In the year 1563, all of Vargarin reeked of death and decay.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDGwa8bUfBa
It was whispered that the sickness had come overseas with the merchant ships.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbyKHoVubBG
It raged worst in August, when the heat magnified the stench of the streets beyond all measure. From Rosegrad to Korvuneshti to Albfurt, corpses were carried out daily. Mass graves lay open for days and were only closed once they were filled. Up to twenty bodies heaped one on top of the other, earth thrown over them until no more space remained.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA4u5GVErV9
Many who still walked upright one day were thrown into the pit by the third.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiEvsgsWrcF
Scholars advised isolating the sick. Those not yet infected should leave the city.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP8hndDhPSS
Rosegrad, however, did not follow such advice, and there the plague struck the hardest.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDWqkLM3pXH
Trade and its demands were placed above the fight against the disease.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQLxzAiBTRP
The child abandoned the mother, the husband the wife, the wife the husband, the sister the sister, and the brother the brother.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvZ9IGLRait
The few physicians who dared demand outrageous sums, took the pulse with averted eyes, and fled as soon as they could. They could not help anyway.
Amid this misery, Szandor Aranyos followed a lead from Grellborn, an old druid and, if one could call him that, a friend. A barely visible gravel path led him through fir forest to an estate long forgotten. The gate stuck, yet sprang open under his hand. Three steps further the stench struck him so violently that he recoiled, gagging.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxR04RJyXnF
He cursed aloud in every language he knew:412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvmc19AoqwS
“Du undorító Drecksack, thou filthy kurwa fi, Grellborn!”412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJayQnGzXuF
(“You vile bastard, Grellborn!”)412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ05gzd61G9y
And yet: crypts, cellars, and ruins had humiliated him long enough. This time he wanted a roof that held.
Grellborn had had enough of seeing Szandor dwell in crypts and cellars. So he sent him to a deserted estate at the foot of the Grymm Mountains. Once a minor noble’s secondary seat, it was reachable only by narrow paths. Secluded, hidden, invisible in mist, and even in sunlight veiled by thick firs.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ089tUuqV12
A place made for a creature of the night.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPVDqVK2z1q
What Grellborn did not know (or deliberately concealed, Szandor assumed): the house was still inhabited by tragedies everyone wished forgotten.
The sickly-sweet stench of vinegar, pus, and blood made him step back.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpvFVc6etyh
Instinctively he knew: this was wrong. This never should have happened.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIZH5UMPT9H
And yet, a year earlier the Black Death had struck Vargarin.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTFswJkoEab
Many fled the villages and towns, more perished, and a few survived, if they were strong enough.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXSrwNpz4cc
Szandor, as a vampire, remained untouched by the drama, observing the dying with a certain distance. He was used to the fact that nothing and no one ever stayed.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmOR1IGMhur
But here, amid death that assaulted his senses so rawly, even he faltered.
From a safe distance he took a few clean breaths, yet the stench already clung to him. Determined, he stepped toward the ivy-clad stone house and tore the wooden and iron door open with inhumane strength. He pulled his white linenshirt over his nose and began to search for the source of the death.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdeHfySbG50
The entrance was dark and dusty. A chair stood crooked beside a wooden table as the only greeting, a staircase leading to the next floor. To the left, a larger room with a soot-blackened hearth. On the wall hung old pots and dried herbs. The stone floor was coated in thick grime. In the middle stood a massive wooden table, beside it a pot of stagnant water. His gaze swept the surface. Knives, clay jars, and everywhere the buzzing of flies. On rotten meat and decaying vegetables, maggots writhed in white swarms. More company than he cared for.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeTOcmk9GUQ
Szandor grimaced, turned away, and climbed the stairs, each step croaking under his weight. Understandable.
When he entered the first room on the right, the maggots seemed the more pleasant company. In the bed lay a man. Not young, not yet old, with burst boils beneath the arms, fingers black as if about to fall off. Pus and blood had long since soaked the sheets. The man lay with open mouth, his cheeks sunken, robbed of all color.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVqgnueL1MU
To Szandor’s own surprise, his stomach rebelled when he could no longer separate the stench from the rotting body. He jerked his head aside and vomited into the nearest corner. A luxury he had thought long unlearned.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSwNBTp7xq5
With long strides he left the room to see the next, only to realize: it was no better.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK4lp0hghpb
Moonlight fell through the murky windows, casting the victims’ faces white, almost ghostly. The sickly-sharp odor burned in Szandor’s eyes, brought forth thin tears. In the light he saw an old woman in a chair, a child in her arms. Both long consumed by decay.
There was no time to brood over tragedy. He acted.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnmfUQxuAse
Behind the house, in front of the courtyard, he found a shovel. He checked the position of the moon, the dampness of the air, estimating how much time remained until the first rays of sun would reach the horizon.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeKxsSgmt7A
Stroke by stroke he dug a pit that seemed deep enough to hold three bodies.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡisCt2KOfEi
A glance at the sky told him the night was brightening.
On the second floor he opened every window he could find and wrapped each corpse with care; understandably, he wished not to come into contact with bodily fluids, even if, as a vampire, they could not harm him. Szandor had standards; his sense of aesthetics had not vanished with his transformation.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGOPl1KQE9D
He hurled the lifeless bodies through the window into the courtyard.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjszG76oMvM
Man and woman he laid shoulder to shoulder in the pit, the little girl, more gently than he intended, between them, as if in the arms of her parents.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡofjpz0o0tF
After covering them with a layer of earth, he turned back to the house, while the first light of dawn crept over Vargarin.
In the damp cellar he sought refuge. Huddled in a corner, he slept deeply, for as long as needed; there, where no ray could ever reach him.
The following night Szandor set about cleaning every room, clearing away what was contaminated. Amid worm-eaten wood, stagnant water, and layers of dust, the building scarcely resembled a house. More a tomb.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTDMqhmK7I2
Yet the ivy that climbed the stonewalls gave it a name. House Hedera, he called it.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbiUShBe5Gh
Enduring as the plant itself.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7JCw2IKMqr
And so the vampire found a home.
and then Add to home screen.