Prologue
These creatures have been multiplying fast, faster than they ever have before, faster than we can cut them down. For as long as vampires have been crawling out from the underside of the darkest corner of shit, they have been one of the most vicious beasts to walk among men. Still, they bleed just as much blood as they drink, if not more.
Most of these beasts’ foul muck was already beginning to dry, hardening over my skin and crusting beneath my nails. Sitting there on the cold stones of my borrowed room marked the fourth night that I returned like this. Four nights of fighting these creatures and four days of preparing for the next night. It was impossible to tell how much longer this would last.
Torchlight flickered and cut along the walls of my room, and I turned my head toward the opened door.
“Who do you think you are? Why are you in my room?”
I spit out the words harsher than I’d meant to, but that didn’t make them any less right. The stranger, a young guardsman by the look of him, shrunk beneath the door frame.
“Forgive me, Maynor, but I called out twice without hearing an answer. You’ve been called to join a discussion.”
I was too tired to hide my annoyance from him.
Less a discussion and more a shouting match between men too uneducated and inexperienced to be speaking at all.
“Now? They want me right this moment?”
He watched as I rose from the floor, a groan managing to escape me as I did so.
“Yes, but…” the guard murmured. “If you need to rest or, perhaps… clean yourself, I can pass along your wish that they begin without you.”
A chuckle pushed past my lips as I shoved him out of my room.
“Don’t concern yourself with me; I don't need anything from you.”
He looked at me expectantly, hovering just outside my open door.
“I don't need an escort either. I know where these things happen; I can manage my way there alone.”
It was far too easy of a thing to slam the door shut as he took a pace away from me. Once he was gone, my eyes were drawn down at my flesh. I was filthy, but if they were so eager to see me, they’d see me exactly as I was. There was just one thing I needed to do first.
A torn linen sat crumpled near my cot. I pulled it into a bucket of frigid water and brought it to my arm. It made it easier to wipe away a bit of the beast blood that had stuck itself there. With that clean, I brought a knife to the tattoo that had been hidden by the layer of muck.
Maynor is the name I was given at birth, but Rune-Written is the one I’ve earned through mastery of rune writing and my use of it on my own flesh. It’s a point of pride, to be known and respected because of my work, but it never made what I had to do any easier.
With a sharp breath, I used my knife to cut a line in my skin just above the rune on my bicep. My blood trickled down over the dark inks, and it took only a second for me to feel a change in my bones. Ancient etchings that a force beyond mortal memory had designed to foster vitality and endurance were fed by my crimson offering to grant me renewed strength. I’d need it to persist through what, very obviously, would be a long, tiresome ordeal. There was no need to clean up the rest of the monsters’ blood from my skin; there’d be time for that soon enough. What had mattered most was not mixing my blood with the diseased.
It had always been that the vampire’s curse could only be spread by the consumption of vampiric blood. The tainted would succumb over the course of a few days, a week at the most, but that was no longer what we faced. Now, a man bitten—even strong warriors who have shrugged off greater injuries than most could survive—would begin to twist apart immediately. They would lose their wits in moments, their hearts within hours, and their souls within the day. Now, the tainted came forth and became other in the blink of an eye.
These were new times.
Vicious times.
Part I
Dawn
Chapter One
​
Twenty years ago, I’d have been in awe to stand where I stood, in the private library of a noble lord, treated as a respected guest in this imposing castle. Back then, it was nothing I could ever imagine for myself, but the allure had long been broken. Even if it hadn’t been, it would have shattered today.
“You look like a fucking mess.”
I had no desire to be counted among those gathered here.
“It’s because that’s exactly what this place is: a fucking mess. And I’m the only one doing everything I can to clean it up.”
He, this fourth or fifth son of Lord Duront whose name I would never remember, scowled at me, but it didn’t matter. His father, who often chose to abandon these meetings in favor of keeping the peace in the streets, was the only one in this place who could touch me.
