Dragon Slayer (Sons of Rome Book 3)

by Lauren Gilley

  Retreating.

  The most beautiful word he’d ever heard.

  43

  KING OF ROME

  Romulus came three days later.

  As the bodies still stood watch from their pikes, bloated and black with flies, a runner came pelting into the throne room to report a lone rider. “Handsome and princely,” the boy struggled to say between gasps for breath. “He looks – forgive me, your grace, but he looks a little like you.”

  Vlad tossed him a coin and sent him away.

  “Leave, everyone,” he said, motioning to the advisors and scribes who’d been urging him to send another half-dozen missives to allies and foes alike. “All save Malik and Cicero and Fenrir, out.”

  They obliged, seeming relieved to be out of his presence.

  “Helga, take my mother up to her chambers, please.”

  “Yes, your grace.”

  Eira stood up, affronted. “I am not your wife, Vlad. You can’t just send me away because I’m a woman, and–” She fell silent when he looked at her. He wasn’t sure what sort of face he was making to cause that, but he was glad of it for the moment.

  “It’s Romulus, Mother.”

  She swallowed. “I know.”

  “I’m going to ask him about Valerian.”

  Her eyes widened, and sparkled, though no tears actually formed.

  “I don’t want you to have to listen to that. Mama,” he added, softly, pleading.

  She glanced away, blinking rapidly. “Fine.” Heaved a breath. And then sent him a scowl. “Don’t you dare let him leave this hall alive.”

  “I won’t,” he promised.

  They waited.

  Fenrir couldn’t hold still. He paced the length of the throne room, booted footfalls ringing on the stones. He wanted to shift, Vlad could tell, and maybe he would need to. But Vlad wanted them all man-shaped, at least to begin.

  “You defeated his heir,” Malik said, stating the obvious. “Is he coming to chastise you? Or to take you under his wing?”

  Vlad sat up taller in his seat, surprised, and glanced up toward his advisor. “You think he wants to repair our relationship?”

  Malik shrugged. “He wanted an heir badly enough to turn an Ottoman prince. That prince has failed, and you’re the one who stopped him. And his own blood besides.”

  “An heir to what, though?” Cicero said. “We understand Mehmet’s motives – he styles himself the next Alexander. But what is it that Romulus wants?”

  Vlad took a deep breath; he found a tremor in his lungs, a little hitch of nerves. He tamped it down. “We’ll find out, I suppose.”

  Vlad heard him long before two guards escorted him into the chamber. Heard the rhythm of his footfalls, and the low murmur of his voice as he attempted to engage his escorts in conversation. Scented his blood, and his skin, and the fact that he was a relative, blood-family. Loathed.

  Vlad steeled himself.

  And still he growled when his uncle finally came into view.

  The guards broke away, and took up posts at the door, blank-faced.

  Romulus paused just inside the heavy wooden doors, visibly rocking back on his heels. “Hello, nephew,” he said after a moment, and continued forward. He came to a lazy halt, a pace too close to Vlad’s throne for politeness. Smiled. “It’s good to see you again. To see you as a man.”

  For one terrible moment, Vlad was a boy again. Young, and beardless, propped on an elbow in the bed he shared with his brother, watching Val’s eyes shift beneath his closed lids, lashes fluttering as he dream-walked. Uncle was here, and Mother had gone running down to be at Father’s side, and Vlad wished, so vehemently, that he could walk with his brother; that he could see what he saw, hear what he heard, and protect him from things he couldn’t yet understand, and shouldn’t have to bear–

  Vlad gave himself a mental shake. To see you as a man. Romulus wanted him to go back to the past. To feel small, and weak, and captive.

  But a forest of Ottoman dead along the roadside spoke to his manhood. And Romulus was one blood relative who could not sway him.

  “You haven’t changed, though,” Vlad said. “Landless, wifeless, crownless. Just as always.”

  Romulus laughed, loudly, his head thrown back, his eyes dancing when he leveled them on Vlad next. “Oh, Vlad, you’re charmingly terrible.” He grinned with all his teeth, positively beamed. But Vlad caught a whiff of disquiet; something unhappy in his scent. “I could have used you in the Rome of my day. So many lickspittles, all liars and traitors, but not you. You’re honest, even when you shouldn’t be. I like that. Insults are easier suffered than the knives of conspirators.”

  Vlad gestured toward the door. “Those men you rode past on your way in. Do you think insults killed them?”

  Another laugh, this a soft chuckle, and the smile dimmed. “I could tell nothing of their faces.” He composed himself, properly somber. “Who were they?”

  “Don’t play ignorant. You know who they are. Ottomans. Enemies. And,” Vlad said with sudden relish, “one French mage. Sadly, he had a quick death; I impaled him myself.” He lifted a hand, and flexed his fingers to demonstrate.

  “How proud you must be.” But something flickered in his eyes, almost like fear.

  “What of you? Are you proud, Uncle? Of me? Or of your heir?”

