by Darren Shan
The two ceased trading words and started trading blows. I was surprised they'd exchanged as much banter as they had — most of the combatants were too concerned with the business of trying to stay alive to stand around like movie stars and trade verbal insults. Arra and the vampaneze circled each other warily, lashing out with their weapons, probing for weak points. Glalda might have been surprised to come face-to-face with a woman, but he treated her with wary respect. Arra, for her part, was more reckless. She'd mown down several of the panic-stricken vampaneze early in the encounter and had come to believe that all would fall as easily as her initial victims had. She left clumsy defensive gaps and took perilous, needless risks.
I wanted to escape the confines of the cave and put the fighting behind me, but I couldn't bring myself to leave until I'd seen Arra's encounter through to the end. She'd been a good friend and had come looking for me when I disappeared. I didn't want to slip away until I knew she was safe.
Mr. Crepsley also stopped to observe Arra's battle. He was quite a distance away, separated from her by a pack of scuffling vampires and vampaneze. "Arra!" he yelled. "Do you need help?"
"Not I!" she laughed, driving her chain at the face of the vampaneze. "I'll finish this fool off before you can say —"
Whatever boast she was about to make was cut short. Ducking out of the way of her chain, Glalda brushed her defensive stroke aside, drove the tip of his sword deep into her belly, and twisted cruelly. Arra cried out with anguish and fell.
"Now, woman" the vampaneze sneered, straddling her and raising his sword. "Watch closely — I'll show you how we dispose of your kind!" Aiming the tip of his sword at her eyes, he brought it down slowly. Arra could do nothing but stare up at him hatefully and wait to die.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I couldn't stand by and let Glalda kill Arra. Darting forward, I threw myself against the vampaneze and knocked him off-balance. He swore, fell heavily, and turned to deal with me. But I was quicker with my light dagger than he was with his heavy sword. Diving on top of him, I stuck it into his chest and by luck pierced his heart.
This vampaneze didn't die quietly like the first one I'd killed. He shook and babbled madly, then rolled over, dragging me with him. He tried clambering to his feet. It was hopeless — it must have been clear to him that he was going to die — but he made the effort anyway.
When his legs gave out, he collapsed on top of me, almost spearing me with the handle of my own dagger. I gasped for breath beneath him as he convulsed and moaned, then managed to heave him off and slide out.
As I got to my knees, I saw his face relax and the life leave his body. I paused and studied him. His expression was much like Gavner's had been — surprised... annoyed... afraid.
Gently, I closed the dead warrior's eyelids, then made the death's touch sign by pressing my middle fingers to my forehead and eyes, and spreading my thumb and little finger wide. "Even in death, may you be triumphant," I whispered.
Then I went to check on Arra. She was in a bad way. She tried getting up, but I held her down and made her press her hands over the wound in her belly to stop the flow of blood.
"Will I... die?" Arra gasped, her lips thin with pain.
"Of course not," I said, only for her to grab my hands and glare at me.
"Will I die?" she barked.
"I don't know," I answered honestly this time. "Maybe."
She sighed and lay back. "At least I will not die unavenged. You fight well, Darren Shan. You are a true vampire."
"Thanks," I said hollowly.
Mr. Crepsley reached us and examined Arra worriedly. He rubbed spit around the edges of the cut to stop the bleeding, but his efforts didn't make much of a difference. "Does it hurt?" he asked.
"Talk about asking... stupid questions!" she gurgled.
"You always said I had a talent for putting my foot in my mouth." He smiled, tenderly wiping blood away from the corners of her lips.
"I'd ask you to kiss me," she said, "only I'm not... in any shape... for it."
"There'll be plenty of time for kissing later," he vowed.
"Maybe," Arra sighed. "Maybe."
While Mr. Crepsley tended to Arra, I sat back and watched numbly as the battle drew to its bloody conclusion. No more than six or seven vampaneze were left on their feet, and each was encircled by several vampires. They should have surrendered, but I knew they wouldn't. Vampires and vampaneze only knew how to win and how to die. For the proud legions of the undead, there was no in-between.
