In all there were 30 masked warriors that had overwhelmed the yurt, and against such massive numbers Van Resen doubted they could have defended themselves, even if they had been armed with guns.
Immediately following their capture, the castaways had been taken out to where the bulk of the invaders were gathered in the dusk, and there they were prepared for travel as a few higher ranking warriors struck a torch and searched the yurt.
They took no pillage when they left, though one made sure the door was tightly shut as he exited to which the scientist had whispered mournfully, “They will return for our possessions later.”
Upon overhearing this, one of the warriors had grunted a muffled warning through his mask but offered no punishment and so the castaways continued their whispering for the rest of the journey—whenever they could find breath.
Remarkably, those who had not been tied to poles were offered food, and a bitter drink that burned the tongue and left it tingling. Van Resen had convinced his companions to take the drink, and tangy fruit—especially the pink strips of meat that they all found to taste like pork.
“What are they planning?” Miss James had asked, nibbling fruit.
“A march of some distance, since they are carrying our older and youngest companions,” Van Resen guessed. “It’s possible that we have only trespassed and may end up friends yet!”
But the scientist’s voice had risen with a false note for he had already identified the human finger bones that comprised their captors’ necklaces and had been sewn along with yellow ribs into their protective vests.
“Why are they masked?” Holmes had asked, licking his fingers, and then offering his wrists up to a savage who bound them with rope.
“Some primitive cultures use the skull to symbolize life,” Van Resen had offered, as his hands were being tied before him. “In the jungle, death is a necessary, even positive, part of the life cycle.”
“These devils don’t look positive to me,” Mr. Quarrie added as a pair of sturdy savages shouldered the pole to which he was tied.
Van Resen had smiled wearily for he was in full agreement.
The scientist remembered still having the strength then to study their captors. Understanding the disease that afflicted them might have offered some advantage to the castaways.
So as the savages had prepared for the journey, Van Resen performed a visual examination. Ongoing skin and tissue degeneration scarred and produced open sores; and while the men appeared hail and hearty enough, their limbs and extremities—though well-muscled—showed sign of bone deformity similar to what he had seen in leprosy patients, though of a less severe pathology.
A comparison of the older and younger savages had indicated that the disfigurements were more advanced on the mature men, suggesting a congenital affliction that worsened with age.
They had all interacted as though nothing were wrong, so this told him that their illness was their “normal” state. It was logical then to assume that they were born with it—and that it might have been triggered by the onset of adolescence.
Finally, whatever the actual pathology, it was clear that the worst afflicted among them was still too hale and hearty to be much slowed by the disease so the scientist had found little to exploit.
Van Resen remembered that after eating and drinking, the group had formed a long line with him, Holmes and Miss James near the middle separated from the bound and suspended castaways who were carried at the rear.
The savage leaders had extinguished their torches and started humming a coarse tune that rumbled from the back of their throats. A repetitive tonal cycle began that was synchronized one savage with the other, before an order from the leader sent them jogging out of the clearing and into the east.
As they ran their humming had turned to an irresistible beat aligned to the rhythm of their pounding feet, but the slow and steady pace wore at the castaways who dripped with sweat and reeled blindly on.
The scientist never guessed how their captors found their way without light for he had been too weary to give it thought.
An hour into the ordeal the bitter liquid was passed around again, and Van Resen had encouraged the others to drink deeply of the energizing substance.
After the others had had their portion, Van Resen even encouraged them to pick up and sing with the masked men—and later through a haze of exhaustion he recalled singing along, pausing only to mumble: “It’s a sea chanty—I’m sure of it!”
The scientist and his friends ran through the night, and only from that potion had they been able to continue. The castaways often stumbled in the dark, nearly strangling themselves with the connecting rope and they frequently ended up in a heap. They ran as far as they could, and if someone lagged, a savage would drop back to entice them with a leather whip or stick.
They stopped at intervals to drink the potion or water and catch their breath, and it was then they had found that those who were bound and carried fared little better. All had been bruised from jostling, and Mrs. Quarrie’s wrists had worn right through the skin.
“They’re knocking me to pieces, too, Abby,” her husband had consoled, before accepting water from a skin.
Van Resen laughed at the memory, at the trees high overhead—and then he stopped.
Lilly had remained unconscious throughout their journey, though her appearance had continued to improve. Her skin had a warm, pink hue, and her hair was lustrous—glowing even. Her full lips and body had grown more voluptuous, alluring—irresistible.
A masked savage stepped over the scientist then, and in the better light he was able to see the metal anklet about the muscular leg and its design struck him so sharply he sat up.
“The iron bands! Like Gazda’s,” he cried, as the savage joined his fellows.
“I have seen, doctor,” Miss James answered to the far side of Phillip Holmes’ sleeping form. She heaved herself onto one elbow. “He must have found them.”
Van Resen smiled, considering the coincidence. He had yet to show his fellow castaways the skull-mask and shield that he and Jacob had found at the yurt and hidden beneath it. They were the very duplicates of those used by their captors.
