The sound of bells reached our ears as we left the chapterhouse's interior, the early afternoon being announced with the single sounding of each bell throughout the city. Waiting with the bored expressions shared by all soldiers throughout the Empire on such duties the half dozen Men-at-Arms stood idly, but straightening perceptibly as the commander identified us. Walking side by side, Viconia and I left the shadow of the chapterhouse, being escorted through the bustling streets with a file of Men-at-Arms flanking us and clearing as path with the clatter of boots and shouted orders to make way.

  It wasn't difficult to remember how the castle had looked in the depths of the evening only a few nights previously. During the day the castle appeared regal and awe inspiring, draped in massive unfurled banners depicting the rearing white stallion of County Leyawiin and whitened pennants and banners flapping in the breeze from the very tops of the towers. Guards marched about the walls in twos and threes, and I wondered idly whether that was because of my recent detection or whether that was their routine during the day.

  Stepping across the lowered draw bridge and into the darkness of the gatehouse I fell a chill go up my spine despite the increasing heat of wearing my full armour in the Leyawiin sun. Returning to the castle, even during the daylight hours was enough for the claws of shame and self-loathing to sink deep into my consciousness until Viconia was giving me concerned glances.

  The courtyard was just as large as what I remembered but during the day the sun brought it out in all its glory. This far south where the touch of snow had never been felt, flowers bloomed in the several gardens and trees were lush and full of life. The cobblestones underfoot had been worn smooth from hundreds of years of feet tramping across them, and I wondered just how many had walked through the towering gatehouse since its construction.

  Upon entering the enormous expanse, we laid eyes on the groups of Men-at-Arms marching back and forth in the courtyard, obeying the snap of orders and war horns as their commanders drilled them relentlessly. In a combination of ceremonial and battle drills they marched back and forth, turning sharply and moving with a grace and professionalism that any Legion Centurion would have been proud of. The courtyard was immense, appearing somehow larger in the daylight and yet cramped with the sheer number of guards and citizens moving about it.

  To the left of the gatehouse in the northern section the squared walls of the city prison sat, squatting into the stones like a lumpy toad. Doubling as a podium for the Count to make public speeches and announcements and for executions and trials of criminals it contained not only platforms for speaking but an arrangement of stocks and the ominous arm of a gallows jutting from the stonework of the walls.

  A crowd had gathered around the platform, the dozens of individuals from throughout the city and from all walks of life huddling around in a mass of humanity. The undefinable cries and shouts of the crowd rolled and merged together into the background noise but the emotions fuelling the shouts were unmistakable. The raw, bitter taste of fear slithered across my tongue as potent as any elixir, making the vampire within me twitch with its own dark lust. Impossible to ignore, the undercurrent of bloodlust, hatred and anger that permeated the courtyard wormed its way into my mind.

  "What's happening over there?" I asked one of the nearby guards, slowing my pace and straining to see the source of the commotion.

  "Oh, that?" the guard turned and looked in the direction of the crowd with a shrug. "A few nights ago one of the castle guard was caught consorting with a Vampire."

  "I heard that she had only been fed on..." Viconia said icily as she stared daggers into my skull, her immediate assumption making me feel even more nervous.

  Muttering under his breath, one of the other guards shrugged. "From what the guard who caught them in the act said, she wasn't exactly resisting the fiend's attentions."

  "So what are they doing over there then?" I asked carefully, feeling my nervousness at the situation mixing with the anxiety of Viconia's darkening mood.

  "They have her locked up in the stocks. If she's infected and turns the sun will take care of her."

  "And good riddance to the whore." Another spat to a chorus of agreements.

  "And if she isn't infected?"

  "Then she'll stay in the stocks until the Count makes up his mind on what to do."

  One of the surcoated guards cursed and motioned to the castle entrance a hundred metres away. "The Count should just grow a pair and kill her anyway. Just to be safe. Better that than leaving the vampire's slut besmirching the County's honour."

  Unseen by the Men-at-Arms I felt my jaw twitch and the skin pull tight with my growing emotions. My shame had been building, as had my guilt but now anger was starting to pump its way through my veins. With a visible effort that Viconia noted I crushed the vampire deep inside with my will and before I realised what I was doing I had turned and started walking towards the crowd.

  "Sir?" the Men-at-Arms glanced amongst themselves, suddenly unsure of what to do and finally noticing the darkness of my expression. Without hesitation Viconia followed me and our armoured boots rang out against the cobblestones as we left our escorts milling in confusion. Their orders had been to merely to escort the two of us to the castle and after several moments the commander gestured at us and they broke into jogs to catch up.