As I watched, two vampaneze who'd been fighting back-to-back made a break for the exit tunnel. A pack of vampires moved to intercept them, Vanez Blane among them. They prevented the escape, but one of the vampaneze threw his dagger in spiteful desperation before the vampires captured and killed him. It flew through the air like a guided missile at its helpless target — Vanez!
The games master whipped his head backward and almost avoided the dagger, but it was too swift, and the tip of the blade caught his one good eye. Blood spurted, Vanez screamed and covered his face with his hands, and Seba Nile hurried forward to lead him away to safety.
By the way he'd screamed, I knew in my gut that if Vanez survived, he would never again see the light of the moon or the twinkle of the stars. The vampaneze had finished the job that a lion had started. Vanez was now completely blind.
Glancing around miserably, I saw Streak chewing on the head of a still-living vampaneze. One of the younger wolves was helping him. I searched for the other hot-blooded wolf and found it lying dead by a wall, belly ripped open, fangs bared in a vicious death snarl.
Paris Skyle arrived and took Mika's place. The ancient Prince wielded a thick staff, both ends of which had been sharpened to stakelike points. He showed less taste for the fight than his younger brethren, but still fell in with the bloodshed and latched on to one of the last vampaneze. He made no calls for peace, nor did he tell his men to take these final hardy fighters alive. Perhaps it was best that he didn't. Those vampaneze who'd been taken intact — there were several — had only the Hall of Death to look forward to, where they'd be impaled on stakes in front of a crowd of jeering vampires. Given the choice, I was sure they'd rather die on their feet, with honor.
Finally, painfully, the fighting drew to a close. The last vampaneze was killed — he roared as he died, "May the demons take you all!" — and the clearing away of the bodies began. The vampires acted with mechanical efficiency. Generals who'd been swinging axes and swords moments before now picked up wounded vampires and led them away to be nursed, chuckling as they did so, discussing the battle and making light of the injured party's wounds. Others collected the dead, first the fallen vampires, then the vampaneze. They made mounds of the bodies, which were collected by the ghoulish Guardians of the Blood (they must have been waiting outside the cave during the battle), who carried them away to be readied for cremation.
It was all done in good spirits. It didn't bother the Generals that we'd lost nine or ten of our own (the actual death toll, by the time those with fatal injuries succumbed, was twelve). The battle had been won, the vampaneze had been destroyed, and the mountain was secure. They thought they'd come out of "the scrap" rather well.
A stretcher had to be brought for Arra — there was no way she could walk. She'd grown quieter while waiting and stared at the roof of the cave as though studying a painting. "Darren," she whispered.
"Yes?"
"Do you remember... when I beat you... on the bars?"
"Of course." I smiled.
"You put up... a good fight."
"Not good enough," I chuckled weakly.
Coughing, she faced Mr. Crepsley. "Don't let them kill him, Larten!" she said. "I was one of those... who insisted on his... death when he failed... the Trials. But tell them I said he should... be spared. He's a... worthy vampire. He's earned a... reprieve. Tell them!"
"You can tell them yourself," Mr. Crepsley said, tears dripping down his cheeks, a display of emotion I never thought I'd
see. "You will recover. I will take you to the Hall of Princes. You can speak up for him."
"Maybe," Arra sighed. "But if I don't... you'll do it for me? You'll tell them... what I said? You'll protect him?"
Mr. Crepsley nodded wordlessly.
The stretcher arrived, and Arra was loaded onto it by two vampires. Mr. Crepsley walked along beside her, holding her hand, trying to comfort her. She made a death's touch sign at me with her free hand as she left, then laughed — blood sprayed from her lips — and winked.
Later that day, shortly before the sun sank in the wintry sky, despite the best efforts of the medics, Arra Sails closed her eyes, made her peace with the gods of the vampires, breathed her last... and died.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Hours later, when word reached me of Arra's death, I returned to the cave to try to make sense of it all inside my head. The vampires had departed. The dead bodies had been cleared away by the morbid Guardians of the Blood. Even the many trampled spiders had been removed. Only the blood remained, great ugly pools of it, seeping through the cracks in the floor, drying on the walls, dripping from the roof.
