Chapter Text
The sun was shining, it was a beautiful day when one was not in the wreckage of a vessel of deeply suspect engineering, and she had killed seven things before (probably) noon. All in all, it could be said that Ilcor was having a very good day, if of the unusual variety.
Ilcor pulled the sharp end of her javelin out of the seventh thing. The gith woman aboard said deeply suspect vessel had called them intellect devourers. She nudged the creature once with the end of her blade to make sure her own mind was intact—who knew, in these days of teethed tadpoles squirming into one’s eyes?—then straightened.
“You fight well,” her newfound friend said, though she looked altogether disgusted by the mush of brain matter the creatures left behind in dying. Not that there was any avoiding viscera in this location; it was all flame or fleshy walls that made her skin crawl. Ilcor really hoped the ship wasn’t sentient; it seemed like the sort of thing that would only come back to bite them, and probably literally.
“It’s what I do,’ Ilcor said, turning on the spot. “Think there are any more of them around?”
Shadowheart shuddered. “I certainly hope not. This is dangerous enough without mind flayers and their, ah, pets on our tails.”
Ilcor shrugged. She hadn’t seen much of the Nautiloid, which was certainly to the benefit of her sanity, but she had not gotten the impression it was a ship of great size or large crew; or at least it hadn’t remained that way by the time she was free to explore it. Still… “Somehow, I don’t think so. I’m feeling lucky.”
Shadowheart scoffed. “Lucky? We were kidnapped by mind flayers, and could transform into them ourselves at any moment.”
“And we escaped the mind flayers and their creepy ship intact, for now. If that isn’t luck, Shadowheart, I don’t know what is.”
The two of them squelched their bloody boots back out of the wreckage’s shadow and onto the beach. The cliffs were rather pretty if one was capable of looking past the remains of the ship that littered the area, either on fire or spilling out from less organic parts in a vaguely intestinal way. Ilcor was skilled at making things unseen; it came with practice. She looked up, instead, and saw—a man. Another survivor.
“There’s someone there,” she told Shadowheart, and hurried ahead.
It was an elf, in fine embroidered velvet with lace peeking from his collar. “Hurry,” he said when he saw her, “I’ve got one of those brain things cornered.”
It was always a good day when she was recognised as the capable slayer of monsters that she was, but contrary to popular belief, Ilcor was also not an idiot. “Cornered?” she asked, looking out at the grass just in case he was right. “With what weapon? The buggers bite.”
The snick of steel, a rush of movement behind her, and then there was a blade pointing at her throat and she was being pulled to the ground. “That weapon, then,” Ilcor said, one brow raised.
The man hushed her. “Not a sound,” he said, low like he could coax her into it with his cadence alone. “Not if you want to keep that darling neck of yours.”
Ilcor stopped struggling. If he wanted to slit her throat, he could have in the split second she had been too distracted to do anything about it. “Who do you think I’m going to call for help here?” she asked instead, and risked giving him more of her darling neck to threaten to make brief eye contact with Shadowheart. Distract him, she tried to convey using only her eyes.
“Keep your distance,” the elf said as Shadowheart started to come closer. “No need for this to get messy.”
“I need her alive,” Shadowheart said. Flattering, really. “Stow that blade or I’ll show you just how messy things can get.”
It was not, as distractions went, the best job, but it was enough. Ilcor grabbed the hilt of the blade, kicked off the ground with all the energy she had in her, and bit him in the meat of his palm—hard.
The elf cried out in pain as they rolled again, giving her just enough time to wrench the dagger from his hand when—
Poorly lit streets, not that the lighting made any difference. Cobblestones, a dagger in her hand. People rushing by, a cacophony of sounds and smells and life. Then—teeth. Light. Light? Light.
“What’s going on?”
Ilcor held the blade to his throat as he tried to push up. He spread his palms, as if to say I mean no harm, something she may have believed of his now dust-smudged velvet doublet before he pulled a knife on her. “I bite too, love. Now, not a move,” she said, “not if you want to keep your darling neck.”
“What did you and those tentacled monsters do to me?”
