But as we travelled the life that I had consumed ebbed and with it the warmth and the energy of the animal drained away. As it had left the body from which I had taken it, so it left my body. I felt like a cold dead empty husk filled only with the buzzing voice that now clamored for more, frantically calling my attention to the humans that surrounded me. As it cried to me, I wondered how my brother’s vamps had managed to leave the humans of the camp alone for all this time. How did they even now ride with the scent of humans in their nostrils? I could only imagine the constant ache for the blood that pulsed around them. Already my hunger had returned. It was not as strong as it had been, and it had taken on a different pitch, but it still nagged at me. It disgusted me but not as much as it once had.
After a two-day jarring ride on the hard-wooden wagon boards and the pitted highways, scouts returned to inform us that the nearby city supported a vampire camp of around twenty vampires and a pen full of their sustenance. The prospects excited my brother’s troop of vampires and men as they had not lost their high from the previous battle and were eager to outdo themselves on the field of battle. They relished the opportunity for a satisfying feeding and my jaw ached and the buzz in my head grew at the mention despite a wave of nausea that swept through my stomach. There were humans down there and not the brainwashed humans who retained less connection to the human race than I did. “Stupid bastards,” my brother had muttered half to himself half to Peter as the group went giddy with the news. “They’ll feast themselves into a stupor that will at best delay us a day, but at worse could get us all killed.” Still the thought had whipped them into a frothy mass ready to do as my brother ordered, but that could hardly abide waiting as the outpost was observed. By the time midnight had come my brother was satisfied by the scout’s reports that the General’s vampires had no idea of what had befallen their compatriots or that we were nearby.
Just before dawn we were loaded back into the wagons to travel the last few miles to the city. There was some debate as to whether mortars could be fired from the front seat of the wagon’s but after a time it was decided it wasn’t worth risking. The clattering of our wheels seemed excruciatingly loud in the early morning quiet and my brother’s jaw was clenched so tightly it looked as if he could chew metal. The morning was cold, and my ears burned with the wind that whipped by as I ran with about half our company alongside the wagons, our rifles at the ready. We moved quickly down a broad white highway littered with the rusted-out remains of automobiles along its far sides. We kept up easily with the thralls pulling the wagon and I found myself relishing my body, the surety of my steps and the speed of my stride. The cold wind bit at my exposed face but I longed to run faster and faster to test my limits. The trees and car carcasses rushed by in a blur, yet I felt as if I wasn’t even pushing myself.
The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon when the city came into sight and we halted. Packs were ditched, guns were checked, mortars readied, and the thralls locked securely away. We could see nothing moving through the streets of the city, but the scouts assured my brother that the General’s troops were there. According to the scouts they were split into two groups. The majority of them were holed up in a scruffy brick building down near the river that had patches of green paint still peeling from its walls while the rest of them were in a two story house beside the pen where I could just make out the furtive movements of some humans. Traffic moved between the two areas daily. Either the vampires didn’t want to be perpetually exposed to the stench of the humans who lived in their own filth, or their food source was rationed and thus under constant guard from the insatiable thirsts of the vampires. The hissing in my brain screamed at me and I shuddered at the thought of the humans being drained there. I wondered if they kept them as feedstock as the general did or was there enough supply to round up. My brother had us divided into three groups; his would rush the main clutch of the General’s vampires, while the group that I was in would take out any vamps that were guarding the humans. The third group would stay behind and flush
