The first wave hit the gate hard enough to shudder the timbers on their hinges, and Vesemir's eyes narrowed the instant he caught sight of the shapes clawing over the top of the wall.
"Fleders," he snapped, already moving. "And katakans, by that stench. Bruxae mixed in further back."
"How can you even tell from here?" Lambert shouted, already drawing his silver blade.
"Decades of doing exactly this," Vesemir shot back. "Crate by the smithy.. black blood, all of you, now, before they're over that wall!"
They broke for it as one, Eskel reaching the crate first and tossing vials to each of them in turn, the dark, bitter liquid burning down Geralt's throat the way it always did.
"I killed a bruxa not two months past," Eskel said, uncorking his own vial with his teeth, spitting the cork aside. "Thought that'd be the last one I'd see for a good while yet."
"This isn't natural," Vesemir said, scanning the wall, jaw tight. "Vampires don't gather like this and don't coordinate like this. Not unless..."
"A higher vampire's behind it," Geralt finished grimly, already drawing his silver sword.
"Exactly." Vesemir's expression hardened further. "Which means we are in considerably more trouble than a simple horde would account for. Stay sharp, all of you. Watch each other's backs tonight and I mean that."
"This is my home too," Ciri said, already sword in hand. "I'm fighting."
"Fine," Vesemir said, no time left to argue it properly. "Stay close to me. Fight at my side, not off on your own. Understood?"
She nodded once, sharp, and then the gate finally gave way with a groan of splintering wood, and the first fleder poured through the breach on all fours, jaws unhinging wide with a shriek that set every hair on Geralt's arms standing on end.
The courtyard became chaos in an instant.
Geralt met the first fleder head-on, silver blade catching it mid-leap and opening its throat before its claws ever found target, the creature collapsing in a twitching heap at his feet. He didn't have time to savor it two more came in from either flank, and he spun into a low Igni sweep that caught both across their exposed bellies, flame licking hungrily at leathery skin.
"Behind you, old man!" Lambert's voice cracked across the yard, and Vesemir pivoted without even fully turning, driving his blade backward into the gut of a katakan that had tried to close on him unseen, its bat-like wings folding uselessly as it dropped.
"Don't worry about me," Vesemir shot back, wrenching his blade free. "Watch your own flank, boy!"
Eskel fought a few paces off, blade weaving in tight arcs, cutting down a fleder here, parrying a katakan's raking claws there and then he froze for a moment as a shape dropped from the shattered gate's archway above, landing lithe and silent in a crouch. Pale skin, dark hollow eyes, lips already peeling back from needle-sharp teeth.
"Bruxa," he snarled, bracing. "Didn't I just say I was done with your lot."
The bruxa didn't answer in words only a shrieking, discordant wail that split the night air, and Eskel staggered, hands flying to his ears, the sound boring into his skull like a physical blow. He recovered just in time to roll aside from her lunge, silver blade coming up in a desperate parry that barely held.
"A little help!" he barked.
"Busy!" Lambert shouted back, trading blows with two fleders at once, his blade a blur of defensive motion, sweat already beading on his brow despite the cold. One of the creatures feinted low and the second came in high, and Lambert couldn't quite cover both claws raked across his forearm, tearing through leather and flesh alike, and he hissed sharply through his teeth. "Fuck! that one's got teeth like knives!"
"Don't let it get a second bite in!" Vesemir called, cutting down his own opponent and immediately turning to help cover the gap, Aard flaring from his palm to knock the nearest fleder clean off its feet.
Ciri moved at Vesemir's side exactly as promised, one stab took a fleder clean through the eye mid-leap, another buried itself in a katakan's wing, grounding it just long enough for Vesemir's blade to finish the job. "You got better," he grunted, approving, even mid-fight.
"Had a good teacher," Ciri shot back, already reaching for another swing.
Geralt cut down a third fleder, breathing hard now, sweeping his gaze across the chaos of the courtyard, bodies and blood and firelight all tangled together, searching for the one shape that mattered most among all of it. He found nothing. No tall, pale figure standing apart from the frenzy, no cold, directing presence pulling the strings of this assault.
"Where is it," he muttered, turning in place. "Where's the higher vampire..."
"Look for it!" Vesemir bellowed from across the yard, cutting down another katakan even as he shouted. "It won't be standing in the thick of this.. it'll be watching, waiting for the right moment!"
"I'll find the bastard!" Ciri was already moving, cutting a path toward the shadowed edge of the courtyard where the firelight didn't quite reach.
"No, wait!" Vesemir's shout came too late; she'd already broken away, weaving between combatants, with the agility of someone who refused to simply stand and wait for someone else to end this.
"I'll stay with her!" Geralt shouted back, already breaking off from his own fight, cutting down a fleder in his path without even slowing. "Hold them here while we're looking! we'll corner it together!"
"Geralt!" Vesemir's protest died half-formed as a fresh wave of lesser vampires crested the broken gate, forcing his full attention back to the fight in front of him. "Damn fool children!" He turned back to the horde with furious intensity instead, Eskel falling in at his shoulder, finally free of the bruxa he'd been grappling after driving his blade through her chest.
"They'll be fine," Eskel said, though his voice carried more hope than certainty. "Geralt's not about to let anything happen to her, focus here."
"I know that," Vesemir snapped, "Doesn't mean I have to like it, this is bad... there is too many of them."
Lambert staggered back into the fray beside them, blood streaming freely from the gash on his forearm, teeth gritted hard against the pain. "Little busy being torn apart over here, if anyone cares to notice!"
"Then stop standing still long enough to let them!" Vesemir barked, though there was real concern beneath the gruffness, his eyes flicking briefly to the wound before he was forced back into the fight.
"Would love to, this lot's just rude about taking turns!" Lambert ducked a fleder's lunge, drove his blade up through its throat, and spun immediately into position to meet the next.
Across the courtyard, Geralt and Ciri pressed deeper into the chaos together, cutting a path through scattered knots of fleders too disorganized to properly coordinate against the two of them. Ciri fought close and sharp, blade finding gaps Geralt's longer reach couldn't quite manage, and more than once he found himself grateful rather than worried at how naturally she moved beside him now, nothing like the frightened girl he'd once sheltered behind his own body.
"Anything?" Geralt called, cutting down a vampire that lunged from the shadows.
"Nothing yet," Ciri said, breathing hard, scanning the darkness beyond the firelight. "It has to be close. Watching, like Vesemir said."
A low, cultured voice answered her from the shadows before Geralt could respond. "Very astute of him, actually."
Both of them spun toward the sound and there, standing untouched at the edge of the firelight, utterly unbothered by the carnage unfolding a mere stone's throw away, stood a tall, pale figure in a dark coat, his eyes catching the firelight in a deep, unnatural red.
"There you are," Geralt said, leveling his blade.
"Here I am," the vampire agreed, inclining his head slightly, as though they'd been introduced at some civilized gathering rather than meeting amid a battlefield of his own making. "And you, I think, must be the White Wolf. Your reputation travels well, even among my kind." His eyes shifted to Ciri, lingering there with something unreadable. "And you would be the girl everyone seems so terribly interested in collecting tonight."
"Who are you," Ciri demanded, blade steady despite the cold settling through her.
"A question for later," the vampire said, almost pleasant about it. "For now... shall we see exactly how formidable that reputation of yours truly is, White Wolf?"
/-\
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