Demon Vampire (The Redgold Series) (44 page)

“We can't do this.” Orhn pleaded unconvincingly as he sat on the cold clay bed. Cilia's chest was at his eye level.

Cilia let the rest of the dress fall to the floor in one clear action of intention. Her young, tight frame was very supple, and firm. She was athletic, well groomed, and fit. Her legs were long, her chest was ample for her thin body. Her naked form was stunning, clearly out of place for the hobble of a home she was in. Cilia stood, sure of her looks, sure of Orhn's inner desires for her. She wanted him to pursue her now.

Orhn put up no resistance. He stood up, wrapped his arms around Cilia's back, and brought her close to him.

Cilia pushed Orhn back and kicked him into a sitting position. She proceeded to straddle and mount Orhn on the bed as he lay on his back. Cilia undid his leather pants and slipped the sheet over them. “Don't say anything to Orhn if you know him okay?” Cilia was completely messing with Orhn as she began to copulate the start of her arranged marriage. Cilia said nothing after that, her hips speaking for her.

Several hours later, in the middle of the night, Orhn woke up. Nothing but a sheet and the warmth of a naked woman covered him. Orhn had a smile on his face. Then his memory came back. Orhn was still under the impression that Cilia thought of him as a coward. He didn't want to accept the fact that the only woman in his life was with him because of a lie. Slowly, Orhn slipped out of the bed, leaving Cilia alone under the sheet. She was cold from the night. The sweat from their earlier excursion together left a chill in both of them. Orhn took a brief moment to admire Cilia's perfect body. Orhn knew there weren't many attractive women in the trenches where he was headed. Orhn let Cilia rest as opposed to waking her. It was high morning by the time he was dressed and able to exit the room. Orhn decided to leave town instead of facing the shame that he had tricked a beautiful woman into sleeping with him. A woman that hated Orhn and would cheat on him every chance she got, using himself as proof of Cilia's future infidelity. Orhn had planned to regain his honor in battle and return to marry Cilia properly as a real man. His best laid plans were moot before they were ever conceived.

Orhn slipped out of the encampment and made his way north to the southern coast of Italy by way of several ferrymen. He found a local group of militia and joined as a new recruit. A small group of no more than thirty men. Clad in banded-mail and medium weapons, they were a well armored force. All of the men hadn't bathed in days. The smell coming from them as Orhn approached a lone tent set up just past the coast line clearly stated that these men were there for war and not cleanliness. The men had thick stubble, and unkempt hair, as opposed to Orhn's clean chin and short trim. They all shared the same skin tone, but that is where the similarities ended.

Orhn walked up to the tent without any weapons, only in a single piece of leather hide for a shirt and his hide pants. He wanted nothing to distinguish himself as a real Ottoman soldier. Orhn called out. “Where is your commander?”

A stout man that was slightly more groomed than the rest of the men around him answered a few feet away. “I'm the commander of this group. What do you want boy?” The man did not stand, he was eating, and didn't seem to stop doing that either.

“I want to join the cause. To free Ottoman lands and bring peace to the region.” Orhn had always been idealistic in nature.

The commander stopped eating. “There is no peace here, boy. I need men to kill other men. Not boys that have twisted ideas about saving these lands.”

Orhn knew what he had to say. “I want to fight. Let me fight.”

The commander stood up. “Where are you from boy?”

“Damascus.” Orhn replied. “My name is-”

“-No names.” The commander cut Orhn off. “Names are for peace. Where we are, actions are needed. Names are a formality that blood does not honor at the tip of a blade.” The commander pulled his sword from his hip, flipped it backwards into the air, and handed it to Orhn. “May you shed more than I do and none of your own.”

“Does that mean?” Orhn was confused. He didn't expect it to be that easy.

“Welcome to the militia.” The commander raised his glass in a toast to Orhn.

The whole group of men followed. There was a small celebration, inducting Orhn into their unit. Orhn drank with his new men, he became one of them. That night he was armed, fed, and rested well. The next day they were to fight.