“Rune-Written. We are here to fulfill our duty and rid Duras of vampires, not disrespect our hosts.”
Almost the only one.
Yoris was one of three figures who held authority over the island’s huntsmen. He had some say over my actions, but we both knew his power was limited. My reputation earned me trust, my post gave me autonomy, and I was well-liked by someone who stood above him. These things meant we often clashed.
“Of course, Battlemaster. Please forgive the lapse in judgement.”
I inclined my head slightly to express my remorse, but Yoris simply furrowed his grey brow and scoffed.
“Just sit down, Maynor. We ought to begin.”
A few more of Lord Duront’s advisors, sons, grandsons, and ancient cousins streamed into the room while I found a place to seat myself. They had all come to offer their many insights on how we might slay the vampires that plagued the city. Yoris and I, the only two men here who have spent decades hunting monsters, were hardly allowed to speak. It wasn’t long before I managed to find a spot in the room where I could stare absently while still appearing engaged. It was, perhaps, one of my most useful talents and one I made full use of throughout this discussion.
Duront’s library was a pleasant place to sit idly, in any case. Small candles lined the table we’d gathered around, and an odd scent drifted off them that overpowered the smell of wax and leather bindings. It reminded me of the balms used in the sick house for the wounded, which might not be appreciated by most but it was a strange comfort for me. Though I had once heard Yoris mutter his distaste for it, he’d felt it was as if we were inviting injury to linger here among us.
Besides the candles, my gaze was often drawn to the bookcases that filled the walls around us. They were carved from darkened walnut wood, and the surfaces of their shelves were marked in runework. Some hundred, two hundred years back, a rune craze overtook a few of the island’s great lords—a desire to harness elder magics we didn’t, and still don’t, fully comprehend. What followed was a series of accidental deaths, widespread fires, and even the loss of a great city as massive vines sprung up from the ground to ensnare it for all time. No king or lord since then had dared to send a soul into that lost land in hopes of reclaiming it.
Still, there were more harmless outcomes, like the etchings in this library. It was clear to me that one of Lord Duront’s forebears had wished to protect the knowledge gathered in this place, so runes were drawn to ward off disaster. If only they were real. The etchings surrounding us looked convincing enough to those who may only know little of runework, but I saw them for what they were—scribbles made to look like mysticism.
After some time, a hand met my wrist, stealing my attention back to the meeting. I looked to find Elliara, another hunter. I hadn’t expected any huntsmen besides Yoris and myself to attend, so her presence was a surprise.
“Ellie? When did you get here?” I whispered to her.
“I sat down next to you half an hour ago, you tired fool.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle, which earned an ugly stare from the man across us, but the rest were occupied with Yoris. He had stood up from his seat and tried raising his voice to get a few words in. An upstart grandson yelled over him, some nonsense about letting arrows soak up sunlight during the day, and the Battlemaster gave up, sitting down to rub his temples. One might assume that such a towering man as he could manage to pull their attention and keep it. Except, while Yoris was trying to save lives, all the rest only wanted to prove their worth and gain respect, which meant the others would risk anything to get their piece in.
My focus returned to Ellie while a different fool volunteered the idea of somehow keeping the sun out until we got rid of all vampires, everywhere across the island of Summerstone.
“Why are you here?”
“To get you. Not only because I knew you’d be miserable, which I did, but because some captain of the guard asked for your help. He needs to have a purity line drawn, said it should be done by the best runewriter around here. Somehow, he got the idea that’s you.”
“That is me, but even a child could draw a purity line. Have Valla do it. As soon as this nonsense is over, I’ll be sleeping until I’m needed again at dusk.”
“Valla’s still resting, hasn’t come out from her room.”
In the early hours of the night, a friend I’d been fighting alongside was injured, thrown over a dozen feet into a market stall. It was an ugly crash that could have killed a weaker fighter, but she’s a hardy one.
“Fine, let her recover. I’ll draw the damn thing myself. Let’s go.”
