Blood Dragon - A Short Story
Chapter 1 – The Awakening
Silence, darkness and void. The feeling of existence is lost. Lurking in the dark is a pair of gleaming red eyes. The stare from the eyes is uneasy and fill you up with fear. The eyes are getting closer. You want to scream but you have no mouth.
Ash wakes up from the nightmare. He finds out he was sleeping in a coffin filled with soil and mud. Ash chokes because of the dirt in his throat but strangely he finds that it is not necessary as he does not need to breath any more. He looked at himself and find that his armor is rusted the blood that soaked his tabard was dried long ago. Then it comes a strange sense of loneliness and thirst. The sense of thirst is eternal and is driving him crazy.
Ash tries to focus with his new senses. He finds out that he was in a mausoleum and there is a man outside with a camp fire. His is horrified with his ability as he can even focus on a group maggots eating the fresh of corpse far away. Ash ceases his vision and starts walking outside the mausoleum.
Ash sees a nobleman beside the campfire. The nobleman is wearing a white silky robe. His face is pale but charismatic. With his pearl color hair, he looks like an angel under the moon light. “Sit down and rest here, my friend”, says the nobleman in a foreign tone, “ I know you have a lot of questions to ask”.
Ash sit down near the camp fire but he does not feel any warmth from it. He closed his eyes and tried to focus but is shocked when he sees the red gleaming eyes in his nightmare looking back at him. The dream is real. “This is the Succo, or the beast in your language”, says the nobleman, “ you will need to learn to control it but not controlled by it”.
“What am I now?”, Ash asked. “Your life as a human was ended long ago”, answered the nobleman, “You are now a vampire, nosferatu. The monster you hated and fought before”. The words strike Ash like lightning. He is stunned but the memory slowly coming back to him…
Chapter 2 – The Duel
It was year 1887. Walach, the Dark Star shocked the whole Empire as he took over the Bloodkeep singlehandedly. Adding insult to injury, Walach led his Blood Dragon knights storming the Empire states and provinces, challenging and slaying every generals or captains who tried to stop him. With the war busy in the North, the Empire had to use a scorched earth tactic. Dukes, counts and state troops left their people they sworn to protect. Many were slain mercilessly and raised by Walach as part of his undead army. Even though it is a cowardly tactics, it worked well for Walach as he redirected his army to the borderline of Bretonnia looking for more challenging opponents.
It is a cloudless night with a big full moon. Walach’s army is marching towards the Bretonnia border and he is surprised to see a lone knight guarding the bridge over river yyy. The knight was wearing shiny plate armor with a white tabard and a heraldry of a great sea serpent. The knight speaks out loudly, “I am Ash, Lord of yyy and son of…”. “Save your introduction, human”, Walach stops Ash while he gestures his undead army to a halt, “ What do you want?”. “ I am here to call you to a challenge with only one condition”, says Ash, “ save my family and my people if I win”. Ash know that the only chance he can save his people is to win Walach in a fight. Ash bowed and banged his shield three times with his lance. It is the formal way of issuing a challenge for the Empire knight order.
Walach was about to despise the challenge but he was impressed by Ash’s respect for him as a knight. It was a shame that all Empire challengers treated him as a monster instead of a knight before. And they all begged like girl when they yield. “Challenge accepted,” Walach bows back as he pulls out his sword and bangs his shield three times. His sword, the Decapitator, looks like a scimitar but it ends with a heavy weighted scythe shape at the end. “I am Walach of the Order of the Blood Dragon”, Walach formally introduces himself.
Ash give Walach a nob . He then lowered his lance and start charging. Walach is surprised. Ash’s charge is fast as lightning and his battle cry is loud as the thunder. Ash aims for Walach’s shield and is planned to unmount him. The tip of his lance hits Walach’s shield and he tightens all his muscle to get ready for the recoil. However, he is surprised to find out that Walach cut the lane in the middle split second before the tip hit the his shield. Ash runs passed Walach without doing any damage.
Ash pulls his war horse to a stop. Without the lance fighting on the horse back is meaningless. He un-mounted and takes off his helm as he knows that armor will not help much in this fight. Walach un-mounted too and he runs towards Ash while throwing his shield away. Ash tries to block the surprise attack from Walach by hold his shield high. Walach smiles and chops the shield into two easily with his vampiric strength. However, he immediately realized that something is wrong and Ash not behind the shield. He suddenly senses the rapidly movement in air and he can just barely dodged Ash’s sword from the flank. There is a line of blood on Walach face. The wound is not mortal but Walach regards it as a big disgrace. “ You are the first one that makes me bleed in a challenge”, Walach yelled, “ and you will pay for it”. Walach jumps to the air and helds up the Decapitator high and aims to smash Ash in one hit. Ash is motionless as he feel difficult to breath under the pressure from above. But his mind is clear and time is almost stopped. He hold up his sword slowly and try to parry Walach’s attack. Walach knows the duel will end very soon as he knows the parry is meaningless as he will cut Ash into two halves. However, just at the moment when the Decapitator touches Ash sword and tilts his sword so that the tip is pointing towards ground. This little trick at the exact right timing redirected all Walach momentum to the ground and Walach’s sword is stuck. Ash side stepped and started turning and swing his sword in a full circle. The swordplay is so elegant under the moonlight and he dances like the Lady of the Lake. Walach knows it is too late to dodge as he hit so hard and loses his position, he pulled his sword from the ground and try his last effort to hit Ash. However, it seems Ash has already planned to sacrifice his life to stop Walach so he ignored Walach’s counter attack. However, Ash’s sword suddenly stopped as a magic bolt hit him. Walach yelled, “Nooo!”. He tried to stop but it too late and the Decapitator cut Ash from his left shoulder and hit deeply into his heart.
Walach throws his sword and cut the necromancer who wants to save his master into half. He does not know his master value honor more than life. Walach holds Ash with his arms. Ash asked with his last breath, “ You will keep you promised, will you not?”. “ Our fight is not over yet!”, Walach answered. Ash feels weak and he can barely see Walach’s fang before his last nreath….
Chapter 3 – The Way of the Dragon
“Did Walach keep his promise?”, Ash asked the nobleman. “He did. But your it seems your Empire alliance did not”, answered the nobleman. “ I want to see my family”, Ash stands up and started to leave. “Wait”, says the noblemen, “ They are all gone, it happens a long time ago”. Ash feels a sudden chill and asked, “How long did I sleep?”. “More than a hundred years I am afraid”, the nobleman answered calmly.
Ash collapses on the floor. He tries to cry but all his tears become blood. The nobleman pats his should to calm him down. “ Usually the one how give you the Blood Kiss will be your inductor. But in Walach’s case I do not think it will work out”. The nobleman hands out a sword and an ancient tome to Ash. “Use the sword well. Try to control the Succo. Some vampire uses their royal blood or magic to control the Succo. The Von Carsteins and the Nerarchs. Some try to seduce them and make a deal with them – the Lahmias. Some just let them take and become the feral ones – the Strigos. We Blooddragons uses martial orders to control it. Learn the order. Learn to control the beast. They will try to devour you when you are weak.”, the noblemen continues, “The Book of Nercomancy is evil. But is necessary. It is poison and will corrupt the most noble knight. This is why I take follower so that I can be stopped one day I turned evil”.
“ Whether you like or not, you are now a Blood Dragon and is my pupil”, the noble stands to walk away”. “Who are you actually?”, asked Ash. “ I have many names, the Grand Master, the First Dragon. But you can call me Ahborash”, answered Ahborash as he walks away and slowly faded into the darkness.
