Aware of a heavy darkness, agonizing pain, and a sense of burning, Ranloo didn't want to feel anything anymore. He was almost gone. Maybe it was for the best. Fall into the darkness, and oblivion. It sounded nice, he thought vaguely.
Something warm and strong on his tongue roughly pulled him back to wakefulness. The strong scent of iron reached his nose, and the hot taste of blood burned in his mouth. Living, healing, like a guiding light in the dark pulling him back from the brink of death.
Survival instincts guiding him, he opened his one eye and grabbed at the lifeline, sank his teeth into it. Sweet, warm life. A voice called out from somewhere far away. He needed blood, needed energy to heal. He didn't understand who he'd latched on to until Sern's voice called his name seconds before he hit the floor.
In sudden comprehension, he let go of his friend. Sern lay still and pallid on the dusty floor beside him, a dead mage a few feet away. Ranloo's nostrils flared, his eyes widened. What was Sern doing here? He wasn't supposed to be here. Panicking, Ranloo shook him by the shoulders. Why would the stupid boy never listen to what he said, he wondered, his eye stinging. Spotting the ribbons from Sern's cloak, Ranloo snatched one and tied it around Sern's arm. Then he shook him again, calling his name. His guts cramped from the movements, making Ranloo retch. He held still, panting. As the pain subsided a fraction, he became aware of faint fluttering heartbeats. He stared at the boy's pallid face. He still breathed. Ranloo groaned in relief.
´Stupid boy,` he hissed under his breath. Moving hurt. Everything hurt. At least he still lived, and so did Sern. Barely. He tried getting up on his feet but the moving made him want to throw up in agony. It hurt too much. Panting, he sank down on the floor again, looking about the room, noting the barred door. Sounds of battle reached him from the outside.
Who was fighting? The hunters? A huge man had come from the house, he remembered then. Listarl. He struggled up into a hunched position with one hand over the wound under his ribs. He gritted his teeth against the waves of pain, breath rattling. He had to help Listarl. He'd get killed if he didn't.
´Get up,` he ordered and steeled himself against the coming pain.
Roaring in defiance, he stood up. Fighting the waves of nausea, he focused on his anger. Nobody killed his friends unchallenged. He gasped for breath as he stumbled to the door. Where was his sword, he wondered briefly, then almost laughed at himself. As if he could fight in this condition. He could possibly fall on their feet. They'd be really impressed by that. He sneered at himself. Very impressed indeed. A memory flashed and his hand went to the small pouch on his belt, a small glass bottle still inside. It hadn't broken somehow. It was his last.
He pushed the chairs out of the way, then hung by the doorframe and heaved for breath for a while, trying to regain some strength. By pure willpower, he straightened, opened the door, and shuffled out into the rain. The hunters fought with Listarl and had him retreating one step at a time.
Ranloo's vision turned red as hot rage boiled. He pulled out the glass bottle. He couldn't throw it yet. Listarl had to get out of the way. How? Maybe. He yelled at them.
´Hey! Shitface! Come at me!` He grinned as the vampire hunters turned to stare at him in surprise.
Tealas visage darkened and he moved away from Listarl with a snarl.
Ranloo beckoned for him to come closer, baring his fangs at him. He tried to ignore the horrible agony in his guts and spat blood on the ground.
The hunter approached him slowly, his hand reaching for the sun-symbol.
Ranloo wouldn't let him use it. ´Don't you dare fight me?` he taunted and grinned as Tealas' hand stopped.
´Dare fight you?` the hunter snorted derisively as he came closer. ´You're barely alive.` He raised his sword, ready to charge.
Ranloo laughed, but it soon became a cough and he regretted it. The contractions sent hot rods of agony through his guts. With a whine, he lifted the bottle. He smiled through the pain as the hunter's eyes widened in realization of his error.
´Listarl! Run!` Ranloo yelled and threw the bottle at the hunter's feet.
The big man glanced his way in surprise, then immediately bolted to Odefin's confusion. Tealas attempted to dodge aside, but this was not an explosive like the others. As the glass broke against the ground, a cloud of greyish smoke burst into the air. Enveloped in the cloud, the hunter vanished from view.
