The Campaign
“Where is your…other?”
Amelia could not help the furrow of her brow, though in truth she was not altogether confused. “I do not understand.”
“You of our brethren— and sisters, I suppose—” began General Heidi, gesturing towards her unnecessarily, “of the north. There is an oath you must take in regards to the hunters’ creed.”
“He isn’t here,” she said. “Lieutenant Cecil noted that your letter requested for me alone, and thought specifically to honor that request.”
“Hm.” General Heidi scrubbed a hand over his beard, staring down at his own summons as though expecting to find an error. Dropping his fingers to the rough parchment, he tapped a few times and then spoke. “I guess it is of little consequence, as our fellow hunters of the Nadi guild have gracefully elected to come to our aid. Your reputation precedes you. I have been told of your exceptional aptitude and do anticipate your contributions.” The matter was dropped.
Heidi settled across from Amelia, on the other side of a broad conference table that was likely the place of great strategic meetings. At the moment the table was empty except for the roll of paper that she could hardly see from the far end where she sat; hours past as Amelia waited in the room she had been told to expect the the general. When he finally arrived she stood in honor, thinking that he would have taken the seat at her side. That he’d chosen to sit opposite her and some meters away, she thought was either a cultural gesture she did not know or a simple ridiculous formality.
He seemed a bit peculiar himself. Despite what the Lord Hatfield had told her, Heidi did not appear to have known of her arrival until that morning, and was surprised to hear that for a week already she had been a guest of his fort.
After a few moments went by in silent reverie, Amelia cleared her throat. “In regards to that,” she began, speaking loud enough to cover their distance, “I have yet been told to what extent my abilities are needed, or how.”
“An oversight, yes,” said the General. She watched as he fiddled once more with the summons. “There have been a series of attacks in the villages across the south. It has been like this for a very long time, I’m embarrassed to say our efforts so far have not made a significant impact. I’ve gotten reports of men disappearing from the woods, women at the river who are never seen again. I’ve even heard a case of someone in Nroia being taken directly from his own home.”
“Is it the work of a demon?”
“We believe so. The people under our jurisdiction are not so bold as to commit crimes of this severity,” he said. “Also, there has been enough evidence that these victims were not abducted, but…consumed.”
The curtains upon the windows were solemn and dark. “You do not seem lacking hunters,” Amelia said. “While I mean to help, I’m not sure my presence alone would be enough for this situation.”
“While it’s true that there’ve been hardly any attacks near Kiers’ Gourd which I could attribute to our watch, nor have we been negligible in the outer villages. The hunters that I send are the most skilled that I have, some have been tracking the creature for months. Yet in all that time, none of them have even seen it. They are left to report only the aftermath because whatever it’s devices, we are not equipped to defeat them. I fear that despite my praise, the issue is not numbers, but experience. A particular experience.”
The general leaned forward.
“I hear that you, Ms. Van Reichter, have yourself survived a rare and peculiar encounter.”
The words were not said with any particular malice but Amelia could feel the air in her lungs tighten, and a cold sweat peppered her brow. She tried to hide it, but the general was watching her closely, as though already privy to the knowledge that was very much secret.
She thought to speak, perhaps politely ask him to clarify his statement. But she was not given the opportunity.
“Cecil and I have exchanged many letters, the contents of which were shared with no other,” said General Heidi, taking note of her discomfort. Suddenly the distance between them did not seem haphazard. “That you were sent here alone, may be the spite of an old friend, but it is also a sign of trust. And so I will elect to do the same.”
Amelia sat stiffly in her chair, quietly angry, all too certain of what General Heidi spoke of. She didn’t address it, rather considered that she would need to tread carefully. “What do you require of me, sir?” she asked.
The general tapped the paper summons a final time, and glanced toward the veiled window. “Just observe,” said General Heidi. He turned back to her with a keen expression. “Go to the villages, look. And tell me what you see.”
Waltz of the Damned, the nearly chronological adventures of one Amelia van Reichter, vampyre hunter.
The-Bleu-Bivouac 