By Emmanuel Williams
The snow fell soft and thick. Boots found the powder softly and sound escaped no one as the four immortals prowled the white forest throbbing with thirst.
Spear, Reed, Crux, and Raven were the forest hunting party for the Brotherhood of Rogan, an obscure clan of vampires, outcast after a failed rebellion brought their numbers from tens of thousands to a mere hundred or so. The men were reliable at their craft. Silent, swift, merciless and cunning.
Night had barely fallen, and already the nocturnal animals who weren’t asleep for the winter months were noisily snapping branches and growling over their makeshift kingdoms.
“I hear a bear,” said Reed quietly. They picked up his whisper easily, as though he spoke to their very minds. He was as tall and pale as Spear or Raven, the only Black one being Crux who was tall too, but dark as burning wood. It was Raven who replied.
“Which way,” he said. A statement more than a question. He could see the kill in his mind. Riding a bear with your teeth in its neck is better than starving in the Broken Cage as he had been all week. He had slightly bit the wrist of the last person who poured him a drink. The blood tasted like wine aged a decade in butterscotch.
He still felt no regret.
Crux sped ahead. A roar shook the branches a short walk from their position. A rabbit ran from under a bush at Spear’s feet. A knife pierced the ground with a thud and the fat beast ran no more.
They all wore wool cloaks of black with the crest of their brotherhood at the left breast. Spear lifted his to retrieve the rabbit and began drinking until the creature stopped shuddering.
When he reached the others he joined them in descending on an 8 foot black bear who hadn’t shuddered himself since Crux tackled him at a sprint from hell. The beast had no time to react beyond sending a claw out to stop the aggressive momentum upon him. And like kissing his prey’s hand, Crux stopped to kneel and bit deep into his victim’s paw. The beast yanked his hand back but only brought his fate closer. His paw dripping, he felt his leg split open, and by then, it was 3 on one.
As was his dream, Raven climbed the bear to reach its neck just as Reed began demanding they control themselves. A drained beast had no value back in the Cabins of Rogan.
“Split up,” Reed ordered.
Raven lifted his face full of the stain of red, and spat toward Reed’s face.
“Problem?”
“I’ve had no blood for a week,” Raven said. “Do you mind?”
“Of course I fucking mind, your hunger will drain the beast. Split. Up.”
Raven licked the bear’s gaping wound, and shot off into the distance. Reed hung back to protect the kill.
He didn’t feel any wind when Raven smashed into him from behind, embracing his arms in a ferocious grip he could not release before the teeth were upon his very spine. From each side of the bone, he chewed his brother’s back apart. Gravity pushed them forward as Raven drank in sloppy tongue lashes. Wild and driven by betrayal. Which of them were guilty he no longer cared.
He had to drain Reed to kill him. And so he did. Every drop he could suck out. Spitting nothing out, he took his time.
And Rogan lost a Brother.
Spear appeared opposite him beside the dead bear.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!”
Delirious, Raven raised his head, and Spear saw that he had breached bone, and a puddle of blood was pumping into the open air. Slowly, weakening, alarmingly low in volume.
“How will you play this?” Raven asked. Thick blood stained his entire face. Even his eyes looked as though they had been bathed in the basin before him. He gulped involuntarily. “You want some?”
As Spear stepped forward, Crux arrived, responding to Spear’s cry. He took one look at Raven sped away. What happened next was so fast Spear could not see anyone arrive or leave. He just saw Raven’s head hit his shoulder to the right, then immediately to the left. As if wounded by the heaviest branch he could not see.
Raven blacked out.
When he woke, 6 ropes strangled his neck as he hung from a red wood tree at the Sun Clearing at the edge of the Cabins of Rogan.
He discovered it was the sun which woke him. And his very skin burst into flame. His scalp broke open in ash, his skull charred away and his body fell from the rope. His chest beat blood into the ground as the sun found the rest of him.
And Rogan lost a Brother.
fin
STICKFIST 
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