***
Tawny wasn’t sure how long she had before the sun set- there was no hint of gold in the light yet, but night came early during Festival. She forced herself to her knees, then to her feet. She swayed, slightly. It’s the bloodloss, she thought, then pushed the thought away. She took one shakey step forward, into the light. She took another step and left it- and the creature- behind as she made her way deeper into the darkness.
They weren’t far, and for that Tawny was grateful. She wasn’t sure how far she could have walked, given the circumstances. As it was she leaned heavily against the cavern wall and counted the death-still figures. Eleven. I have to kill eleven more of them. She fought back a sob. But how? I can’t drag them all into the sunlight. I don’t have the strength. Even as she thought it, her knees buckled, and she slid to the floor, wings scraping against the rock.
Wings…
Tawny almost cried out as the realization hit her. She had wooden wings! And what’s more, she had her whittling tools! She pawed at the ribbon harness that held the wings securely to her torso, trying to keep her fingers steady as she unraveled knot after knot in the white satin. At last the wings were free, and fell to the ground.
One wing had already been broken down to a stub, so Tawny angled angled the other one carefully, then put her full weight on it, causing it to break into two pieces held together by the silver inlay. She pulled them apart, threw the silver to one side, and immediately began to sharpen the largest piece of wood. She was sweating, trembling with fear and effort and weakness, but this wasn’t fine carving- this was just had to be good enough- and soon it was.
If she hadn’t just conversed with the monster wearing her sister’s face, Tawny might not have been able to do it. It’s not a natural thing, after all, to drive a stake through the chests of the little boys and girls that only yesterday you were feeding treats, especially when their eyes were closed, hiding the tell-tale spark of red. It’s not a natural thing at all, and so Tawny wept as she did it, but she did do it, hating herself the entire time.
My fault, my fault, she thought, each time she pounded the wood through flesh. The first stake broke into unusably small pieces on the eighth body, and she had to stop and sharpen a second, all the while praying she would finish before the sun set.
By the time the last creature was staked, Tawny felt numb in body and soul.
But he is still in here, somewhere, she thought. And what was the point of killing these children- no, not children, these spawn- if she didn’t also kill the one who’d made them, who would surely make more? Tawny turned back towards the room that had held her, that had held the light. How will I find him, she wondered as she stumbled towards it, when all the light is gone? And how will I kill him, when I do?
The light was pure gold now, and had climbed high up the wall, well above Tawny’s head. There would be no dragging the vampire into it now, even if she could find it. Tawny’s eyes skirted around the pale lump that had been her sister, and ended up falling on the lost piece of her broken wings. She moved to pick it up, turned it over in her hands to stare at the silver inlay she’d labored over. It seemed so foolish, now, the time she’d spent on those damn wings. On the costume. If only she’d spent the time learning to fight, to be fast and quiet and deadly. She might have saved her sister, saved the others, instead of freezing in terror. Instead of slaughtering them. Angry, she threw the wing at the wall, where it struck with such force that one end of the silver wire popped up out of its groove.
She shook her head to clear it. Think, Tawny, think. You have wood. You have tools. What can you do? She scrubbed at her eyes and went to collect the wing, but when she picked it up the wire bit painfully at her flesh.
The wire.
Tawny stared at it. Would it be long enough to wrap around the vampire’s neck? She felt excitement begin to bubble up, strangely sickening, as she pulled the wire free of the wood. It might not be quite long enough on its own, but if she could tie it to the other piece… she hurried, hobbling, back to where she’d killed the spawn and rescued the discarded silver from the floor. I’ll need a way to hold it without cutting myself…
It took longer than she’d expected, perhaps even too long, but Tawny tied the silver together into one long wire, and wrapped the ends around two of her longest chisels.
It could work. It has to work.
She had her weapon, but how was she to find the vampire? Especially with no light?
The answer came to her on a draft, a sticky-sweet tang of copper teasing briefly at her senses.
Blood.
Tawny took a step down the passageway, then another. The light behind her grew distant, grew useless, but the smell of blood grew stronger.
Please let it stay asleep, please let it stay asleep, Tawny prayed to the Queen of Angels who had supposedly founded Devas, to all the Angels of Heaven, to any and all light gods that would listen; please, please let it stay asleep.
