A Moonlit Night - The Complete Saga (31 page)

“What’re you doing?” Fiona groaned, “She’ll
kill you.”

“We stand together, sister,” said Esther, “Or
we don’t stand, at all. Now heal… I’m going to need your help, soon
enough.”

She charged at the vampire queen, a brightly
colored blur of hate and passion, sword aimed at the head and
swinging wildly.

Esther wasn’t a fighter, and Amata knew it
from the second she laid eyes upon her. The attack was rudimentary
and easy to read for the battle hardened queen.

“I bet you read a
lot
of scrolls and
tomes,” Lady Amata said as she dodged the attack, “Always with your
head in a book, pen is mightier than the sword, and all the junk.
Well, foolish girl, you’re going to
learn
the hard way.”

With steady hands, Amata grabbed her opponent
by the throat and slammed her down to the ground with force. Esther
screamed in agony as her head smashed against the hard rocky
ground, made from the same limestone that formed the Temple of
Prometheus.

“I pity you,” said Lady Amata, her fingers
tightening around Esther’s neck while her other hand went to a
dagger concealed on her thigh. She playfully ran the tip of the
blade down her wounded prey’s body, starting from the shoulder and
then down to the waist. “I’m not going to kill you… no, you deserve
a far worse fate than death. You’re going to watch while my horde
destroys everything you’ve ever held close.”

Amata drove the dagger into Esther’s stomach,
piercing the organ where her entire blood reservoir lay collected.
Blood poured from her waist and pooled around her motionless body
as the blade came back out again.

“You’ll heal,” Lady Amata said with regretful
eyes, “But it’ll take awhile… far longer than I need to crush your
dreams one last time before your suffer the final death. Now watch,
old
youngling
, as I set fire to everyone that you care
about—.”

“You’re nothing but a blood junkie!” Fiona
cried as she attacked the unprepared vampire queen.

Amata tried to dodge, and nearly succeeded,
but found herself between the blade’s sweeping arcs. The steel
separated the skin on her forearm and blood splattered down to the
ground.

The attack gave the vampire queen a sudden
pause, and the oddest feeling of gratification. It had been over a
hundred years since her own blood had been spilled, a game for the
demented side of her nature. How many people could she bend and
push to the brink, before they would fight back and drop even the
slightest of her blood?

“Very good,” Lady Amata said snidely, “Let’s
see how you fight without your crib mate.”

* * * * *

Back inside the temple’s inner sanctum, an
impatient Xander waited for a sign from the summoner that she was
all right. It had seemed like an eternity since she fell
unconscious, but he knew not to interrupt whatever the summoner’s
might of had in mind. His entire plans rested on Emily’s shoulders
and he would live and die by the summoner, whether he liked it or
not.

“
Go back to them
,” a voice rang in
Emily’s head, “
Share with them what you know
.”

“Ugh,” moaned Emily as she started to stir
within the circle, “Xander, are you still around?”

“Yes, I am,” Xander replied, stepping forward
and nearer to the light, “What do you need of me?”

“Nothing,” Emily said, “I know what I need to
do. I know
who
I am.”

She tried to lift herself, but a sharp pain
in her stomach halted her momentum and she crashed to the floor. It
was a sudden rush of emotions that brought the summoner to her
knees. She could feel the umbrage of her friends and companions.
They were dying out there, and there wasn’t a thing she could do
about it.

“What’s wrong, Emily?”

“I can feel so much despair,” said Emily, her
face all scrunched up from the uneasy feeling the swelled within
her, “Chagrin. Hate. Zeal. There’s a war going on outside these
walls, a war that we have already lost, all over the illusion of
what I
am
. I see so much happening that I cannot allow to
come to pass— a future that must be adverted.”

“I… I don’t understand. What are you talking
about?”

“Come to me, Leviathan,” cried Emily with
eyes bursting and hands engulfed in flames, “Become an extension of
my will… help me cast back the darkness from where they hold no
claim.”

Chapter Seven

“Humans,” began William with a look of
dissatisfaction. He held Samuel by the throat and extended him into
the air. He was toying with him, enjoying the small gratification
he received from this most lopsided of battles. “They’re so damned
squishy.”