  Wordlessly Viconia and I strode across the courtyard, once again escorted by the Men-at-Arms who were now all sporting expressions of nervousness and confusion at our actions. The crowds fear and loathing was like dirt across my skin, and despite my nature it was emotions that I shared with them. Their superstitious fear of the unknown left them to vent their rage and fear in the only way they knew how. Repeated cries for blood and murder ebbed and flowed through the packed masses, the very nature of humanity lending the mob psychological strength as their numbers grew to more than a hundred. Some were merely curious, intent on glimpsing with their own eyes a victim of a Vampire's attentions. Others were drawn out of righteous anger at what a vampire's victim represented but most of the crowd were there to vent their fear on the only physical evidence of their unease.

  The crowd parted as I strode through it. Most made way to my armoured form and those that didn't felt the not too gentle shove of my gloved fists in the spines and shoulders and I simply pushed through. Some turned to complain but the appearance of a hooded and cloaked stranger, fully armoured plated and wielding numerous implements of war stopped them in mid breath. Those who were riding the waves of anger and fear or who had consumed alcohol initially tried to stop me or protest, but Viconia's and my shared expressions and hands dropping to the hilts of our blades convinced them of the folly of their actions.

  Raised over hip height, the platform was designed for where criminals would receive their various punishments in full view of the public. Everything from whippings to beheadings and hangings would be enacted here, and my vampiric senses could still smell the tang of months-old blood on the stretching rank and chopping block. The towering arm of where murderers would be hung loomed above me, blotting out the view of the sky with its promise of justice and lacking any rope at this time. Ignoring the protests of my escorts and the guards standing at the base of the platform, I shouldered my way through, pushing aside shields and glaring at anyone in my way as I clambered up onto the ancient wood.

  Half a dozen stocks were laid out in a row, leaving barely a metre between them and consisting of nothing more than the holed planks of wood for securing the heads and hands of the prisoners. Only one was currently in use and I felt the building rage and guilt at the sight. Stripped of her armour and wearing nothing more than rags usually granted to prisoners residing within the dungeons the pale form of the female guard I had bitten had been cruelly locked into place. She had been refused any form of treatment and I could see where my bite had been left to chafe and fester in the heat. Blood had congealed to her flesh as far down to her breasts and had even stained the wood locking her head into place. In a decision bordering on overkill, both wrists were also manacled into the wooden stock as well as the platform itself. No stool or chair had been provided for her, instead she had been forced to kneel painfully in a cruel hunched position usually reserved for rapists or child molesters.

  For a moment I stood there, fists clenching tight in my gloves and feeling my fingernails digging into my palms of my hands through the minotaur leather. The anger that was building in me was of such intensity that the last time I had given into such an emotion I had left the Lake Arrius Caverns strewn with gore.

  Stomping over to me from his position lounging in the shade, the brutish form of one of the prison wardens superimposed himself between me and the woman. A grin was slathered over his overweight face and for a moment all I could think of was that the only way one such as himself could become so slovenly was if he was helping himself to the prisoner's meagre rations.

  "I'm sorry sir, but you are not permitted up here." he said arrogantly, looking over my armour and equipment and trying to determine whether I was a noble or some other high-ranking official from my unusual appearance.

  "Let me pass." I said softly, my voice no more than a threatening hiss that was tightening in rage at the woman's treatment.

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  "For your safety, I cannot let you go near her." With a smug grin he pushed back on my shoulder roughly, deciding that I was some nobody that he had rank over. "She's blood-cursed. Tainted by a vampire. She could turn any minute."

  Men like this I had known in the legion, such as the commander that had been behind my decision to desert. Carefully... Slowly I lowered my gaze to where his grubby paw gripped my shoulder and saw how the grease of his last meal had smeared into the pauldron and cloak.

  "Do you want to keep that hand?" the moment's hesitation crept into his eyes as I reached out and burrowed my will into his quivering mind. With a bit too much force I stabbed into his fear, filling his soul with a supernatural dread that made him snatch the hand away as though my armour had been engulfed by a flame cloak spell.

  Ignoring the stammers from the corpulent warden I walked over to the shackled form of the guard and kneeled in front of her, seeing the bruising and swelling of her features under the pink layers of blisters from days of being staked in the sun. My skull was twisting and writhing under the skin, but to all who watched me in fear my features could have been carved from stone.

  The lightest of touches against her jaw caused her to moan with pain and delirium. By the way her lips were cracked and the heart fluttered in her chest she had even been denied food and water ever since my feeding, and I mentally tore myself in my guilt.