  The last of Romulus’s good humor seemed to melt away. He stared forward, stony-faced, and shifted his stance so that he stood with heels together, hands folded before him. “My heir–” he began.

  “Tucked tail and ran,” Vlad continued. “I killed his men, and he fled before me. Some heir that is. Some choice you made.”

  Romulus lifted his brows. “Are you finished?” When Vlad kept silent, he said, “Yes, Mehmet is my heir, and yes, I’m proud. He’s done wonderfully. He conquered Constantinople. Whereas you have…” He spread his hands to indicate the throne room. It was no great soaring space like some, but it was grand enough by far for Vlad. “This,” his uncle said, dripping contempt. “I chose Mehmet because he is ambitious. Because he has a thirst for greatness. And I knew that you would always be happy grubbing in the mud of some backwater territory. Just like your father.”

  Vlad pulled the dagger from its sheath on his thigh, and threw it.

  Romulus dodged it – but barely – and it clattered to the stones of the floor.

  “That” – Vlad stabbed a finger toward the door, toward the spectacle that had sent Mehmet running – “isn’t anything like what my father would have done. What do you want, Uncle? Someone to conquer the world for you? You picked the wrong warrior.”

  Romulus inclined his head a fraction. “Perhaps I did.”

  “Close the doors,” Vlad said to the guards at the door, and they complied.

  Romulus lifted a hand, though, and they paused. “A moment, nephew. If you’ll allow my advisors to join us.”

  Vlad stood. “No.”

  “Really?” Romulus asked, as the heavy doors thumped shut, and Vlad descended the dais, already reaching for the sword that Cicero offered him. “You’re going to execute me?” He sounded both bored and amused.

  “No.” Fenrir pulled another sword, and offered its hilt to Romulus with a glare and a low growl. “I’m going to duel you.”

  He scoffed.

  Vlad drew his father’s Toledo blade with the hiss of steel on leather. “Let’s see what the King of Rome is really made of.”

  Romulus stared at him.

  “That’s your great secret, isn’t it? The truth? You might have been a king, but you were never a warrior, and a poor vampire on top of it. You always need someone else to get blood on their hands for you.”

  Romulus opened his mouth, and his fangs descended. He reached for the sword, and drew it.

  The wolves stepped back, and they circled one another; Vlad’s pulse leaped in anticipation; he felt at home like this, pacing, sizing up his opponent. He didn’t truly live in his own skin until he was about to throw himself teeth-first into a fight.


  “I’ll give you the first strike,” Vlad offered. “Elders first.”

  Romulus lowered his head and growled, a deep, awful, inhuman sound, like a tiger in the gladiator pits of Rome.

  Vlad answered with a roar.

  Romulus charged.

  Vlad braced his feet, raised his blade, and met the stroke. The swords came together with a cymbal crash that echoed off the stone walls.

  Romulus was strong.

  Vlad was stronger.

  He’d taken his uncle’s measure the moment he walked into the room; had judged his pace, and his movements, watched the way his clothes had fit, and evaluated the level of muscle beneath the fine silk and wool.

  Romulus parried his stroke like someone who knew how sparring worked, but who’d had very little real experience with it. It was an unfair fight, to be sure, and Vlad was going to make every use of it.

  When their blades slid apart, he launched an attack of quick, flurried strikes, connecting each time, forcing Romulus back step after step after step.

  The blades crossed, and Vlad’s slid down, and managed to nick the back of Romulus’s hand.

  Romulus spun away, a full retreat, and brought his hand to his mouth to lick the wound. He coughed a laugh, panting. “Well done, nephew.” He lifted his sword in a kind of salute. “I yield. Let us have a cup of wine and toast your superior swordsmanship.”

  “No.”

  His eyes widened, and showed the first real flash of fear. “Vlad–”

  Vlad charged again.

  Romulus barely got his sword up in time, but it was an unsteady, one-handed grip. Vlad caught the blade with his own, a forceful stroke, and sent the borrowed weapon spinning off and away, landing on the floor with a crash.

  Romulus put both empty hands up, palms-out, one bleeding freely. “Vlad! Vlad, no!”

  Vlad swung.

  Romulus screamed, and fell back. Blood sprayed out, a hot flashing arc of it; Vlad caught some on his lips, and licked it away as he went to his knees, kneeling over his uncle’s chest, blade pressed to his throat. One of Romulus’s arms lay flung out beside him, gushing blood, barely connected at the elbow; bone visible, meat and muscle severed.

  He made an inarticulate, animal sound of pain, that cut off abruptly when Vlad pressed in closer with the edge of his blade. He breathed in ragged gasps, throat leaping, tears streaming from his eyes.

  “V-v-vlad,” he pleaded. “Nephew – son. Please. We’re family! You, and Val, and I – we’re the only ones left! The last sons of Rome!”