Stupidly, Ranloo thought, the other hunter ran to aid his friend, barreling into the outer reaches of the cloud. Ranloo sank to his knees, hugging his chest. The deep wound still bled, seeping through the bandages. But the satisfaction of seeing the hunters coughing and bending over from inhaling the poisonous gas was enough to make the pain worth it. He grinned as Tealas shot a hateful look his way through the thinning cloud.
´We're not done with you yet!` the hunter threatened in a raucous voice and coughed as he stumbled out of the cloud with Odefin's help.
Ranloo spat on the ground. More blood. Not good. Still, he managed another smile. ´You're welcome to try, assholes!` he called hoarsely.
A door banged open, surprising Ranloo. A red-haired woman ran towards them from across the courtyard. Dressed in a purple robe with white and silver details, a glaring silver eye-medallion bounced around her neck. Blood ran down the side of her head. Who was she? Ranloo wondered in confusion. A mage from the Im temple. But where had she come from? Why? She ran to the hunters, stopped, and with a few swift hand motions accompanied by strange words they all disappeared. Ranloo stared. What had happened? Where had they gone?
He forced himself back up with a groan. He didn't dare believe they had left. He met the equally surprised look of Listarl from the other side of the courtyard. He walked back towards Ranloo, but took a detour around the poison cloud. He must have recognized Diquarl's potion.
Ranloo looked up towards the house then, searching the windows. They were all dark. One window gaped open but he saw nothing there. Where was Minira? Had something happened to her? Why had that mage been hurt? He had to find out.
* * * * *
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Ilsie ran across the courtyard, a spell already prepared before she got out of the house. She held the components in her hand, and as soon as she was close enough she started chanting. It wasn't easy while running, but she pulled it off. Her head pounded and her hair stuck to the blood on her cheek. She'd deal with that later. Everything had gone sideways and they had to run. She glanced around the courtyard, looking for Uvin. He was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he had already fled? If not, she'd go back for him later. The vampire sat on his knees some way off, a faraway look on his face, staring towards the house. She finished the spell as she reached the violently coughing hunters. Tealas was bent over, propped up by Odefin. Blood flecked his lips and his breath rattled in his lungs. He was dying from some poison. Time was of the essence. She pointed towards the street, in the direction of the Heldest temple. They had to get there fast. Odefin turned and started moving.
´Run!` she yelled. They were too slow. They'd die. She had to speed them up. Frowning, she chanted again. She had to dispel the barrier between the pillars. She was exhausted but had to keep going. Had to save them. Running as she shouted the words, she dispelled the barriers. They rushed into the street and turned left.
´Stop here,` she ordered and the hunters obeyed. Good, she had to stop for the next enchantment. Panting, she tried to catch her breath. Tealas was choking and hacking, barely able to breathe. She glanced at him worriedly.
´Can you help him?` Odefin wheezed, only slightly better off.
´No. I'm a mage, not a healer. I'll speed us up and then you have to run to the Heldest temple. Got it?` she snapped.
Odefin nodded, then convulsed with coughing.
She ignored them as she concentrated on the spell. Gesturing in the air, she spoke the magical words, then touched them in turn. ´Alright, let's run,` she said grimly and set off.
They followed her, Odefin almost carrying Tealas by now, and she wondered if he'd make it. They sped through the streets, quiet, unseen. The protective bubble around them ensuring that nobody heard or saw anything. She hoped they'd get there in time.
* * * * *
Listarl limped up to Ranloo, bleeding from the cuts and bruises after the fight with the hunters. He eyed the darkelf, his brows knotted into a deep frown. ´Can you stand?` he asked in a low rumble.
Ranloo looked like he should be dead. Bleeding all over, burnt, blinded, quarrels sticking out. It made Listarl nauseous just looking at him. Ranloo nodded, then painstakingly slow made his way back to his feet, his breathing a heavy wheezing with an unhealthy gurgle in his lungs.
Listarl grimaced at the sound. Looking around, he spotted Ranloo's sword some way off and went to pick it up. When he returned, the elf swayed on his feet, like a branch in the wind. He handed the sword over to Ranloo who took it in silence.
´Where's Sern?` Listarl asked, a nagging unease in the back of his mind. He glanced towards the dark doorway.
