The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

By the time he returned to his hammock, Darren and a few other soldiers were at the barrack. They were apparently waiting for their new first years. Darren caught sight of Aljan, and signaled him over.



“I will take you, Adish, and Magne to the Dancing Dog,” Darren told Aljan as he approached. As he said the names he pointed to either boy that was next to him. They were both about Aljan’s age, but Magne was slightly larger than Adish. The boy that was indicated as Magne was fair skinned with flaming red hair. The hair was about shoulder length, and was tied up in a horsetail. His eyes were a radiant blue. His strong nose was speckled with brown freckles across the bridge. Magne’s build was heavy set, but soft. A soft personality radiated from his person.



Adish, on the other hand, had a dark olive complexion. His hair was a dark chestnut, but it contained sun bleached streaks. The hair fell greasily in front of his eye muddy brown eyes. He was built with a much more slender sharper build. Adish reminded Aljan of a rat. To support his idea, Aljan noticed that Adish was forever glancing about.



After Darren arranged to meet some of his friends, the foursome set off to the Dancing Dog. Darren led the group down some of the back alleyways to a building that reminded Aljan of an inn. As they got closer, Aljan realized that it was an inn. Or at least it used to be. All around the building, easy women had lined up. Aljan at once understood what the Dancing Dog was. It was a brothel. Aljan glanced over at Darren to see what he was going to do. Darren showed no sign of caring about the easy women.



As they reached the door of the brothel, the easy women called to them, each of them promising a good time. Aljan looked ahead purposefully. Darren merely glanced at the wanton folk. The other two boys tried to follow suit of the first two, but they failed miserably. Adish couldn’t help but gape at a nice figured woman cooing to him. Magne was facing forward, but eyes kept wandering over the women around him.



When they finally got inside of the Dancing Dog, Aljan realized that it wasn’t a brothel. It truly was a place to eat. The air in the building was smoky and cool. There at least twenty tables close to the door. Off to the right was a full bar. In the middle of the room, there was a cleared area for a dance floor. Women in long black, loose fitting togas served the customers orders. Many of the soldiers it seemed were already here.



Darren herded the three boys over to a table in the far left corner. As the boys sat down at their table, a young waitress came over. She had a tan complexion, and light chestnut hair. The black toga, that was apparently the uniform of the waitresses, had been tied with a leather belt to accent her waist.

Aljan watched the soldier walk back to the tent. After he was sure that it was okay to explore, he went in the direction Darren had told him was the blacksmith’s. Aljan found the stout building a little ways from the barracks.



The building had adobe mud walls and was bleached close to white from the sun. The roof’s wooden planks were too long for the building. They hung over the side, creating a small shaded area in the front of the building. The door was a mere tanned animal skin hanging from the frame of the doorway. The skin was tied with a leather cord to the side of the frame, revealing the interior. Inside of the building was dark, except for the flames from the bellows. The flames caused shadows to dance around the room. The shadows played over incomplete projects like helmets, shields, iron armguards, spears, and swords were the few that Aljan noticed.



As Aljan’s eyes grew used to the light he noticed a large grunting figure close to the bellows. It suddenly occurred to Aljan that the figure was a man. The man was larger than average from working in the armory. Aljan assumed that this must be the head smith. Aljan saw the man lift its right arm and bring it down quickly. The impact made the sound of metal clashing with metal. It was apparent that years of swinging a hammer each and everyday had taken an effect on his body. His shoulders and arms were molded with bulging muscles. The heat from the fire caused the man to dress sparingly. The only article of clothing on his body was a long leather loin clothe tied around his waist. Not wanting to disturb the man, Aljan moved on to explore the training yards.



Before Aljan could see the crowd, he could hear them. As Aljan grew closer he noted that the crowd was cheering. The cheers were directed toward something happening in the training yard.



Pushing his way through the crowd, Aljan came to the railing of the yard. Inside were two high ranking officers and a small girl. Both officers had the dark skin of native tribal clans. Their hair was tightly curled to their scalp. The only difference between the two, were the uniforms. The first had two purple armbands wrapped around his biceps, and a golden chain hung around his muscled neck. The second had two red armbands wrapped around forearms. Both of the officers were heavily muscled. They were both giant in comparison to the little girl.



The girl did not seem phased at all with the large masses of human flesh in front of her. She calmly stood about three feet away from the massive bodies. She unlike the rest of the people in the vicinity of the yard was not wearing a uniform. She had on a dirty white loincloth and a similar breast band. On her feet were not shoes, but medical bandages were wrapped around them. Her hands were wrapped the same way. Her long ebony hair was tied back with a leather thong. Unlike the dark skinned bodies across from her, she had a more yellow complexion. Aljan had only seen this kind of complexion in the royal phoenix court.



Right as Aljan had begun to think about why a phoenix was in Anubian/Wolf territory, the hulking forms made their move. The purple banded soldier went to the left as the red went to the right. Just as they moved the girl moved forward. The two soldiers collided with each other right were she had been not a second before. While recovering from the collision the two soldiers, quickly moved after the girl. The feet of the girl and the two soldiers never seemed to touch the ground. Their feet seemed to glide above the ground instead of push off it.



