• Prologue: Truths and Myths


    As I left the building that held our Coven’s armory the streets outside were quiet, too quiet. I knew that a war had been raging between the Mortals and the Vampire clans of the north and that every night war cries and the clanging of metal could be heard for miles. But tonight was different, the air was still and there was no trace of iron in the air. The scent of the iron that leaked from the armor would only hover in the air of the Coven Armory and over the battlefields. The iron that I speak of comes from the blood of every Mortal slain by my Coven. Every time I smell the iron of the battlefield I craved for the battle that was drawing ever closer to my home. I want to fight and to kill those who had started this war. Every exposure of the sweet iron air becomes longer than the next as if the battles grow more intense and come ever closer with every turn. As Vampires, we are all part of the common knowledge that what sparked this war six thousand years ago was fear. Fear of the Immortal world. Vampire Covens are made up of 13 Clans each with its own leader. However, there is one leader for each Coven and they are the strongest and have more political power over the Clan leaders. The Coven leader is passed down from generation to generation. Those who have the Coven ruling blood in them posses certain powers that normal Vampires do not. I am fully aware of my strength which surpasses any other of the Vampires. I am aware of my gift of foresight. Each Coven leader possesses thirteen powers, one for each of the Clan’s that make up the Coven. I have two which I have discovered; the other eleven remain a mystery. Vampire clans have almost all been killed off. One by one, all falling prey to the Mortal’s ignorance of our race. There is only one clan left, the oldest and strongest of the clans, my clan, that which I was put in charge of, as ruler. An inheritance I did not wish to come into. Unfortunately one cannot choose their family, nor can they choose what misfortunes may be bestowed upon them. Since we are the only Vampire Clan left, we now make up our own Coven. We are small, and outnumbered greatly, but I reason to believe our luck may turn. Luck, which is to come in the form of a man whose name we do not yet know. But for now, until we learn his true name shall call him luck. With my gift of foresight, a talent both my mother and grandmother possessed, I have seen this to be true. As ruler of my Coven, I feel it to be my duty to leave and to seek out this “Luck”.

    What has become the legend of our kind is no longer rooted in our truth. Tales of our people have been lost to the four winds. Mortals have distorted and mutilated our song and made it that of darkness and horror. One thing, and one thing only, has been kept a truth, we cannot stay in the sunlight. The sunlight, our ruling power, determines whether we can leave our safe house or not. But such truth does not maintain her sway over us forever. The fires of the battlefields, where the bodies burn, have blocked the sun for as long as I can now remember allowing us to wander outside during the daytime. Every now and then a patch of sky would be revealed and the streets would empty, so fast, as if nobody were there. All activity would cease and all would become still and reminiscent of an oil painting.

    As I walk through the gate of my Coven’s safe house I think of how to communicate that it is my duty to find Luck and bring him back here. If my vision turns out to be correct I must find him within a fortnight or another of the Mortals will find and destroy him. As ruler there are paths that I must consider and one that I must follow. I am not the sole guardian of this Coven; there are 12 others whose feelings I must consider the advisors and the surviving Clan leaders. They too have authority and our Coven runs on a democracy. To pass a movement of a job or law, it must be voted into a majority by the clan leaders. The Clans that my Coven has been divided into are made up of thirteen Vampires each. My Coven in particular was once a Coven of witches. Not the kind that were heretics but the kind that healed people’s wounds. We always bathed in the glory of healing and helping others with their problems. We had no powers in the dark ages but we new our way around the garden, finding herbs and weeds to heal infection and stop poison. The original Coven was burned for heresy in the early period of Russia .

    Russians believe that those that anyone who is outside the Christian Orthodox Faith became an undead vampire as the result of dying. My Coven was solely devoted to the Christian Orthodox Faith but due to our knowledge of herbal medicine and our deep respect for all aspects of the world, earth, wind, fire, water, all the things that give us life and sustain our lives, were excommunicated and burned. As a second chance we were brought back to life as the first Vampire Coven to walk the earth by the same God who the Russians believed we were betraying. I am not old enough to remember these events but the Eldar, our doctor, was there to witness the events. I am nowhere near as old as the Coven, in fact I am twelve hundred years short of being as old as it, but I do know my history as well as any other. Often times I am chastised by the Clan leaders for being as young as I am. I am the youngest of the remaining Vampire and by far the youngest Coven Queen in our recorded history.

