The Resurgence

Chapter 18: The Tribunal

Author's Note: Whoops, sorry to any who were confused about the last chapter. Zephon was just dreaming of the past.

Zephon woke under a rockslide. Pain writhed in his stomach, grinded into his shoulder, and throbbed in his jaw. Hunger parched his throat and thirst gnawed his stomach. This was no dream. He saw the present world again. Zephon leveraged himself onto his right elbow, his teeth gritting in pain, taking stock of the large room

He lay in a generous sleigh bed, the wooden footboard dark and gleaming in the gloom. Two candles, one on each side of the bed, threw enough light for his vampiric eyes to see in the dark. Against one wall sat a massive wardrobe carved from rosewood. Engraved in the door across from him was an unmistakable symbol. Kain's.

These were his own quarters at the Sanctuary of the Clans. This only fanned his discomfort. A wisp of a movement caught in the corner of his eye and he twisted around with an involuntary hiss.

The sandalwood scent was so familiar to him he almost missed it. Isana rested on the other side of the bed. For vampires, true sleep is akin to death, where all functions slide into dormancy aside from healing. In times of uncertain security, vampires rested. They did not sleep.

Isana's eyes flickered open. "At last you wake," she said, sounding bored.

She rolled onto her knees and slid across yard between them. Her swarthy hair fell in a cord behind her. Zephon took note – she never wore it that way unless she anticipated a fight, rarely though she picked up a sword. Black breeches replaced her usual skirts.

Reaching his side, she eased him off his elbow and onto his back. His first question was almost past his lips; she wasted no time.

"They took you to the Sanctuary five days ago – a rider of Rahab's came with the message," Isana said, running a gentle hand through his hair.

Zephon squirmed to prop his back against the headboard. Isana did not take to mothering niceties unless she was trying to calm him.

"Kain has you marked for Tribunal," she continued. "Rahab was riding here with a vanguard and I hid myself among them."

"Why is my brother suddenly so generous?"

"He was paid well." She never bothered with lascivious words, only acts.

Rahab had no love for money. Zephon did not think he had much love for females either, given the abundance of elegant males in his brood. But Isana was different.

She remembered. Against death and magic, she recalled her human life as if she'd woken from an afternoon nap. Her brother Ghislain thought he remembered too, but they were only Isana's memories, told to him so often he believed them his own.

Fledglings were like children. Their bodies remembered but their minds knew nothing. It had taken Zephon and his brothers years to learn enough to see humans as enemies rather than food, even with Kain's sangfroid guidance.

Isana was different. Though an ungifted fighter, her mind darted like a rapier. She understood economy and stewardship. Years ago Isana had convinced him to let them raise farms and livestock. They were healthy enough to reproduce, and, as he was beginning to see, those born into enslavement were far easier to control.

She and her brother obeyed well, and could manage a city better than first-born Ruthven. But other times, he looked into her kestrel eyes and wondered if he should have killed her years ago. She hungered for something more than blood, and had the lethal quiet of a cobra.

The sybaritic woman had come to him willingly the night he stormed her husband's castle. Though first she attacked him with a sword. He hooked his blade under hers and disarmed her in seconds. She was never good with swords.

Her eyes were wide and the whistle in her throat betrayed her unsteady breath. But even in the lamplight, her pupils were dilated. "Would you kill me or have me?"

Zephon laughed darkly. "I can do both."

"Take me with you." Her voice was a breathy whisper. "I know more about your enemies than any of your vampires."

He had pinned her shoulders – slowly she lifted a hand. His fangs had extended past his lower lip as he had prepared to feed. Bloodlust still high, they did not retract. She pressed a thumb at the tip. Then she pushed harder, until the flesh split and blood welled. Letting me appraise her bloodlines? How mercantile.

Her offer to help was well-intentioned, no doubt. How comical she thought it swayed him. She would not remember her own soul when she came back as a vampire. But the noblewoman amused him.

