The Blood God

Chapter 5

 Jezebel awoke early, sweeping her hair from her face. Her few days of allotted mourning had passed and today she was expected to attend training. She couldn’t say that those days had been enough to ease the deep ache in her heart. It wasn’t, but she didn’t have a choice.

Images of her town burning, of Josith being snatched away from her, had played out in her head over and over again until the scenes were burned in her mind. She’d stayed in bed for the majority of the time, dead to the world, telling her friends to leave her be and sobbing uncontrollably when they were gone. Thankfully, they let her mourn until she was ready to get up again. As she put on her clothes, she told herself that she was training for those that had died, to one day avenge their deaths.

Jezebel met her friends near the exit of their quarters and made their way down the multitude of vaulted hallways, with their narrow windows casting bands of soft morning light down their lengths, and spiral staircases with alcoves that held unlit lanterns, toward the exit to the courtyard. Her heart was not into this day, and there was no anticipation for what she was about to do. Instead, she felt distant and dulled, like parts of her had shut down and she was just going through the motions, willing herself to move onward while other parts of her, like her heart and mind, stayed behind

“They say that if anyone can train us to kill vampires, he can,” Sulvi said.

Gramson pushed open the door to the courtyard. “I heard he has been fighting them since he was eight years old.”

Alik squinted when the sun hit him. “I heard he killed one of them with his bare hands, ripped his head clean off.”

Jezebel stepped out into the sunlight. “That’s ridiculous.”

A few dozen people stood in a crowd, chatting in the large, rectangular, cobblestoned courtyard. The small dirt path they walked led to the cobblestones and another path led away from it on the far end, between a tall row of neatly manicured hedges that encompassed the courtyard on three sides. The building they’d come from served as the fourth wall. 

A short young woman came up beside them. Her features were dark like Alik’s and she wore her short brown hair tucked behind her ears. “If you are referring to the General, it’s all true.” The woman spoke confidently. “Well, most of it. He wasn’t fighting them when he was eight, but he did kill his first vampire at thirteen. And he has fought several of them at once and won.”

 Until now, they’d heard nothing but horror stories about the vampires. Always, it seemed that humans were on the losing side.

“He is a tough one, though,” the woman continued. “I’ll warn you now. He’ll cut you no slack when you are out there with him. Be prepared.” She winked at them before walking ahead to join the other soldiers.

Jezebel and her friends fell into place in the first of seven neatly organized rows, mimicking the rigid and alert postures of those around them. The group waited silently as a man emerged from a bush-lined path off to the left. Tall and solidly built, he wore a casual, cream colored linen shirt, with brown leather pants tucked into knee-high brown boots.

He approached a pile of weapons and grabbed a sword before positioning himself in front of them. The weapon was dull and well used and the blade’s surface glinted in the sun, revealing its flaws: depressions and chinks in the metal, a crookedness down its length.

Several scars marred the surface of his face and arms. Some looked like slashes, others like bites. A nasty puncture-scar marked his throat. The center was a bumpy, concave mess of flesh. Jezebel tried to imagine a vampire biting him there. The man laid his weapon on the ground and tied his brown, gray-streaked hair into a ponytail before picking it up again. He studied the group with such a stern expression that Jezebel cringed.