Darkeater | Holy War

Heretics wander the dark like rotting puppets, pretending at life. Sister, I still remember. I remember the night that creature took thy blade. I remember how the world went dark afterward. Funny, is it not? I have slain so many of them since then that I can scarcely recall their faces, yet I remember his. The anger remains. Killing no longer satisfies me. The thrill fades. The blood dries. The corpses rot. Yet still I hunt. They took my world from me, sister. So I shall take theirs.

Every last one.

The cavern had no name. Most did not.

The maps carried by the Empire ended where the known tunnels ended, and beyond that lay only darkness, jagged stone, and whatever horrors had claimed the depths before mankind ever thought to descend into them.

Torchlight danced across walls slick with moisture. Black water dripped from unseen heights, each droplet echoing through the tunnels like distant footsteps.

A cave such as this obeyed different laws.

Wander alone, and thou art dead.

Bleed, and thou hast announced thyself to every hungry thing within a mile.

Scream, and the darkness shall answer.

At the head of the expedition strode Isolde.

Fifty Vanguards followed behind her in a ragged column, rifles clutched white-knuckled in trembling hands. Some were veterans whose eyes had long ago learned to hide fear. Others were boys pretending to be men, their uniforms still too clean, their faces too young.

The Empire had given them a simple task: Enter. Clear the tunnels. Establish a forward base. Die if necessary.

The usual.

Isolde turned on her heel, sabre spinning lazily between armored fingers. "Attend, ye miserable lot."

Every head snapped toward her. A grin spread across her face. Predatory. Far too cheerful for the occasion.

"Shouldst thou glimpse a ghoul, shoot it." She raised a finger.

"Shouldst thou glimpse a Freak, shoot it more." Another finger.

"Shouldst thou glimpse a vampire..." Her grin widened.

"...pray thy aim is true."

A nervous chuckle escaped somewhere in the ranks. Nobody else laughed. Several men shifted uncomfortably. One recruit looked moments away from vomiting. Another silently mouthed a prayer.

Pathetic.

Isolde rolled her eyes. "Sister, dost thou see them? Half the platoon appears ready to perish from fright alone." The thought came unbidden. As it always did.

For a fleeting moment she nearly glanced over her shoulder, expecting to find black hair and white gloves beside her.

Nothing. Only shadows. Her smile faltered, then returned.

"I shall lead." The sabre came to rest upon her shoulder.

"Thy sole duty is to watch the flanks and refrain from shooting me."

"Nay, I mean that sincerely. Shouldst thou put a bullet in my back, I shall rise from the grave solely to throttle thee."

A few strained laughs followed. Not because it was funny, because they were terrified, and because the Darkeater was smiling. That was somehow worse. Without another word, Isolde stepped into the darkness. The platoon followed.

One minute passed. Then five. Then thirty. Nothing. No ghouls, no freaks, no distant screeching, no skittering claws.

Nothing.

The silence became unbearable. Vanguards tightened their grips on their rifles. Torchbearers cast nervous glances into side passages. One man nearly discharged his weapon when a droplet struck his helmet, another flinched every few steps.

The darkness seemed to press closer the deeper they traveled. Isolde found herself disappointed.

"Gods preserve me," she muttered. "Mayhap this cavern is empty."

Then it happened. Every hair on the back of her neck stood upright. She froze, then smile vanished.

Immediately, her sabre swept sideways. The signal to halt. The entire column stopped.

Silence.

Absolute silence.

Even the dripping water seemed to cease. Several Vanguards noticed it at once, the Darkeater was no longer smiling. Fear spread through the formation faster than any order could.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

And then Isolde felt it, not heard, not seen. Felt. A presence—Watching, hungry. The sensation settled upon her shoulders like a noose. For the first time in years, genuine fear found its way into her chest.

Isolde greeted it with a grin. Small, unstable, and excited.

"Ah." A soft laugh escaped her lips.

"Now this is interesting."

The Vanguards exchanged confused looks. Several began backing away instinctively. One veteran quietly made the sign of the Lord. Isolde ignored them, her eyes remained fixed upon the darkness ahead.

"Vampire..." The word barely escaped her mouth. Then she shook her head.

"Nay."

Her grin widened. A dangerous thing.

"A Noble."