Ellie and I rose to leave, nearly reaching the door, when a short, red-faced man stood up to protest our departure.
“You’re leaving? We have yet to decide on a plan of action.”
I sucked in a sharp breath before meeting the man’s eyes. Part of me wanted to tell him that the easiest way to uproot vampires from Duras would be to slay the master among them, but we hadn’t even come close to finding it. Yoris had been searching for signs of the thing since the moment he arrived to no success.
Yoris.
My focus turned to the Battlemaster.
“Well, for a plan of action, let’s see… Yoris, what was your proposal?”
He looked at me with tired eyes before slowly beginning to speak.
“Well… we could clear and contain sections of Duras at a time. When the city was nearly razed decades ago, Lord Duront had it rebuilt in sections, making it easier to seal off specific areas from all the rest. We could take advantage of that design now to prevent access to a site while we purge it. Then do the same throughout all of Duras until the work is done.”
I clapped my hands at the red-faced man, “In my expert opinion, I think it best if we trust the expert opinion of Battlemaster Yoris. I’ll have our hunters start on the effort immediately. Good work, all of you.”
With a shove, Ellie was out of the library, and I was just behind her. I could hear the uproar within as the door shut behind me. Yoris could quell it just fine. What mattered most was that I didn’t think they’d ask me back very soon.
Chapter Two
​
The guard captain looked me over, taking his time to examine my appearance closely.
“You’re that Rune-Written fellow?”
“Actually, all of these markings here,” Ellie said, gesturing to my many tattoos. “Are because he wanted to stand out, like a preening rooster.”
She giggled, but I stepped forward and nodded at the man.
“Yes, which means I’m more than capable of drawing a purity line wherever Lord Duront wanted it.”
A purity line may have been a tad beneath me, but it served a vital function, particularly here. A purity line cannot be crossed by the tainted, cursed, or turned. Vampires, werewolves, the undead, and all other manner of monster would be unable to pass. The line could be broken, of course, but it wouldn’t be a quiet effort. The purpose of the line was to distinguish, not defeat or destroy. Drawing one here would prevent easy access to Duront’s castle, and the fortress was hardly a place we wanted vampires to be roosting within.
“Huh, well… Rune-Written, it’s already been drawn. While I was waiting for you, a huntress produced the line: golden-haired and short but lean like a man.”
Valla.
“See,” I turned to Ellie. “Nothing besides death itself can keep your sister down.”
Elliara rolled her eyes at me. She and Valla weren’t sisters, but they may as well have been. Both golden-haired, both freckled, both hunters. Still, where Valla had emerald eyes and a stocky stature, Ellie was brown-eyed and lanky. Both of them I had fought alongside now and again many times over the last decade.
“Well, I suppose that means there’s nothing left for me to do then. Lovely, I think I’ll go back to my room.”
Not seven paces had I put between myself and Ellie before she caught up to me and reached for my elbow.
“What about Yoris? I thought you were going to have the other huntsmen move forward with his plan. You agreed with him.”
I had just agreed with the Battlemaster to get out of the room.
“Honestly, Ellie, I would have told whosoever son of Kayden Duront that his plan to throw pig shit at vampires was exceptional if it would have gotten me out of there. Yoris… he had a good idea, but it’s up to him to make it work. And it would work. Vampires burn under sunlight, while the tainted might not, they’re manic, crazed… easy to spot in a procession.”
She gave me a disapproving look that I knew was often followed by a stern set of words.
“Hmm… interesting, you’ve mentioned how this plan could work, but not why you won’t do it. I’d have thought a hunter of your reputation and standing would be well-suited for the task.”
“Eat shit, Ellie. We both know this isn’t a problem that requires my expertise or skill. It’s about numbers. We need a hundred more warriors who know how to split a vampire from spine to sack, not me stuck in a room trying to coordinate an offensive with men too desperate to earn a name than to do much else. I should be out in the wilds, finding the most dangerous and elusive beats in the kingdom, not here.”