One year passed as Orhn made a new path for himself in the militia. The months peeled away as he tempered his body with the conflict of blood. They raided cities and villages in the southern tip of Italy. Every city pillaged won Orhn more and more praise. He was quick and agile on the field. Orhn was never given the same armor as the rest of the militia. He found it too heavy to move around in. He stuck to his training as a boy, where he used two short swords to maim and kill as he walked into battle. Orhn had found something he was good at and could be happy with. He wished to return to Damascus and tell Cilia the good news once he was ready. Orhn wanted to redeem his hometown honor as well as tell everyone what he had become.

There was only one thing stopping Orhn from going home, a nagging question in the back of his mind. The memory of the vampire he had encountered a year and a half ago. The vampire had told him that in two years, Orhn would see him again. That time was fast approaching. Orhn didn't want to realize what might happen if he actually returned. The thought that once back in Damascus, the vampire would kill him, his old unit, Cilia, and burn the camp to the ground. This was a deep fear of Orhn's. He decided that if he never returned, he could save the lives of everyone, including himself. Either way, Orhn was sure of one thing, the vampire had meant to kill him at the end of the two years. What he didn't know is why the vampire was waiting. If he allowed Orhn to live as merely a temporary present of compassion from an otherwise cruel monster, or as a sick joke. Orhn had no idea. Either way, he would have to wait to find out.

During his down time at the barracks, Orhn was lauded as a hero on the battlefield. He was quick witted and decisive, qualities that let him walk through the turbulence with a sea of dead behind his wake. He was inexorable as he treaded the battlefield with a single thought pervading him. He was already a dead man and no human could take his life in a way that was worse than what he had seen the vampire do to his compatriots. He was fearless, and that translated into an iron power in combat. In the year Orhn had been fighting, he had never been scarred, not once over the campaign of more than sixty raids with the militia. He was considered an invulnerable ghost while wielding his twin blades. In the recent month alone, Orhn had managed to use his skill as a blacksmith to forge himself and others in the unit highly balanced straight twin short swords to mimic his own. With a mix of iron and copper, Orhn made a resilient bronze set of weapons that were far easier to swing in combat than their standard medium length curved blades. With this superior technology and skill, Orhn was a god among men in battle. Blood poured down his swords with precision and speed at his will. In battle, Orhn tore a path straight through to the opposing commander's feet. Every engagement involving Orhn, ended in victory. He was considered a hero by everyone around him, having saved their lived many times over.

Eight more months passed as Orhn cut paths into each place his militia sacked. He had become vapid. He wandered, aimlessly with a longing in his mind, a haunting thought. One day soon, the vampire would come for him. Thoughts of the power the vampire displayed, compared to it he was nothing. Orhn may have become strong, but he was not a beast in the flesh, he was no monster. Orhn wanted to tell the men in his company that he was nothing against the ultimate presence that lay in the hand of a myth he had seen within their own borders. His only reserving factor was that courageous men don't follow tales of fear chastened old wives tales. If he did, Orhn would be labeled a madman and have to leave, again. He didn't want that, but he didn't want to die either. With the constant knowledge that the vampire was late gnawing at his mind, Orhn became complacent, preoccupied. He was losing his edge, the recent scars to his body were a testament to that fact. He bore fresh scars and injuries. Something Orhn was not known for, a sign that he had changed inside.

At a table in Orhn's lavish tent, two of his men were drinking the wine given to him for saving a small gypsy band near a Turkish city. One was young, the other old. Both were friends of his. Orhn gazed off into space as the younger man asked Orhn a question.

“Why were you hurt so gravely in out last fight?” The young man directed his question to Orhn's still bleeding left side.

“Rahel, don't be rude to out commander.” The old man reprimanded the boy's words.

Orhn looked down at the red bandages covering the wound. “Oh that, I don't feel it anymore.” He returned to staring off into the distance. “I don't feel anything anymore.”

The two men across from Orhn turned to each other. They were unsettled by Orhn's comment. Every wound hurts, it aches, no one is different. They wondered what was going on with Orhn.