A few soldiers visibly paled. One nearly dropped his rifle. Another whispered a prayer. Nobody spoke louder than a breath. Nobody wished to attract its attention.

Isolde took a single step forward, sabre lowered, Twinblade still resting upon her back.

"Tell me, heretic." Her voice echoed through the cavern, playful, mocking even, the tone of a wolf scenting blood.

"Wert thou leading us inward all this while?" A chuckle.

"Dost thou command the lesser beasts to hide?" Another step.

"Or hast thou devoured them thyself?"

Her fingers tightened around the hilt. Bloodlust and terror clawed at one another inside her chest. She could not tell which was winning, perhaps both.

"Come forth."

"By decree of the Empire, by will of the Empress, and by the Lord who yet watches from above..." Her sabre rose, pointing directly into the darkness.

"I am commanded to cleanse this world of thy filth."

A laugh, soft and delighted. Completely insane.

"...Though between us, I confess I have grown rather tired of mercy." The torchlight caught her crimson eyes.

"I should like to peel thee apart piece by piece." Another step.

"And watch thee mend." Another.

"Only so I might do it again."

Scout ahead and chart the paths of the Woods of Judgment.

The assignment alone was enough to sour Isolde's mood.

The Woods of Judgment sprawled across miles of wilderness untouched by civilization, a sea of towering trees whose trunks were wider than houses and whose canopies choked out most of the sunlight. Even at midday, the forest remained draped in perpetual twilight. Massive roots twisted through the earth like sleeping serpents, while dense bushes and curtains of moss swallowed entire sections of the landscape. Somewhere within the undergrowth lurked ghouls, freaks, and creatures yet unnamed by Imperial records.

Ordinarily, such dangers might have improved Isolde's mood.

Unfortunately, her orders contained three particularly offensive instructions.

Remain hidden.

Avoid combat.

Report findings.

"Utterly dreadful," Isolde declared for perhaps the twentieth time that day as she marched through the undergrowth, sabre resting across her shoulder. "Chart the paths. Observe the terrain. Return with a report. Sister, dost thou hear this nonsense? They entrust me with a blade and then forbid me from using it."

A low branch caught against her pauldron. She shoved it aside with enough force to shower leaves onto the forest floor.

"I ought to be beneath the earth carving Freaks into manageable pieces. Instead, I am counting trees."

Her crimson eyes swept across the woodland before narrowing suspiciously.

"That one looks exactly like the last tree."

"Mayhap this forest is mocking me."

With a deeply offended huff, she kicked a pebble from the path. It bounced off a root and vanished into the undergrowth. The gesture would have looked more appropriate coming from a sulking child than one of the Empire's most feared Spearheads.

The forest itself was admittedly beautiful.

Sunlight filtered through breaks in the canopy in thin golden shafts. A river wound lazily between moss-covered stones nearby, its waters clear enough to reveal smooth rocks beneath the surface. Birds occasionally called from distant branches. The air smelled of damp earth and growing things rather than blood and smoke.

Isolde disliked how pleasant it was. Places this peaceful had an irritating tendency to remind people what normal felt like.

"Apprentice."

She stopped abruptly in a small clearing beside the river. Without warning, she removed her pack and tossed it onto the grass.

"Camp."

The command was delivered with all the authority of an Imperial officer issuing battlefield orders. Then she pointed dramatically toward the abandoned pack.

"Here. I desire a fire. A proper one, mind thee. Not one of those pathetic little campfires that expires when somebody sneezes in its direction."

Satisfied that she had delegated the task, Isolde promptly wandered over to a fallen log and sat down. Armor creaked softly as she stretched her legs and leaned back.

For a few moments she simply stared upward through the canopy. Then she sighed. "Tch."

Her gauntlets came off next, revealing pale hands marked by old scars. She flexed her fingers before letting her head fall backward.

"And I am expected to mentor somebody now." The thought clearly offended her.

"Sister, I begin to understand how thou felt." Another pause followed. Longer this time. A faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "I was a nightmare, was I not?"

The smile disappeared immediately.

"Nay. Do not answer that."

She folded her arms. The silence lasted all of ten seconds.

"Apprentice."

"How fares the fire?"

"And the food."

"I am starving."

Her expression remained perfectly serious.

"The Empire's greatest Spearhead cannot be expected to survive on discipline alone."