  For a moment her eyes fluttered open and she stared weakly into my own and I remembered the night where I had claimed her for my thirst. The depths of her eyes pulled at me and I froze with the terror of discovery as I knelt before her almost in penance. Expecting some form of recognition, I could do nothing but look into her eyes as she shuddered and began sobbing instead, begging to be released.

  By now the crowd had been pushing forward at the sight of my actions, the tiny line of guards and Men-at-Arms shoving back with their shields in the attempts to keep their numbers at bay. I was soon becoming the subject of the crowd's hatred and anger, the various objects and missiles that they had brought with them to hurl at the stocked woman instead finding a target in my hunched and cloaked form. As the impacts of the poorly thrown objects rattled around me, Viconia finally managed to join me on top of the platform and as I felt something hard and rocky bounce off my armoured shoulder I could hear her spitting curses in Drowish. In a single graceful move she twisted, scooped up the rock from where it had landed and threw it into the face of the original owner with a surprised cry of pain barking out from the press.

  Wood crunched as I dug Sunchild into the hinge and levered it open. Not bothering to seek or even ask for the key of the manacles or the stock itself I simply snapped the iron links to release her from the wooden embrace. Losing the one thing that was keeping her upright she slithered from the stock, her body giving out with the pain and exhaustion of kneeling for the better part of three days. Carefully I caught her in my arms before she hit the rough wood, wrapping my arms around her abused body and barely feeling her weight as I stood. There were few raised surfaces on the platform other than the terrible form of a stretching rack long since fallen to disuse and ill repair and I couldn't bring myself to put her on such an implement of pain and torture. Instead I moved a short distance away from the stocks before laying her flat on the wooden platform itself, stretching her out gently as I looked over her tortured body.

  Viconia stepped between me and the increasingly angry crowd as the boos and shouts of anger increased. At the threat of mob violence grew and the guard began implementing more brutal methods to shove the crowd back the number of thrown objects also increased. A chunk of some unidentifiable fruit exploded on a ward Viconia threw up at the last second, and the suddenly fury of the Drow seemed to stab fear into the hearts of all who bore witness to it.

  "The next person who throws something will get more than a potato in return." She roared, the ward flickering away into nothingness as she held up a hand wreathed in lightning and containing sinister intent. The crowd suddenly went silent, only broken but the muted whispering and the barely audible curses as they realised that she was deadly serious.

  "Whatever you are doing abbil, you best do it quickly..." She muttered, looking about the crowd at the growing waves of anger that were building.

  The warden rushed over to us, his sense of duty and the threat of being torn apart by a mob overcoming his unnatural fear of me and the witch-eyed drow standing in front of them. Trembling, the ripples of terror coursed through his considerable mass as he went to stop me or pull me away from the semi-conscious woman laying on her side on the wood. After a moment's hesitation his hand fell to his side as though he was going to draw the knobbed mace in the metal loop at his hip but the tip of Viconia's blade suddenly pressed into the softness of his throat.

  "Not the smartest idea there Jaluk." She hissed at him, and his eyes wandered between us and the other guards for help as I simply ignored him.

  A fearful hush fell over the crowd as I tilted her head gently in my hands, the flowing blue light pouring from the palms of my hands caressing her blistered and sunburnt flesh clear for all to see. The intent in my actions were clear and the sudden instinctual understanding began pricking itself into the minds of the crowd.

  "Vampires are beasts that mostly hunt in packs." I called out loud enough for everyone to hear. "But there come times when a single individual, either starving or sickly is forced to hunt prey outside its usual territory. I believe that this particular case is just that; a single one of these predators out of desperation was forced into the city limits to feed."

  My waterskin found its way into my hand and I pulled the cork stopper from the neck with my teeth. Very gently I washed away the dried blood on her neck and chest, pouring a tiny measure of the liquid at a time between her lips. A glove was pulled off as I held her, running my bare, calloused fingers up the visible vein where I had sunk my fangs. The neck wound was horrible to look at under the circumstances, the greenish-white fluids of infection mixing with the brackish water from the waterskin. I knew that I had not spread my curse to the woman but if left untreated a normal infection could end her life even more effectively than if I had simply drained her dry.

  What rose the beast to just under the surface of my subconscious and flesh was the treatment she had received at the hands of the other Men-at-Arms and guards. She had been beaten, whipped with drill canes and I suspected she had been abused during the nights in the stock. At that point I could have slaughtered all in my path but it was only the softest of touches of Viconia's hand on my shoulder that curbed the beast's urgings.