The hunter’s student charged the monstrous
vampire with his sword raised high into the air. His attack, not
unlike the one used by Esther, was flawed from the start and left
him open for counter-attack.

With Samuel still dangling from one hand,
William throw a boot into the chest of Steven, and sent him
clattering back to the ground.

“Squishy
and
stupid,” William said
with a self-indulgent grunt, “Here, vampire hunter, share your
student’s fate.”

William hurled Samuel’s ragged body into
Steven’s and the two collided with a booming thud. Ready to
conclude his brief moment of play, he dragged his massive war axe
beside him as he marched slowly towards the two wounded
hunters.

Steven was the first to his feet and braced
himself against the much larger opponent. His weapon lay on the
ground between him and the plodding vampire, far out of his reach.
He waited for a few moments, gathered the willpower necessary, and
then rushed William with his hands raised in anger.

“Steven, no!” shouted Samuel with his arm
extended to his friend, “Don’t be a hero!”

William laughed at the sight and used the
back of his hand to send Steven crashing to the ground. Finding the
boy’s anger amusing, he continued past him and straight for his
mentor.

“Fiery and ready to meet death straight on,”
William said with his axe raised high and sights set on Samuel’s
battered body, “I would’ve turned the boy, had he not been that
which I despise above all else. I should show him… let him see for
himself what really happens to hunters—.”

“Not today,” Steven said with a blade to the
back of William. He quickly hit the ground as the beast thrashed
around in convulsions.

“You’re fucking dead, you little shit!”
screamed William as he tried to reach around and pull the blade
from his upper back, “I’m going to eat your brains and floss with
your bones!”

William turned around abruptly, and much to
the dismay of Steven, he refocused all attention towards the hunter
in front of him.

“Oh… shit,” muttered Steven as he backpedaled
with his butt dragging on the ground, “Oh shit, oh shit, oh
shit.”

“You really didn’t think that’d stop me, now
did you, boy,” William asked, “I’ll grant you the hero’s death
you’re so apparently anxious for—.”

“You took your eyes off the wrong one,
beast,” choked Samuel as he appeared from behind the vampire and
tried to knock him off his feet.

“I’ll see you in Hell!” growled William as he
looked behind. The vampire jerked from side to side in attempt of
throwing the hunter off his back, but it was to no avail. “You and
your mangy sidekick… you’re dead! You’re all dead!”

Samuel used the sword still lodged in his
back for leverage and knocked the towering vampire off his feet and
watched as he plummeted down to the abyss below.

The vampire queen’s right hand was a quiet
man, but even
his
screams could be heard through the cavern
as he fell to his end— death by endless black void.

Both mentor and student rushed to the
bridge’s edge and peered down into the chasm. They watched until
William’s body was nothing more than a tiny speck amid the sea of
black. He was forever gone and out of their sight, a madman not
long for this world.

“Damn,” said Steven with a pat on his
friend’s back, “I didn’t think we’d get out of that one alive.
C’mon, man… we took down a freaking Viking! How cool is that?”

“No sense in getting bombastic now,” Samuel
replied, “We’ve still got a few thousand more to go, and they’re
all
just like him—.”

A faint roar broke their discussion and the
two men found themselves peering into the darkness down below. It
was a deep rumble— distant, yet powerful. It echoed out of the
abyss and with a thunderous explosion, it caused the very ground
beneath them to tremble.

“Did you hear that?” Steven asked.

“Felt it, too,” said Samuel, veering away
from the edge, “I don’t know how our fortunes can get any lower…
and I’m not looking to find out.”

Elsewhere, near the steps of the temple,
Fiona and the vampire queen were locked in a vicious battle from
which neither had yet emerged the victor. Amata was faster than her
adversary, and much more powerful, yet Fiona was determined to see
Ava avenged and pressed on with her assault.

“You’re passionate,” Lady Amata said to Fiona
as their steel clashed against one another, “Strong… forceful…
resilient… I could use someone like you on my side.”