Then, with all the dignity of a high-ranking military officer.

"Make haste, lest I be forced to eat thee instead."

She considered the statement for a moment.

"...That was a jest, by the by."

The graveyard was particularly quiet that night. It had always been quiet, even during the years when the Empire buried its dead faster than priests could recite their names. Quiet through mourning processions, through the ringing of funeral bells, through the sobs of widows and the prayers of soldiers who feared they would soon join those beneath the earth. Death came and went with remarkable frequency, yet the cemetery endured with the same patient stillness as though it had long ago grown accustomed to humanity's suffering.

Isolde did not enter.

Her boots carried her along the iron fence instead, tracing familiar paths she had no desire to follow to their conclusion. She knew where the grave was. She knew precisely how many rows separated it from the church, how the stone leaned slightly to one side from years of weathering, and how the inscription had begun to fade around the edges. She had memorized every detail without ever meaning to. Yet even now, years after Evangeline's death, she found herself avoiding it. Facing vampires had always been easier than facing silence.

The wind stirred softly through the cemetery and for the briefest moment she thought she saw black hair between the rows of headstones. Her head turned instinctively, faster than thought itself, only to find empty moonlit paths and motionless stone markers staring back at her. The disappointment arrived immediately afterward, familiar and irritating. It happened less often these days. She was uncertain whether that comforted her or frightened her.

"What am I doing here?" she muttered beneath her breath as she approached the church. The question had followed her for most of the evening and seemed no closer to an answer now than when it had first appeared. She was not a particularly religious woman. The Empire had attempted to remedy that throughout her upbringing, though its efforts had achieved only moderate success. Faith had always belonged more naturally to Evangeline. Isolde trusted steel. She trusted instinct. She trusted the woman who had raised her. If she possessed any religion at all, it had largely been borrowed from her sister's words.

Sheathe thy fangs. Follow the Empire's commands. But never surrender thyself to an idea. Never worship Kartenhaus. Men become monsters far more easily than vampires do.

The memory lingered unpleasantly as she pushed open the heavy wooden doors. The church greeted her with warmth, candlelight, and the scent of old wood polished by countless generations of hands. Moonlight spilled through towering stained-glass windows depicting saints and martyrs whose faces had been immortalized in colored glass. Crimson, sapphire, and gold painted the stone floor in fractured patterns. The saints appeared serene. Isolde had always disliked that. Nobody who had spent a meaningful amount of time in the real world looked that peaceful.

Choosing the foremost pew, she lowered herself onto it with a metallic clatter of armor. The sound echoed briefly through the nave before surrendering to silence once more. It felt strange sitting still. Most nights found her beneath the earth, knee-deep in blood, or traversing wilderness in pursuit of something that needed killing. The church offered no such distractions. There was only the flickering glow of candlelight, the distant whisper of wind beyond stained glass, and the uncomfortable presence of her own thoughts.

Her gaze drifted toward the altar. Then toward the empty space beside her. For a moment she imagined another figure occupying it. Black hair, white gloves, a patient expression carrying the weight of yet another lecture she was about to receive.

The image vanished almost immediately.

"Tch."

The sound escaped her before she could stop it.

Movement stirred at the edge of her vision. A gray-haired woman emerged from the side aisle, her footsteps quiet against the stone floor as she approached. There was something unusual about her. Isolde could not immediately identify it, which irritated her further. Most people advertised their intentions through posture alone. This woman seemed to carry herself with the ease of someone who had nothing to prove and nothing to fear.

"I was under the impression priests were men," Isolde remarked as the woman drew nearer. "The women become sisters, do they not?"

The woman smiled. It was a polite smile. Practiced. Convincing enough to deceive most people. Not convincing enough to deceive Isolde.

"Priests and sisters are merely titles, Spearhead. The Lord concerns Himself with actions far more than labels."

The response earned a skeptical hum. "A convenient answer. I suspect thou hast delivered it many times."

"Only when necessary." The woman inclined her head slightly. "Camila Heartwell."

"Aye, I know who thou art."

Camila seemed unsurprised by this. "Then perhaps thou also knowest that I am expected to ask how I may help thee. Art thou hungry?"

"Nay. I dispatched my apprentice to acquire sweets from a bakery."

