Malik whistled softly, just for Vlad to hear, impressed.
Cicero barely suppressed a chuckle.
The gates swung open.
The men started forward, a steady march, that quickly dissolved into a dash, boots kicking up dust.
The guard captain went goggle-eyed. “Oh–”
Vlad drew his sword and opened the man’s throat with one clean slice. “Thank you,” he told the toppling body, before he went to join his men. “But I’ll be taking back my father’s castle, now.”
~*~
Vlad carved a path through the defenders that threw themselves at him. He turned blades aside with his own as if they were feathers, hacked through limbs as if they belonged to training dummies. Men screamed, and fell, and blood ran thick down his sword, and across the stones of the courtyard.
From the first, the battle for the fortress had felt like a victory; there were men here, strong and well-trained, but there weren’t enough of them. Not as many as would have accompanied the sultan, had he deigned to come.
“Vlad!” Cicero called.
Vlad took a man’s hand, and spun as the Ottoman fell to his knees, screaming, clutching at the stump, seeking out his wolf. Cicero stood partway up a flight of stone steps that led to an upper gallery – and an entrance into the fortress’s royal apartments. Vlad had never been here, but his father had talked often of the place when he was a boy, and he knew where Cicero wanted to lead him.
He ducked a swing aimed at his head, caught the soldier just under the ribs with a vicious slice, and went to join Cicero.
Two Ottomans waited at the top of the stairs, the only ones guarding the entrance to the apartments, it seemed. The battle was chaos, enemies dressed as one another, nearly impossible to tell friend from foe. But these two at the top of the stairs had seen Vlad fighting, no doubt, and they paled and braced themselves, visibly, as Vlad urged Cicero aside and started up toward them.
They came at him together, swords slashing from opposite angles, clean bright steel flashing in the sunlight. He caught one with his own blade, and the other with his gloved hand. And then he shoved.
Bloodlust and adrenaline roared in his veins, the promise of victory, and they toppled backward to land on the stones. Vlad wrenched the sword in his hand free, and tossed it away. Stepped on that man’s throat, and crushed his windpipe with his boot. The other he disarmed with a deft flick of his own sword, and then drove the point through his eye.
The bodies stilled beneath him.
“You shouldn’t take such chances,” Cicero said, panting, as he joined him.
“It wasn’t a chance,” Vlad said, and kept moving.
The door to the apartment gave under one kick, and there he found a silk-dressed, sniveling official of some sort, attempting to hide beneath a couch.
Cicero took the lead this time, dragging him out by the collar with a vicious, wolfish snarl, and throwing him down on the rug at Vlad’s feet.
Vlad laid his bloodied sword against his throat. “Where’s your sultan?”
The man whimpered, and tried to shrink down into himself.
Vlad pressed harder with the sword, and reached with his free hand to pull the turban from his own head, dark hair spilling loose down his shoulders. There could be no mistaking who he was, now. “Where is he?”
“A-asia Minor, your grace,” the man stuttered, breathing through his mouth, tears streaking down his face. “He thought – forgive me, he said you’d be killed on the road. You weren’t supposed to…” He trailed off, his teeth chattering.
“He’s off on another campaign, then,” Vlad said, speaking more to Cicero than to this man. “I wasn’t ever supposed to enter the fortress alive, so what was the sense in him coming all this way?”
He slew the official with one efficient stroke.
Vlad nodded. “I think he’ll come now.”
~*~
“Your brother,” Mehmet hissed, and flecks of spit struck Val’s face. He’d burst into Val’s bedchamber a moment before, and, when Val had lifted his head from the book he’d been reading, taken him by the throat, dragged him off the bed, and pinned him up against the wall.
“Yes, I have a brother,” he said mildly, and swallowed against the press of Mehmet’s hand at his Adam’s apple.
Mehmet bared his teeth and growled.
Val sighed, and feigned boredom, though his belly clenched with excitement. “What’s he done now?” Whatever it was, if it made Mehmet this angry, Val was glad of it.
