"Sabra: Prologue" by Dennis ´Thain´ Boyd

Sabra

Prologue

"There are many kinds of vampires. Indeed, it is said that there are as many kinds of vampires as there are types of disease…which presumably means that some are virulent and deadly, and others just make you walk in a funny way and avoid fruit."

- Terry Pratchett

            The creak of the floorboard made Sabra wince as she inched her way toward the shadowed form.  He didn’t stir, but Sabra was sure that he could hear the loud pounding of her heart.  Now she was close enough to hear his frantic breathing, the ragged inhalation of someone being hunted.  She snaked her hand forward, closer and closer, so close that the hairs on the back of his neck were lifting in response to her static energy….

            “TAG! You’re it!” squealed the dark headed little girl as she ran off giggling.  Her brother, Kendrick, let loose a playful growl of fury as he stomped after her in imitation of the macabre chimera that they had heard about from a storyteller who had come to town just ahead of the rain.

Although Sabra and Kendrick’s usual evening entertainment was a loud, and often rough, game of ragball with the other children in the neighborhood, it had been raining since almost dusk which explained why they now romped through the wild and fantastical lands of Eragor, disrupting the quiet mood that descended over most houses during a storm.  The downpour outside was typical of Romania’s weather at this time of year, so Sabra and Kendrick were well practiced for this eventuality.

Stopping at the edge of the staircase that wound down from the drafty second story that was rarely used, Sabra flicked her attention over her shoulder with an expression of mock fear to gauge the chimera’s progress.  Sabra’s braids, carefully woven by her often fussy mother that morning had long since slipped their fetters and her black hair flowed down her shoulders in a river as she paused in her flight.  Somehow, even with the limitation of being indoors, dirt had found its way onto her nose and cheeks, and scrapes could be seen on the knobby knees that poked out from her skirt.  Beneath the dust and grime, Sabra possessed many of the promising features of her beautiful mother Ilvania, and if it were not for her constantly disheveled appearance she would have been one of the prettiest girls in Kolozsvar.  If anyone were pressed into picking Sabra’s best feature however they invariably chose her eyes, which came from her father.  Her eyes, the map to all of her moods and emotions if one had the legend, were a grey to match the rain, and they had an almost cleansing, calming effect on anyone she turned them on.

Seeing that she had a strong lead on her brother Sabra decided that it would be much more heroic to slide down the banister, after making sure that her mother wasn’t near the base of the stairs of course.  Having mastered many of the finer points of sliding down the banister she was able to make it down without incident, an impressive feat in a skirt.

            “I’m gonna stew you up in a pot and eat you little girl!” Kendrick growled after her.  Sabra made a mock scream of terror as she continued her flight through the house looking for a likely hiding spot.  She screeched to a halt in the kitchen and whipped her head back and forth.  The pantry presented itself to be as good a spot as any, so Sabra darted inside and stealthily pulled the door closed behind her.  Safely tucked away in a dark corner Sabra closed her eyes and listened to her breathing slowly normalize after the exertion of running for her life.  Her eyes popped back open at the sound of the latch jiggling and light speared into the room outlining the form of a tall broad shouldered man.

            “Hmm, the turnips are big this year, we’ll have to cut this one up before we put it in the stew,” commented Sabra’s father Lavislau.  Sabra rolled her eyes and stood up to address her father.

            “Close the door! I’m hiding from the ch’mera and if he sees the door open he’ll know I’m in here!” the little girl whispered at the top of her lungs.

            “Hmm, chimera huh?  Body of a lion, heads of a goat, lion, and dragon with wings?” asked Lavislau.

            Sabra’s eyes opened wide.  “You’ve seen it?”

            “He rampaged through the kitchen earlier, pillaged some cheese from your mother, then flew off grumbling something about stew; I barely escaped with all of my limbs intact,” Lavislau reported matter-of-factly.  “If you go now I think you’ll be able to make it upstairs to that closet where you and your brother move the floor boards so you can listen to my council meetings after I’ve told you to go to bed.”

            Momentary shock flashed across Sabra’s face, but she filed that information away for later and prepared to turn on her charm.  “Thank you daddy,” she said in the sweetest voice she could muster as she held her arms up for a hug.

            Lavislau bent down with a smile of amusement and let Sabra wrap her arms around his neck and give him a kiss on the cheek.  He just barely managed to sidestep out of the way as she rushed out of the pantry to dash back up the stairs and thunder very silently down the upstairs corridor.

            Wrapped up once again in the darkness of a closet, Sabra slid to the familiar corner and moved aside the loose floorboards so she could keep watch for the villainous chimera.  From here she had a full view of the front door and the parlor where her parents entertained guests and Lavislau held the town council meetings when it was his turn to host.  Kendrick was nowhere in sight, so Sabra leaned more towards the hole so she could see into any of the adjoining hallways, and possibly hear him.

