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Blood Before Justice
Nightfall in Cotz was nothing like the moonlit serenity of other provinces. Here, darkness swirled like a living thing—thick with ash, reeking of old blood. The once-gilded courtyards of noble estates were now shrouded in a silence so deep it screamed. But Jason wasn't here for silence.
He was here for vengeance.
Thirteen of the Queen's finest swordsmen flanked him as they stood at the edge of the ruined market square. Each man clad in reinforced leather armor, faces streaked with ash and sweat, hands resting on steel hilts as if cradling a part of their soul.
They were warriors—no, ghosts of the old empire—trained since boyhood to wield death with precision.
Jason raised a fist, his eyes scanning the shadows. The vampires were here. He could feel it—the way the wind shifted, the sudden cold, the faint metallic scent that hung in the air like burnt iron.
And then they came.
Six of them. Clad in black, bare-chested, red-eyed fiends of elegance and cruelty. Their fangs glinted under the moonlight. The tallest among them, with platinum-white hair and an obsidian blade, stepped forward, lips curling.
"Queen Khloe sends dogs now?" he mocked, his voice silky and guttural.
Jason didn't answer. His hand moved faster than thought. A whistle split the air.
The first arrow flew—not from a bow, but thrown like a dagger by the man beside him. It plunged into a vampire's throat, but the creature only growled and yanked it out.
Jason surged forward.
He met the platinum-haired vampire in a blur of motion. Steel clashed with darkness, and the impact sent a tremor across the stone plaza. The other warriors followed, blades singing as they collided with supernatural strength.
One human dropped—his neck snapped like a twig, eyes wide in disbelief. Another fell, torn open at the gut, his scream cutting short as blood pooled beneath him.
Jason ducked under a wide slash, came up spinning. His blade sang once—twice—and a vampire's head rolled clean off his shoulders.
"That's one!" someone shouted.
But there was no time to gloat.
The white-haired vampire slammed his blade down toward Jason, who twisted, letting it miss by mere inches before plunging his sword into the vampire's ribcage, wrenching it sideways. The creature shrieked, grabbed his arm—but Jason was already behind him.
A backhand slash, so fast it split air.
The vampire collapsed in two halves.
Another came at him—smaller, but vicious. She hissed, claws extended. Jason ducked under her lunge, stabbed upward, impaling her heart from beneath her ribs. She disintegrated into ash before she even screamed.
Three.
The rest of the swordsmen were holding their own—barely. Swords met claws, steel met bone. Sparks flew. Screams echoed. The humans fought like men possessed. They moved in formation, covering one another, fighting as one. Their training showed in every step.
Jason turned in time to see one of his men lifted by the throat, then flung into a wall. The vampire raced toward another soldier, fangs bared—but Jason leapt between them, blade spinning.
He sliced low, sweeping both legs out from under the vampire.
As it hit the ground, Jason pinned it with one foot and drove his blade through its chest. Blood sprayed. The vampire gurgled once and died.
Four.
The last two vampires hesitated. They had been expecting a massacre—not resistance. Not this.
As Jason wrenched his sword from the chest of the fourth vampire, blood smoking on steel, the two remaining vampires came skidding to a halt.
Their eyes darted around the blood-soaked plaza—the shattered stone, the dismembered limbs, the burning carcass of their kin—and then back to Jason, who was standing with perfect calm, barely a scratch on him.
"Uhh…" the taller one muttered, voice cracking. "We—we surrender?"
The smaller vampire dropped his blade with a clatter and threw up his hands. "I didn't even like Cotz! I told Marcus we should've stayed in the east! Too many humans here—angry ones!"
Jason didn't move. He just tilted his head slightly, like a cat deciding whether a mouse was worth the effort.
"Please!" the taller one stammered, backing away. "We'll leave—we'll write a letter of apology to Queen Khloe, in blood if she wants!"
The short one knelt, hands clasped like a mock prayer. "I've got three blood-babies and a cat. You wouldn't leave a cat fatherless, would you?"
Jason stepped forward, one slow, deliberate step.
"Run."
The taller vampire didn't wait. He bolted so fast he slipped on a pool of his comrade's blood and faceplanted into a broken barrel. He scrambled up with a shriek and vanished into the alley.
The smaller one lingered a second too long, whispering, "Thank you, O Glorious Slayer," before fleeing so fast his boots flew off mid-run.
Jason just stared after them for a beat, then muttered, "Idiots."
Behind him, one of his warriors—soaked in blood—chuckled, "Should've kept them. We could've had vampire jesters."
Jason didn't laugh, but the corner of his mouth twitched. "I only take heads. Not clowns."
Around him, ten of his men stood, covered in blood and grime but alive. They gathered around the two fallen with grim silence, saluting their comrades with bowed heads and solemn prayers.
Jason didn't wait.
He turned toward the grandest estate in Cotz—the home of Governor Malgorn, the man who had bartered with vampires while the people suffered.
The gate creaked open at his push. The interior was garishly lit, laughter echoing through the corridor. Music played—flutes and harps, as if the land wasn't drowning in terror outside.
He strode down the marbled hallway, tracking bloody footprints.
Two guards rushed out—before they could speak, Jason struck. One lost his hand, the other a knee. Neither lived long enough to scream.
He kicked open the doors to the great hall.
And there he was.
Governor Malgorn reclined on a silken couch, surrounded by silk-robed noblemen and half-naked whores. His mouth was stuffed with roasted meat, wine dripping down his chin.
The laughter died.
Malgorn rose slowly, confused, a turkey leg in hand. "Commander Jason?" he slurred. "You dare burst into my estate without protocol or—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
Jason's blade whistled through the air.
One clean arc.
Malgorn's head rolled from his shoulders, landing in a bowl of grapes. His body stood for a second longer, then collapsed in a heap.
The nobles screamed. The whores scattered.
Jason stepped over the corpse and turned to the nearest servant.
"Clear this house. Now."
The servant trembled but obeyed, rushing out.
Jason wiped the blade on Malgorn's tablecloth, then sheathed it with finality.
Cotz had been silenced, but not saved.
Still, justice had begun.
And he would carry the Queen's will to every corner of this cursed land until the last traitor fell.