Mehmet snarled, but at least turned loose of him and stalked away – stumped away. His joints must have been hurting him especially tonight, because he lacked all grace.
He fetched up against a table, leaned heavily against it. “That bastard,” he said over his shoulder, still growling, “has taken Giurgiu!”
It took a moment for Val to remember where that was. And then he had to bite back a laugh. He barely managed to suppress his grin. “I believe my father built that fortress.”
“He doesn’t even have enough men to pull off something like that!” Mehmet shouted.
Val shrugged. “So? He’s Vlad.”
Mehmet seethed.
“Perhaps,” Val suggested. “You’d finally like to face him for yourself, rather than send wave after wave of men for him to slaughter.”
The sultan glared at him, and Val knew that, in this small way, he’d won something. Not a war, but a skirmish.
“Pack your things,” Mehmet said, gathered himself, and stormed for the door. “And prepare your princely raiment, Radu! You’ll be a prince before the year is out.”
Or, Val thought viciously, you’ll be another trophy in the Impaler’s courtyard.
41
FANGS LONG AND SHARP
The Campaign of 1462
Vlad routed Ottoman forces up and down the Danube, freeing the waterways for trade and travel into and out of Romania. He put every Turk to the sword – or he impaled them, grisly warnings above gates and along wall-tops.
The pox came with the late summer heat, and his men died, and fell sick. They sheltered in the cool of stream-fed mountain forests, and his wolves hunted fresh game, and Eira spent nearly as much time trying to comfort the afflicted as she did training with her sword, sparring with Malik, when the wolves refused to raise a hand toward her, even in the name of preparedness.
And then, finally, Mehmet came. He brought to bear such a force that two vampires, and three wolves were not enough to tip the scales in their favor. So they began a protracted retreat, fighting, killing, engaging their enemy, but all the time falling back, back.
But not quietly. And Vlad hadn’t given up, yet.
~*~
Vlad knelt at the water’s edge and inhaled, smelling the taint of human waste in the water; the enemy was upwind. He stood, and accepted the unlit torch that Cicero handed him. Eira was there, too, and Fen, and Malik, and five other of his most-trusted and fearsome warriors. Night lay black and starless over this patch of forest; owls called, low and somber, and small, slinking creatures moved through the underbrush, watching them.
“Don’t linger,” he reminded everyone. “Kill if you can, but do not allow yourselves to get mired in a fight. This is about destruction, and fear.”
Murmurs of assent.
He looked at his mother, her hair tightly braided, three lines of blue painted like claw marks over each eye, bleeding down her cheeks. Before he could say anything, she lifted blue brows and said, “Going to tell me to stay behind again?”
He’d done it several times now, and she’d nearly slapped him once, and outright refused to listen at every occasion.
“Be careful, Mother,” he said, and bowed his head to her.
She snorted, and rolled her eyes, quick flashes in the dark. Then she came forward, put her small but deadly hands on his shoulders, and stood up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “You, too, my darling.” She pulled back, and smiled, her fangs long and sharp. “And good luck.”
~*~<
br />
“God, I hate campaigning,” Val muttered, sinking down into a chair.
This particular campaign was nothing like that of Constantinople, where there had been a fixed camp, one allowed to sprawl and grow over time, the campaign tents homes of a sort, to return to each night, and the battles fought on the same land, and on the same ship, every day. But here, now, Vlad continued a slow retreat, without ever conceding that he’d been defeated. He led them deeper and deeper into the mountains, deeper into his own lands, toward Tîrgovişte, Val had realized. And he harried them constantly. A third of Mehmet’s men had come down with pox in the last fortnight, and eventually, the torturers had gotten hold of a few strange soldiers, and learned they were in fact Wallachian. Vlad had sent his own dying men to infect Mehmet’s forces.
Val nearly grinned every time he thought of it.
The night was dark, and close now, cool mountain breezes chasing away the day’s dry heat, the stars all hiding. Breath of moisture in the air, as it if might rain; a weight that Val could feel pressing down on his shoulders.
