Father Byron left Roland alone to survey the little room, but outside of the bloodstain and the cross Roland had returned to the priest, there was nothing to be found. The windows were whole and little more than panes of glass, with no cracks for a fleeing vampire to squeeze through...not that the newly risen vampire would have needed them. It had probably just walked out the front door, the same way Roland and the priest had come in.

When he had done what little there was for him to do, he left the church, bid farewell to the priest, and returned to the central town square. Once again he was found and flocked by children, and tousled the hair of the little girls while he complimented the wooden swords all the little boys now seemed to carry, while artfully evading their queries about Hal Dobbin's body. Those were questions whose answers were better left to the adults of the hamlet.

His destination was the town's solitary tavern and inn, the Dancing Duchess. He stopped in the stable first, and was well satisfied by the state he found Constance, his mare, in. The stable was clean, with fresh hay on the ground, and Constance had been brushed and fed, with her tack--cleaned--hanging nearby. She was also the only horse being sheltered there. She snorted and stomped a hoof when she caught his scent, but was easily soothed by a scratch along the jaw and was happy to accept the gift of an apple, courtesy of one of the children.

With Constance thus checked on, Roland entered the tavern itself. The common room seemed packed to the brim, and the boisterous noise of its patrons quickly turned to cheers as the shine and clatter of his armor announced the paladin's arrival. The room smelled of ale, meat, grease, and sawdust, which mostly drowned out the scent of so many human bodies packed into one room. Roland smiled and raised his hands to the greeting, but quickly wove his way to the staircase at the back of the room.

The innkeeper appeared, practically out of thin air, to meet him, and led him up to one of the rooms on the second floor. It was a small affair, but the floors were clean and the linens on the small bed were white, and scented with the herbs used to keep vermin at bay. His packs, removed from his saddle, awaited him here, and Roland turned to the task of removing his armor, cleaning it, and changing out of his armor padding and underclothes and into a more comfortable and casual set of gray leggings, a white tunic, and bleached leather boots. Finally he slung a white leather belt, set with many pouches, around his waist.

When he finally appeared downstairs again, the common room was just as crowded as it had been when he'd first passed through...if not more so. The moment he appeared on the staircase, though, a dozen spaces appeared at all the tables' benches as the current occupants squished together to make room and hopefully entice the paladin over. Roland chuckled to himself with a smile, and rather than consider the different options, moved straight ahead to the open space that was nearest to him.

Roland found himself at a table being shared by five amiable-looking men, with appearances ranging from dark and wiry to blonde and barrel-like. Just before a barmaid appeared to ask his fancy, he received introductions, which included the oddly-named Tavarez, who hailed from distant lands.

"So what'd you have to do to Hal?" asked the man with the barrel-like body, as the barmaid scurried off to the kitchen with Roland's order.

"Nothing," Roland sighed, evenly meeting the eyes of the other men. "His body was gone when I got to the church."

Curses flew and ale sputtered over bearded lips. "Somebody took it?" demanded one.

"Hal's a bloodsucker!" cried another, and the tavern quickly fell silent as the other patrons overheard the cry, and turned to stare with wide eyes.

Roland nodded unhappily. "I am sorry such a fate had to strike him, but I promise I will set things to right."

"You can stop two vamps at once?"

"Won't they gang up on you?"

"How could he rise in the daylight?"

Roland put his hands up to try and still the threatening bedlam. "It seems he rose in the pre-dawn, before the sun actually rose. But yes, I can stop them both. Probably separately. Vampires tend not to like having to share close quarters, and will not likely help each other, not even to stop me."

"Do you know where they are?"

"How will you find them?

"Can you stop them before sunset tonight?"

"Sontael will guide me," Roland answered, keeping his voice low and soothing as he stood up. He was the tallest man in the tavern, and moved his eyes to meet every other gaze that looked up at him. "At least one of them will be dust before dawn tomorrow."

"What about the other?"

"What if it comes after us while you're after the first?"

"You can't be two places at once!"

"If you stay inside your homes, you will be safe," Roland assured them. "A vampire cannot cross into a private dwelling without invitation."

"What about the church? Wouldn't we be safer in a holy place?"

The paladin shook his head. "The church is open to all who visit it. A vampire could enter it freely, suffering nothing worse than mild discomfort. You will be safe in your homes, as long as you ignore knocks on your door and taps at your window after sunset."