She was just about to give up and go find him when there came a resonant booming on the front door; someone traveling during a Romanian storm could only mean an urgent message for her father.  Her mother glided into view from the direction of the kitchen, lifted the bar from the door and squinted against the sudden gust of wind.  The gloom and rain outside prevented Sabra from seeing anything of whoever had knocked except for the brief views afforded by flashes of lightning.  These revealed at least one, but probably more, figure dressed in a large cloak and a wide-brimmed hat to catch the rain.  They were exchanging words with Sabra’s mother  that were drowned out by rain, thunder, and distance.  Ilvania gestured them inside and walked out of Sabra’s view, assumedly to retrieve Lavislau.

When they came in Sabra saw that there were three of them, and when they threw back their dripping cloaks Sabra got a better view of them.  They were all moderately tall, with slender frames, wrapped in light leather armor.  All three were armed with long swords, and even though Sabra now had her face pressed to the floor she still couldn’t see their faces due to their wide-brimmed hats.  They stood in a rigid silence until Sabra’s parents walked back into view, the questioning look on her father’s face making it clear that he had not expected his guests.

A light touch to Sabra’s shoulder sent her skittering backwards and a small squeak escaped her throat before she recognized Kendrick and stifled it.

“TA-“ started Kendrick

“Shhh!” Sabra hissed at him.  “Someone’s here to see papa.”

The two children got into their practiced spying formation to see what events transpired below.  It seemed that only one of the strangers was doing the talking, the other two standing behind him and slightly to the side.  The man spoke with a soft voice, making it hard to catch most of his conversation, but she got the impression that it had something to do with politics.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t support your master in this.  Opening the produce trade to foreigners in Kolozsvar would ruin the farmer’s market in this area, and I have too many farmers in my district to back up Lord Alaric.”  Sabra’s father said in the stern voice he often assumed with the local politicians.

If it were possible, the two men in the back stood even straighter and more rigid after this pronouncement, while the one who had done all the talking raised his head, giving Sabra her first full view of his face.  His ebony hair, flowing like the river Styx, gave stark contrast to his pale skin.  There was a delicacy about his features, the sort of fragility usually associated with a woman, though there was no questioning the masculine power that radiated to Sabra even from this distance.

As he filled his lungs to speak, something seemed to catch his eye and he absently let his gaze rove across the room, stopping for a heartbeat on where Sabra and Kendrick crouched in darkness, and although she was sure she had imagined it, the corners of his mouth curved up slightly to compliment the blink that could have been mistaken for a wink. Sabra sat back in surprise, but then realizing that he couldn’t have seen her in the dark she pressed close to the hole in order to hear what he said to her father.

“I am sorry to hear that, Lavislau. However much we had hoped that you would see with the wisdom of Lord Alaric, our master versed us well in our orders should that not be the case.”

The subtle shifts in the stance of the two in the back who had remained motionless during the exchange was what alerted Lavislau to danger more than the leader’s words. As he saw the two thugs’ hands creeping toward their sword belts Sabra saw her father leap toward his own sword near the fireplace. Her father was normally a very gentle and methodical man, thinking through his options carefully before acting, so she had never seen him move so fast before.

Lavislau had grasped his sword an instant later, but the leader lunged forward first, though Sabra hadn’t seen his hand move. From Sabra’s viewpoint the world had frozen. The two strangers in the back had paused with their hands on sword hilts; her father seemed as still and menacing as a hunting tiger with only a few inches of his blade clearing the sheath

Gradually the expression on her father’s face changed, although Sabra saw that the stranger hadn’t even drawn his sword. Squinting her eyes, Sabra spied a movement. With a torpidity that seemed impossible Sabra’s gaze tracked a spindly thread of blood as it slithered down her father’s neck. Her eyes widened when she saw the two long teeth at the source of the flow, her nostrils flared at the realization of what had just happened, and she swallowed as her mouth watered with the taste of blood in her mind.

Gradually Sabra became aware of a keening sound that took on a visual form in her mind; sinuous and pulsating it threaded its way through the figures in the room below, weaving a tapestry in a pattern that she seemed just on the verge of comprehending, yet was also far too elaborate for any mortal mind.

“NOOOOOOOOOO!” the wail resolved itself to be. Sabra turned to see Kendrick standing with a wild look in his eyes before he wrenched up one of the loose floorboards and dashed out of the door.

Once Sabra realized what was happening time seemed to speed up, first to normal speed and then even faster, as if to make up for the time lost in slow motion. She knew she should do something; stop Kendrick, help him, go get help, anything. But all she could manage was to turn back to the hole in the floor and watch.

