Ruby crawled through the snow on her stomach, shifting her weight back and forth to produce as little sound as possible. Vampires had superhuman hearing.

She was wearing a mottled brown cloak over the rest of her traveler's clothes. Partly to provide another layer against the bitter chill of winter, and partly to contain her scent. Vampires had a superhuman sense of smell.

She pushed low-hanging tree boughs and frosted bushes out of her way as she crawled. The snow made her clothes wet in places. The howling, screeching wind stung her face. Her fingers and toes had gone numb a long time ago. Several times the ornate wooden scythe and heavy crossbow on her back caught on tree branches and got tangled in bushes. Still she crawled, as low to the ground as possible. Vampires had superhuman eyesight.

She made her slow, steady way through the underbrush of the forest, until it suddenly gave way to an impossibly high cliff edge. Far, far below and off in the distance lay the barrow-crypts of Horondar. Nothing but indistinct, grey shapes on the horizon. You could see for miles and miles from up here. She crawled several feet to her right, where a prone figure in a heavy brown cloak lay.

"Geez Ruby, took you long enough," Yang chuckled. A few strands of golden-blonde hair poked out from the hood of her cloak. Her purple eyes glimmered in the dusk.

"Oh shut up," Ruby hissed in reply. "And keep your voice down. They could hear us."

"What, from all the way over there?" Yang pointed forward and down, where, nestled into the steeply descending cliff side, was an ancient and decrepit stone castle. "C'mon, they have great hearing yeah, but it's not that great."

"You never know," Ruby muttered.

Yang patted her on the back. "It'll be fine sis. They have no idea we're up here. They won't know what's coming."

Ruby sighed and took a good look at their surroundings. The cliff face below them that descended to the castle was steep, but not sheer. A person – if they were careful – could probably make their way down without being spotted or heard. Or, they could misplace a step and come tumbling down into a coven full of starving, bloodthirsty vampires.

The only other way in was the main gate, which could only be raised from the inside. And the only way to that gate from the outside was across a flat stone causeway with no railing of any kind and a hundred foot drop on either side. It was more of a bridge really. And anyone coming across it would be spotted by the vampires inside.

Ruby sighed again. The sky was dark, menacing and deep red. The sun had finished setting, but its light had not quite died yet. A heavy mist hung about the castle. Snow covered everything. It was the recipe either for a perfect raid or the worst kind of disaster imaginable. They were a long way from home. Anyone wounded would likely die up there on the mountainside.

"Are the others ready?" Yang asked.

Ruby shuddered in the frigid wind. "Y-Yeah. Orson got everyone together in a little hollow in the woods. Got them to set up makeshift shelters and everything, but no fires."

"Right, the vampires would see the firelight when night falls."

"Right. Weapons got checked too. Some needed repairs after how far we've come. Some poor guy dropped his crossbow and his sword down the cliff on the way up here. Luckily someone brought an extra."

"Wait, he dropped both?" Yang sounded incredulous. "Like I understand losing your crossbow if it's on your back and you stumble or something, but your sword should be strapped into your hip sheath and... oh man. This ambush is gonna go wrong, isn't it?"

Ruby was quiet for a few seconds before speaking. "No, I think it'll work actually. There's only a few fresh hunters in the group. Most are actually veterans. Some have been hunting vampires for dozens of years. Honestly, if we play this right, I think we can wipe this coven out with very few casualties."

"Always the strategist," Yang chuckled. "How many of them do you think there are?"

Ruby frowned and looked at the castle again. "With a castle that size, I'd say no more than twenty or thirty. We have forty seven hunters. The odds are definitely on our side."

"Yeah," Yang agreed. "Hmm. What if they have a ghost-walker though?"

"Sheesh, be realistic Yang. We haven't seen one of those in years. They're a dying breed. Trust me, this'll work out."

Yang chuckled. "I guess you're right. We've come way too far to turn back now anyway. Orson did incredible to track them this far up into the Downfalls."

"After what they did to that village we found," Ruby growled, "I would have made him track them to the ends of the earth. I'm just glad we finally found their lair, or whatever this place is."

"Yeah," Yang whispered, suddenly deadly serious. "They're gonna pay for that."

"They're gonna pay for everything. And for what they did to Mom..." Ruby whispered back.

"For everything," Yang agreed. "Come on, let's get back down to the camp. Soon as sunrise hits they'll be blind as bats while their eyes adjust. It's the perfect time to do this."

Yang started crawling backwards, moving away from the cliff side and back into the underbrush high up in those lonely, desolate mountains.

Ruby hesitated a few seconds. "For mom..." she muttered into the frigid, howling wind. Bitter memories, cold as the wind, flashed through her mind.

Then she started crawling back as well.

The sun rose low, ruddy, and red over the lonely Downfall mountain range. Ruby stood where she had the night before, high on the clifftop overlooking the rocky slope that steeply descended towards the vampire coven's fortress.

"This is a stupid plan," Ruby muttered to herself. "Stupid stupid stupid. How did Yang even convince me to do this? Why is she so stupid? Why am I so stupid?"

She grit her teeth, tightened her grip on the wooden haft of her ornate scythe, and waited for the signal. She had been waiting for the past half-hour, and her nerves were starting to wear at her. It was just as cold as it had been during the night before, when the loose alliance of vampire hunters had huddled together in makeshift shelters in the lee of fallen pine trees. The only thing she could be thankful for now was that the sun was directly behind her and rising fast, and that vampires had a terrible time seeing in bright sunlight. So long as she didn't move too much, they wouldn't be able to tell her silhouette from that of the trees behind her.

She gazed down at the castle the vampires inhabited – and had most likely stolen. They might have just found it empty and abandoned, but Ruby didn't think so. Vampires were evil, horrible creatures, down to the very last one. They deserved nothing but extermination. To be wiped out to the very last man, woman, and child.

The castle had a outer ring of walls protecting a series of buildings, which in turn surrounded a higher, inner ring of walls. Inside that inner ring lay the castle's citadel, a three story stone building with several towers. It was a decent sized fortress, albeit decrepit and run-down.

"Who would even build a castle all the way up here?" Ruby muttered. "There isn't any civilization for a hundred miles in any direction..."

A bright flash of light suddenly caught her eye. It came from down the cliff, on the other side of the castle, from the forest near the edge of the causeway. Which was where the rest of the band of vampire hunters were lying in wait for Ruby to drop the drawbridge and open the gate. That was the signal from Yang. The flash of a mirror. It was time.

"This is a stupid plan," Ruby repeated. "Stupid stupid stupid."

She looked down the slope in front of her. It was steep, rocky, and lined with all sorts of loose stones and hardy shrubs clinging to the cliff face. One slip, one mistake, and she could slide down the rest of the way to her death.

"If I live through this, I'm gonna make Yang crawl through a strawberry field until she's picked me at least fifty," Ruby growled to herself.

She readied herself, twisted her grip on her scythe and took a deep breath. Then she started running. She took off, running downhill as fast as she could, as quickly as she could manage. She didn't think about what path to take down the slope, where to place her next step, just reacted on instinct. Her feet moved and her legs pumped as if of their own accord.

Down, down, down. Faster, faster, faster. She leaped over a fallen log, dodged right around a waist-high boulder, skidded down a few feet of loose gravel, and kept going. The edge of the slope was coming up fast. Between that edge and the top of the castle's outer wall was a ten foot chasm.

She grit her teeth and picked up speed. Her momentum carried her faster than she could ever have run on her own. She was almost there. A few more steps. Time seemed to slow.

She put on a final burst of speed, kicked off the edge of the chasm, and jumped.