    The Council, the Upirmoot, has already gathered and I am late, as always. I open the doors to the Upirmoot and step in. I walk in and glare at my father, the leader of the Philinnion, named after my great grandmother, the original Clan leader, who was burned for being a Vampire. The room falls silent and my heels clack on the hard tiles of the floor. Clack clack clack. The silence is enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when suddenly a loud booming voice echoes through the chamber.
    “Late again,”
    I turn to face the man whose voice is still resonating through the chamber.
    “Lord Croglin, if I remember correctly it was you who sent me to the armory, was it not?”
    “How dare you speak to your father that way,” Croglin shouts.
    “My father, the Eldar, Lord Croglin, Hypocrite, all of those can describe my father. Quick to back someone up, even quicker to tear them down, sound familiar,” I retort. “I have had a vision,” I’m telling everyone, nobody seems to care, “I have had a vision; I believe we can win this war. Luck is on our side, I have seen a weapon that can change our fortunes in this war. “
    “And what, pray tell, is this new found luck you speak of? What could possibly help us win this war when we are so outnumbered and our supplies grow thin,” Lamia , leader of the Wampir Tribe asks me. She is staring me down, flicking her tongue showing her sting underneath. Such an action is a threat in her tribe, and if I don’t sell my idea well enough, she may attack.

    I am nervous that my vision and my idea to go on my quest will no go well yet I speak confidently enough, “A man. It is a man that will bring us our fortunes and help us win this war. He lives a life of exile yet I do not yet know whether he is Mortal or Vampire. He must be found and brought to questioning if we are to know more.”
    “How dare you suggest to us that this…man is to be the savoir of our kind when you cannot even control your visions! This is a dangerous idea and must be ignored. If we are to go along with this crazed idea of yours we must know that it is not a trap set up by the Mortals. No, your idea is dismissed by the Upirmoot until you learn more,” Strige, Lord of the Krvopijac Clan, starts to scream at me. My anger is boiling to the surface and I fear that I can no longer hold back the tidal wave of rage and shouting that is about to erupt from me. I hold back that rage until Strige starts screaming at me again, “Your young and your visions are still unclear! How can you propose such a risky operation to us when you haven’t even discovered eleven of your powers! You’re a fool!”

    That is it, this is my breaking point. “You’re the fool! How could you think that I would send you into a trap set up by the Mortals! Do you think that I would even work with those monsters? I know for a fact that this is not a trap, I could not find out more because this Luck was under attack by those accursed Mortals! Do you think me such a fool that I cannot decipher my visions? I know what is real and I have better control over them than you think, Lord Strige. And to prove my point I will go and find Luck! I will not take no for an answer. I will take with me my body guard Empuu and two other of the strongest warriors with me, and you are not one of them, My Lord.” With my anger releasing itself I want to do one final motion to make my point final and not let the others fight with me, so I take my fist and I bang it on the desk once and shout, “That’s final!”

    Walking out of the Upirmoot Chamber I say to myself, “Well, that was easier than I thought,” not really fully understanding what I had just gotten myself into. All I know is that I have to rescue Luck at all costs.

    ****

    “Milady Kathakano, your horse is ready,”
    “Thank you, Ekimmu. I shall return in a fortnight. Do not follow, you are my dearest friend and I do not wish any harm on you. This journey will be dangerous and I cannot ask you to come with me. Goodbye.” Ekimmu, my nursemaid and only friend, is the second oldest of us Vampire and cannot whether things like she used to. I love her like my mother and wish her safety always.
    “Lady Murony, are you ready,”
    “Milady Kathakano, the wagon is packed, the weapons have been equipped and Lord Talamaur is on his way back from the armory with a special weapon designed just for you,”
    “A weapon designed just for me?”
    “Yes, made by his hand too. Not only is the Lord Talamaur a great warrior, the strongest of our Coven, but also he is a brilliant blacksmith of weapons. You can give him a broken sword and he will make you a sword better than the one you had before,”
    “I did not know,”
    “Milady, when your cousin arrives we must leave with all haste,” my bodyguard, Empuu, whispers to me.

    I hear the pitter-patter of Talamaur’s feet drawing nearer. He is running as fast as he could, which is much faster than any other Vampire can run. My dear cousin Talamaur possesses the special power of super speed. He is the exception of that truth which states that only those with ruling blood may have special abilities. I have always known that he possesses that which any Vampire would kill for, but I did not know that he also possesses the gentle touch it takes to create beautiful but deadly weaponry.
    “Dear Kathakano, please accept this new sword. It is my gift to you,”
    “Yes, thank you. My blade is rather dull, even though it has not seen battle,” I reply, kissing him on the cheek. He cares so much for my protection. I cannot thank him enough. “We best be off. The hour grows late and we must get to Luck before he is attacked again, or worse, killed,”
    “Yes let us leave and prove your father to be wrong. He never took your visions seriously to begin with and never will he be able to do that again. I know the truth, you saw what you saw and I know your mother had seen it as well. She cannot be with us, but I know she would be proud of you,” states Talamaur, while he leans in to kiss my cheek.

    I strap the sword to my belt and we mount our horses. Riding out of our Coven’s town I look back and see my father standing in front of the safe house, scowling at my company and I. Suddenly a puff of brownish dust and smoke cloud my vision and blocks my father from view. Empuu and I turn around and gallop forward to catch up with Talamaur and Murony.