Just as the soldiers caught up with the girl, she jumped into the air and flipped backwards. Landing behind the soldiers, she shot a stream of crimson red fire from her right arm. The two soldiers fell forward with no sign of singed clothing. Before they could regain their stances, rocks shot from the ground behind the girl and landed on the soldiers.



The crowd cheered with delight throughout this entire event. Aljan was left in a daze. He had never seen anyone fight that well since he had left home. This girl, Aljan thought, she must be of royal blood. After a short time, the girl went over to the soldiers, who were still under the rocks, and let them out.



“Geez, Abubakar you really let her whoop you this time!”



“Nabil, you couldn’t beat her if you tried!”



“It’s sad to say that you’re both Panthers!”



The jeers kept on going. The two just ignored them. Both got up from the ground stiffly. “Princess Kida, you really shouldn’t beat us too much. We are getting far too old for this,” calmly said the soldier wearing the red armbands.



“But Abubakar, it is so much fun to,” replied the girl. “You and Nabil make the process easy by running into each other.”



Aljan didn’t hear the rest of the conversation, because right at that moment she turned to him. It was then that he saw her eyes. Brilliant crimson pools, which radiated excess amounts of energy. His breathe caught, because he realized who this child was. She was the daughter of two rivaling countries, the union of hatred. She was the heir to the two most powerful thrones, the Phoenixes and the Anubians. The girl held his gaze for a few moments.



Breaking his gaze away from the girl, he noticed that the Panther soldiers, who had been sparring with her, noticed her fascination with something outside of the yard. The two looked in his direction. Not seeing anything of interest, they moved over to the edge of the yard to talk to their friends.



Aljan felt that his presence here was making the heir uncomfortable. He made sure not to make eye contact with her again, and tried to see if she was still watching him. He saw that something else had caught her attention. Aljan used this moment to escape back to the barrack.

“So you say you’re a wolf?” The source was a large man sitting behind a wooden table. His hair was originally black, but age had peppered it with gray. The man had tied it back in a horsetail, but shorter strands fell in front of his icy blue eyes.



“Y-yessir,” Aljan squeaked. Compared to the boulder sitting in front of him, he was a small pebble. Though Aljan appeared to be skinny, his muscles were well developed for a child of ten. His hair, unlike the man’s, was cut short and was a silver white. Aljan’s eyes were golden with fleck of light brown color. These eyes were glowing with fear and curiosity.



“What tribe do you hail from?” The interviewer inquired. He smelled tribal scent on the boy, but there was something about him that wasn’t the same as other wolves. It was almost like the boy was a half-breed. Though the possibility was highly unlikely, it was still there.



“I hail from the Ice pack,” replied Aljan. “My mother is close to the pack though.”



“Why?”



“There were some instances about suitors for her.”



“So you are a mixed blood?” Aljan nodded. “Well, that explains your scent. I believe that we could use you in the army. We need a bit of variety,” the interviewer resolved. Then in a louder voice, he boomed, “Welcome to the Anubian army.”



After Aljan was handed the necessary paperwork, he was herded out of the canvas tent and assigned to an alumni soldier. The soldier was dressed in the uniform of a higher ranking foot soldier. The standard linen loin clothe was accompanied with two leather hip guards on a simple rope belt around his waist. The soldier’s light chestnut waves of hair hung tosseled over honey brown eyes. The tropical heat of the oasis was causing both Aljan and the elder soldier to form droplets of sweat on their bare backs and brows. The heat had caused the soldier to remove his uniform’s leather armguards.



Aljan handed the soldier his paperwork. The others eyes skimmed quickly of the papers. After a second of reading, he said, “So you are from the Ice pack?” Aljan nodded. “As you may have noticed it is slightly hotter in our territory than your’s. It might take you a while to get used to the heat.” At the last part, Aljan hinted at some higher notes in his voice. The soldier couldn’t be but five years older than him.



“By the way, my name is Darren. I will be showing you the ropes around here.” Aljan again nodded. He didn’t quite trust this youth yet. Aljan judged that Darren’s body movements were more that of a lazy soldier, than that of a hard working soldier. With his judgment in mind, Aljan listened to the rules of the army was he was taken to his barracks.



The two headed south from the recruitment tent and came to a smaller building. The building was about twenty yards away from the royal gardens of the Palace. Darren explained to Aljan that this building was the Panther Barracks. Panthers were the fifty royal bodyguards to the Pharaoh Panahasi. Aljan, Darren explained, was a Scorpion. Scorpions were the normal soldiers of the army. They included lower ranking soldiers to middle ranking.



The Scorpion building was located farther South. The building was low, and had no walls. The building was about ten times the size of the Panther barrack. Hammocks hung from the supports. As Darren showed Aljan to the first year area, he noticed that within ten yards of the area were the live stock pens. Darren explained that the longer he was in the army, the more privileges he would have with boarding. After the first three years, the soldiers were allowed to live off of the palace grounds.



After being shown where the hammocks were located, Aljan chose his hammock. The hammock was made of strong strips and bamboo. Aljan and Darren set up the hammock close to the inside of the first year area. “Alright, I have to go and show around a few more recruits. I will group back up with you later to show you where to eat,” Darren said. “You can wander around the soldier area. There is a training yard to the east of the blacksmith.” Upon telling Aljan this, Darren turned back the way they had come.