Ilcor stilled, looking up at Shadowheart. The cleric looked dubiously at the man below her, who was still struggling, though not quite hard enough that the blade might clip his throat, or the lace that adorned it. He had none of the empty-eyed violence that the prisoners Ilcor and the gith had fought aboard the Nautiloid did, nor did he look like he was about to start sprouting tentacles.
“You were also a prisoner aboard the ship,” Ilcor said.
“Also a prisoner? I saw you on the ship.”
“Yes,” Ilcor said, “I was crashing it. Will you attack me again if I let you up?”
He shook his head, silent for once. Ilcor took that to mean yes, but you have my dagger, and rose slowly to her knees, keeping the weapon pointed towards him. “You’re not one of them, are you?” he asked, back on his feet, perching on his toes as though he might run—or lunge—at any moment. “They took you, just the same as me.”
“Yes,” she said. She hadn’t seen him in one of the many pods on the vessel, but that could mean anything. Her own attention had been elsewhere, with the crashing ship and the strangeness of her surroundings.
“And what was—that?” he asked, waving a hand in the general direction of his head.
Ilcor shrugged. “The mind flayers left us a little present. It connects us.” She looked over at Shadowheart, and a look of vague recognition settled on his features.
“I do recall,” he muttered, grimacing. “Do you know anything about these… worms?”
Worms was such a pleasant way to put it. If Ilcor ever slept again long enough to have nightmares, they would be of the creature’s teeth so close to her eye she should not have been able to see them with the clarity she had. And that lived in her skull now. “Only that they’ll flay our minds.” At the look of confusion that followed, she clarified: “They’ll turn us into mind flayers.”
Laughter. Ilcor gave Shadowheart an unamused look over her shoulder as the elf laughed, a bitter tone that was as familiar as it was strange to hear from someone like him. “Of course it’ll turn me into a monster. What else did I expect?”
She grinned. “I have no intention of turning into a monster,” she said, and flipped the dagger in her hand to offer it to him, hilt-first. “Stay close, and it might improve your odds too. Here.”
Shadowheart narrowed her eyes. “Is that… wise?”
“I’m not going to attack you again—I thought you were with the mind flayers! Really, it’s all just a misunderstanding. My sincere apologies—” (said insincerely) “—and to think I was ready to decorate the ground with your innards.”
Ilcor laughed. “I don’t know that it’s my innards that would have made it out, but all’s forgiven, under these circumstances. I would have done the same in your place.” She still would, of course, were it ever to become necessary. The illithid worms that had crawled into all of their minds may be dormant for now, but they wouldn’t remain that way. If it came to it… it was easier to get through humans and elves and all offspring thereof than it was mind flayers. It wasn’t personal, of course—just a matter of good sense.
“A kindred spirit,” he said, taking his knife and tucking it into his belt. “My name’s Astarion. I was in Baldur’s Gate when those beasts snatched me.”
“Nice to meet you, Astarion. I’m Ilcor—I’m a monster hunter.”
Astarion smiled, all charm and affability. “Is that so? My, you do seem like a useful person to know.”
“I am,” Ilcor said, shrugging, “but don’t take my word for it.”
Actions spoke louder, after all. The next bit of burning wreckage held a mind flayer that had survived the crash, but just barely. Contempt that could be hers but easily might not be reverberated in the psychic link the creature established with her, until she put her boot through its head and counted that eight things killed before noon.
She had said she was feeling lucky.
Ilcor was the last to return to camp from the stream, hair still dripping. She left her armour, finally scrubbed clean, in a corner of her tent and marched out. Lae’zel joined her as she approached the cookpot.
“Finally. I was beginning to suspect you had drowned.”
Ilcor grinned at her. “It didn’t take, clearly. What can I do for you, my friend?”
If Lae’zel was either pleased or displeased by being termed friend, she didn’t show it. “You fought with skill today.”
Ilcor grinned, grabbing a bowl from their mostly pilfered collection. Lae’zel delivered the compliment like a commanding officer might—not a personal experience of Ilcor’s, but she had certainly dealt with plenty. Ilcor didn’t know if the aura of superior certainty was unique to Lae’zel or a common gith characteristic; either way, the woman made for delightful, somewhat strange, company. “Thank you,” she said, inclining her head. “Seeing them felled was almost worth the feathers. You were wise enough to keep well away.”