At the time he was crowing his victory. Humans shouldered aside their kith and kin to join him. Now, forty years older, amusement shared a place with antipathy. Whatever her fears, she betrayed her family and race to save herself. She had made good of her promise.

He shook the thoughts away. They were useless now.

Glancing at his stomach, he winced at the red and purple bruises. Vampire and human alike feared Kain for his telekinetic power. Zephon had never had it used against him though. Once, Kain had ruptured a man's heart from inside his chest , just when the warrior had Turel two steps from a river.

Sparing the rod for me, sire? Kain had injured him two-fold, first with internal injury, then smashing him into a wall. He remembered that too vividly for his comfort. Why – and how – had he followed them in the first place? Raziel was no delicate flower in need of protection. And Kain did not protect. As fledglings he would intercede if they were in mortal peril, but he never shielded them from harm.

"I know how I got most of my injuries. But what happened to my jaw?"

Isana studied his cheek, her light fingers trailing the bruises he knew were there.

"I would guess Raziel kicked you in the face." Her eyes blazed. "What in hell happened? Did you actually attack him? Ryszard wouldn't tell me and Trennen has gone half mad."

She did not ask if Raziel had attacked him? Yet he could not answer. Lying here now, hunger a fiercer need than hate, he felt no rage toward his older brother. Annoyance and mockery, always, but nothing to fuel fratricide. What murderous siren songs had called to him in that stygian cavern?

"He mentioned Baldur," Zephon said.

Isana rolled her eyes. "Hasn't he always? You weren't there that night. I was. Raziel savaged their will more than any siege or sacking."

He recalled his dream. Isana had looked so fair that night. And certainly not savaged.

"I'd forgotten you would have been there. What did Raziel say then?"

Her frown softened. "What the songs say and what he did say are different. He said any attack against you was an attack against him."

What in seven hells had he seen during his death sleep?

And what would Kain do now? He had called tribunals before, but only to settle land disputes. The most heated of arguments boiled down to "My army was there first" versus "My army killed Lord Now-Eviscerated." To stand for fratricide – he was the first.

There was nothing to do but meet his maker and thus his fate. But first his thirst.

"Isana, give me your wrist."

"No." She pulled back.

He seized her arm, tired of her arrogance. "You forget yourself, my sweet."

She met his eyes, undaunted. "Why did you grab me with your right hand?"

Zephon realized he had, just before he realized he couldn't move his dominant left hand.

She eased her wrist out of his taloned grip. "I would never deny you, but your shoulder did not set right. Good fortune, though – your internal injuries seem healed, but there was not enough blood to fully seal your shoulder. It would be harder to reset otherwise."

He understood. Vampire bones healed fast, but wrongly set and they were murder to re-break and heal. Now, his misplaced bones ground against his ligaments. He was in for more pain before Tribunal.

"Can you realign it? You're not a healer."

She smirked. "No, but I'm better than your right hand."

Hardly comforting. He rolled onto his stomach, burying his face in a pillow. She straddled his lower back and ran a cool hand along his scapula. Then with both hands she smashed down.

The crunch and jagged hot pain made him snarl. Clicks, snaps, and pops ricocheted in his ears as his shoulder ignited. Bone shards burned their way into realignment and the cruelties continued as she twisted and nudged each sliver back into place.

Finally, she pushed herself off and slid up alongside him. He couldn't see her – he was still biting down on a pillow to keep himself from ripping her throat out. But he heard the faintest scrape as she cut open her wrist, and smelled the welling of blood, darker and headier than its human strain.

He twisted his neck just enough to take her wrist and pull it to his lips. Blood came too slow – she had hesitated to slice a major artery. He refrained from biting one open. She had just fixed his shoulder and even he had a mannerly streak.

As the bloody amaranth poured down his throat, his shoulder fired once more – this time sealing and strengthening into something more useful.

Isana's breath began to quicken. He stopped, not wanting to weaken her. She might need to flee soon. Pulling her wrist back, she rose from the bed.

