She Wins with Fire!

The diversion she needed came when the Nymph suddenly decided to help. The girl jumped onto the Lich's back and placed her hands around his neck.

"HEAL!"

The curative magic flowed out of her hands and into the skeletal throat of the Lich, causing it to wail in pain. The bones began to smoke and turn brown where she touched.

Venus then saw her own opertunity. The house the Lich had set on fire earlier was still burning nearby, and there were several pieces of wood she could use as torches. Fire was the only true weakness most undead had, though some were effected by silver like werewolves. Venus rolled away before the Revenant could come after her again and raced for the burning house.

The Revenant began to chase her, but she easily outran it. She grabbed a fallen piece of the housing and shoved the tip into the flames. The Revenant Grabbed her from behind but she spun and smacked him in the head with her knew weapon. When the sudden attack caused Revenant to go down, she thrust the flaming wood into its mouth and watched as the flames began burning the creature into true ****.

The Lich managed to throw the nymph off and was about to cast a spell upon her, but Venus jerked the wood from the now destroyed head of the Revenant and threw it like a javelin. The wood pierced the body of the Lich and the remaining flames began to lick at his old robes. The lich flailed, trying to put out the fire, but Venus had already retrieved another torch and calmly walked over and stabbed it into the creature's chest.

Both undead monsters quickly turned into little more than ash as the villagers slowly began returning. Some had been watching from afar, hoping the shadow hunter was victorious, but still ready to flee when she fell. An elderly man approached her as helped the Nymph to her feet.

"Hunter, thank you so much for defeating the minions of Valdin."

"It is part of my duty. Is Valdin the vampire I've heard is attacking the region?"

"Yes actually. Valdin has lived in a castle near here for longer than the village has even existed. As long as villagers left his castle and its surrounding forests alone, he left us in relative peace, asking only for a blood sacrifice every twenty years. We never had to kill anyone, just have each villager donate some blood into a large bowl. Zombies and skeletons would come to collect the bowl, but never harmed the village in any way."

Venus was slightly confused by this. She knew that some vampires could be gentle and that they only sated their thirst to survive. many could do so without killing or turning their victims. This whole "Blood Pact" was still new to her though.

"If he is so gentle, then why the sudden attacks?"

It was the Nymph who spoke up, bouncing up and down excitedly as she did.

"I know I know! Valdie's become a bit of a player! He's collecting women for some sort of harem!"

The elder sighed and waved a dismissive hand at the Nymph.

"Please forgive Viola. She is rather excitable and means no disrespect."

"None taken. She actually saved both our lives, so I can handle a little excitement from her. But a harem? A vampire's offspring is a powerful creature, both human, and undead. They have all the strengths of a vampire, but can walk in the sun. They are perfect hunters and they are best at hunting Vampires."

Viola waved her hand in the air.

"Me me! I know this one too! I hear things when I go in the forest to... Never mind that, but I hear things! There is a war coming between monsters. Lots of heavy hitters joining in! Valdie's gathering lots of undead under him and he's trying to get some kiddies ready for battle too!"

Shocked murmurs raced through the gathered crowd at Viola's comment and the elder turned to her, his expression angry.

"If you knew all this, why havent' you said so before?"

"Cause ya never asked?" Viola blushed and looked to Venus sheepishly for help.

"It doesn't matter what she knew before now. If this is the Vampire's goal, we need to either take him out or convince him to somehow stop and help us. he hasn't started hurting villagers until recently, so maybe he can be reasoned with? If not, we need to destroy him."

The elder closed his eyes for a moment and nodded.

"Agreed. You have all the fighting men of our village at your disposal Hunter."

"Me too," Viola added happily.

Venus looked at the now determined faces around her and wondered if she could really lead a group of rag-tag villagers into battle without getting them all killed.