Editor's note: this story contains scenes of incest or incest content.
*****
TITUS
The sinking sun cast the sky in crimson, illuminating the thick fog of the marshlands in ethereal red, the helms of the Highland army barely glinting through the haze. I watched it through the silk fabric of my mask, the rest of my body submerged in a murky pool. Topographically, this part of the Highlands was not part of the 'high lands,' for it was flat marsh without so much as a tree stump to raise the elevation. The border was drawn after the collapse of Alkandra to ensure that no army from the Tundra could surge into the Highland kingdom without first wading through thirty miles of treacherous bogs and swamp. It worked both ways though, for while one could almost see Glacier Lake from this distance, the elven army was still ten days away. Ten miserable days of wet clothes, unsure footing, squelching boots and rot. Not to mention the parasites. The marshlands were home to the worst flesh-eaters on Tenvalia; mosquitoes, leaches, flies, spiders, snakes, and oh yes, now vampires as well. The sun crested the western hills behind us, casting a long shadow over the army.
"Father?" Ivanka asked beside me.
"Yes Dear?" I responded.
"Is it time?" Tiffany asked from my other side, glancing at what I was doing, "Who's your new friend?"
I stroked the carapace of the foot-long centipede, admiring the size of her mandibles, the clear poison dripping from the scarlet points. Her bite was said to be the most painful in the world, and one of the deadliest. Necrosis would occur within an hour of injection, and if the affected skin was not extracted in time, it would be carried into an artery, and the worst death imaginable would ensue. She crawled up my arm, her hundred little legs stabbing pleasantly into my skin, her antennae seeking, her mandibles clicking.
"I think I'll name her 'Gloria' after my dear mother," I smiled, guiding the creature along my shoulders and down my other arm, "they do share so very much in common." I opened my hand, and the insect crawled down my wrist, and into the moss. The sky turned from crimson, to purple, and the fires began to ignite in the vast campsite. "Now, it is time."
Hundreds of my children moved silently behind me. We took off our clothes and waded through the bog. We ducked beneath the muck and swam through the viscous waters. The task would've tired most beings, but our stamina was limitless, and our hunger great. It had been three days since we'd last eaten. We emerged from the other side, peeking over the bank at our quarry. A patrol of heavy infantry guarded the bank, about thirty strong. I ran my eyes along the perimeter until I found what I was looking for. Firewood couldn't be foraged so far north, and so what they had, needed to be stored, and far above ground in this wet terrain.
Ivanka, Tiffany
I called telepathically,
Do you see that scaffolding?
Yes, father.
They responded in unison.
Burn it down.
Ivanka and Tiffany swam a hundred lengths down the bank, then emerged silently from the water. They slipped from tent to tent, always staying in the shadows the firelight created. The massive wood pile stood in the center of the tents atop a platform, the workers quickly assembling it before dusk faded to night. Tiffany raced around the tents and ripped an unsuspecting worker out of sight. Ivanka silently scaled the twenty feet of scaffolding, keeping to the shadows and avoiding the vision of the other three workers. She got to the top, then rolled a beam off the platform. It crashed onto the head of another worker, spearing him into the muck. The other two held their hands over their head and rushed for cover, afraid that the whole complex would collapse. Tiffany took a burning log from a nearby fire and tossed it to her sister, who tossed it onto the wood pile before jumping from the platform. She landed gracefully on her toes, and both sisters rushed back into the bog without making a sound.
The platform was engulfed in minutes. Every able body ran to the site, forming a frantic bucket brigade and rushing to fill their vessels in the bog. The heavy infantry troop sat and watched, unable to assist in their clunky armor. We swam beneath the murky water until we were right beneath them. I mentally signaled out twenty-nine of my children, and got us into position. There we waited beneath the depths for the right moment when every soldier was watching the bonfire. It came, and we struck. Thirty vampires leapt from the water like breaching amphibians; wet, sleek and silent. Only three elves managed to scream out, but the chaos of the fire yielded no witnesses. We quickly dragged the bodies over a nearby bank, and stripped them naked. We drank the bodies to husks and dumped the shriveled prunes in the water, where pale hands moved like lightening to grab the leftovers and crack the bones for marrow. Those that rested beneath the murk would play a later role, but now was not the time to reveal our hand.
Coming up on your right. Please don't eat me.
Zander spoke into my mind. The wizard appeared as an elven scout, his staff disguised as a spear. With a twirl of his fingers and a thrust of his staff, the thirty of us transformed. One spell was a perception incantation to disguise our features, the other was more invasive. My body shrank two and a half feet to a squat five-six, my muscles and bones compressing into themselves.
"Goddamn!" I hissed, testing my fist and feeling every joint pop and crack. My children exclaimed in a similar manner, some of them brought to their knees with the pain.
"You'll get used to it." Zander whispered, sounding out of breath, "You'll need to hurry, Titus; I can only hold that many spells for twenty minutes or so." He produced a wooden box, and opened it to reveal scores of orderly vials. "These are the scents of your targets."
I plucked out three vials, and examined the contents. "You made sure the samples aren't contaminated?"
"I can assure you, they're directly from the source." Zander coughed uncomfortably, "Please don't ask how I got them."
I eyed the milky white fluid in one of the vials. "The things we do for queen and country."
We dawned our disguises and dispersed into the camp. Eighty generals meant around three targets per vampire, but I suspected we'd be lucky if half of us notched our second kill. The first would be synchronized to ensure all thirty were dead before the alarm bells tolled. Everything done after would be improvised. I trusted my children to act at their own discretion. Zander might've been more than willing to throw them away for the sake of a few more dead generals, but I was not.
Remember,
I broadcasted,
