The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

Extraction

By this point, while still weak, Anna had recovered enough from the emergency injections that she could grab hold of Lash's armor. Taking as good a grip as she could manage, she pulled herself close into the big vampire's powerful body. Still she had to fight to not gasp in pain with every step as each jolted her still healing body.

At least that pain wasn't exaggerated by being put down every time the big vampire paused to check on other downed vampires that they passed by, each cut to pieces by the effective strafing the attacking aircraft were using. Instead, he swung her to the side so he could visually examine the body. Once he was satisfied they were unrecoverable, he used the toe of his boot to turn their EMF generators off, letting them ash out under the afternoon sun before gathering himself and running on.

Four more times he was forced to stop and give his fellow nestari the final rites before moving on, one of them Vledni, the vampiress that had used her remaining rocket round to take out the sniper. And each time he would hiss in dismay when his triage found the downed vampires beyond saving.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they were running between destroyed machine gun nests and through the front gate.

"Here, Wolf, here!" Truk waved them towards an outcrop close to where they originally took cover before storming the gate. "I think we've got some cover from that aerial attack here!"

Nodding, Lash angled in that direction, following hard on the heels of the now three vampires carrying Magnar, one of them lost to the strafing attacks. It took a minute or two before they were finally under cover, however, with several of the survivors taking up the task of trying to spot the planes before they were fired on again.

For his part, Lash eased Anna to a comfortable sitting position beside Narcist, who immediately punched another jumpstart into her neck. Before he could draw away, however, intent on examining Magnar, she caught him by the sleeve.

"Thank you," the young van Tallert hoarsely said, her voice significantly stronger than it was during her rescue.

Lash favored her with a quick look, then nodded before turning away. Feeling both Narcist and Anna's eyes on his back, Lash resolutely stepped to where Truk and Ballan were carefully undoing the straps they had used to carry Magnar out of the castle and to safety. If there was fallout from him risking so much to save the vampiric noblewoman, he'd deal with it later. Hopefully when they were far from this kill box and with answers from Liam Magnar!

"You'd think the ride would've woken him from his stupor," Ballan commented as Lash knelt beside his high commander and former mentor.

"Maybe a jumpstart will pull him out of it," Truk added as Lash reached out with a frown.

What was that on Magnar's neck? A collar??

"Did he have this on when you found him?" Lash asked, tugging on the collar. It was as he tried to move it that he discovered it was adhered to the skin of his neck. And some sort of blinking red light was active just above where the collar passed over Magnar's carotid.

"Aye," Truk replied, his expression curious. "We weren't sure what it was so we left it in place. Could be what they were using to keep him docile."

"Like a drug injector?" Ballan asked, earning a nod from Truk.

"Or an explosive rigged to go off if he tried to escape," Lash grimly suggested. "A vampire without a head can't regenerate."

It was as he leaned forward to get a better look at the relatively simple metal ring painted in matte black that he noticed a symbol etched into the metal beside the indicator light. A stylized flame, like the one on the shoulder patches belonging to the human soldiers.