She held her silence for a moment, raising only an eyebrow at my words.
“But you’re not there, you’re here. So, what will you do?”
Our eyes held the glance between us. I was tired. The energy that came from my runework was finite, after all. But she was right. The noble men in Lord Duront’s castle may have been more determined to save face than to save lives, and our Battlemaster could not be alone in his efforts to defend the innocent.
“Fine, fine, Ellie,” I sighed. “Find Valla and meet me at the guardsmen’s barracks. I’ll find Barbos. If we’re going to set out to cleanse Duras in this manner, we could use his insight. He’s the only other hunter here who knows the city like I do.”
She allowed a small, coy smile, and I opened my lips to say something, but she quickly interrupted me.
“Yes, yes, I know, ‘eat shit, Ellie,’ I know. I’ll take my satisfaction in the fact that the respected, talented Maynor had to be reminded of the right thing to do by the clever, quiet Elliara.”
“I wish you were quiet. Come on, the sun may only just be rising, but it won’t stop simply because we’d like it to.”
Mists and scented vapors clung to the air and swept over my skin as I neared one of the bathhouses that sat in Duras. I’d been told my friend had come here some time ago; it was a wonder why he had yet to return. Luckily, the place would be fairly deserted at this early hour of the day, so I wouldn’t have much trouble finding Barbos.
“Entry is not permitted while armed.”
An attendant spat the words at me when I tried to cross into the bathhouse. He stood between me and the entryway, a tad taller than I was but thin as a board. He couldn’t have stopped me from moving past him if he tried, yet Yoris would be rather displeased if I were detained a third time by Duras’ guards.
“Listen, I understand that you’re not supposed to let armed men inside, but I just happen to be in the service of Lord Duront, so—”
“We’re in Duras. We’re all in the service of Lord Duront. Unless you are Lord Duront, you cannot enter with your axe… or that little knife on your belt.”
Ass.
It made me feel sickly to hand over my weapons, but I could tell from the smugness in his grin that there was no use trying to convince him to allow otherwise. Once that was done, he stepped aside, and I was able to get into the bathhouse
As I’d expected, it was relatively empty. The first few chambers had only a few men dawdling about, but I didn’t spot Barbos’ large frame in any of them. I kept moving until I reached the very end of the bathhouse and the greatest of the chambers housed here. The size of the room looked fit enough to host over a thousand of Duras’ filthy, but, at that moment, there were only three. Two strangers and my friend.
The two men lingered on opposite sides of the great big pool of water in the middle of the chamber while Barbos sat—fully clothed, armed and armored—watching them from afar. A tinge of frustration grew in my chest, seeing him with a sword sitting in his lap, knowing that the attendant had let him enter with his weapons.
Barbos was clean-shaven with long brown hair that fell to his shoulders and a pretty face. With an innocent smile, he usually got away with more than he should have. If endearment didn’t work, he was nearly as tall as Yoris was and had arms as wide as the masts on a ship. Besides that… I saw he had possessed the foresight to wear his huntsmen’s cloak, a garment that bore a crescent moon hovering above two crossed blades. It was the symbol of the island’s hunters and marked him as one among our numbers. It was hardly worn except for ceremony… I’d lost mine years ago and never bothered to have it replaced. He may have worn it here to get through with his blades.
He turned his head to meet my eyes as I approached, but he quickly returned his attention to the men bathing some thirty feet away.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"Waiting."
"Waiting for what? A husband?"
"A monster."
Fangs?
My hand reached for an axe that no longer hung at my hip, and Barbos seemed momentarily pleased by my confusion.
"The presence of vampires... the presence of so many vampires... it invites other dark creatures to Duras. Beasts drawn by spilled blood and fearful hearts. I think one has found its way here. A Serpent of Still Waters."
My eyes turned to the shallow puddle that rested inches from my feet, and I trudged away from its dark reflection.
