"The Weapon Master’s Choice" is a fantasy short story by Terry Brooks in his Shannara series.

She persuades him that he must travel with her to Tajarin on the coast to save her people from a dracul named Kronswiff who feeds on souls.

He and Lyriana stay hidden, and enter a building where he witnesses Kronswiff sucking the souls out of his helpless victims.

Garet Jax knows he should wait until Kronswiff and the Hets retire so as to attack unawares, but he cannot bear to watch one more person drained of their soul and thrown into a cart, a lifeless bit of sagging flesh.

Her parents and brother were lepers and she had accompanied them to the colony to help care for them, but by the time they died she had contracted the disease.