But that’s what Vlad wanted most. Man-to-man combat. A chance to slay the pretender who’d killed his father. A familiar fantasy, one he’d enacted in dreams – waking and sleeping – a hundred times by now. And for the moment – the possibility of it, at least – to be so close…his palms tingled, and his lungs ached, and he reached to rub the spot between his brows, where a furrow of tension had developed.
A few minutes later, he heard the soft padding of pawed feet, and Cicero, in wolf form, curled up against his back with a gentle whuff of warm breath. Go to sleep, you dumb boy, that breath plainly said.
Vlad unclenched his muscles, breathed in the scent of his wolf, and eventually drifted off.
~*~
The hour before dawn saw a low, thick mist rolling across the ground; strangely, it made the landscape brighter, though visibility was painfully low.
Eira left first, on horseback, in armor, hair in braids, looking every inch the shieldmaiden she was. The three wolves, in four-legged form, stood ready beside her mount, bristling with energy and intent.
“Don’t forget–” Vlad started.
Eira stepped in close, and took his face in both her hands, smiling up at him. “I won’t forget. Stop fretting, dear. This will work.” She tugged him down so she could kiss his forehead, a forceful smack of lips, and then went to her horse.
Cicero looked at him, and whined.
“Look after Mother,” Vlad admonished.
The wolf nodded, and followed the others as they departed into the dark and the gloom.
An hour later saw Vlad seated on his own bay charger, armor plates and mail weighing pleasantly on his body. Malik rode beside him, and a mounted messenger, should he have need of one. The rest of his force was on foot, well-equipped, despite the rag-tag nature of their assemblage.
Vlad led them down out of the foothills and they reached the last crest of the road above Tîrgovişte just as dawn broke silver over the mountaintops. The city would just be coming awake, its butchers, bakers, and field workers heading to their day’s work. The height of summer, and the windows would be open, the lines strung up and ready for the wash; children would come scampering out barefoot soon, shooed away by mothers intent on scrubbing floors and mending clothes in their gossip circles.
“I want to be very clear about something,” Vlad said, addressing his men. “The common people of this city are not to be harmed. Defend yourselves, and our cause, should they take up arms against us in the traitor’s name, but we are here to fight Vladislav’s forces, make no mistake. As for the prince-killer, he is mine. Any man who cuts him down before I can get to him will be executed. Understood?”
“Yes, your grace!” they chorused. The thrill of battle-to-come glinted in their eyes, a feverish excitement.
“You know the plan,” he said, and wheeled his horse. “We fall to it now.”
The messenger trotted ahead, Malik beside him, dry dust kicked up by the horses’ hooves. Then the men, and in their center, Vlad, tall in the saddle, charger prancing every other step.
When they reached the edges of town, a group of farmers with picks and hoes propped on their shoulders came to a halt, mouths falling open in shock.
At the head of the line, Malik called out in Romanian: “Prince Vlad Dracula rides forth! Back to claim his father’s lands! To free his people from the tyranny of the pretender Vladislav! Make way for Vlad!”
Heads turned. Whispers started up, a low susurrus like rain on a tiled rooftop.
“Your deliverer! Vlad is returned!”
They cheered him.
Vlad didn’t delude himself; he saw clean faces, and mended clothes, and round-cheeked children. It was summer, and the harvest had been good, and Vladislav had not starved these people like the villain of a story designed to frighten little ones. These people cheered because they remembered his father, and the horrible fate visited upon him by usurpers, and because the world loved stories of sons come to avenge their fathers.
Vladislav had, however, rolled over and showed his belly to the Ottomans. Doubtless these families had lost sons to the janissaries – and to Sultan Mehmet’s appetites. They’d given over portions of their crop, and their coin, and some of the daughters had been raped or taken as the wives of Ottoman soldiers.
Vlad did not wave to them – not yet. Because he hadn’t done anything for these people. Hadn’t proven himself to them. But he sat tall in the saddle, and loosened his reins a notch, let his horse prance and chew at the bit a little. The big bay gelding was not anxious – but excited. As was Vlad.
