“Into a darker future I have looked, into the death of light if you fail.” The witch trembled beneath her withered shroud. “You must not fail,” she said. “Night is drawing fast, and the moon has died. You will have no help but the stars.”
“It’s just a vampire,” I said. “I’ve killed them before.”
“But they have not killed you,” came her croaking voice. “Death is not what you must fear, Morningstar, but what it is to be turned, to be corrupted, for your bright light to become darkness. What light can save you then?”
At her question, the last light of the sun fell behind the mountains, and she, her form, collapsed into ash. A howling wind came, blowing her dust into the sky. As my eyes followed the dark swirls, I found his figure there upon a jutting rock, black against the still glowing heaven. The shape leapt down, and I heard its soft thud, but could not see it in the shadows.
“You’ve come too late, child,” it whispered. “The night preceded you, and now I am in full power. You are blind and without help.”
I drew my sword; its holy glow showed me the snarling face of the vampire. His colorless lip curled as he shielded his eyes a moment. Lowering his arm, he blinked at me.
“Foolish tricks, mortal. Best to put that nasty thing away and come into the darkness quietly.”
“Suck it,” I said. Lurching forward, I swung at his bald head. Faster than I could see, he’d ducked under the blow. I felt his cold grip on my elbow as he pulled me into an icy embrace. His horrible teeth went for my neck, and my heart stopped as he bit down into the leather collar. My left arm was still free, and I sent my gauntlet into his pointed ear. Blow after blow I struck as he tried to gnaw through my collar. Pressing me forward as he hooked our legs together, he fell on me, but as we stumbled backward, I ceased my attack on his ear, reached down, and passed my sword into my left hand.
His mouth came off my neck while his cold fingers pried the tough cowhide away from my jugular. As his final bite descended, I thrust my sword into his side. Darkness as his body swallowed the radiant steel, and then, as though an inner fire burned within him, the figured glowed. Throwing his head back, he screamed as his whole body came alive with a white light. I watched as the flesh peeled away from the skeleton in drifting leaves of ash. Upward they flew, caught in the heat of his burning corpse. Then the bones themselves crumbled and fell like dust to the earth.
Groaning, I rolled onto my hip and thence to my knees. From there, I pulled my sore frame up onto my feet. Leaning on my sword like a cane, I waited for the dizziness to pass. It was dark. The sword’s blessing was spent. It had done what it was meant to do, and the glory was past. Lifting my head up, I gazed into the stars. Fixed in their glory, I wonder what they had thought of this little struggle. For a moment, for one fight, they had been with me, alike mortal with my flesh. With a sigh, I nodded my head thanking them and stumbled onward into the night.
Tale Told 