One young, almost seventeen year old Rahel asked. “If it doesn't hurt, do you ever guard against the blow?” He dared to ask as the much older compatriot of Orhn's tried to hush the boy from posing such a statement. It was embarrassing, nearly shameful to ask Orhn something that direct. “Do you ever care to anymore?”

The youth was pushing the temper of the older man at the table. It prompted a kick in the ankle.

“Adder, I'm serious.” Rahel professed.

“I know you are, that's why I want you to shut the hell up.” Adder snapped at Rahel.

Orhn thought for a moment. He couldn't find a worthwhile answer. He knew what the boy meant, but he didn't care. That was the real answer. Pain had lost its depth in the shadows of memory that held his attention. One word slipped his lips. “No.” Orhn trailed off into the distance, silent, broken.

“What he means to say is that if it doesn't hurt, does it slow you down? Isn't that right kid?” Adder was trying to cover for the kid's insolent remark and what he was alluding to. Unknowingly, Adder's comment landed closer to Orhn's heart than Rahel's.

It prompted a stronger answer from Orhn. “I'm dead inside. He killed me that night without a single strike.”

Without thinking, Rahel spoke. “Who?”

Adder lowered his gaze, thinking that Rahel would be beaten for such a stupid question if it was any other man. Talking out of turn as he did was not viewed as a good move.

Orhn replied. “His hands cut like iron through them. He bled the three of them out. Not ten feet from me, he slaughtered them. He left me alone. He left me to live all this time. He showed me what terror was, to be disabled by complete fear. The pain of knowing I was a mere annoyance before him, was humiliating. I can't forget what he did to me.” Orhn's depressed gaze was unbroken and sombering.

“Looks like the great Orhn has had a bit too much to drink. Maybe we should get out of here.” Adder stood from his chair in an attempt to diffuse the situation.

“No, it's not the wine. I haven't had any.” Orhn said as the two men at the table checked his full glass. “It's the impression he made. The feeling he embossed in the back of my mind.” Orhn leaned forward, sitting upright in his chair.

“Who Orhn? Who did this to you? What man wronged you so? What man could have wronged you as you said? Who made you feel like a coward, the great Orhn? How is that possible?” Rahel spoke suddenly.

Adder used the back of his hand to promptly shut the boy's mouth from speaking any more of the apparently sensitive issue. The impact knocked the boy down to the dirt floor of the tent.

Adder turned to Orhn. “I'm sorry, sir. We'll be leaving now.”

“The vampire gave no name.” Orhn lowered his head in sadness. The memory of being accused for the death of three men had weighed heavy on his soul. Especially knowing he had no way of actually saving them. Orhn had been blamed for merely surviving. No other man stood a chance against the vampire, no human at all.

The two soldiers were speechless. Adder helped Rahel up and out of the tent. They left without a word, letting Orhn to work out his troubles alone.

Orhn sat by himself, crying, weeping until the dawn eventually came. He had made himself into a hero based upon his own merits. Any other man would argue that this itself held the power to redeem his conscience. To Orhn this was a time to lament his faults. Reflecting on his doubts to a perfection that no one would ever know.

As the mourning passed, Orhn walked to the nearest town for a well earned drink. The place he settled upon was small and run down, though it was open. Orhn stepped in and sat down at a wooden stool. The wood was chipped and not well maintained at all. The entire building was in the same condition. Nearly falling apart under its own weight. A strong perfume of liquor came from the room. The bar wasn't crowded, there were only three other patrons to speak of. The bartender was a well built man in his mid thirties that eye-balled Orhn as he sat. The man watched for any signs of possible calamity Orhn might arouse with his well armed nature. Orhn had forgotten to remove his leather armor and swords during the walk. He was highly over dressed to be in a pleasant town bar. Two men sat in the corner right back table discussing the women in their lives. One was rather passionate about a new young lady that had come to the region. The other didn't seem as if he was as enthusiastic about the woman. Though he continued to listen to his friend regardless. Orhn didn't get much of a look at the patron to his left, sitting alone with his head down at the bar. The bartender was too quick to start up a tab with Orhn.