A vampire was a being of unequalled power. Their greatest powers came from their ability to manipulate and absorb blood energy.
However, there were other powers they might learn to wield if they were gifted enough.
These innate powers could be just as powerful. Some could be devastating depending on the situation.
Shadow Merge was one Vlad greatly missed. Drain Life was useful, too. With it he could pull the blood energy from nearby enemies.
Crimson Harvest was an explosive power which would send blood energy screaming in all directions. Depending on the skill of the vampire, it could also drain the blood energy to keep powering it.
This skill had proven useful in battle.
Other skills were simply helpful.
Sedative Bite for one.
In this case, however, Vlad considered using only one of his many tools.
Icy Touch.
The trick of triggering it was similar to how Vlad blew blood energy down his arm and through his fingers to envelop his sword.
Only it didn't have anything to do with blood energy.
Instead, it channelled a different kind of energy. The energy of ice.
Focusing on his fingertips, Vlad felt the flow of the air around him. The rise and fall of temperatures. Heat from the ground.
The heat from Karlo's body.
The heat from his own.
And, finally, the cold clinging to the wind whispering down from the snow-capped mountains.
It was this cold energy that Vlad reached for. He could almost see them. Pinpoints of pale white which were scattered and thin. As his hand rushed up to meet Karlo's mace, he collected the pale motes until they began to cluster and condense around his fingertips.
Karlo couldn't help but to see it, too.
The Knight was clearly surprised by the sight. While it was possible he could use Icy Touch himself, he would have doubted any fledgling could achieve such a thing.
More horrifying was the way the motes started to glow with sharp pale blue light as they formed long icy claws.
To evolve the basic skill to do such a thing required great concentration.
And experience.
Karlo knew of no one who could do it.
His eyes widened as Vlad's icy claws swished.
"A mistake!" His roar turned to a squeal as he wrenched himself away from those frigid claws. But the fledgling was quick!
He felt them rake across his ribs.
Only the light steel mail armor over his thick padded tunic kept him from being disembowelled. For this he was silently grateful.
But he had no time to think about it.
Vlad wasn't lazy.
"Shit!"
It should have been a one-sided beating. Karlo had imagined standing over the fledgling, a bloody mace in his hands while sneering at the snivelling creature begging for mercy at his feet.
But suddenly that was a dream.
A fantasy.
Howling, he skipped back as Vlad slashed at his belly again.
"Are you trying to kill me?" Karlo gasped. "Then I will not hold back!"
"If you hold back, I will kill you," Vlad grunted.
Tibor stood with his arms folded.
His eyes were fixed on Vlad's claws as he tried to figure out how to do the same trick. While he could use Icy Touch, the most he'd managed was to reinforce his fist with a layer of hard crystalline ice.
The claws looked so much more helpful.
He looked down at his hand and imagined how to do it.
Was it so simple as simply splitting the flow of the cold particles? It couldn't be that easy, could it?
Lazily, he swiped the air himself, snatching hold of some chilled motes.
The bright glittery light wasn't as plentiful as Vlad's, but it was enough for Tibor to study their movement. He'd never studied them so hard before. He'd thought Icy Touch only had one purpose.
He diverted the flow of cold.
It wasn't easy. It was like trying to split a river. There was a weight to it. But he was surprised to feel the weight felt like lifting a heavy stone.
He felt if he repeated this over and over, he might strengthen himself.
And he might then create claws like Vlad's!
Suddenly, he felt an electric sensation tear down through his brain and every hair on his body stood high on his skin.
I understand!
As the cold energy suddenly dissipated with his shock, he fell down onto his back and stared up at the sky. The fight no longer interested him. He could see the cold on the wind, and that was more than enough for him.
Sprawling in the mud, a smile on his face, he ignored the frantic cries of his brothers as the chilly motes danced in front of him.
Then a terrifying thought tickled his brain.
Is this what Vlad could see all along?
Vlad heard Tibor fall and spared a glance. It didn't take much to understand what had happened.