Lae’zel puffed up, as if insulted. “The threat of feathers would not keep me from approaching an enemy.”
“I would never think it might.” Though perhaps it should. Ilcor had spent the last hour plucking bloodied down feathers from between the scales of her armour.
That did please Lae’zel. “I intended to ask… you remain set on seeking out this grove’s missing druid?”
Ilcor nodded. “We know for certain the druid is nearby. If he’s still alive, that is. Goblins are not known for their planning abilities. If he can’t help, we find your crèche.”
Lae’zel raised her chin. “I advise you to reconsider this course. Purification is the only way.”
“I’ll think on it,” she said. She would not. Ilcor liked Lae’zel, but her belief in the superiority of githyanki techniques was just fanaticism, with no real difference to Shadowheart’s pithy commentary on the dilapidated state of the shrines and ruins they came across as long as they had nothing to do with whoever it was that she worshipped. Looking for the githyanki crèche based on nothing but one terrified tiefling’s word was a sure map to getting lost in the wilderness, hunting with no trail… or maybe a trail of bodies.
Even that could lead anywhere. There was a goblin camp not far off.
“Very well,” Lae’zel said. “I trust you will make the wise decision.”
Ilcor had never been accused of being wise in her life. Practical, however, she could manage. She only winked at Lae’zel. The gith scowled, hard, and withdrew with a click of her tongue.
Smiling to herself, Ilcor turned to the cookpot. Somebody had cleaned the bowls and plates they had found with great zealousness after they’d fought the undead in the ruins. Nobody wanted bone dust to come alive in their mouth. Ilcor wrinkled her nose at her own smudged reflection.
“You aren’t such a sorry sight,” Astarion said, silky smooth and somehow standing right over her shoulder.
She turned to look at him. He had been the first of them to disappear from the stream. The bow he had stolen from one of the bandits gave him the advantage of staying well away from flying bits of flesh and unexpected sprays of blood; thus far, she hadn’t seen Astarion covered in blood once. More was the pity.
“Astarion! Have you eaten? Join me.”
“Oh, satisfactorily,” he said, taking the bowl from her palms to ladle stew into it for her. She let him, one brow raised as he made a show of kneeling to return it to her, like an offering made to a king. “For our slayer of harpies and saver of helpless little children.”
Ilcor grinned. “You may be confusing me for the Blade of Frontiers. I did slay a harpy.”
“Oh, gods forbid, titles concerned with accuracy. Slayer of Harpy sounds rather unimpressive in comparison—do take credit where it’s offered, won’t you, o hero?”
“I’ll accept it,” she said, taking a seat on a log by the fire. Astarion joined her, stretching his feet. “Worried about titles, are we? Fret not. You’re new to this business, but we’ll find a suitable epithet for you yet. Something a bit grander than Mockers of Bards.”
He pressed a hand to his chest in affront. “You wound me, darling. Me? A hero? Never.”
Ilcor laughed. For all his protests, Astarion had been more than capable against everything they had faced thus far. He was a steady shot, quick on his feet, and silent as the grave when stealth was required. Ilcor had never been one for sneaking around in shadows like she had something to hide; the pursuit of vengeance felt rather incomplete without seeing the recognition in your enemy’s eyes that you had won, and that required light. (Divine light, one might say, though perhaps to jeers from those without a sense of humour.) Even so, she could appreciate his efficiency.
“We’ll see about that. You’ve a talent for violence that oughtn’t go to waste.”
“Well, when you put it like that…”
He was silent for a few minutes as she ate, his eyes on her as she finished one bowl and rose to serve herself another. When she sat back down—closer, this time—he leaned towards her. His eyes dropped to her neck for a moment before he looked away.
Rather obvious. Not that she would complain about it. Astarion made it impossible not to notice how pretty he was. Better than pretty: she had a bite to him that she liked. “Something catch your eye?”
Astarion leaned in, lips by her ear. He said, voice pitched low, “You… have a feather.”
Ilcor looked down, dismayed—only for him to pull away, smirking. She turned a sharp glare towards him. “Astarion,” she said, “has anybody ever told you that you’re funny?”