"You'll need a shirt when you stand before Kain." She tried to hide it but her tone was hitched and breathy.

"What happened to mine?" he said, his voice muffled beneath him.

"I took it off you to see how badly you were injured. Someone just threw you in here and barred the door.

He eased onto his good shoulder and onto his back. Isana stood at his bedside, holding a ruined piece of metal. His pauldron. Caked in blood and twisted almost beyond recognition. She tossed it away and turned to the armoire against the wall.

The wardrobe was packed with fine clothes, all fresh and dustless, even though he had not slept here in over a decade.

Zephon felt it then – a brush within his mind, like a foreign wind slipping past his native one. Kain.

"You need to hide yourself soon. Kain knows I am no longer catatonic."

Her sharp mouth twisted in a smile. "And leave my Lord to dress himself? Never."

She pulled a shirt and dark green vest from the armoire, studying it like a tailor.

"I doubt Lord Kain will decide any different regardless of raiment," Zephon said.

Isana looked up. He caught it – that serpentine look of cruel cunning, when the raptor became a viper.

"Have you decided your defense?" she asked.

He chuckled. "Even I have no way to swing this in my favor."

She walked over with his vestments, her corded hair swinging at her waist.

"No, but you could mitigate it. Give Ryzsard and Trennen to Raziel. That would give him something to chew on and spare you the worst. They did aid you, did they not?"

"On my orders," Zephon said, his tone leaden.

"That makes no difference." She eased him into the shirt. "Raziel would think his grandeur exceeds your authority."

He took her wrists. She stiffened, knowing she had pushed too far. With all the gentleness he could summon in his souring mood, he pushed her to her knees until they were at eye level.

"If you led this clan," he said, "Your head would decorate a pike by now as a deposed tyrant."

"Strange, my lord. I recall few deposed tyrants in my history lessons, but many dethroned benevolent kings."

"Punish the ones who served so faithfully?" Zephon stroked her lacerated wrist with his thumb. Had he wanted, even weakened, he could have drained her to near oblivion. "That is something I am neither cold nor stupid enough to do."

In truth, it was giving them to Raziel he refused to do. He sent warriors to their potential deaths every day and the possibility of their deaths did not deter him. It was death's head Melchiah who had hesitated before battles out of concern for casualties. But for those two, he had not just ordered them into battle. He had commanded them to attack the third most powerful vampire in Nosgoth. Benevolent he was not. He did savor loyalty.

Isana nodded. She'd never agree with him. But she obeyed. She stood back up and ran the vest around his arms, taking care for his healing shoulder. Finding a more ornate belt and a pair of tall boots in the armoire, she finished his ensemble.

Zephon at least looked presentable now. He still wore his trousers from the fight but they were intact.

None too unexpectedly, a pounding came from the door on the other side of the solar. Isana knew not to speak. Instead, she kissed him, tasting her own blood. He walked through the bedchamber door and closed it behind him, before crossing the carpeted solar to the larger door ahead.

Two Razielim waited. Zephon recognized Orias, Raziel's fourth-born. The other was younger but nameless to him. They looked ready to cut his tongue out and serve it to Raziel with a side of pickles.

"My sire has summoned me?"

Orias was taller than Ryszard but built like a slender elm tree. Looking down, his voice hissed with contempt.

"The Emperor has called you for Tribunal, to answer for your treachery."

When he was younger, Zephon refused to incline his head to taller vampires. Now he was past caring. Catching his bitter gaze, the Spider Lord smiled.

"I hope Raziel is fit to join us."

Kain had instructed them not to harm him. Zephon had no problem hiding behind his sire's orders. The vampires set off down the stone hall on either side of him.

The Emperor's throne room had three entrances, but the Sanctuary had only one exit. They entered through a side doorway. Though it seemed an eternity, he had only been here a month ago. It had been far less crowded. Now, a contingent of Razielim stood to one side, while Rahabim and Turelim. Not many, perhaps half a dozen from each clan, but enough to make Zephon feel a sizable part of Nosgoth would soon see him brought low.

