Creature Of The Night

Before the vampires had even reached the slayers two of them found themselves staked as, with two large and colourful explosions, Mr Gray and his companion fired their stone weaponry with a spark of flint. Only a moment later another four fell as the hefty crossbows unleashed the stakes with which they were loaded and found target.
The man in the silver plated armour swung his great claymore straight through one of the vampires’ necks while another knight’s head was ripped off by the vampire who had evaded his victim’s lunge. The vampire threw the bodiless head to the ground and twisted around the headless corpse. He reached straight through dragonskin armour and flesh to the organs of one of the crossbowmen but as he ripped the man’s insides out the vampire was ended by a stake in the hands of Mr Gray. A highlander drove a stake through one of the living-dead creatures but was pulled from his kill by a vampire clutching his neck who then threw him, headfirst, into the companion of Mr Gray so hard it cracked both their skulls.
One of the vampires reached for the neck of the man in silver armour from behind but suddenly found the stake on the claymore’s handle embedded in his stomach. Pulling the stake from the corpse the silver-plated knight then saved another knight from his death with a quick slash through the vampires neck yet his next blow, a lunge through a vampire’s heart, was unfortunately not fast enough to save the crossbowman whose throat was ripped out by the vampire’s bite. A moment later the very knight the man in silver had just saved was killed by a snap of his neck by another vampire who was slain by the Gaelic-speaking highlander from behind. That highlander then attempted to drive his stake through another but the intended target grabbed the man’s hands and forced the stake into the highlander’s own stomach.
A vampire, wielding the sword of one of the fallen knights, struck at a knight and lodged the blade in his throat, relieving the weapon he swung it around and lunged hard enough for it to pass straight through one hunter and into another. A sharp point of wood emerged from the vampire’s chest, the stake was held by one of the remaining highlanders whose other hand held a stake through the chest of another. The remaining steel-clad knight found a hand rip into each of his shoulder blades and a moment later was ripped in two by two of the vampires. One of them found his throat slashed by an ulu, coated in a fine powder, wielded by Mr Gray while the other was cut in half from one hip to the opposite shoulder as the silver-plated knight brought up his sword.
The slayers stood there, all eyes on the one vampire that had not attacked.
Mr Gray, the remaining two highlanders and the man in silver plated armour were all that was left of the slayers and this vampire was the last of the coven. Had any less trained, less organised team of slayers attempted this attack it would have been unlikely any one of them would have survived. Or that any of the vampires would have died.
This group was different and the vampire was impressed.
“Ave.” Latin. This vampire was old. Centuries old. Millennia. He was probably older than the rest of the coven by only a few years but he was definitely older. The slayers knew little of vampire covens but they knew enough to slay vampires and they knew enough to realise the coven’s leader was always the last to attack.
Mr Gray and the two highlanders started to advance on the vampire but the man in silver armour held up one hand, just as he had to stop the group outside the cave. He uttered only four words; “This one is mine.”
A dark smile spread across the white, bloodless face of the old vampire. He was purer than the other vampires of the coven and he was confident this is the only reason the slayer’s weapons had worked on them. This made the kill very easy for the slayer.
The man in silver armour pulled back his claymore and thrust it toward the vampire’s heart. The vampire, expecting no affect, did not attempt to block or evade the sword. As it pierced through his skin like butter and impaled the heart the vampire gasped for the first time in his immortal life. The slayer released one hand and grabbed the vampire’s shoulder, pulling himself close to his kill to drive the sword through to the hilt. “Today,” he said “You die.”
This was the slayer’s mistake. Pulling himself this close, the vampire could reach the gap between his helmet and his breastplate. “And you also.” He lunged forward for the exposed spot, his fangs only barely broke his skin but it was enough. He drew a small amount of blood from the slayer and then spat a purple venom into the wound as the slayer pulled away in fear. The Covenhead was already turning to dust as the slayer retrieved his sword.
He sheathed his sword and put a hand up to his neck. He felt a very light burning sensation but that was all. “Why would he do such a thing as to bite you and spit into the wound, Sir Gates?” The other three had all seen it of course.
“I do not know, Mr Gray,” he thought about the small pain that was now weakening in strength as it spread slowly through his body “but I suspect his saliva contains some form of poison.”