Redeeming features

Rakai was moving swiftly through the trees, jumping from one branch to the next to avoid leaving any tracks on the ground that the humans could follow. The cuts in his arm and leg were now just a dull throb, the healing salves and bandages making it possible for him to keep on going. The Inquisitors had been on his trail for several days now and he knew that he had to lose them somehow.
"Just an hour of sleep, if I could just get that." He thought. But he knew that that was impossible. The Inquisitors was on horses, which meant that they could almost keep his speed but also gave them the advantage of being able to sleep in shifts in the saddle. He had taken out two of them in an ambush yesterday, or was it the day before that? Anyway, what should have been a surgical strike to get rid of the most immediate threat - their priest - turned into a catastrophe. He had only been able to get two of the archers and had suffered several wounds from their cursed weapons. He doubted that they were truly blessed as the church said.
"It feels more like hatred, hatred for everything not human." He mused as he was jumping between two trees.
Then something touched his senses. As an Amastine ranger he was trained to feel the land around him, to hear the trees whispers, to understand the wind as it moved over the plains. There was something else out there and it was also hunted. He was going to dismiss it as a boar or deer when it hit him. It was a scream of fear and exhaustion, of running for days and being near the end. And he recognised it, switching course to intercept even before his brain had fully understood the meaning of it, Rakai now pushed himself as much as he could. Straining his muscles to the limit and feeling his wounds reopen Rakai pushed himself harder. There was just one thing going through his mind at this point, the same thing that had made him forget the Inquisitors altogether and that was now taking him straight into the path of a raging mob intent on killing.
"There is a vampire elf with a child there!"

Using one of his last potions and every mental focus trick Headranger Kysha had taught him Rakai was able to catch up to the mob and their prey before they caught her or he fainted from the pain. The mob consisted of about 30 villagers he saw, men driven by religious zeal to kill what they saw as abominations. Rakai growled as he thought of their short-sightedness and intolerance. He then turned his attention to the one they were hunting. He couldn't see her yet but he knew it was a she. Going after the sounds of their breathing, how they moved and what he could still make out from the forest it was a woman and a child, running side by side and panting heavily. They couldn't keep going much longer he knew, they where at the limit of their abilities. Then he heard from the trees what was in front of them and came to the conclusion that whether they somehow would find the strength to continue or not didn't matter anymore. Still running through the trees Rakai ran past the fleeing woman and her child.
He reached the clip wall just 30 seconds before they did but it was enough.
The woman didn't even notice the wall until she practically hit it, reflexes that no human could ever had saving her from running straight into it.
Rakai watched from the trees as the woman searched for a way out, he couldn't help her right now as he was much too busy finishing his traps.
When she understood that there was no way out and hearing the mob close in on her the woman put the child on a low outcrop just above head height and turned around to face her pursuers. Rakai saw that it was a futile gesture. The woman was so tired that she was having trouble standing, but he also knew what she was about to do and he knew that many of the men now coming through the forest would not return.
Catching a ray of light on one of his arrows he managed to catch the woman's attention, holding up his hand and turning away the arrow he gestured to her to be quite, that he would help and motioned to the log hanging suspended by him. She nodded and smiled at him revealing her fangs.
"She must think I don't know what she is." Rakai thought. How odd, it was always simple for vampires to recognise each other; it showed in how they moved, how they looked and how they looked on everyone else. This woman is full of mysteries Rakai thought, but this is not the time to think about that he concluded as he heard the humans making their way into the clearing.
He smiled back at her and revealed his fangs to her before motioning to her to don't give him away just yet before becoming one with the shadows around him. The humans had arrived. The woman entered a low fighting stance, baring her fangs and getting ready to protect her child.
Rakai waited until what he judged was the right moment before letting go of the rope he was holding. Now having nothing to hold it back the log Rakai had set up started to move and pick up speed.
The humans didn't know what hit them. The log swung right through them hitting 3 simultaneously and taking out another 8 on its way through the mob.
Even before it was through the mob the first time Rakai was in the air. He shot arrows two at a time into the mob, a trick that had been passed down through several generations of Amastines and perfected through the years. He saw that the woman was also moving, using the confusion to kill and injure as much as she could before the humans regained their senses and started to fight back.
Angling his descent and putting away his bow Rakai landed among the humans just a few meters from the woman. When he hit the ground he rolled to avoid injuring himself and came up with both his short swords drawn. He sliced open the throat of one of the humans and the stomach of another before jumping again and sailing through the air above the others.
Killing two more with downwards thrusts through their skulls he used them as leverage to propel himself further so that he landed beside the woman. She was fighting in desperation and had already killed or injured at least five now.
"A very impressive number considering she is unarmed and they aren't." Rakai thought. "Lets even out the odds then." He added as he slipped her one of his swords and pulled a long hunting knife from his belt. The humans was gathering now, their initial shook and confusion giving way to anger and hatred of what they say as abominations against both their god and nature.
Rakai knew that they had to kill these humans quickly or they wouldn't be able to outrun the Inquisitors that he knew would now be riding hard towards them.
"Damn their priests and their ability to sense their environment!" He thought as he parried a swing from a scythe and nearly cut a man's head of with the hunting knife. The blood was all over him now and it was getting harder to control himself.
"Just let go." The thing inside him said. "If you do I will get us out of this."
Rakai paid it no heed and continued killing and fighting. He had to resist or he wouldn't leave when it was done and the Inquisitors got here. And then he, the woman and her child would die.
A swing of a rusty sword brought him out of his head and back to the very real danger of being killed before the Inquisitors ever got here.
"If I could just drink just a little it would help immensely." He though. And then he saw the opening. Seizing it as it was presented to him Rakai parried two attacks from the sides and sidestepped the thrust from a pitchfork in front of him. Closing the distance between himself and the farmer wielding it Rakai bit the man in the throat just as he had done with so many others through the years. Drinking deeply from the man's punctured artery Rakai pulled him of his feet with a jerk of his head. Using the man as a shield and a club at the same time he swung him sideways into the other seven remaining villagers. The shook and horror that this caused allowed the woman to kill another two and Rakai finished of the 3 that he had knocked to the ground with his human club. This was too much for the two remaining humans who turned and fled only to be shoot in the back by Rakai.
Turning to the woman who was now looking after the child and looking at him suspiciously Rakai spoke to her for the first time.
"Hi my name is Rakai Amastine, but the introductions will have to wait till later as we have to climb that cliff or fight about a dozen Inquisitors on horses. I'll carry the child for you."

When the Inquisitors reached the meadow just a few minutes later they where gone.