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Mar
17
In my youth the greatest glory that we could conceive of was to die honorably in battle. We had been raised on stories of King Arthur and Charlemagne. We were fed heavy helpings of the Crusades and the exploits of the Knights Templar. We dreamed of being knights in the Holy Land. Soldiers of Christ, fighting for God and his Church.
Even after I had been involved in several battles, border skirmishes with the damn English, and witnessing death and great bloodshed, I was still of that mind.
It was strange that we were so eager to die. Given the prospect of a short life due to poor food and living standards and the fact that in the previous 50 years half the population of Europe had been wiped out by the Great Pestilence, one would have thought we’d have been hanging on to life like grim death (if you’ll pardon the pun). But no. We wanted to die in battle fighting the Saracens or the damn English or anyone else we could battle with honor.
The strange thing is that when I became a Vampire that all changed. The prospect of having so long a life suddenly made life seem more precious to me. I suddenly had to think in terms of the centuries instead of a few decades.
It was the reverse of how we usually view things: if something is scarce then it is priceless but if something is plentiful then it is cheap. A unique and great work of art: priceless. A comic book printed by the million: 50 cents.
That is not how it is for all Vampires, but that’s how it is for me.
So, as I lay there, my head swimming, barely able to stay conscious, with Brody standing above me, about to perform the coup de grace, my urge to survive kicked in and for a brief moment I achieved some clarity of thought.
I was in the moment that athletes and Hollywood movie editors experience when everything slows down and you suddenly have the time needed to knock the ball past your opponent or show a graphic scene of violence in all it’s horrific glory.
The only thing I could see to do was wrap my legs around the pole I had just fallen over and pull myself away from the descending sword. So I did.
Brody brought the sword down with all his might and with speed. In my slow motion state, I could see the point of the sword heading for my heart and my heart moving slowly, slowly, slowly away. The burning questions being: would it move enough for the sword to miss.
Obviously, because I’m writing this months after the incident, the sword did miss, but only just.
It sliced into my upper chest, piercing the top of my left lung and slicing through bone and flesh. And it hurt like hell too. Luckily though, it didn’t go all the way through my body or I would have been pinned to the tennis court, an easy target for another attempt at a death blow.
I let go of the post and, despite the pain, lashed out with my right foot, catching Brody a hefty kick in the groin.
I couldn’t roll away, not with the sword sticking out of me, so I sat up, grabbed the post and pulled myself erect.
The moment of clarity was gone, overwhelmed by the pain, the tennis court reeled about me like a drunken merry-go-round and I almost passed out.
There was no time now for niceties. I couldn’t stretch this fight out any longer. Not if I hoped to live through it.
I grabbed the hilt of the sword and pulled it out of my chest. Brody was holding his throbbing gonads and gasping for air. With my good right hand I raised the sword and brought it down, once, twice, thrice. On that third chop I cut through the bones of his neck and blood geysered out. His body fell twitching to the floor of the court, his head still attached by the remaining flesh I had not managed to cut through.
I stumbled over to the door of the court, my left arm useless and my right too weak to lift the sword so its tip trailed along the ground behind me.
“Very entertaining,” said Wolf and clapped his hands, fingers only, like a great lord applauding a clever child. “I almost regret that I will now have to kill you.”
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