Vampire the Requiem by The Strix Chronicles Anthology

Author:The Strix Chronicles Anthology
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Onxy Path Publishing
Published: 2013-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

Night, Winter, and Death

By Myranda Kalis

The last time I saw the mountains of Pặdurea Craiului, I was not yet dead. It was late autumn, and the last of the leaves had long since fallen. In another half-month, perhaps less, it would truly be winter. Each morning, I rose early from my bed, such as it was, a bedroll too thin to ward off the cold and damp that seeped up through the freezing ground every night, even with a mound of dried pine leaves beneath it and the body of another huddled next to mine. Each morning, I crawled out of my shelter, such as it was, a lean-to of pine boughs lashed together over a sapling center pole, a tarpaulin that we pretended was waterproof for the sake of our own morale spread over that. Each morning, I watched the sun rise bright silver over the snow-covered mountains and then went to check on the men on morning watch, and then the men in the “infirmary,” which was our only actual tent left, though no warmer than any of the other shelters for that. We were freezing to death slowly, clinging to the side of the mountain, hiding from the Russians and the Austrians and any who might betray our location to them. We were starving to death slowly because we hardly dared venture out of our mountain fastness to hunt or scavenge for food, for the risk of being caught, or even use what little money we had to purchase supplies. The wounded were dying slowly for want of real medical attention, and we had almost all been sick with some horrid illness that turned our bowels to water and made us burn with fever and left us weak as children when it passed. I had been cured of the romance of war by my first battle, and this slow death by degrees was rapidly curing me of the desire to martyr myself for the liberty of my homeland. In that, I knew I was not alone.

That morning, there was no sunrise. The sky overhead was low and leaden with snow and the wind was rising, rushing down the valley like a torrent of cold water, tasting of ice and smoke from the cook-fires. Someone’s snares had caught a few hares in the night, I remember, and the morning watch was gutting and skinning them, slicing away the meat to put in our battered pots—the things were bitter and tough but if you boiled them long enough they became edible. There was just enough tea left for everyone to have a thin half-cup, but no breakfast to speak of, as we’d eaten the last of the bread the week before and we were holding the cheese in reserve. I walked about the perimeter of the camp, taking reports, and then I went to shake my shelter-mate awake and give him the gist: he was the captain, after all, and I the lieutenant, but I took first watch and he the midnight hours, so I rose first.

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