"A serpent... they rarely venture into cities like this one."
The creature Barbos spoke of was a conniving thing. It could pass through the surface of any body of water, often lunging out from rivers, lakesides—even wells in villages—to ensnare a victim and pull them back into whatever world they are born from... a place beneath the water's surface but not quite within. Somewhere… in between. The beast can only be seen coming if the reflection it lurks within is perfectly still—waves, ripples, any distortion render the serpent imperceptible to our eyes. The flicker of a shadow, a trick of the light, the gleam of three hundred teeth.
One of the two men had finished bathing and drifted past us silently to leave the foggy chamber. Barbos watched him go, staying quiet until the stranger was out of sight.
"Seven men are missing.”
“Dozens of men are missing, Barbos. Dozens of men and women and children across all of Duras. Look at what we have been facing once the sun goes down; there’s no mystery here.”
“Seven men are missing, and this is the last place they were seen,” Barbos continued. “It’s enough that the attendant mentioned he may have noticed fewer men leave than enter in recent times. And the seven I know of are just those who have families, friends to watch for them, worry, and ask for them. There’s no telling if there are more…lonely souls who could go absent without notice. Without concern.”
My eyes narrowed at his words. The Serpent of Still Waters was not a terribly rare beast, but the rare thing was its choosing a place like Duras to serve as hunting grounds. Its work was best done in solitude, in isolation. In silence. Far and away from eyes that could find it and mouths that could call for huntsmen to cut it down.
But I trusted Barbos and his judgement. He wasn’t like Elliara; we hadn’t worked together countless times across many years. In fact, it hadn’t even been a year since we met. Yet, the first time we worked together, it had felt like I was fighting alongside an old friend. There was a sort of comfort we found within an instant of meeting each other. If Barbos told me a thing, I knew I could take it as fact.
“Fine, say there’s a serpent here. It won’t hunt where others can see it claim a victim,” I told him.
“This is the largest of the bathhouse chambers, with mist enough to fill the air and give the creature a natural cloak. Even if that weren’t true, I’m sitting all the way over here rather than closer to the water where I could be noticed. If the serpent is here and if it hungers—which it always does—it will strike any moment now. We simply have to be prepared to meet it.”
I chuckled at how thoroughly he’d thought this through. For a younger huntsman, he did well to plan out his approach and take everything into account.
“Did you warn the men of what you were doing here? Or did you just sit and stare ominously?”
“Well, I didn’t say what I was doing here because I figured they’d leave and make this whole endeavor useless, but I did tell him that—”
Barbos’ words fell dead in his throat when he turned to point at the last man in the bath. He was gone.
“The mist?” he murmured, scanning for any shape that resembled another person.
Barbos rose from his seat, and we looked for the third man. I moved closer while my friend held still. It didn’t matter how near I drew to the bath; there was no one to find standing there.
“H-he couldn’t be… we would have heard the serpent, heard a cry…” Barbos muttered from a distance behind me.
I rushed over to the water’s edge and saw its surface was motionless, unbothered by the man who had been bathing within minutes earlier. Instead, the surface was fogged, obscured by dark, scarlet clouds that stretched across the bath. Where the water was free of drifting blood, I could begin to see the edges of the creature; it was shadowed and coiled, large enough that it might have taken up all the space I could see if it hadn’t been folded against itself. My eyes searched for the head of the beast among the mess of water made murky by floating bits of bone and sinew, but it wasn’t until the thing moved that I found it. I saw the bathing stranger, his face locked in a scream we had never heard, eyes open but abandoned by any semblance of life. The last of him vanished into the darkness of a red-stained jaw, a starved thing that seemed to greedily tear through skull and skin until it was all gone—until there was no trace of a man besides what had been spilled into the still waters.
The serpent’s eyes had fallen shut as it savored the last of its catch, but they opened now. They met mine.
Fuck.
“Barb—” I tried to call out.
It lunged.