That night Vlad dreamed of killing the invaders.  It was cold in the small chamber, and he wrestled with his dark visions fitfully on the thatch bed.

              A thousand heads with the agonized faces of his captors rested on spears that lined the road to the Castle of the Wind in Wallachia.  He cantered slowly across the stark country, breathing in the air of his homeland in deep draughts.  A million of his black-clad warriors rode behind him, and a million more behind them.

              This dream was Prince Vlad’s only happiness.  His waking hours were consumed in the quiet rage of isolation.  His captors treated him impassively, delivering strange foods to their brooding prisoner and then departing.

              Vlad had become unkempt during his imprisonment.  His dark hair, which once streamed so proudly behind him, had become knotted and matted in the absence of his servants.  His sharp moustache had grown into his rough beard, and his muscular frame had thinned to a ghost of its former self.

              Despite this, that undefinable quality that struck fear into the hearts of his enemies still predominated.  It was in his eyes, in his posture, in his soft commanding voice – it was nobility and ferocity embodied in one flesh. 

              He was Vlad, Prince of Wallachia, and even if he wasted away in this cell it would still always be so.

 

              Dryll urged his mount closer to the tree line.  The stone walls of the occupied Turkish stronghold loomed before him.  The torches of the sentries on the battlements danced like will-o-wisps against the night.

              Dryll and his small band of royal guards had been encamped in the forest beyond the stronghold for several nights.  They had studied the habits of the guards and learned to say basic commands in the strange tongue. 

              Tonight they were ready to attack.

              Clothed in earthy browns and padded in Turkish armor, fifty pairs of eyes gazed upon the impossibility before them with confidence.

              They had been driven from their homes, lost a kingdom and a prince, and were now ready to prove themselves as warriors for perhaps the last time as the remnants of the Wallachian royal guard.

 

              Vlad was awakened by the grating sound of his tray of food sliding into the room.  It was always the same – some rice, some small bits of spiced lamb, and a piece of bread.  It was cold, but Vlad devoured it rapidly.  Wiping up the last few pieces of rice with the last bite of bread, Vlad wearily rose and walked over to the tower window. 

              He did not know how many days had past since his capture, nor his location.  He often wished that he was being held somewhere within the Ottoman Empire, for the thought of being a prisoner within his own beloved country filled him with a trembling rage.

              He was a melancholy figure as he stared out from the tower window.  He was being held on the south side of the fortress, and the barren rocky hillside yielded only a few stunted bushes.

              He belonged in the forest, surrounded by the bustling hum of nature and the thrill of the hunt in his heart.

              There was a flutter of wings and a crow came to rest on the windowsill.  It carried a piece of metal in its beak.  In his hunger Vlad lunged for the bird, but succeeded only in knocking its package loose.

              It clattered to the floor and the dark bird was gone.  Vlad knelt down to examine the object.  Although bloodied and slightly bent, the bird had delivered a shoulder plate from a suit of armor.

              Vlad slowly began to scrape its edge along the stone floor, working towards making a fine point.  “I will call you Freedom-Bringer,” he said quietly, forging his hatred.

 

 

              Dryll raised his hand.

              Silently, the men took their places before the crouched archers with flint in hand.  Dryll unsheathed Cinder, his blade.  The royal guard made a habit of naming their weapons, hoping that in the heat of battle their blades would become possessed by the spirits of fallen Wallachian beserkers.

              The drawbridge of the fortress began to open, its chains shattering the stillness of the clear night.  A lone horseman clattered across the drawbridge.

              Suddenly there was chaos.

              The messenger was unhorsed as a spear struck his mount.  Arrows streamed from the trees, piercing one sentry through the throat and another through the shoulder.  The drawbridge began to raise, and then stopped a few feet from the ground as a band of what appeared to be Turkish soldiers shouted and sprinted for the castle’s gate.

              The wounded sentry managed to fire a single crossbow bolt into the trees.

              Flaming arrows streamed like flares into the castle’s interior adding further confusing the keep’s defenders.

              Dryll was first to cross the drawbridge, and he saw the horror in the gatekeeper’s eyes as Dryll slashed Cinder deeply across the gatekeeper’s collar and shoulder.

              He joined the rest of the royal guard as they poured into the courtyard.  There were shouts coming from the barracks, and guards began to run out of the small building, some half-clothed and unarmed.  Flaming arrows began to strike the far wall of the courtyard and the roof of the barracks.  The royal guard pressed forward to engage the Turks, and the arrows continued to rain without discrimination into Wallachian and Turk alike.

              An arrow struck Dryll’s mount and he was thrown forward.  Dirt was in his eyes and mouth, temporarily blinding him.  He had dropped Cinder during the fall.

              Dryll rubbed his eyes and rolled over onto his back.  A screaming Turkish captain was charging toward him with an upraised spear.  He waited calmly as the distance closed between them.  He could almost count the bristles on the man’s beard when the thrust came.  Dryll quickly rolled on his side and the point of the spear brushed his armor and pierced the earth.

              Dryll grabbed the shaft of the spear strongly and the captain’s momentum threw him forward.  Springing to one knee, Dryll pulled the spear from the dirt and drove it into the captain’s back in a single motion.

              The battle was in full pitch around him.  The archers had joined the fight, and individual melees raged across the courtyard.  Orange flames engulfed the barracks, and serpentine coils of black smoke twisted around the combatants.

              Dryll recovered Cinder and joined two of his warriors.  He yelled above the clamor and ringing of steel. 

              “We must find the prince!  The fortress is burning!”

              They nodded and fought onward towards the flames and a stairway to the rear battlements.

 

              Vlad smiled on his rough bed.  He could hear the battle raging in the courtyard, and smell the smoke that creeped in beneath the doorway and window.

              He had known in his heart that they would come for him.  There was much blood and time between himself and the royal guard, and if they still lived, they would come.  In a way, he felt closer to this band of men than his own cold, distant father.

              Vlad heard footsteps outside the door, and then the soft tick of a key in the lock.  He closed his eyes and drew slow, even breaths.

              The garrison commander eased the door back and gazed triumphantly at his captor who rested peacefully on his bed.

              His bare feet were silent on the cold stone floor, and his curved blade smiled wickedly in the torchlight.

              He paused above the prisoner, watching the rise and fall of his chest and his eyelids for trickery.

              After several moments, he was satisfied.

              “Die, Dracula,” he hissed, raising the blade.

              In a flash the metal plate shot upwards from Vlad’s cupped hand and buried itself in the assassin’s neck.  He gurgled as his life force gushed out of his body.

              Vlad tasted the shower of blood on his face.  He released the makeshift weapon and the commander crumpled to the floor of the cell, his blood filling the small cracks between the stones. 

              Picking up the commander’s scimitar, Vlad hurried towards freedom through the smoke.