There Used to be More of Us

It was after sunset when Martín Rojas caught up to him and dropped his saddle on the ground next to the fire. Enrique had ridden ahead and waited for him, giving the young knight time to think, to absorb what secrets had been revealed to him. And he was relieved, too, when he saw Martín relax in his presence, and lean against the saddle as he had done on so many previous patrols together, rather than turning back to Ávila in horror or disgust. After all, it was not every day that one learns that their mentor is a a vampire, and he knew from his past that it took a great deal of courage to continue a journey alongside one who might kill you, who might drink your human blood.

Instead, don Enrique Olivares, a knight of Santiago tossed him a wineskin and waited for his companion to break the silence with his questions.

“I know what you are, at least I’m trying to accept that,” Martín started without preamble, “but I don’t think I really know what that means. Who are the Vese? How many are you?”

The question, on the surface so simple, yet laden with memories both painful and prideful, hung in the air between them.

Of course this conversation would come. Martín might accept Enrique’s vampire nature, might even trust him still, because of the depth of friendship that had grown between them. But Enrique cursed himself for a fool, he should have found a way to answer these questions before they came up, to control the conversation and steer it in a direction that did not invite the ghost of Leovigildo to look over his shoulder and remind him of this very same conversation, around a very similar campfire, over three hundred years ago. The wind shifted and smoke seemed to burn Enrique’s eyes, and he looked away so that Martín could not read the emotion in his expression. But the words caught in his throat, betraying him.

“There used to be more of us,” he said finally. “Many more.”

He could feel Martín’s gaze on him, patient and waiting, but Enrique’s memory had already drifted to Leovigildo. To the maps his maker had drawn centuries ago, the twig in his hand slicing through the sand, drawing borders of kingdoms that no longer existed, the same melancholy tone in Leo’s voice. The memory came so vividly that it seemed to him that the placement of the stars was the same, the crackle of the fire carried the same staccato rhythm, that— for just a moment— he felt as if he was still sitting across from Leo.

“We are— we were— Visigothic nobility,” Enrique began, remembering the intonation in Leo’s voice. The explanation felt rehearsed even after all these years. How many times had Leovigildo told him this story? “For ten centuries and more, we shaped the history, and the future, of Spain. Who knows for how much longer, though...” Enrique trailed off, uncertain.

We are so few now, Enrique throught to himself, and power has moved from the warriors to the lawyers. And to the Inquisition.

Martín said nothing, did not spur him on with his usual light banter, and Enrique envied him that patience, the luxury of waiting without centuries pressing down on every silence.

“Leovigildo told me the old stories to distract me when I was in my noviciado, learning all I needed to know to survive in the world as a Vese,” Enrique continued, his voice steadier now. The memory of those early nights came flooding back: the hunger, the confusion, and Leovigildo’s steady presence anchoring him through it all. “How the original Vese appeared in the barbarian tribes that migrated across Europe before the Gospel was preached. The legends claim our strength, our thirst were inheritances from their pagan gods.” He shook his head slightly. “Whether that’s truth or poetry, I cannot say. No one can. But I do know this: when the Visigoths entered Iberia as foederati, troops allied with Rome, we were among them. We fought the enemies of Rome, holding the borders, and they rewarded the strongest among us with lands and titles. My maker, Leovigildo, was Dux Emeritensis, the Duke of Merida. And when Rome fell and the legions withdrew, we remained, and it was the Vese who ruled the entirety of Hispania.”

He paused, remembering how Leovigildo’s voice had grown heavy at this part of the tale, how his maker’s eyes had gone distant with a grief Enrique had not understood then. What it had cost Leo to have everything, and then to lose it all.

“We were the lords of the Kingdom of Toledo,” Enrique said quietly. “ Vese were in every position of power, and not just in the Courts and royalty. We had positions on the ruling councils of the Church. And within the Vese, our Concilio established the codes we live by. The Codex Sanguinis Sacri governs how we live— and most importantly, how we feed— while still living within the boundaries of Church law, and among our human neighbors. But that was before my time...”

Enrique paused and gestured to Martín for the wineskin. The younger knight obliged, tossing it to him, and the vampire unstoppered it and drank deeply.