  "She's not infected, and will not become one of their kind." I called out to the crowd, and the sudden surge of unease floated through them and silenced most.

  "Just how can you be certain?!" cried out one of the nameless faces, fear filling every syllable. "Just what makes you the expert on the beasts?"

  Ignoring the way that my eye twitched in building rage I stood, turning away from the prone form of the woman and pulling down my cloak, hood, coif and gorget to reveal the pink, puckered bite marks in my own throat. The scars may have faded in the months since my transformation, but the appearance of them in my flesh had the desired effect on the crowd.

  "Many months ago, I was bitten by one the creatures. Since then I have hunted these foul creatures and culled all that I can find. I have entered their lairs, burnt them in their holes and slain dozens of the foul crypt-worms." I paused for a moment, looking over the sea of expectant eyes before giving them the best smile I could despite my churning emotions. "As you can see despite being bitten I am still here, and the sun is indeed shining."

  The nervous ripple of laughter at my comment rolled from them, and my short speech seemed to put their minds at ease. The whispered murmurs of our names swirled through the crowd as the recognition spread, and so too did the awe and realisation at our actions. The reputation of the Heroes of Kvatch, and our titles of Champions of Anvil were now well known. Slowly spreading just as surely was the more recent tale of my actions in Glenvar county; and the way that two dozen blackened skulls of vampires now adorned the gatehouse of Castle Glenvar. The word that I had also retrieved the Light of Dawn was also reaching the ears of every town, village and city in hushed whispers of awe, spreading through the land like spilled oil on a canvass. While the story of Maegalla and the enchanted blade were one of the hundreds of forgotten tales in Tamriel, it was finding renewed life from the tongues of bards, poets and travelling minstrels.

  Such were our reputations, and the threat of Viconia's unsheathed blade that a majority of the crowd slowly began to disperse, trusting in our actions that the threat of vampirism was removed from their city. Most of the citizens slowly turned and began making their way back to the city and their lives, and other than a handful of the more fanatical or fearful most were already leaving to the relief of the outnumbered Men-at-Arms.

  "You can let him go now Viconia." I said as I turned around, and I could almost feel the sigh of relief from the Prison Warden as Viconia moved the point of her sword away from his throat.

  Fumbling with one of the few pouches left on my belt, I drew out a small measure of dried Mandrake root and popped it into my mouth. The bitter taste swirled over my tongue as I chewed, crushing it into a slurry before scooping up it out with the tips of my fingers. Looming over my shoulder and reeking of terror, the corpulent warden hovered like an ogre, watching as I smeared and pressed the pulp into the fang punctures in the woman's throat.

  "She needs food, water, and healing." The hiss snaked out of my mouth and I could taste the man's fear of me on my tongue over the bitter herb. There was no fear that my saliva would spread the taint, not with the disease killing properties of the root pressing into them.

  "She is to be cared for, and not treated any further in this disgraceful manner." I loomed over the man, glaring down on him as his jowls trembled in his increasing terror. "You will be responsible for ensuring that she is taken to the healers, and if I hear or believe that she has been treated in any manner that displeases me I will rip your putrid guts out and choke you to death with them."

  The pressed finger stabbing him in the flab of his chest was almost enough for him to lose control of his bodily functions as I wormed my will through the depths of his mind. I knew that he would do what I had commanded, the control that I had over him would give him no other choice and quickly he turned, gesturing and ordering a pair of the other prison guards to carry her to the apothecaries and chapel healers. The patron divine of Leyawiin may have been Zenithar with the enormous cathedral built in his name; but like all cities and large towns there would be a smaller chapel to Mara within the walls.

  Stammering an overeager reply and bowing as deeply as his protruding stomach let him he scurried away from me and the fire that burned within my eyes. As a statue I watched the warden and his two selected guards carefully pick up her unconscious body and lay her on a stretcher, and only when they had carried her off the platform in the direction of the main gate did I too jump down and allow our escorts to take up positions again.

  Viconia briefly ran her gloved fingers down my arm in an extremely awkward gesture of affection, something that she was not used to doing in the slightest. "I hope you will explain all of that later." She whispered as our escorts began marching alongside us in the direction of the castle. The six of them were sharing glances of concern between themselves at my actions and the way that Viconia and I had managed to disperse a crowd with a combination of words and the threat of overwhelming violence.

  My breath caught in my throat and I trembled with barely restrained emotions. "Repentance." I replied, not able to meet the scrutiny of her eyes.