[i]Present[/i]
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Pine boughs above roared softly in the evening breeze as Edward withdrew into his cabin in the evening. The warm glow of the hearth shone out through the doorway into the darkened forest as the vampire prince quietly opened and then locked the door so as not to disturb his sleeping followers within, casting orange firelight upon Bartolomue for a moment before leaving him in the dark once more.

He almost always took the night watch, as it allowed him to share most of his waking hours with his nocturnal liege. As the Commander of the Guard of Castle Bathory, it also seemed fitting to him that he should accept the more strenuous duties and lead by example. It was important to maintain a sense of duty and discipline, Bartolomue felt, even after all that had happened. Never mind that Castle Bathory and all but a handful of its guardians had been destroyed in Ulrek's War. As long as Edward and his son drew breath, the House of Zachaeus Bathory still remained and Bartolomue would serve them until his dying breath. That final breath was now much nearer than when he had started, for almost thirty years had passed since he made that pledge to the previous Guard Commander on the eve of Castle Bathory's destruction.

He was scarcely a man when he accepted the role of Guard Commander and was tasked with escorting Edward and Emily out of the doomed castle to safety. Twenty-seven years later, he had given nearly all of his life to Prince Edward. They had spent the past three decades moving from country to country like thieves on the lam. In the first few years after Ulrek's War, Edward and his loyal retinue had been welcomed into the courts of kings and lords, their hospitality belying selfish hopes of using the last Bathory heir as a puppet vassal to rule the Lands Under Shadow in their stead. But as time went on, and the Disciples of Solomon went farther afield to achieve Solomon Kane's quest to rid the world of vampires, the remnant of House Bathory was welcome in increasingly fewer lands. Now, Edward and his retinue lived in true exile in remote lands on the edge of the world: an abandoned trapper's cabin in the Red Forest near the edge of the Fire Lands.

The guard commander sat against the shaggy trunk of a red pine, staring out into the starlit forest, he wondered as he often did whether he had wasted his life in service to Edward. Edward was no closer to earning his father's throne than he was when he accepted the mantle of Guard Commander. In truth, Edward was in a much worse position than when Ulrek and Solomon Kane ousted him from the Lands Under Shadow. Five years after leaving the Lands Under Shadow, Edward and his retinue were the pampered guests of a wealthy merchant living in the safety of a walled compound in the great city of Aepiranth; twenty-seven years on, they lived like peasants in a sod-roof cabin of half-rotten timbers situated in a brutish, untamed land hundreds of leagues from home. What would another ten years bring?

[i]It's not about my life[/i], Bartolumue reminded himself, [i]it's about those of the ones I left behind.[/i]

Bartolumue recounted the rumors that made their way from the Lands Under Shadow: the once-unified kingdom had become a barbaric and violent hell in the absence of the vampire lords. Petty kings - increasingly under the sway of the zealous Disciples of Solomon - waged constant war across the land. Reavers from the Broken Lands plied the coasts and rivers, taking boys as thralls and maidens as wives. Peasants were enslaved by dwarves to mine mithril in their ancestral mines. Violence and terror ruled the Lands Under Shadow in the absence of the vampires. If there was any chance to return Edward and restore order to their homeland, Bartolomue was resolved to take that chance. For in truth, it was his people languishing under the duress of war and famine and terror that he had pledged his eternal support to, not some exiled vampire prince.

He sat quietly in the dark for some time, allowing his eyesight to readjust to the dim starlight of the forest before resuming his patrol around the camp. Wielding the crossbow issued to him as a castle guard some thirty years ago and a short scimitar favored by the local people of the Fire Lands, Bartolomue set out into the forest. His studded leather cuirass creaked softly as each inhalation pressed his paunch against the undersized armor. The grizzle-bearded guard may not have been in peak fighting condition any longer, though Bartolomue was still a seasoned fighter to be sure. Many an assassin and vampire hunter attempting to take Edward or Emily's life had met an end at Bartolomue's hand, and he still had plenty of fight left in him.

A ghostly call sounded through night as the guard captain patrolled the forest: a deep, resonant howl in the distance that transitioned into a high-pitched squeal. A terrifying sound if one didn't know the source, but Bartolomue recognized it at once as the bugle of a stag elk - a strange but harmless denizen of these exotic woods. Theirs was a crepuscular call, notifying Bartolomue that dawn would be coming soon. Through the pine boughs up above, the night sky slowly began to transition from black to dark blue: confirmation that the night was nearly through.

Perhaps it was knowledge that his watch was nearly over that lowered his guard, but it was much too late when the guard captain heard a sound that - unlike the calling of the elk - was much more sinister.

Footfalls on the pine-needles behind him.

Bartolomue spun on his heels immediately, leveling his crossbow, and found himself face-to-face with the round, swarthy faces of two Firelander men. Clad in lamellar armor, their bows were already drawn with vicious iron arrowheads aimed directly at his chest. Several moments of tense silence passed as Bartolomue and the Firelanders held their weapons pointed at one another.

"Lower your weapon," whispered one of the Firelanders in an almost unintelligible accent. The fact that they even knew his language at all was impressive enough.

Bartolomue held his crossbow toward the Firelanders, but glanced back at the cabin behind him. The guard captain knew he wouldn't survive this encounter, not against both of them. But he could at least alert Edward and his other fighting men before he was slain.

"INTRUDERS!" Bartolomue screamed before being struck across the face and having his crossbow and sword physically removed from his posession.

Shouts of alarm rang out from the cabin at once. Prince Edward accompanied by five crossbow-armed men stormed out the door into the forest at once. In the torchlight of Edward's men-at-arms, they saw some twenty to thirty men clad in lamellar armor surrounding the cabin, bows drawn but aimed just beneath Edward and his men, perhaps as a show of some small measure of good will.

Edward's guards shared no such goodwill to the intruders, pointing their crossbows directly at the cohort of exotic warriors surrounding them despite being hopelessly outnumbered.

"Who goes there?!" Edward's guards barked "Identify yourselves!"

Two of the lamellar-clad warriors stepped aside, allowing the presumed leader of the Firelander warriors to step forward toward Edward. Unarmed, but clad in a tunic studded with lamellar plates, his face was round and chubby - even more so than was typical for the nomads of the Fire Lands with their fatty diets. Perhaps a noble among their people? Did the Fire Lands even have nobles to speak of? Edward's men had presumed the people of this country to be simple barbarians with no sense of social order. But the armor and weaponry clearly demonstrated a level of craftsmanship that was not possible among true barbarians. Whatever this man was, he approached Edward and gave a brief bow of the head in respect.

"Please, lower your weapons," the leader of the Firelanders requested in the tongue of the Lands Under Shadow. "We are friends of Prince Edward Bathory."