A suspicion had newly dawned upon the scientist that this tribe of masked savages might well have raised Virginia’s friend Gazda, or if Van Resen were to draw upon his darker knowledge—the wild man may very well have enslaved them!
As the governess struggled into a sitting position, a spray of ferns spread over her shoulders like wings. Her clothing was ragged and sweated through many times. Her skin was pale, and there was darkness around her eyes that spoke of weariness and pain.
Van Resen noticed that a bag of food had been thrown by them, so he dug into it, and offered the woman a piece of fruit that she accepted with bound hands.
“You spoke of Gazda’s medallion,” Miss James whispered, sweat-soaked hair pasted to her forehead. She pressed the fruit to her teeth.
“Men of the house of Dracul swore an oath to the symbol that was upon it. The Order of the Dragon,” he muttered, searching through the bag and pulling out a celery-like stalk. “To that and the shield-shaped device of Basarab we saw upon the buried book. I recognized them from his notes.”
“Notes?” the governess asked. “Whose?”
“The man of letters I spoke of earlier—the scientist,” Van Resen explained. “A doctor whose family and peers shunned his accomplishments and denied him as a madman.”
“What did he write?” Miss James said.
“Portions of his account made it to the popular press—and tracts were even fictionalized. The report was never official or sanctioned by any institution; but the scientific community could not deny their curiosity. We were watching a great man proving an impossible thing, or an impossible thing disproving a great man.”
He bit the juicy stalk as Phillip Holmes groaned and reached out for the bag of food. The Quarries had been left tied to their carrying poles some 20 feet away, their exhausted forms obscured by
the ferns.
“He had witnesses who were easily discounted—so terrible and uncanny were the tales they told. It was hysteria,” the scientist said, turning to the bag for strips of meat he handed out. “For such a man to err so profoundly and make a spectacle of it. A respected intellect easily considered to be arrogant by his foresight… And yes, he had made enemies with his wit. For years he dominated several scientific disciplines…and then this stumble and fall.” Van Resen slumped. “His friends looked on helplessly—while his foes sharpened their knives.”
“What of him?” Phillip Holmes snapped with a mouthful of meat. “Like all your stories they offer little help or hope.”
Van Resen regarded the younger man solemnly.
“He was mad, then,” Miss James said sadly.
“The doctor had always been flamboyant, unhinged, some whispered in their sleeves, so how could anyone believe his remarkable claims?” Van Resen’s face had turned a purply color. “But I had to know the truth. Otherwise I could not have participated in the subtle shunning in his public life, or join with my brother scientists to ridicule him and defile his career.” Van Resen gasped in a breath. “Of course, I studied his notes and maps, and now this moringa grove that contained the family crest from the doctor’s story. What I thought was proof of his madness it seems was the very proof he had offered to show himself quite sane.”
“From what you said before—hobgoblins—he was not of sound mind,” Virginia said.
“He was an old rascal fond of black humor. A man who claimed to have a completely open mind.” Van Resen laughed. “When his report surfaced—and it was circulated among his peers—I thought the poor old fellow had slipped a little in his dotage—for old he was. Or I imagined he had accidentally released some work of supernatural fiction, a recounted journey he claimed to have taken into Eastern Europe. There was a castle, and ghosts—and worse.” He looked at his companions with a half smile. “I believe that most who read it thought the same, but now I can see the old boy’s game. He took a foolish risk to honor his open mind allowing each of us to decide upon our own, to gauge if it was madness or a new science unfolding.” Tears suddenly burst from the scientist’s eyes. “But we were not as brave as he...”
He opened his sweat-stained coat to reveal the spine of the book he had unearthed.
“He was batty—and now you’re stark raving!” Holmes said weakly, munching another strip of meat.
Miss James frowned at the Englishman.
“In the fading light at the eave of the moringa grove I flipped through this book,” the scientist said, shifting the garment closed to hide the tome. “Many marks abound within, with notes jotted in various languages, some of which I know—yet, I have not had more than a glimpse at their meaning. Other things are there, emblems and names unrecognizable to any but an expert in Wallachian history, and only through my past association with this discredited doctor had I any hope to know them.” He paused to think.
“What is in the book?” Virginia asked, with bound hands crossed over her throat.
“It is a guide written in the language from the journal we found in the yurt, though this is unfathomably older, and there are notes in the margin in Greek and Latin that given time, I could... But there are illustrations that taught me more. The book reminds me of medical dictionaries used at universities and teaching hospitals—but where those offer health and care, this book showed various methods for handling the dead.”
“The dead?” Phillip Holmes blurted, swatting insects away. “Then it is a medical dictionary you describe.”
“Dead, I said, corpses, I meant,” Van Resen explained. “For no living thing could be in the variously disassembled states depicted.”