His group reached the center of the city, the cobbled square in front of the bank, where a gibbet awaited treasonous necks. Vlad reined up and regarded it a moment, letting the press of the wondrous crowd fade to background noise. That simple wooden arm, its platform, and its trap doors.
Sultan Mehmet impaled his enemies on long spears of sharpened wood. Just as his father had before him; just as Vlad had seen during his time in Edirne.
A hanging was a terrible thing to witness, but an impalement…
The clear cry of a horn reached his ears.
He turned his horse, and Malik reined in beside him.
The horn sounded again, three long, foreboding blasts, the sound carried on the wind all the way from the palace. An old horn, Viking made, his mother’s.
And then came the howling. Three separate voices, because even Helga had shifted to four legs today. A triangular pattern, ahead, and to either side.
“Wolves!” someone in the crowd shouted. “Wolves in the daylight!”
Mama, Vlad thought, hands tightening on his reins. Be careful.
The horn meant she’d played her part: slain the guards and opened the drawbridge. Up ahead, high on the hill, Vlad saw a cloud of dust rise, and the sun winked off the metal of armor and the tips of spears. Vladislav was sending his men to meet the foe.
It was the wolves’ job to fall in behind them, spook their horses, and chase them down into Tîrgovişte.
One last wolf howl, not the mournful cry of cold nights and full moons, but a deep-throated, almost joyous call to arms: Cicero. Vlad knew his voice. The chase was on.
Vlad climbed down off his horse and drew his sword – his father’s Toledo blade. He marched to the head of his men, all of them in a tight phalanx, just as they’d practiced.
“Make ready,” he ordered. “If they’re wearing Vladislav’s colors, cut them all down. I’m not interested in taking prisoners.”
They bellowed an assent, thrilled and boiling with energy. He could smell their adrenaline.
The troops came down on foot, only their captain mounted, their plate and mail gleaming in the sun. They came quickly, running, and Vlad could scent his wolves; these men weren’t so much charging at him, as fleeing what came from behind.
The captain’s gaze fixed on Vlad, and he must have recognized him, the way his eyes sprang wide, a clear ring of white around the brown irises. Then he lifted his sword, and spurred his horse.
Vlad stood his ground. And waited, and waited, and waited. Sunlight flared along the sharp edge of the captain’s blade.
At the last second, Vlad stepped sideways, and ducked, just low and quick enough to miss the swing aimed at his head. He braced his foot, and rose in a lightning fast arc, his own blade swinging, and caught the captain just above the knee, at the gap between the top of his boot, and the bottom edge of his mail skirt.
It was a hard blow, and the sword was nearly ripped from his hands. Vlad heard the captain grunt, and smelled blood; he tightened his hands on his blade and dodged backward, barely avoiding being trod upon by the horse’s back hooves.
The horse leapt into the phalanx of Vlad’s men, head tossing, bit tugging cruelly at its mouth as its rider fought to stay in the saddle while his leg gushed blood.
Vlad turned away to meet the furious rush of a foot soldier.
The fighting was fast, and brutal, and bloody. Vladislav’s men were well-trained, but they’d been spo
oked, and grew only more frightened in the face of Vlad’s superior strength, speed, and maneuvering. He took a man’s arm off at the elbow, and spun before his companion could deliver a strike to the back of Vlad’s neck; drove his sword through the man’s throat amidst a spray of hot blood. Vlad licked it from his lips and whirled to meet another foe.
You are not better than mortal men, Mother had always said, trying to keep him humble. But in that moment, he was. The enemies around him moved as if their boots were weighted; their limbs grew tired, and their attacks became defenses, and they weren’t strong enough to stop Vlad’s swings, his vampiric strength.
In the midst of it, he shouted orders to his own men, and sent a dozen up the hill to help his mother hold the palace gate.
Finally, it was over.
Vlad stood, chest heaving, skin wet and prickling beneath his clothes and armor, surveying the carnage around him. He applauded his own efficiency; he hadn’t wasted his strokes, had killed as quickly and directly as possible. Still, there was blood, and limbs. And he was glad to see that his men had followed orders: there were no prisoners.