The declaration was delivered with complete seriousness. Camila blinked.

"Sweets."

"Aye."

The silence that followed lasted long enough to become entertaining.

"That is why thou art here?"

"Nay. I was already here. The sweets are merely a fortunate consequence."

Camila's smile deepened slightly.

"The distinction seems important to thee."

"It is."

"How so?"

Isolde folded her arms. "Because if I am sitting in a church awaiting pastries, that suggests poor judgment. If I happen to be awaiting pastries while already occupying a church, that suggests efficiency."

The explanation sounded perfectly reasonable to her. Camila appeared unconvinced.

"Thou art smiling."

"I am not."

"Thou art."

"Tch."

The noise drew another faint smile from Camila. The exchange should have irritated Isolde. Instead, she found herself strangely unwilling to end it. Perhaps that was why Camila's next observation struck deeper than expected.

"Lost one," she murmured quietly, studying her for several moments. "Thou carriest a heavy burden."

The words should have been easy to dismiss.

For reasons Isolde could not fully explain, the denial refused to leave her throat. Her gaze drifted downward toward the sabre resting at her hip. Moonlight gleamed along its silvered hilt. Evangeline's sabre. Even after all these years, she still struggled to think of it as her own.

Camila followed her gaze.

"The Lord keeps memories sacred," she said softly. "Even painful ones. Was it taken from thee?"

The question settled between them. For a long while, Isolde remained silent. The candles continued burning. The saints continued watching. Somewhere beyond the church walls, the wind stirred through the graveyard.

"Aye."

The answer emerged quietly.

"My sister."

No further explanation seemed necessary. The grief attached to those two words was old enough to speak for itself.

A faint smile touched Isolde's lips shortly afterward, though it carried little joy. "She was better than me in nearly every regard. Smarter. More disciplined. More patient. Gods above, she was patient." The memory drew a brief huff of laughter from her. "When we were apprentices, I once struck an instructor because he called me unstable."

Camila raised an eyebrow.

"Nay, do not ask. He was entirely correct."

The smile lingered only briefly before fading. "And yet she defended me regardless. Evangeline possessed a remarkable talent for standing between me and consequences. Between me and punishment. Between me and every idiotic decision I insisted upon making."

Her gaze lowered to the sabre once more.

"I carry this because I keep thinking that if I fight as she fought, speak as she spoke, and stand where she would have stood, perhaps I shall stop feeling as though the wrong sister survived."

The confession escaped before she could reconsider it. Camila remained silent for several moments before asking the only question that mattered.

"And has it worked?"

A bitter laugh escaped Isolde.

"Nay. It hath not." Her fingers tightened around the hilt. "I still laugh too loudly. I still threaten people. I still enjoy the hunt more than any respectable person ought. Every time I draw this blade, I am reminded that I am not her."

The church seemed quieter afterward. Perhaps because there was nothing left to hide behind.

For years she had buried grief beneath expeditions, promotions, and endless slaughter. She had become a Spearhead. She had slain more vampires than she cared to count. Yet none of it had changed the simple truth sitting at the center of her chest.

"I thought killing enough vampires would make it easier," she admitted. "Instead, I merely became very good at killing vampires."

Her gaze remained fixed upon the altar.

"I can still remember her face. Her habits. The way she scolded me." Another faint smile appeared. "Frequently."

The smile trembled.

"But her voice..." She exhaled slowly. "I cannot remember it perfectly anymore. Each year it grows quieter. I fear one day I shall wake and discover I have forgotten it entirely."

For the first time that evening, Camila had no response. Perhaps there was none worth giving. The silence that followed felt almost peaceful, not healing, not comforting, merely honest.

And it remained that way until the heavy doors at the far end of the church creaked open and a fresh set of footsteps entered from the night beyond. The sound immediately pulled Isolde from her thoughts. She straightened in her seat, the vulnerability vanishing behind familiar bravado with such speed it might never have existed at all.

"Dost thou possess the sweets?" she called toward the entrance without turning around. "Pray tell me thou didst not lose a battle against a baker. I should hate to discover that my apprentice has been outmaneuvered by pastries."

Only after a moment did she glance sideways toward Camila.

"And should anyone inquire," she added with complete seriousness, "this conversation never occurred. I am a Spearhead. We are professionally incapable of discussing feelings."

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