I scratched my cheeks — caked in dust, dried blood, and tears — and studied the random patterns of blood on the floor and walls, thinking back over the fighting and the lives I'd taken. As I listened to the echoes of the dripping blood, I found myself reliving the screams of the vampaneze and vampires, the moans of the dying, Seba leading the blind Vanez away, the relish with which the battle had been fought, Glalda's expression when I killed him, Arra and the way she'd winked at me.
"Mind if I join you?" someone asked.
Glancing up, I saw it was the aged quartermaster of Vampire Mountain, Seba Nile, limping badly from a wound he'd sustained during the fighting. "Be my guest," I said hollowly, and he sat down beside me.
For a few minutes we stared around the crimson-splashed cave in silence. Finally, I asked Seba if he'd heard about Arra's death.
"Yes," he said softly. He laid a hand on my knee. "You must not mourn too grievously for her, Darren. She died proudly, as she would have wished."
"She died stupidly!" I snapped.
"You should not say that," Seba scolded me gently.
"Why not?" I shouted. "It's the truth! This was a stupid fight, fought by stupid people."
"Arra did not think so," Seba said. "She gave her life for this 'stupid fight.' Others gave theirs too."
"That's what makes it stupid," I groaned. "We could have driven them off. We didn't have to come down here and cut them to pieces."
"If I remember correctly," Seba said, "it was your novel idea regarding the spiders which paved the way for our attack."
"Thanks for reminding me," I said bitterly, lapsing back into silence.
"You must not take it to heart," Seba said. "Fighting is our way. It is how we judge ourselves. To the uninitiated this might look like a barbaric bloodbath, but our cause was just. The vampaneze were plotting our downfall. It was us or them. You know that better than anybody — you were there when they killed Gavner Purl."
"I know," I sighed. "I'm not saying they didn't deserve it. But why were they here? Why did they invade?"
Seba shrugged. "Doubtless we will unearth the truth once we have had a chance to interrogate the survivors."
"You mean torture," I snorted.
"If that is what you want to call it," he replied bleakly.
"OK," I said. "We'll torture them and maybe learn that they attacked just for the hell of it, to knock us out of shape and take over the mountain. Everything will be fine then. We can walk around proudly and slap ourselves on the back.
"But what if that wasn't why they attacked?" I pressed. "What if there was a different reason?"
"Such as?" Seba asked.
"I don't know. I've no idea how the vampaneze think or why they do what they do. The point is, neither do you or the other vampires. This attack came as a surprise to everyone, didn't it?"
"It was unexpected," Seba agreed. "The vampaneze have never attacked us this aggressively before. Even when they split from us, they cared only about establishing their own society, not undermining ours."
"So why did they do it?" I asked again. "Do you know?"
"No," Seba said.
"There!" I exclaimed. "You don't know, I don't know, the Princes don't know." I got to my knees and locked eyes with him. "Don't you think somebody should have asked? We stormed down here and tore them apart, and not once did any of us stop to question their motives. We reacted like wild animals."
"There was no time for questions," Seba insisted, but I could tell he was troubled by my words.
"Maybe there wasn't," I said. "Not now. But what about six months ago? A year? Ten years? A hundred? Kurda was the only one who contacted the vampaneze and tried to understand them. Why didn't others help him? Why weren't attempts made to befriend them, to prevent something like this from ever happening?"
"You are commending Kurda Smahlt?" Seba asked distastefully.
"No. Kurda betrayed us. There's no defending what he did. What I'm saying is — if we'd made the effort to get to know the vampaneze, perhaps there would have been no need for him to betray us. Maybe we somehow forced his hand."
"Your way of thinking puzzles me," Seba said. "You are more human than vampire, I suppose. In time you will learn to see things our way and —"
"No!" I shouted, jumping up. "I don't want to see things your way. Your way is the wrong way. I admire the strength, honesty, and loyalty of the vampires and want to fit in as one. But not if it means abandoning myself to stupidity, not if it means turning a blind eye to wisdom and common sense, not if it means enduring bloody messes like this just because my leaders are too proud to sit down with the vampaneze and work out their differences."