He preened. “Comedy is not my forte, but I have of course heard a great deal of praise for my wit and my charm—”
“Because they lied,” she finished, speaking over him.
“Ouch. Is that your best shot? Stick with that hammer, darling—you may have inspired the one bard, but vicious your mockery is not.”
“I’ll show you vicious,” she warned, rising once more to get herself some water. Wyll caught her eye from where he had just finished setting up his tent, and jogged over, smiling.
“Ilcor! You’re looking better.”
Ilcor took a seat by Astarion again, gesturing for Wyll to join them. “And feeling it, thank you. Free of feathers,” she added, shooting Astarion a final glare. He smirked, showing teeth this time, and leaned back on two arms. She turned back to Wyll. “Are you all settled in?”
“Quite well, yes. I wanted to extend my thanks once again for your offer to aid me in my quest. I hope I can be just as helpful in yours—or ours.”
She straightened under his solemn gratitude.
Ilcor had heard of the Blade of Frontiers, of course, though only distantly. Her own targets were far less exciting than devils crawled out of the Hells, and she had certainly not made any name for herself. She had never felt the need—seeking glory was for those who didn’t find satisfaction in their deeds alone. But nothing could have prepared her for the famed Blade to be so… young. Training refugee children with not a chance in the nine hells to leave a cut on a goblin; hunting down a devil who had overreached—it all shone with an earnestness she had certainly never had. It was almost endearing. It almost made her want to be solemn in turn.
“Of course,” she said, as seriously as she could. “I’d have offered even if we didn’t share this little connection.” A devil’s advocate, wreaking havoc on their plane rather than her usual hellish haunt? Ilcor wasn’t ashamed to admit, privately, that she would have followed the stink of sulphur herself had he refused her help.
“Why does that not surprise me?” Wyll asked, smiling.
“Gods, now there are two of them,” Astarion muttered. He had certainly been clear about his distaste for joining fights they didn’t have to. It was a funny sort of distaste, for one who had introduced himself to her with a knife at the throat. How unfortunate for him that the rest of their crew liked her more than enough to follow her into battle.
Wyll’s eye flashed to him briefly before he turned back to her. “I also wanted to thank you for agreeing to help the refugees. I know too well what they have suffered as victims of the Blood War.”
“It was hardly a choice,” she said. Astarion shook his head, as if in great resignation.
Wyll grinned, brilliant with a hero’s glow about him. “I should get some rest before my watch. You run an efficient camp, Ilcor.”
“High praise. Rest well, Wyll.”
Astarion plucked at a thread on his trousers idly, looking at her askance once Wyll was gone. “I’m sure we’ll all be quite safe with the Blade of Frontiers watching over us.” He shook his head. “Do you really think this refugee business is the best use of our time? We are perhaps a little short.”
Ilcor raised a brow. “We both need to find that druid for our own reasons. And if it fucks Kagha and the oakenthralls who’d rather shut their grove away than help those who need them, I don’t see why not.”
Astarion inclined his head, considering. “You know,” he said lightly—and then his eyes flicked to a point over her shoulder, and a cleared throat drew her attention. Ilcor turned. Gale stood just behind her, smiling a touch awkwardly.
“My,” Astarion muttered, low enough Gale’s human ears were unlikely to catch, “aren’t we in demand?”
Ilcor ignored him. “Gale! Dinner was wonderful—I think you may have missed your calling.”
“Oh! My thanks, Ilcor. You could say I’ve had some time to experiment with what best suits a refined palate—but, as it happens, Mystra’s call was louder.”
Ilcor liked the company of wizards as she liked an itch that was impossible to scratch and impossible to ignore—rather like how she imagined it might feel if her tadpole’s teeth were to impel their presence upon her brain matter. “Maybe this little experience will change your mind.”
Gale ignored that with an admittedly impressive forbearance, and said, “Speaking of sating hungers, there is a matter I wished to broach with you. In private.”
Ilcor squinted at him.
Gale took a hasty step back. “Pardon my careless tongue. I mean hungers of the literal sort, I assure you. Though I did once read—but perhaps that is not a subject for the moment. If you would?”
Ilcor rose, shaking her head. She waved absently at Astarion’s lazy raised brow, and followed Gale to his tent.
