Slaying the Vampire Conqueror

by Carissa Broadbent

I hated men like this.

I hated men who used their power to gorge themselves. Hated men who thought it was acceptable to murder their own people as long as it gave them one more chance at hanging onto their golden toys. I hated the men who sent their own terrified people into a stampede to stop us.

Hated the men who burned a little girl alive. I hated them all so much, and I lov...

“Death is what happens when you stand still,” I said. “Don’t stand still. Not for anything.”

Legend said that they were no natural beasts, that they had been created by Sagtra, the god of animals, to be the ultimate hunting opponent.

The slyvik moved in fits and starts, its slender, scaled body contorting eerily around the craggy stone. Its arms—webbed—allowed it to glide, hurling itself from wall to wall, so quickly that neither vampire eyes nor my magic could fully track it. It had a long, serpentine neck and a face that seemed shaped specifically to accommodate its massive jaws.

“Why would someone bring a child—” he’d started, and then shut his mouth abruptly, as if halfway through the question he’d understood exactly what the answer was. Of course he did. We all did. Desperation. Perhaps the same desperation that would make a man bring his child to wander the world to strange foreign countries, searching for a new home.