Brothers to the Death (The Saga of Larten Crepsley)

by Darren Shan

  “It could be a long quest,” Arra noted. “If he doesn’t wish to be found, it will be hard to unearth him. You might have to fight a string of vampaneze.”

  “Aye,” Larten sighed. “But it is the right thing to do. A vampire should never turn his back on a path simply because it is difficult. A General of good standing does not look for shortcuts.”

  “What if you die in one of your challenges?” Arra asked.

  “Then that will have been my destiny.”

  Arra stroked Larten’s cheek as he had stroked hers. “You speak like a Prince.”

  He shook his head. “I do not think I am cut from such noble cloth. I am just a man who has made many mistakes and is doing his best to make no more.”

  Arra sighed. “I might be about to make a mistake of my own, but if so, so be it.” She trained her gaze on Larten and said, “It is time for us to mate.”

  Larten grinned—he thought that she was joking. But when her gaze didn’t waver, his grin crumbled. “You cannot be serious.”

  “I said that I would take you for a mate one night,” she reminded him.

  “But why now?” he spluttered.

  “There might not be a chance later. If Randel Chayne continues to evade detection and you fight as you mean to, one vampaneze after another, you will be defeated within a matter of years. Even the greatest warrior will fall if he engages in an endless series of battles. If we do not mate now, we might never have the opportunity.”

  “It is too soon,” Larten said. “I think about Alicia all the time.”

  “I’m not asking you to forget her,” Arra snapped. “And I don’t care if you don’t love me. Most vampires don’t love in the way that humans do—we live too long for such follies of the heart. All I’m asking for is a seven-year contract. Be my partner. Let me hunt and fight with you and be your second in duels. Let me cleanse your wounds when you are injured and dispose of your remains in a fitting manner if you are killed.

  “We complement each other,” she continued. “We see the world in a similar way. I can learn from you and you can draw comfort and support from me. In seven years, if we’re both alive and have had enough of one another, we can go our separate ways. Better that than we never mate and wonder for the rest of our lives what it might have been like if we’d tried.”

  Larten blinked. “You would never make a great romantic,” he noted wryly.

  “I don’t want to be,” Arra said. “I’m a vampire, a warrior, a creature of the night. And, if you think highly of me, I will be your mate.”

  “I do think highly of you,” Larten said softly. “And I would be proud to pledge myself to you. So if you are certain that Mika will not object…”

  “I wouldn’t care if he did,” Arra smirked. And then, leaning into the coffin, she wrapped her arms around Larten and kissed him, locking her lips on his, pledging herself to him with all of her spirit. Some of his wounds reopened as she hugged him and he tasted blood in his mouth, but he didn’t care. The pain of love was no real pain at all.

  Later that night, in the presence of Seba, Wester, and Mika Ver Leth, Larten faced Arra over his coffin and spoke softly but firmly. “I ask that you be my mate for the next seven years. I vow to be faithful during that time. I will fight in your name, do all that I can to honor you, and die for you if required. I will claim no hold over you once the contract has elapsed. Do you accept my terms?”

  “I do,” Arra said simply.

  To a chorus of cheers they kissed again, and in that moment the mating ritual was concluded. It might not have been the most romantic night of Larten’s life, but it was without doubt one of the happiest.

  Part Three

  “Randel Chayne can damn well wait.”

  Chapter

  Eleven

  When Larten left Vampire Mountain shortly after the end of Council, he knew he wouldn’t return in the near future, as he didn’t want to get mixed up in Wester’s political games. But he had no idea that it would be almost half a century before he’d gaze upon the peak of the great mountain again. If he had known, he might have paused to glance back and savor the sight. But probably not. He was a vampire, and the children of the night had little patience for sentimental nonsense.

  The next few years were a bloody time, both for Larten and for the world. He and Arra crossed an endless array of grisly battlefields that had scarred the soil of so many countries. Even the war-weary Larten had never seen such mounds of corpses before, or watched humans fight so savagely, destructively, inhumanly.