Malik approached him, wiping his sword on the edge of his cloak. Blood dappled his face, but Vlad could tell that it wasn’t his own. “There will be more soldiers at the palace. This wasn’t all of them,” he said, gesturing to the bodies.”
“I know,” Vlad said, turning his gaze that direction. “To his eyes, we are few, and he thought this would take care of us. But I don’t have to defeat his whole army, Malik. Only him.”
~*~
By the time they reached the palace, not only had Eira, the wolves, and the dozen mercenary soldiers managed to gain control of the gate and drawbridge, but the men Vlad had sent around the long way this morning had arrived to back them up. Vladislav’s men filled the bailey, but the odds were nearly even, and they looked and smelled nervous.
Vladislav himself awaited them, flanked by guards, his armor spotless, and hastily put on, it seemed. He stank of fear.
But he lifted his chin and said, “Vlad Dracula. What you have done here today is treasonous. This is a vassal state of Sultan Mehmet, of the Ottoman Empire, and you–”
“Shut up.” Vlad unsheathed his sword, its blade wiped clean of blood, glinting in the sunlight. He pointed its tip at Vladislav. “Do you recognize this blade? It was my father’s, Vlad Dracul’s, and he had it on his person the day your dogs cut him to shreds and tore the beating heart out of his body.”
A low growl sounded behind him: Mother. Her pain and fury was a palpable thing, staining the air.
“I use it now to challenge you,” Vlad said, “in single combat. If you slay me, my men will leave. If I slay you, this palace, and this seat, is mine. As it rightfully should be.”
An advisor leaned in to whisper in Vladislav’s ear, but the pretend prince waved him away. He gulped, throat spasming. “And if I don’t accept your challenge?”
“I’ll slaughter everyone here anyway,” Vlad said, and bared his teeth, showing his elongated fangs. “And feast on them.”
The wolves began to snarl, then, snapping and slavering.
“What shall it be?” Vlad asked.
Vladislav drew his sword.
Vlad charged him.
Men scattered, pages, and squires, and advisors scrambling to get out of the way.
Vladislav parried Vlad’s first strike, and met the next, steel clashing together with a sound like bells. He gritted his teeth, and Vlad saw sweat on his brow.
Vladislav was not a prince who spent much time in the training yard.
“You could surrender,” Vlad said, pushing back, using his arms to push their crossed blades toward his enemy’s face.
Vladislav grunted, and retreated a step.
Vlad shoved forward, and Vladislav stumbled back, and nearly fell. He got his sword up, just barely, to block Vlad’s next attack.
“You’re not even a man,” he huffed between ragged breaths. “You’re some hellspawn wearing a man’s skin like a suit.”
Vlad chuckled. “Oh, but I’m a man of God, christened in his holy house. I have taken the Blood and the Body into my own.” Three quick strikes. The last Vladislav could not turn away, and the edge of Vlad’s blade opened his glove, and his hand beneath it, blood sparkling like jewels.
Red-faced, winded, grimacing in pain, Vladislav lifted his sword again–
Vlad batted it away with his own. He put all of his strength into the swing, and the other man’s sword went spinning away, landing in the dirt a yard away. Vlad used the momentum for a counter swing, and sliced Vladislav’s injured hand off at the wrist.
Vladislav yelled. Blood spurted, and he fell to his knees, clutching at the gory stump.
Vlad saw guards try to move forward, wanting to protect their master, and the wolves moved in, growling savagely, hackles raised, Eira leading them, her own bloodied blade held before her.
“Oh, God, oh God!” Vladislav gasped, as his blood poured down onto the dirt, and tears tracked down his face.
Vlad put the tip of his sword beneath the man’s chin, and tipped his head back. “Look at me.”
He did, through a sheen of tears, his jaw quivering. He was a pitiful sight, slumped there, dying slowly of blood loss. Vlad searched his heart for sympathy, but found none.
He thought of Father. Of Mircea, dying cold, and crushed, beneath the earth. Thought of his mother’s tears, and of his brother the whore slave.
He took a breath. “I think,” he said evenly, “that there have always been two sides to everything. Always battles, always men set against each other. So it is now, with us, and the man who holds my brother. You chose the wrong side, Vladislav.”