The confidence and assurance in Roland's eyes was contagious, and the patrons quieted down again, turning back to their tablemates and conversing in quick, excited tones. When he was sure no more outbursts were forthcoming, Roland sat down again.

The barmaid reappeared, eyeing him with awe as she placed a mug of ale and a plate of sweetbreads, cheese, bread, and black pudding before him. Roland sent her off with a smile and a generous silver piece, before laying the cheese across the bread and taking a bite. It tasted delicious, and was a massive improvement over the last meal he'd had while on the road.

"So how do you kill a vampire, anyway?" asked the wiry man, Tavarez. "What do paladins do that the common man can't?"

Roland swallowed his mouthful and opened one of his many belt-pouches to remove a metal flask from it, and chuckled at the flabbergasted looks he got from the other men. "This is medicinal, I assure you. Not alcohol," he smiled, popping off the cap to take a quick swig. Then he re-capped and put the flask away, taking a long draught from his mug of ale before opening his mouth again to speak. "Any man can kill a vampire, but the rites of a paladin are the most sure-fire way to do so. We paladins also have protections against vampires--and other evils--that you do not.

"For you to kill your nightwalker, one thing you could do would be to drag it out in the sun, where it would burn to ash. You would have to collect every single speck of the ash, however, for even a single escaped ember could regenerate--a task that makes sun-burning a vampire as risky as it seems simple. The methods of laying a vampire to rest at night are just as hard, though less risky, but only in the sense that there's no chance to escape it...but I'm sure you can imagine the danger involved in facing a vampire, possessed of unholy strength, when it is awake and aware in the night, and having to subdue it, first."

Not all the men were able to suppress a shiver as they nodded. "But what would we do if we did catch it?"

Roland swallowed another bite of cheese and bread, and started counting off on his fingers. "Drive a stake through its heart to drain the body of its stolen blood. Decapitate it so the body is robbed of its guiding mind. Fill the mouth with garlic so it cannot beguile you with unholy words. Place the body in a coffin, with the head between its feet, and fill the coffin with poppy seeds. Poppy encourages a vampire to stay asleep. Then, bury the coffin at the bottom of a running river."

The men had followed him up to that point, but now looked confused. "How do you dig a grave at the bottom of a river?" one demanded, incredulous.

"Not easily," Roland answered, smiling without humor. "Alternately you can bury the coffin in a grave filled with wild roses, and then plant more roses on the grave plot, watering them with holy water the first holy-day of every month. The more of these things you fail to do, the more likely the vampire will find a way to escape and heal."

"Thank the Gods for you paladins, then," sighed another, shaking his head. "So much work just for one vampire.... What is it you do to lay one down?"

"We have prayers and rites that we offer to Sontael, and his light drives the unholy spirit from the body so that it may reclaim eternal rest. And once Sontael has touched the body, it will never rise again."

The men let Roland eat undisturbed for a while, letting him finish the bread and sweetmeats before posing more questions.

"How often does a vampire have to...to eat? At least one of them will be full tonight, won't it?"

The paladin nodded, chasing a large bite of black pudding with a long draught of ale. "Depends what it's eating. Vampires need blood every other night, but it only has to be human blood once a month. That would be why it's attacked your livestock more than people, though clearly it's attacked your people more often than it's needed to. It's like...bringing a beggar into a bakery, and but only giving him stale crusts. The crusts might sustain him, but eventually he's going to go after a fresh loaf. Greed for human blood wars with the need to stay out of trouble."

One of the men thoughtfully stroked a brown beard that reached nearly to his navel. "I once saw a peddler come through down, offering all kinds of strange potions and poultices and so-called magic trinkets...and one of the things he had--don't remember what it was, but he called it a ward against vampires of the day. Are there such things?"

Roland blinked, swallowing another mouthful of his meal. "Day vampires?" The man nodded, and Roland did as well. "Daywalkers. They're very rare, and much stronger than the nightwalkers. Not many know of them."

"Any chance that ours are daywalkers?"

Roland frowned, but shrugged. "There's no telling, but I doubt it. A daywalker behaves the same way as a nightwalker, and never hunts in the light, as that would give it away too easily. But as I said, they're incredibly rare, and they do not create others of their kind as easily as nightwalkers do. I'm sure yours are of the normal sort."

"And when will you track down our vampires?"

Roland forked his last bite of black pudding to his mouth, swallowed the last of his ale, and stood again. "Right now."