Slaves had put up the royal tent hastily, without installing half its usual finery; wagons had been abandoned miles back, and so Val would content himself with dozing in this chair, since a bed would not be made ready.
Mehmet wore dark smudges beneath both eyes, so deep they looked like bruises, but he paced. He’d been drinking blood from some of the baggage horses, and even, Val suspected, from his slaves, and so his gait was strong and quick, with only the occasional wince or sign of a limp.
“How is he managing this?” he wondered aloud.
It was rhetorical, but Val wanted to answer anyway. “Because he’s Vlad.”
Mehmet growled.
Timothée, absently twirling the wine in his cup, turned to Val, brows drawing downward. “Why do you keep saying that? ‘Because he’s Vlad’ isn’t an answer to anything.”
Val was too tired to laugh, so he settled for a smirk instead. “My brother defies all explanation. If you’d ever met him, you’d know that. Why is he able to keep ahead of us? Why has he not surrendered? Why can our spies not catch sight of him? Any other man would have been thrice defeated by now. But he’s Vlad.” He shrugged. “Don’t overthink it.” He threw the mage a wink just to watch him frown and turn away in disgust.
“I for one–” Timothée began.
And was cut off by the clear, forlorn howl of a wolf. A wolf that was very close.
Val sat bolt upright in his chair before he could check his reaction; gooseflesh broke out like a rash across all of his skin, even his scalp, which prickled fiercely. He knew that howl. Fenrir! Mother was here.
Vlad was here.
“These fucking mountains,” Mehmet swore. “And their fucking wildlife.”
Timothée, though, knew it was no ordinary wolf, as another howl, a different one, shivered through the night air from the other side of camp. “Your Majesty–” he started, setting his cup down.
The low din of normal camp sounds erupted all at once into chaos. Shouts, screams, the thunder of hooves.
A janissary burst into the tent, more rattled than Val had ever seen one of the elite soldiers. “Your Majesty! We must get you to safety!”
“What’s happening?” Mehmet demanded, already reaching for the sword he’d discarded earlier.
For the moment, no one gave notice of Val, and he took advantage of it. The tent, ill-staked amid the exhaustion and hurry of the march, showed a loose bit of canvas along the ground. Val slipped out of his chair, rolled beneath it, and stood up amidst a camp that had fallen to madness.
There were horses everywhere, running, and shying, and trampling tents and campfires. Riderless horses – the picket lines had been cut. Loose horses would have been chaos enough, but all of them were terrified, because half the camp appeared to be ablaze. Val saw bright orange flames licking up from collapsing tents, a dozen different sources of fire, its light catching on horseshoes as horses reared, glinting off the animals’ rolling eyes; illuminating the thick clouds of smoke that billowed up from the burning canvas.
Val heard a shout, and ducked aside just as a rider galloped past. He twisted in time to catch sight of an armored man in the saddle, mouth open in something like a smile. The soldier carried a lit torch that he tossed onto the royal tent, and then spurred his mount on into the melee of human and horseflesh.
Another howl, right in the middle of camp this time, followed by screams – of men and horses.
The oil from the torch paved the way for the flames, and the roof of the royal tent caught fire with a soft whump sound. Mehmet, and Timothée, and a host of shouting guards stumbled out of it.
Val ran.
He turned toward the sound of the wolf, and took off as quickly as he could, shoving between panicked bodies, stepping out of the way of a bolting horse.
Ahead lay a tent that had become a bonfire, gouts of flame leaping straight up, and its glow hell-red. A wolf stood there, lifting its head from the throat of a fallen man, jaws dripping blood. A great, red wolf. And behind it, horse held firmly in check, a rider. Erect and slender, hair in a crown of braids, face painted with blue stripes.
“Fen!” Val cried. “Mother!”
Above the tumult, he heard Eira shout, “Val!” But then she wheeled her horse, and raised her blade to meet the soldier rushing at her with a lance.
Something heavy and warm collided with Val’s shoulder, and he staggered forward, barely managing not to go face-first into the fire. With a snarl, Fen lunged between him, and whatever had hit him. He turned to see a figure standing with hands raised; a figure on fire.
