High in the cold passes of the Vaults there squatted a fortress of the dead so infamous that its very name was a warning, and the crusade to cast it down is sung as The Battle of Blood Keep. From that black hold a vampire lord had preyed upon the mountain roads for a lifetime, and at last the errantry of a chivalrous kingdom rode to end him.
The knights of Bretonnia came as pilgrims of war, questing knights and errants seeking glory in the sight of the Lady, their lances lowered and their prayers upon their lips. Against them the Vampire Counts raised a garrison of grave-cold horror — skeletal legions, dire wolves and winged terrors that fell upon the climbing knights from the fortress walls. The approach to Blood Keep became a slaughterhouse, the mountain path choked with slain horses and shattered lances.
Yet the knights would not be denied. Where a warhorse could not climb they went on foot; where the walls loomed too high they scaled them under a rain of the dead; and the Grail-blessed among them cut through wight and wraith with blades that the undead could not ignore. Faith carried them where reason said they should have broken, and one by one the horrors of the keep were hacked down or hurled from the ramparts.
The Battle of Blood Keep ended with the vampire lord destroyed and his fortress put to the torch, its black stones cracked by holy fire. Many a knight lay dead upon the slopes, but the survivors bore home a tale of glory, and the mountain roads were free of the grave's shadow for a generation.
The chronicle continues