  They encountered almost no vampires in their travels. The members of the clan wanted nothing to do with the atrocities. This was not war as they knew it—it was plain, bloody butchery.

  Larten sometimes wished that Vancha hadn’t just threatened the Nazi leader, but killed him when he had the chance. Maybe this could have been avoided if the vampires had been harsher. Nobody had predicted a war on such a scale, but they’d guessed that the Germans would drag the world into battle. Perhaps they should have done more to prevent this from coming to pass.

  Arra argued against that when he told her of his thoughts. “We can’t intervene in the affairs of humans,” she said. “We put their ways behind us when we were blooded. Humans and vampires were not meant to mix. If we involved ourselves in their problems, more would learn of our existence, and that would lead to trouble. Millions would want to be blooded, to enjoy long lives and extra strength. But they wouldn’t care about honor or our laws. They’d only want power. If we refused their advances, they’d seek to destroy us, so that we couldn’t enjoy what had been denied to them.”

  It was the old argument for why vampires didn’t meddle and it was as valid now as it had always been. But Larten still sometimes studied the ruined landscape and wasted lives, and wondered.

  One thing he never wondered about was his quest. Randel Chayne had crossed all lines of decency and deserved to be punished. It didn’t matter to Larten that so many others were committing even worse crimes than Randel’s. He couldn’t solve all of the problems of the world and he wasn’t fool enough to try. But he could do all in his power to make sure that the rogue vampaneze paid for what he had done.

  Larten made no headway for a long time. The vampaneze, like the vampires, were keeping their heads down during the calamitous war, harder to locate than ever. Larten only found two in the first couple of years. Both accepted his challenge and died at his hand, but neither knew anything of Randel Chayne.

  With the third he got his first sniff of a break, though in many ways he wished that he had never met this particular vampaneze at all.

  Her name was Holly-Jane Galinec and she was a few decades older than Larten. She was the only female of her breed that he had ever encountered. The vampaneze were even stricter with new recruits than vampires were and almost never admitted a woman into their ranks. Holly-Jane must have been a warrior of high standing for them to have accepted her as an equal.

  But Holly-Jane’s nights as a warrior were behind her. She was holed up in an under-fire city when Larten tracked her down, and her left leg had been blown off at the knee. She was waiting for the battle to end, planning to drag herself out of the rubble to seek an honorable death. She was delighted when Larten confronted her. She had assumed that she would have to perish in a fight with a pack of vile Nazis. The chance to die at the hands of a vampire filled her with glee.

  “It must be fate!” Holly-Jane kept whooping as they drank from a bottle of wine that she had been holding back for a special occasion. She was living beneath the streets, where bombs couldn’t strike, and had only left her den in recent months to feed.

  “I drank from the dead,” she explained. “It would have been wrong to kill one of the living when there are so many corpses lying around. It’s not our way to feed without killing, but in this crazy time I felt it would be unjust to add to the woes of these poor people.”

  Larten could see that Holly-Jane must have been a good-looking woman once, pretty in a tough w
ay, like Arra, but now she was filthy and wild-eyed. Disease had eaten into the stump of her leg and she’d had to cut it shorter on four different occasions. “Or was it five?” she mused aloud, studying what was left of her thigh. “I had to get drunk—the pain would have been too much to bear otherwise—and I think I may have operated twice one time. I get carried away when I’m excited.”

  Although they were not overly sympathetic by nature, Larten and Arra felt sorry for the fallen vampaneze. She had a cheerful manner, which was uncommon for one of her kind. They didn’t want to like the one-legged wreck but instinctively found themselves warming to her.