"It might have been impossible to work out their differences," Seba noted.
"But the effort should have been made. The Princes should have tried."
Seba shook his head wearily. "Perhaps you are right. I am old and stuck in the past. I remember when vampires had no choices, when it was kill or be killed, fight or perish. From where I stand, today's battle was savage, but no worse than a hundred others I have witnessed over the course of my centuries.
"Having said that, I must admit that the world has changed. Perhaps it is time for us to change too." He smiled. "But who will lead us out of the darkness of the past? Kurda was the face of our future. He, perhaps, could have altered our ways of thinking and living. Now that he has shamed himself, who will dare speak up for the new world and its ways?"
"I don't know," I said. "But somebody should. If they don't, nothing will change, and today's disaster will be repeated, over and over, until the vampires wipe the vampaneze out, or vice versa."
"Heavy thoughts," Seba sighed, then stood and massaged his injured left thigh. "However, I did not come to discuss the future. We have a more immediate and less troubling decision to make."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
He pointed to the floor, and I realized that Madam Octa and the spider with light grey spots on his back were squatting behind us. "Many of our eight-legged friends were crushed in the fighting," Seba said. "These were among the survivors. They could have slipped away with the rest, but they remained, as though awaiting further orders."
"Do you think that guy's sweet on her?" I asked, pointing to the grey-spotted spider, momentarily forgetting my darker concerns.
"Most certainly." Seba grinned. "I do not think spiders know love as we do. But he remained by her side throughout the fighting and did not leave when she decided to stay. I think they wish to couple."
I smiled at the absurd notion of Madam Octa walking down an aisle in a tiny white dress, Mr. Crepsley waiting at the end to give her away. "You think I should put him in her cage?" I asked.
"Actually, I was thinking along the lines of freeing her, so that she could make her home with him. I am opposed to the captivity of wild creatures, except where strictly necessary."
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br /> "You want me to let her go?" I chewed my lower lip and thought it over. "What if she bites someone?"
"I do not think she will," he said. "With all the mountain tunnels to pick from, it is unlikely that she will choose to set up home where people might intrude."
"What about offspring? If she breeds, she could give rise to an army of poisonous spiders."
"I doubt it." Seba smiled. "Even if she could breed with Ba'Halen's spiders, her offspring would probably be no more poisonous than their fathers."
I considered it awhile longer. Seba had suggested letting Madam Octa go before, and I had disagreed. But after all she'd been through, it seemed fitting to release her now. "OK," I said. "You've convinced me."
"You do not want to check with Larten?" Seba asked.
"I think he's got bigger things to worry about," I said, referring to Arra.
"Very well," Seba agreed. "Do you want to tell her the good news, or shall I?"
"I'll do it," I said. "Wait a minute — I'll fetch my flute."
Finding the flute where I'd dropped it, I hurried back, pressed it between my lips, blew soundlessly, and sent the thought to Madam Octa: "Go. You're free. Leave."
The spider hesitated, then crawled away, the grey-spotted mountain spider in close attendance. Seba and I watched them until they slipped from sight through a crack in the wall. I'd never have fallen in with Mr. Crepsley if not for Madam Octa. She'd played a key part in deciding my ultimate destiny. Though I'd never liked the spider since she bit my best friend, Steve Leopard, now that she'd slid out of my life forever, I felt strangely lonely, as though I'd lost a dear companion.
Shrugging off my peculiar mood, I laid my flute down — I wouldn't be needing it any longer — and told Seba I'd like to return to the Halls. Side by side, silent as a pair of ghosts, we turned our backs on the scene of the battle and departed, leaving the pools of blood to settle and thicken as they may.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Upon reaching my cell I fell into my hammock, fully clothed, still stained with the blood of the cave. After sleeping rough for so long, it felt heavenly, and I drifted off to sleep almost immediately. I slept right through the night, and it was early morning when I awoke. The tunnels were quiet outside. Harkat was awake and waiting for me to get up.