The last false paladin went down with a bang, not a whimper, but only because his sword was so big. The ensuing din echoed around the glum little tollhouse like a bell announcing the winner of some macabre tournament: Ilcor and company, one; Zariel’s hired swords, zero.
When it quieted, it left behind Karlach’s heavy breathing.
“Fuck them,” she said, when Wyll turned to face her. “Fuck Zariel. I won’t go back. I’m never going back!”
Ilcor leaned back against the desk as Wyll gave Karlach his heartfelt assurances that Zariel wouldn’t get anywhere near her again. It was… improbable. They may not be in Avernus’ wastes, but archdevils had plenty of spies and lackeys to do their bidding. There would be more where the false paladins came from. Wyll was right where it mattered, though: whatever she threw at them, short of diabolic catastrophe, wouldn’t pose any real threat. Ilcor’s current party may have been formed by the haphazard waving of massive tentacles, but they were proving to be a more than adequate match for whatever the wilderness threw at them. Which was a lot; far more flavours of monster than Ilcor was used to in a fiveday.
Astarion sauntered closer as Karlach’s fury exploded outward and around them, gracefully sidestepping a pool of acid.
“She’s certainly enthusiastic,” he said.
Ilcor shrugged. “Wouldn’t you be?” She nudged his knee with her hammer. “I saw you laugh after we killed those gnolls.”
Astarion looked over his shoulder at Karlach as she bashed her axe into a crate and left its splinters smouldering. “Hardly the same,” he said, waving a dismissive hand. Then, more thoughtfully, “I suppose it’s only fair. She escaped an archdevil’s clutches. How many people can claim that?”
“Few that lived to tell the tale,” Ilcor agreed. “Zariel won’t take that well.”
“And that doesn’t… concern you?” he asked.
Ilcor grinned at him, if you could define grinning purely as a showcasing of teeth. “We deal with that as we dealt with this. We’ve already got mind flayer parasites in our skulls—what are a few devil’s minions to that?” She kicked the false paladin’s corpse lightly with her boot for emphasis. “Strange choice of minion, though.”
Ilcor dropped to one knee to lift the man’s greatsword. It was a truly massive thing, bigger than she was tall, with a guard longer than her palm. The moment she touched it, she felt a blessed strength flow through her—a very familiar one. Narrowing her eyes, Ilcor lifted the sword in both hands and turned it so she could read the inscription.
Deliverance. Justice. Vengeance.
“That fucker,” she muttered. This was a true paladin’s sword, imbued with Tyr’s blessing. He might have stolen it from a true champion of the Just God, but what sort of fool would pretend to be a man he had killed and robbed? She hadn’t gotten the impression he was particularly bright, but even yet… instinct told her these were no false paladins. They were something far, far worse.
Oathbreaker.
Disgust filled her. Ilcor had fought plenty of monsters and goblins and undead, and all it had taught her was that pests were merely that: pests, monstrous because they were guided by nothing but instinct, by their own natures. But oathbreakers? They were creatures of no light at all, but by choice. No loyalty, no guiding path but whatever they selfishly pursued.
And this one had made a deal with an archdevil.
Ilcor hefted the sword over her head, lifting as far as she would go, and plunged it deep into his chest, felt his ribs shatter and his blood spurt onto her boots. When she pulled the greatsword back from his chest, she left a mangled mess of blood, bone, and sinew behind.
Ilcor had never been limned in the light of mercy—but she didn’t need to be to deliver justice or vengeance. The sight of the gaping wound and blood dripping off the end of the sword did a great deal to calm the fury coursing through her. A drop of blood slid down her brow, and Ilcor laughed. It was almost like being in the temple, with the captain watching over her, something hard in his eyes as the sweat and blood dried on her face. She’d call this justice poetic if anybody around her would understand.
“He’s already dead, darling. You killed him yourself.”
She looked up, and found Astarion grimacing at the body. Ilcor narrowed her eyes, wiped away the blood. The captain’s expression seemed to merge with his. “It was a better death than he deserved, so I gave him an uglier one,” she said.
Astarion arched a brow, and any similarity to the captain disappeared. “All this over a sword?” he asked, tone almost playful.