And despite the situation he was in, he let out a satisfied grunt.
It was good that Tibor was quick to learn. In the future, Vlad had a feeling he would rely on him more than the others.
"Are you forgetting me?" Karlo hissed, aiming a crushing blow at Vlad's shoulder. The heavy head of the mace made a hollow sound as it whooshed between them.
"Tch." Vlad slashed at the mace with his claws.
It was an unconscious action.
During his war against the Pope, Vlad had done this many times. The Turks had fought with the Church. It had been the only bright point for Vlad.
The knowledge he'd be able to kill more Turks.
If only the French had also joined the Church…
His claws should have sheared through the mace.
But there was something Vlad had forgotten. Something he had done more than once since waking in this strange new body.
It was weak.
While his mind was strong and experienced, his body wasn't at a point where it could compete with his mind's demands.
So, the glittering claws cracked against the mace's shaft.
Splintered.
Then exploded.
The method of channelling the ice depended a little on the strength of his hand's ability to hold and condense more motes of cold. He'd forgotten this.
He couldn't yet condense enough to make them impossible to shatter.
Karlo's eyes widened as the claws burst and shards of chilled air tinkled to the ground.
Suddenly, the fear he'd felt seemed baseless. Why had he been afraid? The fledgling might be talented but he was clearly still just a fledgling.
"All you have is petty tricks," he leered. Then, grinning, the Knight prepared to crush Vlad.
Andras, watching from the shadows, had the same thoughts.
At first, he'd been shocked by Vlad's explosive speed and raw power.
But now it appeared that, no matter how gifted he had seemed, all he had was simple tricks. These might have worked on the other fledglings, but Karlo was a Knight. Trained by Elder Laszlo. Andras had sparred regularly with Karlo and even struggled sometimes to defeat his fellow Knight.
There was no way a mere fledgling should beat him.
Still, Vlad's violent opening had caused Andras to tense and he'd prepared to intervene. Now, he relaxed.
Karlo would be fine.
The mace glinted in the moonlight.
The fledgling's eyes followed its path.
What could the young bastard do?
Nothing.
Hearing a slight sound, he turned towards a broken window. The glass had fallen out years ago. He didn't need to see the face to know who it was.
Elder Laszlo stared, seemingly impassive, at the fight in the courtyard.
Outwardly, he looked calm.
Inside, he was a whirlwind.
Elder Matyas had told him about the new fledgling, and he'd expected most of it to be bullshit. But the boy had used Icy Touch in a way even Elder Laszlo hadn't been able to master so well.
It had in fact been many decades since Elder Laszlo had stopped trying to improve his innate vampire powers. He didn't see the point in some of them.
A mace, he thought, was a simple tool.
Break a man's head and they are dead.
What more do you need?
But where Andras had relaxed on seeing the mace descending for Vlad's head, Elder Laszlo's heart had almost stopped.
Because one thing he could see almost better than any other elder, was the flow of blood energy.
And this kid…
"Monster," he breathed. "What is this monster?"
Jenos, like the other fledglings, was shocked as Vlad's claws were smashed.
His first thought was to dive into the battle and protect his brother from the Knight. In fact, he took a rushed step forward.
A few other fledglings did, too.
But then they stopped.
As, from Vlad's hand snatched something up from the mud.
He'd left his sword behind, so it wasn't this that he grabbed.
It was a stick, left in the mud by one of the fledglings during their training.
As one, all the fledglings flinched away.
They knew only too well what Vlad could do with a stick.
In their minds, Karlo was already dead.
"Poor bastard," Jenos murmured.
"Oh, shit!" Galosh whimpered.
The sheer horror in his voice caused the fledglings to look at him oddly.
"It's mine," he rasped. "The stick… It's mine… I left it there…"
The fledglings winced for him.
Vlad had demanded they all treat their sticks like precious swords.
"He's still got to beat Karlo," Metto said. "Maybe he'll forget about that."
"You think?" Galosh asked hopefully.
Hans patted Galosh on the back. "It was nice knowing you, brother…"
***
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