Wed May 07, 2003 10:26 pm
A solemn, solitary figure walked the rain-swept street leading away from the Broken Dagger, the outline of his form made softer from the haloed spray of rainwater that pelted him ceaselessly. N`Ylim Fath`ir stopped for a moment, turned his face upwards and luxiriated for a moment in the shower of water from the dark sky.
Cold, clear water ran in rivulets across his forehead, his sharply angled brows, along the hawklike nose, trickling between his thin lips and over his squared chin. His eyes, open to the droplets, still bore faint bruising about them, but the tears in his flesh around the sockets of his eyes caused by the vicious crow that seemed always to dog the fae Vialweh's steps had healed over into whitish scars. The eyes themselves, wrenched from their sockets, torn and punctured, had also nearly healed, but the hazel-grey of the irises was now marred by white streaks like marbling. The damnable thing had warned him not to converse with the likes of it, but it had recieved its own warning as well when it tried to make away with his sight. N`Ylim hoped the ill messenger would remember it well. He walked onwards, heading home, to the Hall of the Hunter. His Lord would doubtless be interested in all that had transpired today, eager to know of the work of this mysterious "D" who had left such a macabre calling card upon the Inn's sloping roof.
Movement; sudden, nearly silent, very close, caught N`Ylim's attention. He stopped walking, waited, hands open near his sides; he was certain that he was no longer alone in his thoughts. "Show yourself, I've neither time nor patience for games tonight." His answer was a sudden rush of air nearly lost amidst the falling rain, and his arms quickly wrenched behind his back by a grip strong as iron and colder than the water that showered down from on high. "Oh you're quite the tough talker aren't you, Mister Fath`ir? I'm surprised you feel that brave without those two bruisers of yours hanging about." The voice was an exhalation in his right ear just as cold as the implacable grip that pinned his wrists together. "I'm afraid you have me at a loss, Sir.", N`Ylim ventured, voice calm and even. "You know my name, and you know of my associates, but I do not know you." Harsh laughter greeted this, then the cold voice, now filled with anger, hate; "You don't get to know who I am, you sneaky bastard, you just get to die. See I get what you're about, moving your bloody lord around here and building a place called the Hunter's Hall, and then the very next day all those vampires end up good and burnt on the Dagger's roof? You think I can't put two and two together and figure out what's going on?"
N`Ylim himself laughed then, to the obvious irritation of his assailant, who tightened his grip until tendons creaked in N`Ylim's arms. "I would, Sir, be honestly amazed if you could indeed put two and two together without injuring yourself. My Lord had nothing to do with that mess at the Broken Dagger. But I'm sure he'll appreciate the lengths that someone went through to punish those who obviously deserved what they got." The voice at N`Ylim's ear shrieked in rage at that, full of fury, and perhaps just a bit of fear. "And you deserve this, damned human cattle! The war ends for you right now!"
Flesh parted before razor sharp canines, tearing through skin and muscle to the prize where it pulsed beneath the surface. N`Ylim's life pulsed thickly into the gullet of the creature that still held his arms pinioned behind him. But then it sharply wrenched its head away, gagging, choking. The grip that held him trapped melted away, and N`Ylim turned to face his attacker, who seemed to be undergoing an assault from within.
The vampire retched, coughed convulsively, dark reddish foam pouring from between his gaping jaws, sizzling loudly where it splashed on the ground. He held his own throat tightly as the spasms shook him uncontrollably, obviously victim to the same caustic venom present in N`Ylim's bloodstream as the hateful crow had been earlier today, but somehow the reaction seemed even more violent than the searing of the bird's flesh had been. Even now, flesh peeled away from the vampire's face and jaw in ragged, curling, blackening strips, and the bone beneath itself seemed to be losing shape, melting. The wound at the juncture of shoulder and neck where N`Ylim had felt the vampire's bite had all ready nearly sealed, the teethmarks scabbing over. N`Ylim watched the vampire claw frantically at his own face, trying to dig the searing, acidic stuff from his cold, undead flesh, but it had all ready done its work. Most of his face from the upper jaw down was gone or hanging in seared, useless ruin, framing a gaping charred pit that no doubt lead downward to further grievous injury within the vampire's body. It stared back at him, wracked with agony, still somewhat defiant but wretchedly defeated at the same time, knowing that no matter what it could not survive long in this sorry state, unable to feed.
"What's wrong, good sir? Drink something that disagreed with your digestion?", N`Ylim chided him as the vampire struggled to his feet. "You see, I was right, you couldn't put two and two together without hurting yourself." Unable to answer, and likely too far gone to have done so even if he'd had the ability to speak any longer, the vampire uttered a rattling howl of anguished hatred and charged at N`Ylim, still terribly quick despite the horrific injuries he bore. N`Ylim's slender hands flashed to the sheaths at his right hip and across his waist at the back and the two blades lept into the rain-washed night air, one hooked and sickle-like, the other straight-bladed, single-edged, its tip ground to a thick wedged chisel point. The short, straight blade, held inverted in N`Ylim's hand with the blade downwards and edge out slashed upwards, then down and hooked left in barely an eyeblink's time. The thick blade cleaved upwards through the charging vampire's ribcage, splitting the sternum, then down through the same cut, laying him open near to his backbone before ripping out over his left hip as N`Ylim seemed almost to float out of his path. The vampire gave out a guttural, rasping wheeze through its ruined face, dropped to its knees in the mud and rainwater. "The shame of it is,", N`Ylim said in an almost conversational tone, as he stood behind the stricken vampire, "had you not gotten it into your head that my Lord was responsible for that massacre at the Dagger, you and I would never have come to this. But, as my Lord says, things almost always happen for a reason. You thought your blood would give you strength over me, but instead my blood has found the weakness, the darkness within you, and judged you guilty, burned you as your evil has burned the innocent. The only sentence is death. Prepare yourself."
The wickedly hooked blade rose, descended with a whisper. The vampire remained upright in the mud on his knees for a moment, then his head toppled from his shoulders to splash on the puddled ground, his body sagging forwards a few seconds later to lie still in the grip of the Final Death. Once again, N`Ylim was alone, and at peace, in the dark and the rain.