Ilcor relaxed. She hated thinking about the temple; it played tricks on her mind even a mind flayer would find inspiring. Hopefully her parasite wasn’t paying attention. She wiped the blood clean off the sword and bent to grab its sheath. When Astarion reached out to pick it up, she swatted his hand away. “It’s mine, so don’t even think about it, light-fingers.”
Astarion gestured expansively with one arm. “To the victor, the spoils. And you’ve made quite the show of your victory.”
Ilcor shrugged, rounding the desk and perching on it. “I ought to thank Karlach. I was almost disappointed we didn’t have to fight a real devil’s advocate, but this is better.”
Astarion inclined his head. “I do wonder what our companions would say if I told them we’re being led by a madwoman.”
Ilcor made a show of batting her lashes. “If you want me all to yourself, love, all you have to do is ask.”
Astarion’s smile sharpened into something toothy, something with promise. Ilcor’s pulse was still racing from the fight like it had somewhere to be, and Astarion was right there. She opened her mouth to suggest that perhaps they could slip away, make their own way back to camp—but Karlach chose that moment to let out a roar that might topple a weaker structure.
Astarion hopped off the table as Karlach and Wyll re-entered the room, the tiefling grinning, rage worn through. “If we’re all quite done celebrating, I want to find what this little key opens.”
The answer was treasure: a lot of it. Poor administration and abandoned waypoints were so often the adventurer’s bread and butter. (That, and robbing the unburied dead.) Ilcor threw Wyll a wink as he shook his head at their more-than-petty theft even as he pocketed a potion of healing.
All toward a greater cause, of course. Ilcor freely gave Karlach a gorgeous axe that echoed with a holy whisper when she held it, happy with her own spoils now strapped to her back. She found Wyll a shield in slightly better condition than his own, and tossed Astarion a handful of potions.
And if she let Astarion idle just a little too close to her shoulder as he examined the ground for vents, that was for them to know.
With seven of them in the camp—eight if you included the pile of bones that had walked out of a tomb to make his own space there—it was easier to maintain a steady watch system. This was not one of Ilcor’s nights to keep watch, but she had always slept lightly. Having been a lone traveller did that to a person.
She was half-dreaming when she became aware of the presence above her. Her first thought, caught in the eddies of whatever her unconscious mind threw at her, was did Gale fall asleep after his leathery meal?
The second was to wake up.
Astarion hovered over her, mouth open. Their eyes met. Astarion said, “Shit.”
She tumbled out of her bedroll on instinct alone, dagger already in one hand, tackling him from her knees and taking him down with her easily. They rolled out of her tent, the hard cobbles of the cellar they were camped in jolting her back as they went. Ilcor winced as Astarion banged his head against the ground.
She pressed her dagger to his throat, a pleasant reminder of their first meeting. Astarion’s eyes flashed to the blade, then back to her. He should have been calmer
“Why do you sleep with a dagger, you—”
Ilcor flashed her teeth at him. She hadn’t expected him to attack her in her sleep, admittedly—but the familiar banter was almost a relief. If he was able to chide her for her habit of keeping weapons close at all times, he had his mind with him still.
“Some of us know there’s dangerous things in the woods, even if they’re not usually in your camp,” she said, one brow raised. “You’re clearly not a mind flayer yet, so what exactly were you doing? If you wanted to wake me, there are ways that don’t end with my knife at your throat—unless you ask nicely.” She punctuated this with a flick of her blade against his skin. Enough that he would feel it; not enough to cut.
With an aborted gasp, he said, “It’s not what you think, just—”
Ilcor glared at him. “I’m not feeling very patient, Astarion.”
“I wasn’t going to hurt you!” he insisted. “I just needed, well—blood.”
…blood?
His eyes were once again on her neck, and they looked—hungry. His mouth opened once more, and this time, she saw the fangs.
Any sense of calm melted away. Even the dying sparks of the fire were enough now to show her what she’d willfully fucking ignored over the last days; the points of his teeth, the red eyes on a high elf, the scars on his neck, the predatory silence with which he was capable of moving.
Astarion was a vampire.
