Finding Blood (City Underdark #1)

The Tale

Barmond had specifically asked Yoven not to act as a servant, but Yoven did it anyway. By the very next night, he was already taking care of cleaning their shared living space, having found a broom. Barmond thought the place to be clean enough, Yoven insisted that it could be better. But it was when he mentioned how soothing he found the repetitive activity that Barmond gave up on convincing him. Yoven had served a master his entire life. More than just a task, cleaning was probably a much-needed shred of normalcy when his entire world had been turned upside down.

With that done, unsure if he was welcome to roam the halls when dinner had been brought to Yoven in his chambers, Barmond sat down with his ropes and supplies. He sharpened his knives - Yoven was quite surprised to learn that he always carried three of them on him at all time, just in case.

"What for?" asked Yoven.

"You never know," Barmond answered, putting down his whetstone. "My life has always been a dangerous one-- Well, maybe not always. But it's been such a long time ago that it seems so, to me."

"It's really not easy to be a vampire, I suppose."

"Surprisingly, that wasn't the most dangerous. I was a vampire hunter before, you know?"

"A hunter?" Yoven's eyes became round. Without his beard and his hair, he looked thinner, frailer. But his hazel eyes also looked a lot bigger, sucking in the world around them. "There are people out there that hunt vampire?"

"Just like there are some that hunt undead, incubus, or elementals. Although the lasts ones are, most of the time, in for the money rather than for a nobler cause, as elementals are mostly neutral beings."

"Why did you become a hunter?"

Barmond looked at Yoven, considering whether or not he should answer. The wound was an old one yet it never closed completely, making it a sore subject.

"Let us just say that my family forced me." Barmond leaned back against his chair as he told the story. "It was what was most convenient at the time for them. I joined them when I was barely a man, at the age of sixteen, and they didn't give me three years before I was but another body in their hall of the dead. When a new hunter commits to the guild, it's usually out of devotion for a greater cause. A bit like how a monk joins a monastery. I never had such a conviction."

"But you survived."

"Yes, I did. Looking back, I realize that it was always the fanatics that died first in pointless missions. If I spotted a vampire that wasn't causing too much trouble, I left them alone. Being a hunter is not like being a soldier, running off to fight every single enemy he encounters. I saw myself a bit more as an artisan; a table maker doesn't go around making tables out of every damn tree he spies, but when he does make a table, it better be the best he can make."

Yoven gave him that big-eyed empty look that screamed: "I didn't get the metaphor."

"What I am trying to say," continued Barmond, "is that if you want to kill a vampire, there are tools you need to use and skills you need to master, and I'm not talking about weapons and how to use them. You need to track down their retreat, their servants, their favourite feeding spots and know what powers they have and don't have. That can take months."

"Oh."

"Indeed. Of all the hunters, the vampire hunters are among the most specialized and with the most dangerous preys... if a vampire can ever be called a prey from a human's perspective."

"How did you become a vampire, then? Were you turned by force?"

"By force? No, no vampire in their right mind would turn a hunter into one of their own, not unless they have a lot to gain from it. I just so happen to stumble across the right bargaining chip. I was tracking a dangerous target, a vampire called Doe-Eyed Aurora, with a team of other hunters... except that she realized that she was being tracked because of a mistake by our rookie. Yet, instead of attacking us as we expected her to, she fled. I would have never taken the decision our team leader took, which was to pursue, although I understand that throwing month's worth of work to the wind because of a mistake would have been foolish. We pursued. And then, hoping to take her by surprise, we attacked her.