No. It was Timothée, and he held fire, a bright crackling ball in each palm.
“Fen, no!” Val shouted.
The wolf was already in motion, springing off from the ground, snarling, jaws open.
Timothée reached as if to meet him, and the fire shot forward, a blinding draft of it, straight at Fenrir’s face.
Val didn’t decide to move; suddenly he was leaping, growling, full of hate. He heard Fen yelp, but he caught the mage around the waist, and tackled him to the ground. A quick burst of heat and pain, burning through his clothes, but then the fire went out, and Val cocked back a fist, and punched the stunned mage right in the eye.
He put all his strength behind it, and Timothée managed only a weak oof before his head fell back, and he lost consciousness.
Val stood, panting, and turned to search for Fen.
The wolf was rubbing a paw across his singed snout, but he snorted, and blinked up at Val, unharmed.
“You’re alright?”
He sneezed in the affirmative. Then turned to seek out his mistress – currently surrounded on all sides by soldiers. Val smelled horse blood, and saw shining wounds on her mount’s flanks. His heart leapt. If they couldn’t topple her from the saddle, they’d cut the horse out from under her, and then have her at their mercy. She was a valiant fighter – even now she spun her horse in tight pirouettes, forcing her attackers to dodge and weave, and she slashed down with her blade, drawing shouts of pain from her opponents – but the soldiers had lances, and she couldn’t charge through, not without killing her horse, and then she’d be on foot.
Fen ran to her, snapping, frightening the men. He gave her an opening, just enough, and then she heeled her mount through the line – and straight into an oncoming knot of janissaries. Armored, armed, and, in the midst of all the panic, calm and ready for battle.
A sword lay beside the body of the soldier Fen had killed, gleaming in the firelight. Val snatched it up, and went to defend his mother.
~*~
Vlad pulled his sword from the neck of an Ottoman soldier – the man fell over, choking on his own blood, sword falling from a now-limp hand – and spurred his gray stallion forward. He was a new acquisition, one Vlad liked better every day. A big animal, smoke-colored, with fat dapples on his flanks and a thick, black mane and tail. Beautiful, but thought cruel by his previous master. He di
d have a temper, but he and Vlad got on well, and it had been easy to train him to bite and kick for battle.
Vlad touched him lightly with the rowels of his spurs, now, far back behind the girth, and the stallion – he’d named him Steel – kicked out with both hind legs as he leapt over a fallen soldier. A scream told Vlad the kick had connected with the enemies behind them.
But it was time to leave.
In the initial minutes of the raid, they’d managed to loose all the Ottoman horses, fire more than half the tents, trample, maim, kill, and destroy any semblance of order. But the generals were finally whipping their men to attention, arming them; bucket brigades were assembling to douse the fires; and the janissaries were on the march, as professional as always.
Cicero appeared at his side, four-legged, falling into stride beside the horse. Ahead, Malik rode into view, sword bloody, shining in the firelight.
“We can’t stay longer,” he said as Vlad reined in alongside him.
“I know. Where’s Eira?”
Fenrir howled, and they wheeled in that direction, riding two abreast, slashing at the lances and swords that reached for them, Cicero running ahead, snarling and terrible, sending Ottomans scattering. Men on horseback they knew how to engage, but the wolves frightened them near-senseless.
When they reached them, Fenrir and Eira were facing what looked like a whole company of janissaries.
But they weren’t alone. Vlad hesitated a moment, confused, when he saw the lean figure crossing swords with a janissary, gold hair loose and gleaming in the firelight, flash of metal around his throat.
Val. Defending Mother.
Vlad hadn’t ever watched him fight, not as a man grown, and for a moment, he sat, staring, dumbstruck. Because Val was good.
Val was more slender, and less obviously muscled than Vlad himself, but he was still a vampire, and still strong, and he was a quick, fluid sort of fighter, always moving, dancing, almost. The janissaries didn’t seem to know what to think about the fact that he’d turned on them, but that wouldn’t last.
Dragon Slayer (Sons of Rome Book 3) Page 58