The scream tore itself from her lungs. Red spread from the points of his eyes to the rest of her vision, a film like a spray of blood painting the cellar red. The prayer came to her lips instantly, divine power coursing from the heavens through her body and into her dagger. It was a tiny thing, barely big enough to kill a goblin, but her sword was too far away, tucked in the corner of her tent because she’d trusted everybody in their camp, the explosive gods-damned wizard, the gith, and most of all—
She’d never seen Astarion look scared, not since the first time she’d held a dagger to his throat and felt their minds connect. Not even then—not like this.
Good.
“Ilcor!”
Then Wyll was dragging her off Astarion, both arms around hers, pulling her away before she could get a single stab in. Astarion got to his knees as she struggled, wrenching against the grip, but Wyll was stronger. Her dagger was uselessly small in her hand, and her sword was still in her tent, and Astarion was on his feet now. Looking appalled, still panting, as if a creature of the night had any fucking right to look—betrayed.
Ilcor stamped on Wyll’s foot, furious again, and charged forward in the split second he loosened his grip.
It wasn’t enough. Astarion darted out of the way, all the graceful evasion she’d seen on her side in battle turned against her now. Ilcor lunged—
Or tried to, and found her foot wouldn’t raise from the ground, and her arms were frozen in place. She looked around, and saw Gale, arms up in a spell, incantation barely complete. Behind him were Shadowheart and Lae’zel, sword and mace in hand… but it was her they stared at, all equal parts horrified and furious.
“What are you doing?” Wyll asked, coming around to face her. “Is it the mind flayer? Are you being—”
“This is all a great mis—” Astarion began, behind her.
“Astarion is a vampire,” she spat out, before he could lie, or worse.
Finally, all eyes turned to him. Panic, clear, obvious panic, took over his features, a cornered animal who had finally been recognised for what it was. This was it: the moment he stopped this wretched disguise of betrayal and attacked the lot of them. The secret was out; no more need to hide.
Ilcor looked at her tent. Astarion was between her and her sword, but she could be quick, if she must—and he would be distracted by the others. She would be the one to strike the last blow on him—she insisted—but she would appreciate the help. She was only glad Lae’zel and Shadowheart had thought to bring their weapons.
But Astarion didn’t move.
Wyll turned to him. “A vampire. I don’t know how I missed it.” He exhaled hard, shaking his head. “Did you attack her, Astarion?”
Ilcor’s eyes shot to him. The mist of anger filtered away, displaced by sheer disbelief. Was she dreaming? Had the tadpoles finally won, and this was a horrific nightmare produced by the process of ceremorphosis? There was no possibly other scenario in which Wyll, the one of them she might have trusted to know what this meant, would turn against her. “Are we really discussing this with a vampire? Yes, he attacked me!”
“No! I didn’t! It’s not like that—I don’t hurt people! I drink from animals! Boars, deer, whatever I can find.”
She strained against Gale’s spell, and failed once more. Her hands remained frozen in front of her. Even if she could have opened her fingers, her dagger would have fallen to the ground uselessly. “He’s lying, Wyll. I woke up to his fangs at my neck.”
“You were bleeding!” Astarion snapped, glaring at her. “I could smell your blood, ten feet away from me, when you should have been healed—I was trying to wake you.”
Liar. She could see the deception in everything he said, in the very way he held himself, all traces of vampiric fluidity gone from him now, along with every trace of the haughtiness with which he ordinarily held himself. He was half-hunched, arms out as if to ward off a monster worse than himself, voice shaking.
But it was working. The tension was gone from Wyll’s spine, and Shadowheart and Lae’zel’s weapons were lowered now.
“I could… see how such a misunderstanding might occur,” Shadowheart said tentatively. Ilcor wanted to shake her. “And you are bleeding, Ilcor.”
Ilcor hadn’t paid much attention to the dull ache in her left shoulder, where a goblin’s arrow had embedded itself earlier that day. Shadowheart had healed her, but the ache hadn’t faded, and now she could feel a sluggish seeping from the wound, leaving her back feeling wet.
“You can’t be serious,” she said, looking between them. “He’s a vampire!”
“Astarion,” Karlach said, voice echoing over hers. Ilcor hadn’t seen her enter, and couldn’t move her neck enough to look at her now. “Are you going to attack anyone here?”
Astarion looked somewhere over Ilcor’s head. “No, of course not.”