And where are my dear ones?

Ryszard and Trennen arrived at his side, still dirty and frayed from the cave, and looking as if they had not fed since the cathedral. Ryszard looked bored. Trennen looked…affected by his captivity. The vampire's glassy eyes darted from clan to clan and pillar to pillar.

"Were you injured when we arrived here?" Zephon said.

Ryszard looked over, his vulpine face flashing one canine in an empty grin.

"Just tortured – they kept this fucking whelp and me in the same room."

The vampire had not fed since the cathedral. Zephon noted the glassiness to his eyes and the ashen hue to his flesh. He would take care of the loyal soldier's bloodthirst, even if he had to bargain with Rahab for it.

Around him snipped whispered chatter.

"Has the Spider Lord gone mad?" "Drunk on power, more like." "I see not why we left the front for this."

A crack came from the opposite wall. The main doors to the throne room screeched open. In strode Lord Kain, clad in a long, black leather coat with red accents and inlay. His boots and trousers never seemed to attract mud. All murmur died. All knees bent, Zephon's included. Some things went deeper than bone.

Kain passed him without looking, and settled into the rough-hewn throne. The pillars fanned bent and broken above him. The Soul Reaver lied unsheathed across his thighs. His eyes swept the room – and finally focused on Zephon.

"Lieutenant Zephon."

It was not a question. He stayed silent, neck bowed, abeyant. His claws scratched into the stone as every muscle in his back coiled. The others rose, as was custom, except for his two vampires.

"You stand accused of attempted fratricide, of failure on the battlefield, and ignoring orders."

"Failure?" His mouth betrayed him. He risked a glance up. Kain looked almost expectant. Zephon figured now was the only time he would be able to speak. "My Lord, your other accusations I expected. But what of failure?"

Kain's fangs bared with a snarl. "You failed to hold Nachtholm. It fell three nights ago."

His sire's telepathic force smashed against his chest, until Zephon realized it was his own shock. Ryszard had wrenched himself up in a lunging half-bow – dangerous, considering he stood closer to Kain than Zephon.

There was no time to grab Ryszard and demand to know just how he had left the city he claimed to have stabilized.

"How?"

Kain did not rage. The icy accusation in his voice served just as well.

"The same way you did. Did you think they would forget about a waterway they themselves made?"

Zephon reared back, still on one knee, but erect from the waist up. His shoulder creaked.

"Allow me to take it back. I will ride to where my army retreated and reclaim Nachtholm within the week."

Kain's voice cut like sardonic steel. "You misunderstand. You have no army left to regroup."

Slaughtered to a man.

Flames heralded their arrival.

They had made only two requests of the slaves: to set fire to the tapestries in the main hall and to stay out of the way.

Galvira had found Roth the day after the vampire slew his wife. Through his tormented keening, she learned the slave girl had been with child. So it seemed filial loyalty was not lost to these subservient wretches after all.

Alaric tried to keep her in the cellars. She refused. She remained at his side as they stormed the hallway. Acrid smoke came from the main hall and the vampires only now realized the danger came on two fronts.

She planned the stratagem for mid-afternoon, the hottest part of the day and thus the least active for vampires. She herself fought against a cloud of lethargy.

Alaric held a shiavona sword in his right hand and a flaming torch in his left. His grip on the torch was weak – she knew his arm had barely begun to heal, but now adrenaline ate away the pain.

Further on the howls and cries relay the battle. Battle, she knew, was not the proper term. The vampires were caught between an inferno and a wall of soldiers all bearing torches and steel and crossbows.

A door swung open to Alaric's right and an unarmored vampire roared out. Alaric pivoted, thrusting his torch in its face, forcing it to duck right. His sword met its neck and cut clean through.

She hardly hoped to breathe. They had arrived with twenty men, now accompanied by twenty-five from the blood pantries whose minds had not shattered from captivity. Roth had conviently misplaced a weapons wrack outside the pantry door. Some had not fought in months but survival and caustic revenge replaced skill with fire.