He hesitated then, unwilling to describe to Miss James the grotesque extremes to which the illustrator had gone. There were ink drawings of decapitated victims—with detailed instructions for reattaching their heads! Likewise, there were diagrams and instructions for grafting limbs and replacing internal organs.
“What have these things to do with Gazda?” Miss James asked breathlessly, glancing over at their captors.
The scientist could not tell her. Not with death their likely destination.
Why burden her with the links he had found between the ape-man, the discredited doctor’s notes, his nosferatu, the yurt and its former occupant? The truth was indisputable.
And it was terrifying for he had found a well-used page marked by greasy fingerprints that detailed strange procedures centering around a container that was illustrated there and the exact replica of the buried and damaged box in which he’d found the book!
“When I have finished formulating my theory I will say more,” he answered, remembering Gazda’s leave-taking, how he and Miss James had looked like lovers where they stood in the clearing—their eyes locked and spirits connected. How long had they been alone in the jungle?
He had to be cautious about divulging his theories for he remembered his colleague’s claims. The fellow had treated another victim of the insidious illness, and with hypnosis exposed a psychic connection between the woman and its cause.
“We must conserve our energy,” he said, with a careworn smile before falling back in the mud.
Miss James seemed almost pleased with the reprieve. She could not bear to hear any more of the scientist’s incessant theorizing.
CHAPTER 32 – A Mother’s Vigil
Many torturous miles from them, a fuming huntress clung to a tree, furious with her ape-man friend. Harkon was frustrated that Gazda was taking so long at his spying because from her perch she had seen much of the revelry around the great fire that burned at the narrow end of the village.
The celebration had lasted most of the night, and even now some few Bakwaniri women were with their slaves cleaning up from the debauch and kindling smaller fires for preparing breakfast as the sun rose.
From her position, Harkon could see where a few drunken men had been left in heaps to sleep it off. So simple it would be to kill the fools. So satisfying.
The feast had lasted most of the night, and the huntress had obsessed upon the fact that with the enemy so distracted and drunk, it would have been the perfect time...
She had been torn, yearning to do something while the Bakwaniri cavorted, desiring to strike a blow now that she overlooked their village—with her son, possibly so close.
After years of an unquenchable thirst for vengeance, Harkon was a stranger to optimism, so all night her fears had been that the last of her people, including Anim, might go to the cooking pot and she herself right there, faithfully waiting for the tardy Gazda to return from his exploration.
She continued to move about in the tree with spear in hand as she had all night, unable to turn away from the strange palisade alive as it had been with yellow light from the fire and torches, and echoing with drumming and dance.
Harkon had ground her teeth as she watched the Bakwaniri caper to their savage drums and eat...oh they ate, and what they ate...her guts still twisted at the thought of what their feast might have been.
Just as she was sickened to see the little slaves—the children—moving about bearing great platters from which they served their skull-faced masters.
A hundred times had she seen her own son in the firelight, only to have her eyes begin to water, and her vision to ripple—to show her another black child, just as her son might have been—would be—could be? She no longer knew.
As close as she was to her enemies, she was too distant to recognize those she had come to save; and it had been years since she had laid eyes on her dear son.
The huntress had returned time and again to the highest branches to watch, as she did now. Smoke from the village cook fires had continued to drift through the palisade and gather in the surrounding jungle like mist. In places it had shifted into the trees, rising upward and clinging to the thick leaves as an obscuring fog, hiding Harkon’s movements.
From the heights there was nothing to do but gla
re and endure her conflicted thoughts. In her heart she knew an attack based upon hate and fear of loss would fail, that such a thing would only bring her death—and perhaps her son’s, too.
If he was still alive.
Death. She could always find it, and if an attack could not be launched to “save” then why not to “slay”—if that worst result would only see her rejoin her people in death?
The years of her vigil and vengeance were long upon her, and the maternal heart within her breast had grown old and tired.
Harkon’s spirit had shuddered through the aging night, as she cringed to watch the shadows of more captives brought to the great cage by the fire.
She remembered how hours before the revel’s end, the drums had beat anew and several drunken men brought out the rotten skull they had captured. They paraded this before their leaders who leapt and danced and struck the thing with weapons.
Yet even at that distance, the huntress had recognized their hesitation and she smiled, for it spoke of fear and cowardice. Yet, the men had continued their “show” of bravery by attacking the severed hunk of ape meat and bone.
What fools!
Harkon the huntress had laughed at their frail spirits and degenerate natures that could put on such a pathetic show—or eat the flesh of innocent children.
Anim? Had she waited too long?
There was no bravery in them. No skill at arms or strength of limb.
Why had she not attacked the village long before? Did she fear her death or was she afraid to learn the truth about her son?
Finally, the men had lifted this skull and in a long parade drummed and sang and danced their way around the village once and twice and three times until they returned to the center pole where their leaders had hung the thing up for all to see.
Many of the revelers had staggered to their homes after that, and any who did go back to the fire had fed already and were drawn by song and drink instead...
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