Gale cleared his throat. “We all have our secrets. Would vampirism have been my first assumption? No. But let us consider this particular matter settled—for now.”
“We may remain allies—as long as I never wake to blood on my neck,” Lae’zel said, proving to Ilcor that everybody here that she may have assumed would have an ounce of good sense or self-preservation did not.
Shadowheart hesitated. Ilcor stared at her, arms numb from straining against the hold of Gale’s spell—but she only looked away. “Yes. We’re all bound together—as long as we’re not part of his diet, it doesn’t concern me.”
“Of course not,” Astarion said again, uselessly.
Wyll nodded. “Gale’s right. You’ve saved all of our lives; if there was ever a moment to trust a vampire… words I never thought I’d say. But these are strange times.” Ilcor watched, rendered helpless in a way she had never been before, as Wyll turned to face her. “You would have worse than that little wound if it weren’t for Astarion,” he said, solemn. “He saved your life today. Would you truly repay him this way?”
Wyll was right. Ilcor had been between two goblins, and Astarion had been at her back, as he had a dozen times in the last handful of days. When the arrow came, her attention had been split; he’d pulled her out of the way in the last second, kept its pointy edge from going through her neck. She’d grinned and thanked him, arrow in her shoulder and blood still dripping down her arm.
He’d been a vampire then, and every day before then. It was her blood he’d smelled when he’d looked at her shoulder, the picture of concern. Saved her life? Nobody thanked a petty child for toying with his food before eating it alive.
“Yes,” she spat.
Wyll’s expression hardened. “I expected better from you, Ilcor.”
Who the fuck are you to expect anything from me, she almost spat—but to what end? It was over. She was outnumbered and outvoted. Every single one of the tadpole-infested bastards she had trusted and healed and fought alongside had chosen the vampire. Every instinct in her wanted to leave, to abandon the lot of them to their fate when the vampire showed his true nature and they learned that she’d been fucking right. But Shadowheart was right: they were bound.
She’d survive just fine on her own, she always had. But what did that mean, when she could turn into a mindflayer at any minute? Ilcor could carve through three, four goblins apace, but even she wasn’t stupid enough to believe she could get to a druid somewhere at the heart of a goblin camp intact. And walk into a Githyanki crèche on her own?
“Do you have a death wish?” the vampire had snapped at her as she attacked the goblins upstairs this afternoon. Funnily enough, Ilcor did not.
“Fine,” she spat. “Fine—you win. You all win.”
“If we release you, will you attack him?” Wyll asked.
“No,” she said, meeting the vampire’s eyes.
His eyes were almost black as Gale dropped Hold Person. Ilcor fell to her knees, her muscles sore from straining against the spell—and she let the dagger drop from her useless palm. Astarion didn’t move.
Everybody else seemed to relax, as though this was just another little disagreement in their camp of monsters and aberrations. Perhaps being undead was just another little quirk to them, this sorry lot with explosives in their hearts and tadpoles in their minds and every fucking sob story she might imagine. Ilcor knew better. This wasn’t over—but they’d need time to learn that.
And when their eyes opened, she’d have Gale hold him in place when she drove her sword through him.
“Perhaps it would be best if Ilcor joined me for the night. Or what remains of it,” Shadowheart said.
“Yeah,” Karlach agreed. “Fangs, you’re with me. Promise not to burn you!”
The vampire’s eyes remained on hers, though, boring so intensely they might even be called alive. She glared back—and somewhere, deep within her brain, their parasites sang, vibrant with the connection.
I know what you’re doing, she thought, hard as she could. They may trust you, but I don’t.
I wasn’t going to hurt you. The thought echoed back in her head, free of the coating of Cyric’s nectar his voice dripped with aloud. A sense-memory flashed, sharp between them—the scent of blood thick in the dank cellar, the sight of her neck, left bared by her camp clothing, the brush of her skin against his palms as she told him she’d Lay Hands on him whenever he liked. At the end of it came a fleeting series of thoughts, not meant for her—silly to think—offer of help—friends.
I’m not your friend, she thought. I’m a monster hunter. And when this farce ends, the moment you put one pointy fang out of line—I’ll hunt you.
She hoped he heard her.