Ranloo nodded slightly. ´In there,` he rasped. ´I hurt him, but he's alive.`
Listarl gave him a sharp look but calmed down as soon as Ranloo asserted him the boy was alive. He grunted in acknowledgement. ´What now? We can't stay here.`
Ranloo stared at the house in silence for a few seconds before replying. ´My wife. I need to find her...` He stumbled towards the window, then thought better of it and turned to the doorway. They probably had to go through the house. All windows and doors were barred apart from this one. If he hadn't been hurt, he could have jumped up to the open window. But now, no.
Grimacing, he entered the room. Sern lay still on the dusty floor, but the boy's weak heartbeats comforted him. A few yards away lay a dead man in Im's colours. Ranloo shook his head. Sern had killed an Im follower, a magician. They'd be pissed now. Not good. But there was nothing he could do about that. Carefully stepping around the corpse, keeping his distance from the glaring silver necklace, Ranloo staggered through an open door and into an empty corridor.
Listarl followed Ranloo into the house and down the dark corridor. Concerned, he wondered where Felisei was. The other magician had come out of the house alone. Wounded. He didn't like it one bit.
´What happened here?` Ranloo wheezed as he spotted the broken door and bloodstains on the floor.
´We fought the mage here,` Listarl mumbled. ´Then we went to help you. Felisei –`
Ranloo snapped his head around, then moaned and clutched his stomach. ´Felisei is here?` he asked, worry etched on his face.
´She went to look for your wife. Haven't seen her in a while,` Listarl said quietly.
Ranloo stared at him, then turned and hurried down the corridor as fast as anyone with such a broken body possibly could. Listarl followed, worry gnawing at him each step of the way.
* * * * *
They went up a flight of wide stairs. Unconsciously, Ranloo followed a faint scent trail, leading towards the room where he'd seen his wife, and where Felisei had gone. But soon, another smell intruded on his senses. His nostrils flared, a faint gleam in his one eye began to glow. Blood. He clamped his teeth together as he realized the implications. He ran, or at least hobbled forward at a slightly increased pace, Listarl's heavy footsteps close behind him.
The smell led to a slightly opened door. He nudged it open and stopped at the signs of a struggle. An overturned table, a broken vase on the floor, blood and a busted chair. The open windows swung back and forth in the wind as a pool of water formed on the floor. Ranloo searched the dark room. Faint laboured breathing and heartbeats turned his attention to a huddled shape in a corner. Felisei, near invisible in her dark clothes. Ranloo heard her more than he saw her. He rushed to her side and Listarl slowly followed his lead.
´Felisei!` Ranloo called out, desperately trying to ignore the smell. ´What are you doing here? I told you not to come!`
She lifted her head with a groan and her white teeth glinted as she smiled in the dark.
He hunched down by her side and slipped, barely catching his balance by putting a hand down into something wet and sticky. He looked down, eyes widening in horror as he realized what he'd slipped in. Swallowing, he looked up to meet Felisei's brown eyes. She still smiled.
´What... ` he gulped. ´What happened?` His voice shook.
´I found her,` she answered weakly, raised a hand and caressed his face, leaving red smears on his cheek.
He took her hand and held it.
´Gods have mercy,` Listarl breathed behind him.
´Felisei, I...` Ranloo didn't know what to say. His vision blurred. ´How are you alive?` he asked, not daring to look down at her.
She let out a laugh, that turned into a wheeze. ´You're one t' talk,` she whispered.
Anger flared and subsided in seconds. ´I'm a vampire, it's not the same thing! You...` He couldn't finish.
´I found her. She was here... with another mage,` she mumbled. ´I'm sorry, I dn't know where she went.` She choked on the words.
´Never mind that!` Ranloo almost yelled. ´You're more important right now.` Anger, hate, sorrow, and anguish whirled like a storm inside him. They would pay for this, he vowed. The hunters, and the mage, they would pay.
´I came t' the room... an' I saw them. She, the mage... didn't see me... at first,` Felisei whispered with effort.
´Ssshh, don't talk,` Ranloo hushed. He glanced at Listarl, his face contorted with fear and worry. Listarl shook his head wordlessly, his lips pressed into a thin line. Ranloo looked back to his friend, lying in a pool of her own blood, her face deathly pale, but with a faint smile still on her lips. ´I'll carry you, take you to a healer,` Ranloo said desperately.
She put a finger against his lips. ´No. There's no need.`
´There is,` he protested, tears running freely down his face.
She shook her head. ´It's... too late. Let me tell you what happened.` She gasped for breath.
He shook his head in disbelief but didn't interrupt.