Tawny tracked the thing by scent deeper into the darkness, until she could have closed her eyes for all the difference it made, shuffling tentatively across the floor, knuckles grazing the wall of the corridor. She was shocked at how much her nose told her, at how much she could feel the solidity of the stone around her, the emptiness of the air. She came to splits in the tunnel, and knew which way to go. She was so frightened she felt her insides were made of water, but still she followed the scent. Better to die lost in the dark than die having tried nothing at all.
It seemed as though hours had passed when Tawny felt the cavern open up around her to a space larger than the one she’d awoken in, although perhaps it had been only minutes. She stood frozen, loathe to step away from the now-familiar walls into that terrifying nothingness. The smell of blood was so strong now that surely the vampire must be here, perhaps even watching her in amusement. Shivering, Tawny sank down and began to crawl on hands and knees, ignoring the gumminess she felt coating the floor. Small shapes she wouldn’t let herself think about littered her path, and she felt her eyes burn with the tears her body was too drained to produce. And then she ran head-first into something that wasn’t stone, but was still quite hard.
Tawny sat back, heart pounding in her ears, waiting for a reaction, but when none came she stretched out trembling fingers to explore the object. The grain of it told her it was wooden, but polished- a straight plank longer than she was tall, joined up with others in... a box of some sort? Her groping revealed that whatever it was, was sitting on a roughly-hewn table. Tawny stood and found that the box it came up only to her waist. Expecting any moment to feel the vampire’s cold grip, she reached into the box and touched… dirt?
Tawny sank her fingers in deeper, until the dirt covered her first two knuckles and suddenly she was touching cloth. She snatched her hand back with a gasp.
There was no reaction from what she now realized must be the creature’s coffin, so, heart roaring in her ears, Tawny put her hands in the dirt again and felt her way along the cloth she’d discovered. It was covering a wrist, so she followed it up by touch to the elbow, to the shoulder, to the neck…
Tawny had expected it to take more force to cut the vampire’s head from its body, but the silver wire sliced through its flesh as though it were made of cheese, and the spine barely gave greater resistance. The vampire never did stir. When she’d finished, Tawny sank back down to the filth on the floor, and stared blindly into the black.
***
Tawny woke dizzy and with excruciating pain in her… everything. Her face was pillowed against her arm, which was stuck to the floor by substances better un-thought-of. She sat up, feeling as though something had woken her. Eyes open or shut made no difference, so she closed them, and listened. She didn’t hear anything… but then, suddenly, she smelled something decidedly different from the blood that surrounded her. Something cleaner.
Fire.
“Help,” she whispered, struggling to stand, panic rising in her throat. “Help! Help!” Her scream sounded pathetically small in this place, not like a scream at all, but suddenly she heard others screaming, and shouting, and then she saw a light reflecting down a distant tunnel, and she stumbled towards it.
***
The townsfolk of Devas hailed Tawny Highsun as a hero. The search party found her limping towards them down a twisting passage, smeared with unspeakable gore and still clutching the silver wire she’d used to decapitate the vampire. When asked what had happened, she led them mutely to its body, but when they asked her about the other children all she could do was cry and shake her head. The torn flesh of her wrists was evidence that the smaller children had never stood a chance against the monster, and the parents of Devas mourned- but they also celebrated the young woman who ensured they would lose no more children to the night. They said that surely the Angels had put Their hands on Tawny, made her Their instrument of protection, and before the week was out ballads were already being composed.
It took nearly a month for Tawny to get her strength back, and all winter to get her smile back. And even when she did, there was a reserve that hadn’t been there before; she spent more time alone than she ever had, and more time in the company of the town’s childless hunters. Her parents weren’t entirely surprised when Tawny announced that she had decided to leave Devas before the new blossoms fell from the almond trees.
“I don’t know how long I’ll be gone,” she said, avoiding their eyes as she’d done since That Night. “I just know… I can’t stay here, knowing there are more of those things in the world. I have to hunt them down, make sure that no more children are… are hurt.”
The people of Devas sent her off with great fanfare, thoroughly supplied for her journeys with weapons, food, and well-wishes. The newly finished Ballad of the Silver Angel was sung, and tears were shed by many. Some of the children continued to wave until Tawny was out of sight- but she never once turned around.
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