  It took Larten a few hours to tell Holly-Jane of his mission. When they first discovered her in her putrid hole beneath the earth, Holly-Jane wept with joy and insisted they dine with her and share her wine. Larten tried to explain about his quest, but Holly-Jane waved his explanation away and said it could wait. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere soon,” she quipped. Not wanting to refuse her hospitality, they chewed on the stale bread and scraps of rancid meat that she had saved up, and pretended to savor the disgusting wine.

  When Larten finally broached the subject of Randel Chayne, Holly-Jane stunned him by saying, “Randel? Of course I know him. He’s one of my best friends. Why are you interested in that old bear?”

  For a long moment Larten couldn’t respond. He and Arra shared an astonished, skeptical look. Holly-Jane saw that they didn’t believe her. She laughed and described Randel Chayne in detail. By the time she’d finished, Larten doubted no longer.

  “I wish to challenge him,” Larten said. “He killed someone close to me and I seek revenge. I will face him cleanly, openly. It will be a fair fight. If you wish to protect him from me, I understand, and I will not press you for—”

  “No, no,” Holly-Jane said quickly. “Randel loves a good fight. I’m sure he’d want me to tell you all that I know. But I fear you’re too late. I was due to meet with him several years ago in Venice. Have you been there? It’s my favorite city. If only I could have been trapped there instead of this cesspit!

  “Anyway, Randel set a date and place. I got there early—he was always punctual, and I didn’t want to annoy him by arriving late. But although I waited for a month, there was no sign of him, and nobody’s seen him since. I hate to admit it, but I think Randel might be beyond your reach.”

  Larten gaped at the invalid. He had imagined many scenarios over the years since Alicia had been taken from him, but never this. He should have considered it—the vampaneze led harsh, testing lives, and many were cut down in their prime. But he’d never stopped to think that Randel Chayne might already be dead, that destiny may have conspired to rob him of his revenge.

  “Are you sure that he is dead?” Larten wheezed.

  “No,” Holly-Jane said. “But before my accident I met a few others who knew him. They all mentioned the fact that they hadn’t seen Randel lately. I’d be very surprised if he turned up alive.”

  Larten began to tremble. Arra tried to think of something to say but couldn’t find words that might offer any comfort. In the end Larten cleared his throat and asked Holly-Jane where Randel might have gone if he was alive, perhaps wounded like the female vampaneze.

  Holly-Jane listed a number of places that Randel had frequented—Paris was one of them—then beamed. “So, are you ready for the grand finale? I’d rather fight on the surface, beneath the light of the moon, but the crawl would exhaust me and I think we should act as if I have a glimmer of a chance.”

  Larten didn’t want to fight the one-legged vampaneze, but if he refused to duel, Holly-Jane would be disgraced. So he fought brutally and without mercy, treating the wounded warrior the same as any other opponent. Holly-Jane died with a smile on her lips and Larten truly meant it when he made the death’s touch sign over her corpse and said, “You were a credit to your clan.”

  After they’d buried Holly-Jane, Arra glanced at the subdued Larten and said, “What now?”

  Larten thought for a long time before answering. “We carry on as before. Randel might be alive. Until we have proof that he is dead, we continue.”

  “And if we never find proof?” Arra pressed.

  Larten shrugged. “I will continue searching for Randel Chayne until I find him or until I die.”

  “That sounds like a waste of time to me,” Arra sniffed.

  Larten smiled tightly. “Many would have said that Holly-Jane was wasting her time by clinging to life down here and suffering such indignities. But she died nobly in the end. Even if she had not, she would have been correct to stay true to her course, as I shall stay true to mine.”

  With that, he led Arra out of the cramped tomb and climbed back to the world of man and war, to pursue the trail of what he now feared was only the ghost of Randel Chayne.

  Chapter

  Twelve

  Larten searched doggedly for the next couple of years. He tried to act as if nothing had changed, but Arra knew that he was troubled. She hadn’t managed to get as close to him in their time together as she’d wished, and was sure they would part at the end of their term as mates. But she had come to understand him and could see that he was torn. He’d sworn himself to this path and was determined to see it through to the end. But at the same time he had the feeling that it was pointless. Nobody could be truly comfortable if they had to live with the possibility that they might be forced to chase shadows for hundreds of years.