Ahead, a vampire danced between five swordsmen, her back to a wall. Galvira recognized Taugaral, the one left as commander after the two vampires from Ragnarok galloped off so suddenly.

The female vampire fought with a sword and dagger. One man fell, then another. She wore only a jerkin and leggings, but kept attacking even as blood ran down her arms. A third man gagged as she rammed the dagger through his eye, and another lost a hand as she lashed back with the sword.

"Back!" yelled Joren as he walked past Alaric. He dropped to one knee and aimed a crossbow. It was heavier than most and ponderous to load. But its bolt shared family with a harpoon. Alaric's second took aim, just as the two remaining men jumped back from the slashing creature, keeping her focus.

Leather and sinew twanged as the bolt erupted. It caught her in the skull, taking off half of it and burying itself in the wall. For one small second Galvira thought she would keep fighting – the vampiress twisted back to the nearest human, her features lost as blood rushed down her face.

Then she folded on herself, breaking and toppling.

Galvira could finally breathe again. Alaric had already continued. They rounded a corner. She realized they were in the hall of her—of Erato's quarters. She flinched to a halt. Two of Alaric's soldiers sprawled ten paces away, blood seeping from where something had smashed their skulls together.

Erato turned, clad only in a bloodstained robe and trousers. His hands dripped with gore.

He noticed her then. Time rocked back, slowing as she saw his eyebrows flare and felt herself stiffen. Alaric looked between them, and snapped the puzzle together in rough fashion. Blue eyes met gold. They charged.

She screeched for Alaric to stop – even at peak strength he could not take down a rushing vampire, and weeks of crude survival left his cheeks hollow and his eyes gaunt. He hurled the torch at Erato but his broken arm betrayed him. The throw was weak and crooked and the vampire swept it aside as he leapt. It almost hit her. Galvira jumped out of the way, the flames hot as they rolled past her ankles. She scooped the torch up, wanting something in her hands.

Man and vampire smashed to the ground in a crash of armor and flesh. The vampire raked a hand across his face, snarling as Alaric rammed him with a metal-covered knee.

Of course his men rushed to defend him. Six pelted down the hall, swords and fire bared, hurling war cries.

Indecision. Glavira jolted, realizing the feelings were not hers, but Erato's. He saw her in his peripheral vision. Fury bloodlust vengeance… hesitancy. Indecision between her and the man beneath him. His chances, unarmored, against the six soldiers were slim, even if he ripped Alaric's sword from his dead fingers.

If he grabbed her and bolted, they could likely escape. Rallying the chaotic vampires was futile. He was no general, just a fighter with a taste for rare things – a former treasure hunter who had left her ancestors for adventure and died somewhere in the wild.

Erato sprang from Alaric, smashing a foot into his ribs to keep him down. He swept toward her, eyes focused. Decision made.

Not hers.

She brandished the torch forward. It no longer blazed but the coals still smoldered. He did not expect it when the coals seared into his stomach. For the briefest moment, he looked confused. Then he yelped in pain, his reactions a discordant second after time.

Behind him, Alaric staggered to his feet, face bloodied and his stance crooked against a broken rib. But he had not dropped his sword. Half lunging, half falling, he rammed it through the vampire's back. It went straight through. Heartsblood splattered.

His eyes rolled back to hers. Erato now realized. The desire to survive beat any other. Loyalty, affection, revulsion – and for him, obsession. At least she thought so. She stepped back as Alaric wrenched his sword out of the vampire's back and took his head off.

The blood drenched her. She twisted away. Alaric would assume it was from horror. He could not see it was to hide her tongue that licked the blood on her lips. He would also think her tears were from trauma and the terror of war. Salt mixed with blood, burning the tongue she had bitten in the fray. Alaric would not see her tears were from revulsion at what she had become, and loathing for what she was forced to do. And grief.