“I’d rather be werewolf chow,” Fiona replied
with a spit to Amata’s face, “You may
think
your façade is
working, but I see through you. I see you for the wretched monster
you truly are.”

“Tell me, Fiona,” began Lady Amata, wiping
the spit from her face, “Where’s your master? Why does he do
nothing while I cut off his right hand?”

“He… He…,” Fiona faltered, “He knows what
he’s doing.”

The vampire queen seized the opportunity
before her and sent Fiona tumbling to the ground.

“Ah, yes,” said Lady Amata as she disarmed
the fallen Fiona, “I’m sure that he does. He knows when to
run
—.”

Another roar broke out from the abyss, only
this time much louder and more pronounced. Whatever was coming from
the dark depths below, it was approaching at a furious pace.

A glowing white serpent emerged from the
blackness, hundreds of feet long and clutching the body of what
appeared to be O’larg within his many rows of teeth. It was a
Leviathan, straight from the nether and burning with the anger of
the last summoner. With the creature’s elongated and bottle-nosed
snout, it gnawed on the bridge and the countless men caught within
its grasp.

“What that hell is that?” Steven asked as he
dashed towards the temple with Samuel right behind.

“Like I said before,” Samuel huffed, “I’d
rather not come close enough to finding out.”

The few lucky ones managed to get out of the
gigantic monster’s path, but the rest were burned alive from
contact with the Leviathan, forced to throw themselves off the
ledge to avoid another second of the creature’s touch.

They clamored for forgiveness, repented for
their sins— all in the hope of surviving the monster’s destructive
path.

“We didn’t know any better!”

“We didn’t mean to anger you, oh powerful
one!”

“Please forgive us, fish god!”

The Leviathan listened little to their pleas
of mercy as it used its tail to trash violently against the ground
beneath the horde. It shrieked and growled in vehemence as it
continued its rampage through their ranks.

Lady Amata watched in horror as the creature
ripped her army to shreds. The sight of her army crumbling had
disrupted the flow of battle long enough for Amata to forget about
the danger that lay on the ground before her. Everything she had
worked for, torn apart or in the process of being so, an end of
times for her people.

If she was to have any chance now, it would
be with the death of the summoner. Amata moved from atop the beaten
Fiona and started her ascent up the hill towards the Temple of
Prometheus.

Only there would she find that one last hope
she had of ending the war and retaining some of the power she still
wielded. The death of the summoner— a task proving increasingly
more difficult with ever encounter.

* * * * *

Atune Samora Marrosh Vesti

The twin dragons engraved onto the floor of
the inner sanctum watched over the proceedings with anticipation,
two inanimate objects given life by the power of the summoner’s of
old. They weren’t just a symbol for her people— they
were
her people, infused with the same white aura that coursed through
Emily’s bones.

Selune Trelunda Jakar Vesti

With hands pressed and eyes closed, the
summoner chanted in her native tongue, endowed to her in a moment
of clairvoyance while she lay on the floor. Her body may have
stayed on the floor of the Temple of Prometheus, but her mind had
traveled to a place much farther away.

Marlo Retunda Zabesh Vesti

Far past the edge of the galaxy and the
universes that lay beyond, through realities and parallel
dimensions. Her people transcended all of that, and where she
believed to be alone, now realized she was one in an existence of
trillions. She wasn’t human, at least not any more.

Vesti

A summoner was the manifestation of pure
energy, an avatar of celestial and cosmic magnitude, sent to watch
over life in all its many shapes and sizes. While her people
might’ve ceased to exist in this world, they thrived and lived
amongst more stars than possible to count. They were everywhere,
calling out to her and sending Emily their strength— strength she
would see put to good use.

Vesti

And with the ritual’s final words, the bright
light that encased Emily ceased to be and she was brought back down
to the inner sanctum where Xander laid waiting. He looked worried
about the summoner, but was hesitant to step closer, having just
witnessed but a fraction of the summoner’s power.

Outside of the temple, the vampire queen was
still on her way towards the long hallway before the inner sanctum.
No one could stand in here way now. Her victory was finally at
hand. Or so she was led to believe.