The death of Thomas was not discovered by the camp, at least not in the way Alaric expected. In a place where men died of the flux, of hunger, or of sheer despair every hour, a body found drained of its moisture was simply another casualty of the "wasting sickness." To the starving crusaders, Thomas's husk was just a reminder that the desert was a cruel master.
But Alaric felt the difference. He could feel Thomas's life-force sitting heavy and warm in his gut, a reserve of energy that made the world around him appear slow and fragile. He spent the day after his transformation in the shadow of a tattered tent, watching the camp with new eyes. He saw the threads of fate connecting these men—their fear, their hunger, their fading loyalty to a distant God.
He realized then that the Vilevine did not want a solitary hunter. It was a forest-mind; it wanted a network. It wanted roots.
The Gathering
As the sun began to set on the second day, Alaric sought out the men who had nothing left to lose. He didn't go to the pious or the high-born. He went to the "Broken Hearts"—knights who had watched their sons die and their horses be butchered, men whose faith had been burned away by the Syrian sun.
He found them in the ruins of an old olive grove on the outskirts of the southern picket lines. There were twelve of them, huddling around a fire that produced more smoke than heat. Among them was Godfrey, a veteran of the German crusade whose face was a map of scars and hollows, and young Baldwin, who sat staring at the dirt, unaware that his brother was already fertilizer for Alaric's new life.
"You look well, Alaric," Godfrey rasped, squinting through the smoke. "Too well. You walk like a man who found a secret larder while the rest of us eat our boot-leather."
Alaric stepped into the circle. In the firelight, his skin had the luster of fine marble, and his eyes caught the orange glow with a predatory, amber flicker. "I found no larder, Godfrey. I found a truth. We are dying for a city that does not want us, for a God who has turned His face away. But the earth... the earth is still here. And it is hungry."
"Stop your riddles," another knight growled, clutching his stomach. "Unless you have bread in those pouches, leave us to our misery."
"I have something better than bread," Alaric said.
He reached into his tunic and pulled out a small, jagged branch he had broken from the Vilevine before leaving the rift. It was black, thorny, and seemed to pulse with a faint, violet light. The men drew back, their superstitious hearts hammering.
"This is the Sap of the Origin," Alaric whispered. "The Church promises you a kingdom in heaven. I offer you a kingdom of the now. No hunger. No thirst. No fear of the Saracen's blade. All it costs is the blood you were going to spill in the sand anyway."
The Pact
Alaric took his dagger—the one he had used to gut his own horse weeks ago—and drew it across his forearm.
The knights gasped. There was no spray of red. Instead, a thick, glowing resin, the color of dark honey and smelling of crushed pine and iron, welled up from the cut. It was viscous, heavy, and beautiful.
"Drink," Alaric commanded. "And be reborn."
Godfrey was the first. Whether it was madness or a final, desperate reach for survival, the old man crawled forward. He took Alaric's arm and pressed his cracked lips to the wound. The resin was sweet, like a drug. As Godfrey swallowed, his body went rigid. His eyes rolled back into his head, showing only the whites, as the Vilevine's essence raced through his starving veins.
One by one, the others followed. Even Baldwin, driven by the sheer, magnetic pull of Alaric's presence, drank from the "Mother Root."
The transformation was not silent. It was a symphony of snapping bone and stretching sinew. Their skin, once grey and flaking, smoothed out into a pale, translucent ivory. Their heartbeats slowed, stuttered, and finally settled into a rhythmic, low thrum that matched the vibration in Alaric's own chest.
They stood up as the moon reached its zenith. They were no longer twelve starving men. They were the Vanguard of the Vine. They moved with a synchronized, fluid grace, their senses suddenly sharp enough to hear the breathing of the sentries on the walls of Antioch a mile away.
"What... what are we?" Baldwin whispered, his voice now a deep, resonant chime. He looked at his hands; the tremors were gone. He felt stronger than he had ever been in his youth.
"You are the secondary roots," Alaric said, his voice echoing in their minds. "You are my brothers in the Sap. Together, we are the harvest."
The Breach of 1098
The timing was perfect. History tells us that on the night of June 3, 1098, a traitor named Firouz lowered a leather ladder from the Tower of the Two Sisters, allowing the Crusaders to finally enter the city.
But in the shadows of that historical event, the Vanguard moved first.
While the main army scrambled up the ladders in a chaotic, shouting mass, Alaric led his twelve to a section of the wall that was deemed "impenetrable"—a sheer, vertical face of porous limestone. They didn't need ladders. Their fingers, reinforced by the resin in their skeletal structure, dug into the stone like iron claws. They climbed with the speed of spiders, reaching the battlements in total silence.
The Turkish sentries never had a chance.
Alaric was the first over the parapet. A guard lunged with a spear, the point catching Alaric squarely in the throat. The wooden shaft shattered. Alaric didn't even stop his stride. He reached out, his hand locking onto the guard's face, and felt the Vilevine's hunger spike. He didn't just kill; he diverted the man's life-force into the collective network of the twelve behind him.
The Vanguard moved through the towers like a dark wind. They didn't shout "Deus Vult." They didn't pray. They worked with a mechanical, chilling efficiency. They reached the Bridge Gate—the main entrance to the city—which was secured by a massive, rusted iron lever that usually required six men to turn.
Alaric gripped the lever. He could feel the strength of the twelve flowing into him, a psychic tether of power. With a guttural roar that sounded more like a forest groaning in a storm than a human voice, he ripped the lever from its stone housing.
The gates swung wide.
The main Crusader army, thousands of starving, desperate men, poured into Antioch. They thought it was a miracle. They thought God had finally heard their cries. They surged past Alaric and his silent, pale knights, screaming for blood and gold.
Alaric stood in the shadow of the gatehouse, watching the slaughter begin. He could feel the blood hitting the soil of the city—a city that had been dry for too long. He looked at Godfrey, whose amber eyes were fixed on the massacre.
"The city is open," Godfrey whispered. "Shall we join the feast?"
"No," Alaric said, looking toward the great Citadel that still sat atop the hill. "The army will handle the slaughter. We have work to do. The Vilevine needs more than just a gate. It needs a garden."
He led the Vanguard away from the main streets, heading toward the city's central cisterns and the hidden courtyards of the wealthy. While the crusaders looted gold, Alaric and his men began to "plant."
As the sun began to rise over the conquered city of Antioch, the first rays of light hit the blood-soaked streets. But in the dark, damp corners of the city's water supply, a new kind of life was beginning to stir. Small, black, thorny sprouts were already pushing through the cracks in the stone, fed by the tribute Alaric had provided.
The First Crusade had taken its first great prize. But as Alaric stood on a balcony overlooking the Orontes River, his pale skin shimmering in the dawn, he knew the truth. They hadn't reclaimed the Holy City for a Pope.
They had simply provided the Vilevine with the richest soil it had tasted in ten thousand years.