Whereas Kendrick’s scream had seemed to cast a spell on Sabra, it had released the two dark strangers from any hesitation and they were now advancing on Sabra’s mother. Ilvania was standing in bold defiance, the spark of strength that had attracted Sabra’s father to her having been fanned to a blaze by the sight of his death, although with the familiarity of family Sabra could see the slight tremble in her mother’s lip. The quick pounding of footsteps heralded Kendrick’s arrival, fiercely brandishing his weapon though it was little more than a stick against two experienced fighters with swords. Kendrick skidded to a halt at the sudden appearance of the dark shapes, but the sight of his father’s blood-drained corpse and the disembodied visage that floated over it strengthened his resolve.

“Leave my mother alone!” Kendrick shrieked, raising his makeshift weapon. The man closest to him broke away from his companion and made his way towards the boy with an arrogant confidence. Kendrick waited with raspy breaths for the dark-robed figure to get close enough; then squeezed his eyes shut and swung the board at his mother’s would-be murderer with all of his might.

Fire seemed to lance through Kendrick’s forearms as his makeshift club shattered on his enemy’s upraised arm. Kendrick was knocked to the ground, a sickening crack resounding as his head struck the floor. His adversary gave him a gloating look of disdain before he dismissed him with a flip of his hair for the more dangerous threat of Ilvania.

Seeing that Kendrick had been spared for the moment at least, Sabra returned her attention to her mother’s plight. Backed into a corner near the fireplace Ilvania had made a desperate grab for the fire poker. Lavislau had taught Sabra’s mother a few rudimentary sword maneuvers, but it was mostly the desperation of survival that had kept Ilvania alive so far, and her strength was waning

Although Sabra had had no martial training, it seemed to her that two seasoned warriors should have had no problem besting a woman armed with a fire poker. That’s when she noticed the slight curves to their otherwise grim lips: they were playing with her. Sabra’s fury rose to a fierce crescendo, mirrored by Kendrick in the room below as he stood up, still holding one end of the shattered floorboard.

“Finish her!” came the command from Lavislau’s murderer as he wiped the crimson stain from his chin. “We have other business this night to attend to.”

The slash and parry of swordplay in the corner took a turn for the worst, the two men attacking without the playful smiles of before. The animal-like ferocity of their attack sparked a final effort from Sabra’s mother, the wild thrashings of an animal that has already died. As frightened as Ilvania felt she held her chin high to support a smile, determined to be brave one last time for Lavislau.  It took the smile several minutes after one of the swords slipped under her arm and pierced her lung to dissolve.

Finally Sabra couldn’t bear to idly watch any longer. The clang of metal beckoned her down the stairs, her mother defending herself, home, and two children even as she lay dying. When Sabra reached the living room she felt warm tears flood her eyes when she saw her mother lying on the floor, her fingers still bearing a twitch of life, although the fire had drained from her vacant stare.

Shock was the only thing that kept Sabra from succumbing to a black river of grief, the eddies tugging at her legs but finding no purchase yet. Whereas shock kept her standing, training from her father kept her alert enough to notice a movement at the edge of her vision. She turned in time to see Kendrick, his face livid with rage and pain, running at the back of one of the two men who stood over Sabra’s mother. At a short distance away from the man Kendrick dove at the man’s back with the jagged end of the floorboard pointed forward.

Sabra gasped at the wood pierced flesh and blood splashed across her beloved brother’s soft face, her sharp intake of breath making her chest ache. Kendrick’s aim was true, the board taking the man in his heart, and they toppled in a heap together. Almost immediately Kendrick was back on top of the still form, wildly stabbing and hacking at the man’s chest, until any sharp points on the board had broken off and the torn flesh had mixed with the blood to form a gelatinous mess.

It wasn’t until this time that Sabra’s legs wobbled and fell, and her vision melted into tears; tears for her father, tears for her mother, but mostly tears for her brother whose grief and rage had possessed him. Later in life she would recall screaming her throat raw and crawling across the floor like an animal, but for now all she could think of was the terrible pain filling her and how to remove it.

Bewildered looks passed between the leader and the other man, the leader quickly recovering and shouting crisp orders in an exotic sounding tongue Sabra didn’t understand. The other man responded by lifting his fallen companion from where Kendrick still scraped at the corpse, his arms now nearly completely drained of their strength. With the still form in hand the man then draped it over his shoulder and seized Kendrick’s arm. Kendrick was still with surprise at first, his target having been the only thing worth noticing until now, but then he went into a wild frenzy of clawing, biting, kicking, and hitting to no avail.

When the two men began walking towards the door the realization hit Sabra that they meant to take her brother with them. She made her way across the floor by any means possible, crawling and clawing across the gore; whatever it took to stop this from happening.

Sabra reached them at the entryway just as the leader was holding the door open for the other man and his load. Kendrick turned his tear-streaked face back to Sabra and reached his hand out to his little sister. Sabra made a desperate grab for her brother’s hand, but before their fingers touched the leader of this invasion slapped her across the face; her last memory before she blacked out being the man’s signet ring of a great oak tree silhouetted against a sanguine moon.