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states. In the end, Von
Kruger had emerged victorious among the vampires and now controlled
the two states completely.
    Of course, in the time it had
taken Von Kruger to achieve dominion over the vampires he had
allowed Carter the time to gain full control of the thrall forces,
forces that were far more numerous than the vampires and could not
now be ignored. Von Kruger, fresh from his victory, had finally
taken the time to take stock of his territory and had come to
realise that his own vampire forces were far fewer than he had
realised.
    His borders were under severe
threat from neighbouring states as those vampires were slowly
coming to terms with the knowledge that vampires were once again at
war with each other. They had held off attacking him themselves so
far only because they feared reprisal from the Council, but, with
the council’s continued inaction to Von Kruger’s campaign, many of
the neighbouring states were beginning to see this as a form of
unofficial approval and were already beginning to marshal their own
forces to take whatever advantages this new situation presented to
them.
    The whole situation was poised
to blow. Added to Von Kruger’s troubles were the further problems
of a severely depleted food source and an army which was no longer
under his control. In all, Von Kruger now found himself vulnerable
from those of his kind manoeuvring around him and from within by
the very forces he once controlled.
    While Carter was happy to see
that his rival was distracted he still had problems of his own to
contend with. On top of everything else he had heard recently that
the rebels who had rescued the human prisoners three months ago had
not been idle either while he and Von Kruger had been busy. His own
attention had been focused on consolidating his position and this
had meant either welcoming new forces into his growing army or
subduing by force those who did not join him. This had left many of
the human prisoners relatively unguarded as his campaign had pulled
every available thrall to either guard the borders or bolster his
conquering armies.
    He had decided at an early stage
in his new position that he would have to deal with the vampires at
some point and, to do this, he had to have leverage. The only thing
he had that they really needed was live humans, so he had continued
to keep the humans guarded throughout his campaign. This had been a
drain on his forces as he had required most of his new army to
bully those communities who resisted him and he had only been able
to spare small numbers of guards to protect his precious
resources.
    Many of his human prisoners had
simply gone missing over the last few weeks. It had been
surprisingly small numbers at first and had not worried him unduly,
but it had begun to grow of late. In many cases the guards had not
even seen the thieves. They had simply guarded through the night
but, come breakfast time, had noticed that a number of their
charges were no longer in the pens. No shots had been fired and no
thralls had been killed. Carter suspected that the thrall guards
had been taking shelter from the still freezing weather and had
been less than honest in their reports of patrolling all through
the night.
    An urban legend had begun to
form around this band of rebels; he had heard whispered stories
that they could spirit away prisoners at will, that they controlled
the mist itself and that they could simply disappear at will. After
all, if vampires could exist, why not humans with special powers?
Cater had been forced to make an example of the last thralls who
had lost their prisoners or face a situation which would have left
him without his bargaining chips. He had ordered the thralls
stripped and left staked near a neighbouring vampire stronghold.
Their screams had filled the night almost till the next dawn and
the stories of the hideously torn thrall bodies that were revealed
the next morning were enough to ensure that guard duty was again
taken very