  Arra tried on many occasions to reason with Larten, to convince him to abandon his mission. “You don’t have to give up entirely,” she argued. “You can still keep an ear and an eye open. If he resurfaces, head after him again. It’s unlikely that he’d kill Alicia to hurt you, then disappear from your life forever. If he’s alive, he’ll come back to take another stab at you, like he did with Tanish Eul. That’s when you should hunt for him, not now.”

  Larten knew that Arra was right, but he found it difficult to abandon his quest. He feared what Randel Chayne might do if he returned and struck when Larten was unprepared—he might target Arra, Wester, Gavner, or Seba. The General didn’t want to lose another loved one to the murderous vampaneze.

  But he also wanted to carry on because he wasn’t sure what he would do if he stopped. Larten had found meaning in the search. He had never felt as focused as he did now. He had come to a simple, defining point of his life—he existed to find and kill Randel Chayne. He liked having no gray areas to worry about. If he gave up, he feared a return to the times when he’d thought that his life lacked direction.

  Larten fought another two vampaneze, one of whom knew Randel Chayne but hadn’t seen him in over a dozen years. The one who had known Randel was a hard, experienced warrior and treated Larten to his toughest test so far. He wounded the vampire seriously and almost opened Larten’s stomach with a swipe of his nails. Larten triumphed, but only barely, and Arra needed to stitch him together afterwards—their spit wasn’t strong enough to close all of his wounds.

  Larten spent more than a month recovering before he took to the road again. When he did, he headed for Berlin. According to Holly-Jane Galinec, that had been one of Randel’s favorite cities. Larten hadn’t wished to travel there while the Nazis were in control, as he didn’t want to fall into their hands. But the tide of the war had turned. It was nearing its end and the Germans had been pressed back. They were only weeks away from ultimate defeat, maybe less, and Larten felt that now was as good a time as any to zone in on Berlin.

  He wouldn’t admit it, even to himself, but part of his reason for going there now—as opposed to waiting a few months, until it was completely safe—was that he wanted to be present when the Nazis fell. He had no plans to gloat, but he would be grimly satisfied when he saw them surrender. They had put this world through hell and he was delighted that they’d failed.

  The vampires made good time, skirting the areas where fighting still raged, and arrived in Berlin on a dark, cloudy night. The city had changed drastically since Larten had last vis
ited. It was a pale ghost of its former self, shredded by bombs and bullets. Wandering the pockmarked, dusty, bloodstained streets, Larten found it hard to believe that the city could ever recover from a leveling this severe. But he knew how resourceful humans were, how swiftly they bounced back from disaster and tragedy. He was sure this would be a thriving metropolis again within ten or twenty years.

  In 1945 Berlin was a city of vicious dangers, but Larten and Arra walked the streets without fear, at home among the shadows, silent as they listened to the cries, screams, and gunfire that saturated the night. It was as if the great old city was dying, leaking corpses and rubble instead of blood.

  Larten expected to see Desmond Tiny. He had been sighted a few times during the war, always where the fighting was thickest, cheerfully plodding through fields of blood and guts. But if he was present now, Larten saw no sign of the eternal meddler.

  The General had decided to seek shelter—day was coming—when Arra touched his arm. “Look,” she said, pointing at a group of people crossing a mound of bricks and timber in the distance.

  Larten studied the people but couldn’t see how they were different from the many other refugees he had spotted over the course of the night.

  “The one carrying the woman and child,” Arra prodded him.

  Larten squinted but couldn’t get a fix on their faces. “My eyes are not as good as yours,” he said. “Who is it?”

  “You’ll find out soon,” Arra smirked, and smugly set off ahead of him. She was always pleased when she scored points over a man, even if he was her mate.