Conner had been in the cold and filthy cell for more than a week.

  When master slayer Pentarch left with his sister and the others, the mood in the fortress noticeably changed. Conner stayed near Diana and Lothair as he was told, but both Diana and her leman Phillip fell ill soon thereafter. A fever was passing through the dormitories.

  Lothair appeared unconcerned, and Conner began to mistrust the quartermaster. He took it upon himself to look after the sick, there was little else he could do. No one trusted each other any longer, and no man knew where he stood with any other.

  When the final betrayal came, it arrived suddenly during the night. A band of men gained entrance to the fortress with no alarum raised. Conner was asleep in the common room when he woke to the sounds of fighting. Then the enemy was upon them.

  They killed many men Conner had known his whole life in moments. Worse, he saw the faces of some men he knew in the ranks of those committing the slaughter.

  Conner himself and several others were tied up and forced into the dungeons. Diana and Phillip were still alive when last he saw them, though he had no way of knowing if that was still the case. The cells were warded so that sound could leave, but would not enter.

  He was left alone, and desperately cold. With no window, Conner could not even tell if it was day or night.

  For a time, he wondered why the invaders kept him alive at all. Then they started to bleed him. They cut him with a knife and collected his blood in clay vessels. He never saw the vampyres it fed.

  His jailors gave him food on occasion. Moldy bread and foul water.

  Conner did not know where Lothair or Iosephus were, although he no longer trusted either of them. He was certain that one or both of them were consorting with the Black Palatine.

  The vampyre lord was the only one who could have been responsible for this.

  Alone in the dark, it was sometimes impossible to know if he was awake or dreaming. How long had he been like this?

  The truth of his reality was no different than a nightmare.

  Only the dirty bread and water his keepers left for him, and the painful bouts of dysentery they caused, confirmed to him that he was still alive.

  Conner wondered where his sister Vero was. He hoped that she was safe, far away from this horrible place.

  Thinking of her affected him in ways no other woman did- not even Isolde, who he previously believed the most beautiful woman he would ever lay eyes on.

  He no longer kept any hopes that he would survive. His only solace came from his lonely prayers that Vero would escape. Conner thought about the night in the infirmary when she held him, to keep him warm as he shivered in the dark.

  When Conner opened his eyes, he saw light and could not believe it.

  The door to his cell was left ajar.

  He leapt towards it at once, before hesitating. It could only be a trap. Some sick game.

  He opened the door only slightly to peek his head out.

  Conner still could not believe what was happening. One of the men meant to be watching his block of cells was asleep in a chair, and no one else was present.

  Then, the priest Alexius was beside him.

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  Conner started, before Alexius bade him to stay silent with a gesture. There was no telling where the priest came from, he was only there, as though he had never been elsewhere. It must have been Alexius that opened the door, but how had the priest arrived there alone to free him?

  Alexius pointed to the sleeping guard, and Conner was not certain why.

  Not the guard. There was a knife on table. The priest wanted him to use it.

  The guard could wake at any moment. The remains of a card game were on the table beside the knife; the other player was bound to return some time.

  Damn priest. Why couldn’t he just deal with the guard himself? How had he come here? Was Alexius even the one who released him?

  Conner crept closer to the sleeping man. He had never killed anyone before.

  He knew that if he ever became a slayer, he would eventually have need to do so, but the possibility always existed somewhere on the edges of his cognition. Its features were eternally hazy and indistinct.

  Now everything was crystal clear and in sharp focus as he drew the knife from the table. Its contours chilled him, and he turned from the man back towards the priest, holding out the knife to him.

  Alexius shook his head, there was no hesitation in him. Somehow Conner simply knew that Alexius could do nothing. It was left to Conner alone.

  The facts of anatomy came to Conner’s mind easily. Now driven by terrible purpose. The knife fell.

  No scream, only a light gurgling. Conner made sure of that with his first thrust. The knife fell again and again, driven with a rough precision that was more than equal for the task.

  It was not one of the traitors. No one he knew. Only one of the thralls sent by the vampyres. A small mercy.

  The light was out of the thrall’s eyes at last, and it was dead. Conner turned away from the body the moment it was over, as he no longer had any connection to it, and back towards the priest. “What next, Father?”

  “Follow me. You must free the others.”

  Conner obeyed wordlessly. There was never any question of Alexius freeing them himself.

  The other slayers were all in the same condition Conner was in, but all responded at once when the chance at escape was presented, training overruling the protestations of the body. They were only a small number, but growing. Men with grim expressions, acting with silent purpose.

  None of the domestics still lived, the vampyres had drunk them dry first.

  Conner found Diana and Phillip, then Pentarch and Isolde – although he knew not how they came to be imprisoned – and lastly, a templar knight.

  “Where is Veronique?” the templar demanded to know, the moment he saw Pentarch.

  Sister is here? thought Conner, although he said nothing.

  “She’s not in any of the cells,” Pentarch replied.

  “The Fiend-worshipers have her! She must be rescued at once!”

  “I know that!” Conner had never heard Pentarch so desperate. “But we have no notion where she is now. She was taken to the laboratory, but that was more than a day ago. First, we need to reach one of the armories, then we need to find where she’s being held.”

  “How did we come to be free in the first place?” asked Isolde.

  Phillip pointed to Conner.

  “The boy?!” Isolde sounded incredulous. “How did he get loose?”

  “My door was left open,” said Conner. “I believe it was the priest who opened it.”

  “The priest?” asked Diana.

  Conner realized that Alexius was no longer with them, although it did not surprise him. “The white priest, Father Alexius.”

  “Damn his eyes,” Pentarch grumbled. “At least he seems to be on our side for the moment. But that man moves through strange ways. I don’t trust him.”

  “A wise precaution,” said Isolde. “But I believe your point about finding an armory was well made. Who knows how long we have until we’re discovered here.”

  They broke the furniture down into stout clubs for the ablest men to wield. The templar took up the dead guard’s sword.

  When they heard footsteps approaching, everyone pulled out of sight from the main door. The returning guard entered the room unaware, and the church knight was on him in a flash. He cut down the man before he could even draw his blade. Diana took the weapon he left behind, and they pressed on into the tunnels.

  They encountered no patrols and reached the storage caves undetected. Four more men on guard duty there.

  No one in their party had the wit nor the inclination for clever tactics in their present state. They charged the four in a mass, and brought them down through sheer force of numbers. The guards had their skulls caved in, and more swords were distributed.

  Isolde was examining the door leading into reagent storage. “It’s warded.”

  “As is the one leading to the weapons and armor,” Pentarch told them. “Diana and I can release them, but once we do so, Iosephus and the Curia will sense it at once. The moment the doors are open we must move as fast as possible. Grab everything you need, and then we all move directly after the Curia. We must seize them, find out where Vero is, and then secure her rescue. Whatever they’re planning, she’s the key to it. At all costs, they must not keep her. All of our lives – including hers – are secondary to that.”

  Conner did not like the sound of anything he heard. No one else looked like they felt differently, but they were all committed already. No one said anything. There was nothing to be said.

  “Take a breath now,” Pentarch concluded. “Once we start, this won’t end until it’s finished.”

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