Dawn - Deep Forest Beyond Eastern Vampire Territories, Year 950

  Cassandra knelt by the smoking embers, her weathered hands passing through the rising tendrils as if reading messages in their swirling patterns. Gray streaked her dark hair, pulled back with strips of sinew and decorated with small bones that clicked softly with each movement. Deep lines etched her face—a woman in her thirties who appeared decades older from the harshness of survival.

  "Blood signs bad. Very bad," she murmured, her voice carrying the authority that had made her tribe's leader despite her retively young age. "Many moons, no good hunt. Tribe grow weak."

  Around her, two dozen gaunt figures huddled in crude animal-hide shelters. The tribe had dwindled from nearly a hundred when Cassandra was a child to this pitiful remnant. Their once-proud heritage as hunters had deteriorated to a desperate scavenging existence.

  An elder named Krev approached, leaning heavily on a spear that doubled as a walking stick. His face was a map of wrinkles, his eyes clouded with age but still sharp with the wisdom of survived seasons.

  "Spirits angry," he wheezed, pointing toward the eastern sky with a trembling finger. "Must give blood-offering. Like ancestors."

  Cassandra nodded respectfully but did not reply immediately. The tribe's traditions had grown increasingly muddled with each passing generation. What had once been structured methods for tracking and killing vampires had devolved into superstitious rituals whose original purpose was long forgotten.

  She removed a knife from her belt—its bde crafted from flint rather than metal, though its handle bore faded symbols carved generations ago when her ancestors had possessed far greater knowledge. The knife's design was still surprisingly effective at cutting flesh, a testament to techniques passed down even as their meaning was lost.

  "Show knife-song," she commanded a young boy who squatted nearby.

  The boy began a rhythmic chant, stumbling over words neither he nor Cassandra fully understood:

  "Blood-drinkers come when moon sleep, Eyes like fire, steps no sound, Red-tooth take breath, leave shell, Knife-bearers watch, knife-bearers wait, Blood-water on bde make sleep-death come."

  This fragmentary verse was all that remained of detailed tactical knowledge—the understanding that vampires hunted at night, their supernatural speed and strength, the effectiveness of poisoned weapons. Yet the tribe now interpreted it as a religious incantation, a plea to spirits rather than practical instruction.

  Cassandra raised her eyes to the struggling tribe members. Mothers with ribs clearly visible beneath stretched skin fed watery soup to listless children. Hunters who had returned empty-handed for weeks now sat sharpening weapons that found no prey. Their territory's game had steadily diminished, whether from natural cycles or other causes, they cked the knowledge to determine.

  The previous winter had cimed eight lives. Another harsh season would surely destroy them completely.

  Cassandra closed her eyes, remembering the stories her grandmother had shared before death. Tales of structures taller than trees, of people more numerous than forest leaves, of abundance beyond imagination. Her grandmother had learned these stories from her own grandmother, an unbroken chain stretching back to the vampire hunters who had fled into the wilderness centuries ago, gradually losing their knowledge and technology until they regressed to their current primitive state.

  "Tribe listen," she announced, her voice carrying across the small encampment. "Food-forest empty. Cold-time come soon. Tribe die here."

  Murmurs of fear rippled through the gathering, but none contradicted her assessment. Their situation was beyond denial.

  "Cassandra has dream-seeing," she continued, touching the special mark on her forearm—three parallel scars that designated her as keeper of ancient knowledge. "Ancestors come from far pce. Pce with blood-drinkers."

  Gasps and frightened whispers erupted. The "blood-drinkers" featured prominently in their stories—terrible beings their ancestors had once fought, though those tales had transformed over generations into stories of powerful spirits rather than physical enemies.

  "Blood-drinkers take life," an elderly woman protested, making a protective sign. "Ancestors run from blood-drinkers."

  "Yes," Cassandra acknowledged. "But ancestors know blood-drinkers. Have old-wisdom of them." She stood straighter, her decision made after moons of contemption. "We go to blood-drinker pce. Offer blood for food-shelter."

  Shocked silence fell over the tribe. What she proposed was sacrilege by their degraded understanding, yet survival instinct prevented outright rejection.

  Krev raised his voice in objection: "Blood-drinkers eat tribe! Ancient songs tell!"

