Sequel: The White Doe ›
Status: 1 of 7 volumes. Complete.
A Good Run
Five
The first assault comes only hours into the run, as Thessily parallels Phidippides's route, staying hidden from the herald's sight, as the terrain turns mercifully flat for a brief while. She leaps across a small creek, starlight reflected on its flowing surface, trying to stay ahead of the herald and she sees three of them up ahead, using the egde of an olive grove for cover. The vampires aren't even bothering to hide their true faces and without a pause Thessily frees her labrys from where it is strapped to her back and she flies into them. She has done this easily a thousand times before, possibly even more than that.
Thoas has never found a record of a Slayer who has lived as long as Thessily, who has survived and fought for so many years without falling for the final time. She has been the Slayer for seventeen years now, she has grown up and is now growing old and though her body is not as fast or as strong as it once was, she is still the Slayer and there are no mortals alive who can challenge her.
She takes the vampires by surprise and has felled one of them with the labrys before they've begun to react. On her follow-through swing, Thessily ducks and spins, bringing the ax up and ideally through another of the vampires, but she is surprised to find that she has missed. It is a female, dressed in rags and patches of armor and the vampire hisses and flips away and Thessily has enough time to think that perhaps these Persian vampires are a little more dangerous than the ones she is used to when she feels the arrow punch into her side.
It feels like she's been hit with a stone and it rattles her insides and pushes her breath out in a rush and she turns to see the archer, the third vampire, perched in the low branches twenty feet away. Without thinking she drops the labrys and takes the stake tucked on her belt, snapping it side-armed and the point finds the heart and the vampire's scream turns to dust as fast as his body.
Then the other one, the female, falls on her from behind and Thessily tries to roll with it, to flip her opponent. She feels a tearing of her skin and muscke and the awful pain of something sharp scraping along bone and she stiffles a scream. The vampire has grabbed the arrow sticking in her side, twisting it and laughing. Through sudden tears, Thessily strikes the vampire in the throat with knuckles of a fist of fury, forcing the once-a-woman back and it buys her time.
Thessily is out of stakes. Her labrys is out of reach. With one hand, she holds the arrow against her body. With the other, she snaps the shaft in two, turning the wood in her hand even as the vampire leaps at her throat again. Thessily drops onto her back, bringing the splinter up and letting the vampire's own motion drive the stake home. There is an explosion of dust and all-too-familiar odor of an old grave and then the night is quiet again.
Thoas has never found a record of a Slayer who has lived as long as Thessily, who has survived and fought for so many years without falling for the final time. She has been the Slayer for seventeen years now, she has grown up and is now growing old and though her body is not as fast or as strong as it once was, she is still the Slayer and there are no mortals alive who can challenge her.
She takes the vampires by surprise and has felled one of them with the labrys before they've begun to react. On her follow-through swing, Thessily ducks and spins, bringing the ax up and ideally through another of the vampires, but she is surprised to find that she has missed. It is a female, dressed in rags and patches of armor and the vampire hisses and flips away and Thessily has enough time to think that perhaps these Persian vampires are a little more dangerous than the ones she is used to when she feels the arrow punch into her side.
It feels like she's been hit with a stone and it rattles her insides and pushes her breath out in a rush and she turns to see the archer, the third vampire, perched in the low branches twenty feet away. Without thinking she drops the labrys and takes the stake tucked on her belt, snapping it side-armed and the point finds the heart and the vampire's scream turns to dust as fast as his body.
Then the other one, the female, falls on her from behind and Thessily tries to roll with it, to flip her opponent. She feels a tearing of her skin and muscke and the awful pain of something sharp scraping along bone and she stiffles a scream. The vampire has grabbed the arrow sticking in her side, twisting it and laughing. Through sudden tears, Thessily strikes the vampire in the throat with knuckles of a fist of fury, forcing the once-a-woman back and it buys her time.
Thessily is out of stakes. Her labrys is out of reach. With one hand, she holds the arrow against her body. With the other, she snaps the shaft in two, turning the wood in her hand even as the vampire leaps at her throat again. Thessily drops onto her back, bringing the splinter up and letting the vampire's own motion drive the stake home. There is an explosion of dust and all-too-familiar odor of an old grave and then the night is quiet again.