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All his kings had died.
He refused to acknowledge the residing one as the rightful ruler. The previous one had ended everything on his own terms rather than surrendering, just like his maker. And now it was just him.
He was too late seeking shelter. The horizon had already begun to boil white with noon when he realized there would be no stone to hide beneath. The steppe offered nothing but low hills and wind-flattened grass.
The sun was burning and so was his skin. The air itself felt like fire. His red hair clung damp to his temples beneath the heavy hood of his cloak. The weight of the cloak pressed down on his shoulders, trapping the heat against his body.
His horse was gone. He had been a robust cavalry stud with color like wet soil. The stud had bolted at dawn, possibly terrified by the scent of him. It was an immeasurable loss for the undead.
He had heard his fellow infantrymen talking about the shelter. The underground structure his ancestors had built, of soft ashen rocks. They’re still expanding the tunnels, he remembered one of them saying. Their words were the mirage that kept him going.
His sight faltered. He almost couldn’t see, his vision swimming. Everything was a blur of overexposed brightness. His eyes stung, tears evaporated before they could fall. Every vein felt as if molten lead coursed through it.
Everything smelled red hot in his limited sense. The ground burned dull crimson, the distant rocks glowed faintly orange. Even his own scent was wrong. He could smell his own body temperature spiking. His head felt crushed under the heat and his body turned into a furnace.
He dragged the shield behind him; a wide, iron disc that once had been his joy and pride. Its surface had long since blackened, now too hot to touch for long. He used it to block the worst of the sunlight, crawling in its shadow when he could.
He crawled over the baked ground. The soil was cracked and sharp, flaking like broken pottery. The steppe shimmered in the distance, trembling under the heat. Even the horizon seemed to waver.
A century of existence had made his body adapted to sunlight. He didn’t die soon after sun exposure, but it wasn’t enough to deter the effect of bright day light. His adaptation only prolonged the agony. He was still prey to the glorious sun.
He thought he heard his late wife calling him, a soft laugh in the wind. Barely audible but unmistakably hers. Her. He almost saw her figure in the glare. It was but a daydream, he knew of that, but sure it was vivid.
His eyes watered, and he didn’t know whether it was from the boiling heat or from memory. Her face, the last time he saw it, had been calm. The dead often were.
His throat burned. He could feel hunger from the marrow of his bones. His whole body thirsted for blood. He reckoned he’d have one final meal.
With trembling hands, he reached for the waterskin tied to his belt. He unstopped it and raised it to his cracked, bleeding lips. Inside was no human blood—only sheep’s blood, long since cooled. It was nearly foul but still thick with that delicious coppery smell. The liquid burned his dry throat. The sensation was dense and clotted, but it was better than dying on an empty stomach.
The sheep blood, albeit almost depleted of nutrients, seemed to reignite something in his brain.
His trembling hands quickly plunged into the hot soil of the steppe. With a sense of desperation, he then utilized his shield as a makeshift shovel. With every passing moment, his digging effort grew more and more frenzied. The hole finally grew bigger, just enough to swallow him; a fruit of his intense labor.
The vampire descended to the hole, and began burying himself until the scorching sun no longer harmed him. And for a moment, he’s at peace, sheltered. Burrowed, not unlike burial tumulus. Cocooned safe and secure under the earth’s mercy. He would leave the problem of looking for direction to the underground shelter to tomorrow’s him
He prayed to The Great Mother the inhabitants there would be as amiable as his former kings, that his ghoulish existence still served a purpose.