guards acting as if he were one of them. When the shadow man stumbled across the individual vampire, the vampire was about to attack an unsuspected member of the capital's warriors. It was reported that the other seven vampires were found among the rubble in the northern section of the capital.
• The leader of the group spoke to those who had travelled with him. As he was speaking Beta Morris locked his eyes on listening to each word that he had spoken, not understanding a word until the leader said the name Rimvan Longarm. A lump formed in the beta’s throat that he was having trouble swallowing down. Lord Ascelius told the leader of the group what had happened. Beta Morris had to lower his head as he gained control over his emotions. While his head was lowered the leader asked about Finja Longarm. Again Lord Ascelius relayed the information to the leader.
• As the leader and Lord Ascelius continued speaking, the eight individuals turned on their heels, aiming their feet for the door. Swiftly the door was opened and closed. In the hallway, maids and servers did not know how to respond, and backed away from the mysterious males that were all dressed in black.
• Back in the conference room, the leader continued to inform Lord Ascelius about the situation that they were facing.
• When the leader left the conference room, Lord Ascelius relayed the information that was given to him.
• “Red Fang informed me that all of the unregistered vampires that they saw were dealt with. He also warned us to make sure we keep an eye on all of our entrances. With the movement of the unregistered vampires, it appeared to him that they are trying to sneak around Erolzwald and attack from all directions.” Lord Ascelius rubbed his hands down his face. “Red Fang …” Lord Ascelius said the name as if he was deep diving into his memories.
• “Do you know the man?” Beta Morris asked as he pulled out a chair.
• “Not the name, but his pheromones remind me of someone, yet I can’t place it.” Lord Ascelius was beginning to pace the area. “If what Red Fang said is true, we are in way over our heads.”
• “On a scale of one to ten, how bad are things?” Beta Morris closed his eyes.
• Huffing out loud, “Red Fang said that Zane Hunter had told him that there is an army of a million unregistered vampires coming this way.” Lord Ascelius hissed with rage, “we should have listened, now we have no way to contact the emperor.”
• “One Million is nothing compared to our numbers!” Beta Morris pointed out.
• “That is the first wave!” Lord Ascelius punched the top of the table leaving a dent, “Red Fang informed me there are several waves. Each group is smaller than the one before it but still large enough to destroy Erolzwald.”
• A string of colourful words came out of the beta’s mouth. “How are we going to get everyone out of here in time?”
• “We can’t!” Lord Ascelius closed his eyes as he was heaving with rage. “They are going to destroy us, knowing that Erolzwald has the largest army in this region.”
• “We need to get to Stormfall Mountain, warn them and get reinforcement.” Beta Morris stated.
• “No!” Lord Ascelius said firmly, “you are not going to like this but … we have to allow the first wave to hit us and then send out a runner to Stormfall Mountain and Whispering Port. If we send them out now, no one is going to do a thing, only laugh and …”
• “Barnacles!” Beta Morris hissed. “The emperor is not the only one that wants to remain ignorant in this situation.” Hitting both of his hands on the table and raising from his spot. “We will have to focus solely on the structure of the walls. We will start drills tomorrow morning and see how quickly the people respond to a mock attack.”
• “First before we do anything, we need to get the elite warriors' families out of here now.” Lord Ascelius commented as he led the way out of the room. “I am going to send the Ancillae fighters with them as well as extra protection. At least to a point that Red Fang said where they made the first kill.” Speeding to the door, “Straightarrow should have the first group ready to go.”
• Following behind, “Davder wants to give the group the chance to rest before they leave. Majority of the women and men did a full day’s labour. They need rest before they depart from here.” Beta Morris was matching Lord Ascelius' speed of walking, “Plus … If I know Davder well enough, he is going to want to send some of the warriors out to fan the location and hunt down the feral vampires.”
• Lord Ascelius stopped walking, “I don’t know if we can afford to send them out, how well are they at hunting down unregistered vampires in woodland?”
• Beta Morris smiled, “Davder told me that is their specialty! Most of their tactics are for assassination.”
• Lord Ascelius did not respond to what the beta had said as he continued moving towards the barracks where the Ancillae fighters should be.
• *Lich Princess tower*
• Cortihr and Elgolor were filing the documents away when there was a knock on the door. Walking over Elgolor opened up to see that a miner was standing at the door.
• “Is there something wrong? Did you not get your pay for the year, Conor?” Elgolor asked the middle-aged man.
• “No sir I got my pay just fine, I came here to speak to you both about other matters.” Conor glanced to his left and right, “may I come in?”
• Elgolor exhaled but opened the door for the miner. “What do you have to say, Conor?” Elgolor asked as he shut the door.
• Conor glanced at Elgolor then Cortihr, taking off his hat he glanced at his feet, “I am a simple man, I keep my nose out of others business and I do not spread rumours.”
• “We know, you are one of our best workers!” Cortihr commented, “but that still doesn’t explain why you are here!”