“So, what happened?” Martín asked.

The sound began like a growl and the words came out like a wound reopening. “The Moors.” Enrique’s hands tightened into fists, feeling empty without the hilt of his sword and the grip of his shield. “The Umayyad Caliphate invaded in 711. Within years, they destroyed everything. All of Hispania and into Francia was overrun. It was as if the Biblical apocalypse had descended on us. Our cities, our churches, all either destroyed or inhabited by the Arabs and their Allah. Citizens, rich and poor, were killed, exiled, or forced to convert. The kingdom of Toledo collapsed.”

He met Martín’s eyes, needing him to understand. “But we survived, hermano. Some of us, Leovigildo among them, fled north with the humans to Asturias, León, Gallaecia. In the shadows of the Cantabrian Mountains, the Vese found new strength in the Reconquista, gathered armies of men and Vese, and launched seven hundred years of war to reclaim Hispania from the Moors.”

“Seven hundred years,” Martín repeated in awe, and Enrique heard the disbelief in his voice. How could mortals comprehend such spans of time?

“We were the secret weapons of that war,” Enrique said. The pride he heard in his own voice surprised him— that after everything that had happened in recent years, after all his doubts, some part of him still believed in what they had accomplished, in who they had been. “We advised Christian kings on strategy. We turned the tide in crucial battles. Across generations of mortal lives, we preserved the knowledge and continuity that shaped history. And the Reconquista...”

He hesitated, searching for words that would not sound like hollow theological justifications, but would reflect the genuine faith that Leovigildo had modeled during his noviciado. “The Reconquista reconciled our Vese nature with our beliefs and gave our unnatural abilities a purpose.”

Enrique felt the corner of his lips turn up slightly, and without thinking his hand reached up to stroke the scarlet Cross of Santiago sewn onto his cloak He leaned forward to stoke up the fire again. “We became warriors in God’s service. Our immortality became an offering to God, our nature a consecrated weapon forged by God in the arsenal against a heathen invasion.”

“You’re talking about the Espada de Sangre,” Martín said.

Something twisted in Enrique’s chest at the name. “Yes. The Sword of Blood.” He could see Leovigildo so clearly in that moment, standing in the training yard, sword in hand, explaining what it meant to be both warrior and monk. “Leovigildo was one of its architects, a military-religious order born before the Order of the Templars and the Order of Santiago, knights militant in a holy war to reclaim Hispania. Warrior monks serving God and king.”

“And now?” Martín asked.

It was the question Enrique had been asking himself since the end of the war. Now. The word that haunted every conversation, every quiet moment when Enrique was alone with his thoughts. The question weighed on his heart like stone, dragging him beneath waves of doubt that threatened to drown him.

“Now the Reconquista is over,” he said, and heard the emptiness in his own voice. “Granada fell five years ago, in 1492 the last Muslim bastion of Al-Andalus. The war that justified our existence for seven centuries was won.” He forced himself to look at Martín directly, to let him see the uncertainty. Enrique owed him that honesty. “So I don’t know how many of us remain, but not many, I think. I don’t know who still believes in what we were made to be. I don’t know if we’re a shadow race fighting to regain power in a world lost to us, or merely shadows escaping the world that is learning to see us. Once we were hunters, but now the Inquisition is hunting us.”

The silence stretched between them. In his mind, Enrique heard Leovigildo’s voice from that last conversation, before everything fell apart: Your immortality is not a gift—it is a burden of service. Bear it with honor.

But what honor was there now, in a burden without purpose, in being a knight without a war?

“Pues, that’s who the Vese are,” Enrique said finally, the words feeling like alum in his mouth. “Or who we were. What we are now...” He shook his head, unable to finish the thought.

Martín was quiet for a long moment, waiting for his mentor to continue, before speaking again. “And what do you believe, Enrique? What is your purpose now?”

Enrique could not answer. Instead, he looked blankly at his friend across the campfire, then past him, off into the starry sky as though searching for the answer he sought in the heavens above. In the breezes that blew across the open landscape of the dehesa he heard Leo’s voice, a mournful echo of a whisper in his mind. “That’s the question, hijo mio, isn’t it? Who do you serve?”