  A younger woman called out, confusion in her voice: "If blood-drinkers take only blood for food-shelter, why ancestors run? Why not stay, give blood, live easy?"

  Cassandra had no answer from the fragmented stories passed down through generations. "Maybe ancestors proud. Maybe blood-drinkers different then." She pointed to the starving children. "But now, cold-time eat tribe here. No choice.""

  Her simple logic proved unanswerable. Better to risk a quick death seeking salvation than face the certainty of slow starvation.

  Over the next three days, the tribe prepared for their desperate journey. They gathered their few possessions—crude weapons, cooking implements fashioned from stone and wood, precious fire-making tools, and bundles of medicinal pnts. Everything they owned could be carried on their backs.

  On the fourth morning, Cassandra led them from their seasonal camp. Though they wandered a vast territory as nomads, following game and seasonal pnts, they had never ventured beyond certain boundaries. Now she navigated by ndmarks described in ancient songs—a mountain shaped like a sleeping bear, a river that split like a snake's tongue, strange stone formations that their ancestors had spoken of in oral traditions passed down through countless generations.

  "Three-finger rock," she announced two weeks into their journey, pointing to a distinctive formation. "Song say blood-drinker territory begin."

  The tribe huddled closer together, eyes darting fearfully at shadows despite the daylight. Their legends held that blood-drinkers could not walk in sun, but fear overruled such details.

  Their progress slowed as the forest gradually thinned. Cassandra insisted they travel only by day, making camp and maintaining strict silence after sunset. Though she couldn't articute why, some ancestral instinct told her this was essential to their survival as they traveled. But as they neared their destination, she realized they would need to break this pattern.

  After a month of hard travel, they crested a hill at dusk and stopped in stunned silence. In the valley below, impossibly straight lines cut through the ndscape—roads, though the tribe cked this word. In the distance, structures rose higher than the tallest trees, their surfaces reflecting the st rays of sunlight in ways no natural formation could.

  "Ancestor home," Cassandra whispered, awe overshadowing fear for the first time.

  The tribe stood frozen, their primitive minds struggling to comprehend the vampire civilization spread before them. Even in decline, vampire society represented technology centuries beyond their comprehension. The artificial lights appearing as darkness fell seemed like captured stars to people who knew only firelight.

  "Magic," whispered one of the younger tribesmen, dropping to his knees. "Spirit-world."

  Cassandra steeled herself, clutching the knife whose true purpose had been forgotten generations ago. "We wait. When night full, we go."

  That night, no one slept. They watched the distant lights, hypnotized by their unwavering brightness so different from flickering fmes. Occasionally strange mechanical sounds reached them—vehicles whose nature they couldn't conceive of—causing them to huddle closer in terror.

  At dusk, Cassandra prepared her people, decorating herself with the traditional markings of a tribal leader—red ochre lines on her cheeks, a neckce of small bones representing her lineage. If they were to meet gods or demons, they would do so with dignity.

  "Remember ancestor-songs," she instructed. "Blood-drinkers take blood, give life."

  This corrupted fragment of knowledge—that vampires extracted blood but could provide sustenance and protection in return—was their only guide. The cruel irony was lost on them: descendants of vampire hunters now willingly approaching their ancestral enemy, centuries having transformed ancestral hatred into desperate hope.

  As twilight deepened into night, they emerged from the forest edge onto the paved road, Cassandra raised her arms in the peaceful gesture passed down through generations. Behind her, twenty-three survivors of a once-thriving culture stood trembling, their crude weapons and stone-age appearance a stark contrast to the sophisticated civilization they approached.

  When the vampire patrol appeared on the horizon, moving with inhuman speed and precision, Cassandra stepped forward alone. She held her ancient hunting knife—designed centuries ago to kill vampires—ft across her palms as an offering, not a threat.

  "We come," she called out in her simple nguage. "We give blood. We ask life."

  The patrol slowed, obviously stunned by the impossible sight before them. Humans—wild, unregistered humans—approaching voluntarily after nearly a millennium of complete vampire control.

  What the tribal leader couldn't know was that their arrival had been anticipated. That orders had been given. That they would be brought to the east wing chambers, where the Vampire King himself waited for a woman whose existence should have been impossible.

  The descendants of vampire hunters had come full circle, seeking salvation from those their ancestors had sworn to destroy.