• “I am here because there is something wrong with the mountains. I started hearing voices and things were going missing. First I thought to myself ... am I so old that I am losing my mind.” Conor snorted, “I thought I was losing it but not now, no sir!” Conor lifted his head. His expression was sheer terror. “A few of the men went missing, sir! We all thought they had left … could not handle the job! We all continued working making money, that we did … but … when everyone left and there were only a few of us, things got mighty scary. Then Bear went missing … I know him like he was my brother. I went looking for him!” Conor’s lip vibrated as he was allowing his emotions to show. “The smell sir, it was bad! Followed the bad smell to a location that was closed. And there they were … all of the men that went missing. Dead!”
• Elgolor was sitting in a chair listening to what Conor had to say, “did you see what killed them?”
• “No sir, I saw them and ran! Gathered my stuff and told the others to leave because there was something wrong with the mountain.” Conor was visibly shaken.
• Cortihr stood up, “thank you for letting us know, we will send someone to investigate later.”
• Cortihr motioned his feet around the table and walked Conor out of the office. Closing the door once he was gone, Cortihr snorted.
• “Do you believe what he said?” Elgolor asked with a disbelief expression.
• “He saw something but we all know he doesn’t have much going on upstairs.” Corthir tapped the side of his head. “He is a 22 year old man with the mind of a child. Poor thing never had a chance.” Cortihr pushed his chair in and was getting ready to leave the office.
• “Do you think we should at least look into this?” Elgolor was second guessing the situation.
• “Ahhh! We will see what he was talking about when we do our annual maintenance check. He probably saw something in the dark that frightened him and that is all.” Cortihr locked the office door behind them. “Being in the mountains for a long time can play tricks on the brightest of minds.”
• Elgolor forced a chuckle, “you are probably right! He doesn’t leave the mountains enough and with all of his kin gone, there is no one to look after him. Maybe one of us should make sure he is taken care of for the season!”
• “I will talk to my wife and see what she has to say. The place gets lonely once in a while for her now that our children have moved away and started their own family!” Cortihr commented as he was getting ready to head in the way of his home as Elgolor would do the same. “See you in the morning!”
• *Whispering Port*
• Caid and his crew worked on the shuttles night and day. With one of the shuttles ready to leave, when the conductor is ready to travel. The other shuttles required more work, Caid figured that one of them would be ready in a couple of days.
• “How are things going Newton?” Caid asked as he crouched down.
• Sliding from under the shuttle, “I have three more cabins to do some work and then I am going to call it a night. Patton already went home to his wife. Something about his wife’s being an emotional mess and needs him.” Newton said as he pulled his work mask over his face and began working again.
• Muttering, “we are all an emotional wreck, we have to deal with it!” Caid said as he walked away to the last cabin of this shuttle unit.
• “Jost!” Caid yelled, “tell me you have some good news!”
• Popping his out of the shuttle cabin window, “Working on the bed mattress boss, but I have to say … over a decade of being idle the small critters made this their home.” Jost showed Caid the results of what the small rodents had done to the mattresses.
• “I will talk to my wife and see if we have thick blankets at the house that she could saw up together and make a mattress. It is the easiest way to deal with the situation. Besides I don’t think the people are going to care if they are sleeping on used blankets as long as they are not sleeping on a cold ground for the winter.”
• “It is a good think you suggested that,” Jost started to say with a smile on his face, “I asked my sister to get the ladies association to work together and stitch together old blankets and make them into mattresses.” Jost began to laugh, “They should be delivering them tomorrow.”
• “You're a good man Jost, keep up the great work, the Erolzwald citizens are going to appreciate everything that you are doing for them.”
• Aiming for the last cabin, “Robb how is the secondary conductor cabin?”
• An elderly man dropped his tool on the floor of the cabin, “not good!” He huffed out loud. “If I have to be honest, Caid, if this was not an emergency rescue, I would tell you to scrap the beast and be done with it.”
• “Barnacles!” Caid exhaled roughly. “Will she at least get the people to their destination?”
• Bobbing his head, “the front is not the problem, the stern of the shuttle is the issue. The vermin chewed through all of the wiring, it would take me a month to replace everything and get her purring.” Robb forced a smile on his face.
• “Fine, this will have to do, it is going for one more trip. Where it ports is where it stays until we can remove it to the wreck yard for scraps.” Caid said, unhappy that he was only going to get one trip out of the shuttle.
• Puffing out his chest, “She was a great servant of the time and this is her farewell trip, she has done her dirty well and we could not ask for anything more.” Robb said with pride.
• “Unhook her from the rest of the shuttle, we do not want to have unneeded weight being pulled if she can’t be used.” Caid said bitterly.
• “Ah!” Robb began, “I wouldn’t call this cabin totally useless, she can still hold a few passengers. If I take out this and that, she could sleep at least four comfortably, six would be pushing it, but if there are only wee children, she could hold them no problems.”
• Caid patted his good friend on the shoulder, “I am glad you are thinking clearly. I would not have thought of that. What do you want me to start pulling out?”
• “Like the good old days!” Robb returned the pat on Caid’s shoulder. Handing Caid the screwdriver. “We need to take out the motherboard, and keep on going from there.”
• Laughing, “Let’s get this started before our wives find us having fun!” Caid said as he took the screwdriver.