Then he raised his sword, and took the man’s head off with one clean stroke.
It toppled to the dirt, and rolled a ways. The body fell over, and landed with a soft thump.
Silence, save the rippling of the banners along the bailey walls above them.
Vlad lifted his head, and met stare after stare after stare. He turned to Malik. “Seize his men. Kill them all. I have no place in my household for traitors.”
He went inside to inspect his palace.
~*~
His first night back in his father’s palace, in the home where he’d studied, and slept, and played as a boy, it seemed somehow fitting that his little brother came to visit.
Once the last of Vladislav’s ilk had been put to the sword, and a messenger had been dispatched to John Hunyadi with the news of victory, Vlad inspected the larders and allotted enough meat, bread, wine, and summer fruit to feast the brave men who’d helped him reclaim his rightful seat. He sat through the merriment for a while, but slipped away while the festivities were still in full swing. He went up to his father’s old study, and promptly shoved a stack of books and parchments off the desk and to the floor. The room was as cluttered and dusty and haphazard as it had been the last time he’d taken it over from Vladislav. Servants had scurried to light the candles, dozens of them, in iron candelabras and on silver sticks, their light flickering against the walls, and over the floor. But no one had attempted to set the place to rights. To clear up the signs of its last tenant. Perhaps that was expecting too much.
“His things?” Cicero asked, coming in behind him.
Vlad reached for a candle. “Help me get them into the fireplace. I’m going to burn them.”
Cicero came up beside him, and plucked the candlestick from his hand with careful gentleness. “You should feed, first, and get some sleep. It’s been a long day, and this can wait until tomorrow.”
“I–” Vlad began, chest suddenly tight.
And a silky-smooth voice sounded behind them. “As delicate as ever, I see.”
Vlad whirled.
Val quirked one eyebrow and offered a small smile. “Hello, brother.”
He’d grown up since Vlad saw him last. A man, now, one much prettier than Vlad himself, their father’s strong bone structure softened by their mother’s golden h
air, and freshwater eyes. He wore silk, gold, and red, and blue, with white şalvar, and gilt-edged slippers, his hair braided elaborately, a jewel-studded silver collar on his throat, tight enough that it couldn’t be lifted off over his head.
He looked like a spoiled court brat, but Vlad saw the breadth of his shoulders, the narrowness of his waist, and the way the fabric shifted over a honed warrior’s body when he tipped his hips to the side. Not only a spoiled brat, then.
Cicero gasped. “Valerian.” A hushed whisper; wonder, or dread, or perhaps both.
Val’s gaze shifted to the wolf, and his smile deepened, though was somehow sadder for it. “Cicero,” he greeted softly, voice going boyish. “I was afraid that–” He cut off and swallowed with obvious effort. “You’ve bound yourself to a new master, I see.”
Cicero lifted his head, proud. “And gladly.”
Val glanced back to Vlad. “Father’s wolf, and Father’s blade, and now Father’s palace.” Vlad opened his mouth, a scathing retort ready on his tongue, but Val said, “As it should be.” He tipped his head, and the candlelight caught a glimmer of wetness in his eyes. “It’s good to see you again, Vlad.” And even if he wasn’t really here in body, he was in spirit, and those were real tears forming.
For a moment, Vlad felt exactly as he had upon walking into this room, but for an entirely different reason. His chest squeezed, and his breath came short, and he wanted to sit down; to take the burden off his weary feet, and maybe rest his head on something for a while. Tired, and rattled, and as full of rage as ever, but so weighted down by it that he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to strangle his little brother, though, or burn anything.
But whatever he felt, he had no idea how to channel it.
So he said, “What are you doing here, Radu?”
Val’s expression shattered.
But then he smoothed it over, put on a face that was bland, bored almost. He cleared his throat, and then his voice came out prim, and sharp, and arrogant. “I’ve come to give you a warning, if you’re not too stubborn to hear it. Sultan Mehmet is furious after his defeat at Belgrade. And now that you and Stephen have managed to roust princes who were deferential to the Ottoman cause, he will be incandescent with rage. He’ll come for you, brother. He means to have your seat.”
Dragon Slayer (Sons of Rome Book 3) Page 55