Blood and Honor

More tendrils erupted from the sphere of darkness, ashing across the temple and scattering whatever creatures hey touched. Wultram fought his way to Dravuliel’s side and hacked at the thing with demonic ferocity. At last, he severed he tendril, and Dravuliel fell to the floor, gasping for breath. Wultram stood over him, leaning down to help him to his feet. In that instant, one of the thrashing tendrils struck the vampire on the back of the neck. His head snapped back with much force that it was torn from his shoulders, flying across the chamber with its mouth open in a silent scream. His body ottered, turning black before it crumbled into dust. Nothing was left of Wultram but his clothes and his greatsword.

A wave of nausea swept over Brey, and she struggled to keep her feet. She could move again; her body was her own. With the master vampire destroyed, the spawn were free. Most continued fighting, but she backed slowly away. In the chaos, no one noticed.

Over the years that followed, Brey the vampire wandered the night, learning to use her new powers and struggling gainst the savage nature that came with them. Always in he back of her mind was the thought that Dravuliel might have escaped, that others might be doing similar work for the blasphemous king of Karrnath. She devoted herself to uncovering and destroying the undead troops and those who made them.

She was in Karrnath on the Day of Mourning, resting in her coffin under a low bluff not far from Fort Zombie. She gained control of a minor functionary there, a supply clerk who could tell her where the fort’s undead troops came from. When she awoke that night, she could sense the change in the world. She learned from her mortal pawn that some terrible disaster had occurred, and before dawn she stood on the banks of the river, looking across the darkness at the strange gray mist that enveloped the neighboring land. Surely, she thought, some terrible judgment had been wrought on Gyre.

At the war’s end, she considered returning to Thrane. Perhaps there would be someone in the Temple of the Silver Flame who could help her atone for the crimes she had committed under the control of Wultram and Dravuliel. But she knew in her heart that it was a futile hope. The thing that she had become was abhorrent to everything the Church stood for; she would be hunted down by the Church’s exorcists and destroyed as an abomination. She knew, as well, that she could not control her dark and violent impulses indefinitely. She had restricted herself to feeding on enemy combatants, trying to limit the evil that she did, but now that the war was over she needed to find her unholy sustenance where she could.

As she realized that her faith could no longer save her, she clung to the one thing she had left: vengeance. She had long since torn the foul badge of Karrnath from her clothing, but she remembered it clearly enough. She remembered, too, the emblem of the Karrnathi lancers involved in her capture. That was where she would start, and she would not stop until she had killed everyone who had played a role in making her what she was, or until she herself was destroyed.

Chapter 9

Blood on the Waterfront

Olarune 19, 999 YK

“So what have we got?”

It was a little before dawn as Brey and Tarrel sat in Mordan’s rented room above the Black Dragon. Mordan himself was pacing around the room. He counted off the facts on his fingers.

“The Vedykar Lancers were active—and alive—in Cyre before the Day of Mourning. They were associated with a secret facility making superior forms of undead, probably for the Ministry. It was destroyed in a magical accident—no word on how many survived, or where they might have gone.”

“And I’m willing to bet that Falko was taken to the Ministry for questioning because he asked about the badge of that secret facility,” said Tarrel.

“He said he had a contact in the Ministry,” said Brey.

Mordan and Tarrel looked at her sharply.

“What?” she said. “I talked to him, like you did. He didn’t know anything more than he told you.”

“He didn’t mention that you’d been asking,” said Mordan.

“That’s because I told him to forget—about me and the badge,” Brey answered. She no longer wore the silver moon pendant.

Tarrel raised an eyebrow. “Told?” he asked.

Brey shrugged. “You told the changeling not to tell me about you,” she said.

“You talked to Solly as well?”

“I talked to everyone Tarrel talked to,” said Brey. “I knew he was asking about me, and I wanted to know what he’d been told.”

“So,” said Mordan, “you came to Tarrel’s room tonight to—talk—to me? That didn’t work out too well for you.”

Brey made a sour face.

“And I’m guessing,” he went on, “that it was you who interrupted my—talk—with Hintram earlier? What did he tell you?”

“Not much,” she said. “He left after the accident. He was there undercover, and he went back to the Emerald Claw.”