  Vlad had imagined this moment at least a dozen times. Had envisioned himself attacking his uncle, slaying him, taking revenge for his father, and Mircea, and Val, and the heartbreak of his mother. And of Fen, and Helga, who’d loved father, too. And poor Cicero, who’d been his most devoted wolf. He’d thought that if he got the chance to put Romulus on his back, and drive a sword through his throat, that he would be a snarling, furious, raging beast, more animal than man. A blood-drinking, dirty-handed vampire beyond words or reason.

  But here he was, the bastard completely at his mercy. And he felt only calm, and cold, and certain, and the words came easy.

  “Stop your sniveling,” he ordered. “I want to know why you tried to kill Father while you were king.”

  Romulus sucked in a few deep, trembling breaths, but calmed himself. His free hand landed on Vlad’s thigh, and squeezed, tight, fingertips digging in. But it was a sad attempt at fighting back. “What?”

  “Father. Why did you try to kill him? He didn’t want to rule, he said. You were king uncontested.”

  Romulus panted a moment, hot, humid breath rushing up into Vlad’s face. “You – you think,” he finally gritted out, face tight with pain, “you know what it was like. You believed – his stories.”

  “Why?”

  Romulus tightened his hand. Gripped hard. “Because” – he snarled, and the pain left his face, replaced by hate – “he was weak.”

  He bucked Vlad off of him, as forcefully as any horse. And Vlad was so shocked that he could do nothing to prevent it.

  He held onto his sword, though, and managed to tuck and roll, springing back up to a fight-ready crouch several lengths away. He braced himself with a growl, ready to leap back to his feet and reengage.

  But he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  Romulus sat up. He left behind a slick puddle of blood on the floor, but his arm, nearly severed, reknit before Vlad’s eyes. He heard the crack of bone growing, saw muscle and flesh regrow. One last pop, and Romulus flexed his fingers, and rotated his wrist. Healed.

  “Your father,” he said, as they both climbed to their feet, “was an aimless idiot. We were immortals! Stronger, and more capable than anyone. But he didn’t want to rule. He wanted to waste our abilities. To drink, and caper, and fuck women, and go adventuring.” He stalked toward Vlad as he said this, spitting and hissing like a great cat. “He could have helped me! He could have been with me when I was attacked! And then, all these centuries later, he wants to rule. Not when I needed him, no, but on his own! And not even as himself. As Vlad Dracul.”

  Vlad backed away, circling, trying to reconcile what he’d seen. Vampires could heal from seemingly mortal wounds. He himself had survived a fractured skull as a boy; but he’d lain with the wound for days, needing George Castrioti’s blood to give him strength, and to help the bone mend. As long as you left the heart mostly intact, beating inside the chest, a vampire could live. Mother had even told a story of a vampire she’d known once, in another century, who’d been decapitated, and when the neck was pressed back to the shoulders, and wolf blood poured into the wound, and into his mouth, the head had reattached.

  But all of it took time. And more often than not, the vampire went into a deep coma, healing while he slept, only waking again when a wolf called to him.

  Romulus’s arm had healed in a matter of minutes.

  The two wolves had shifted, and circled them now, snarling, hackles raised.

  “No,” Vlad told them, staying them with a hand. “No. I have this.”

  Romulus laughed, giving a showy twirl with his sword. “Do you?”

  “How did you do that?” Vlad kept moving, and motioned toward his arm.

  “Ah, nephew. I can do all sorts of things.” He attacked.

  Vlad held his ground, and met him.

  Their blades crashed together again, again, again. Romulus was no faster, and he felt no stronger. But he’d healed.

  “I am not,” Romulus said, panting, but holding his own, “the same as the others. I’m not just a vampire. I’m the son of a god.”

  Vlad had never known if he believed that – that Mars was real, and actually a god, and actually his grandfather.

  “I have the same blood,” he said, parrying.

  “Diluted. That whore your father–” He cut off with a startled yell, as Fenrir’s fangs sank into the meat of his calf.

  Fen was a big wolf, with big teeth, and he tore a huge bloody chunk of meat free.

  Romulus turned his head, searching for the source of the pain.

  Vlad drove his sword through his throat.

  Romulus made an awful gurgling sound, spitting blood, but he didn’t fall this time. He attempted to swing at Vlad with his own blade.

  Vlad caught it, yanked it free, and threw it away, all while pushing his own sword deeper, deeper. The hilt butted up against flesh, and his uncle’s head was nearly severed; his windpipe, his spine, no doubt.

  But he buckled slowly, still scrabbling with his hands.

  Vlad felt the first stirrings of panic. He pushed his uncle down, and knelt on his chest. The wolves rushed in, taking his arms in their teeth, growling, holding him in place.

  “What are you?” Vlad demanded, and the panic bled into his voice. How could this be happening? How was it possible?

  Blood poured out of Romulus’s mouth, red and thick. He couldn’t speak without a throat, but his eyes sparked, and he mouthed the words clearly. I
told you: I’m a god.

  Vlad growled. “Gods can die.” He ripped his sword free with a fountain of blood, and brought it down.

  It took three swings, impossibly. After, he stood and kicked the head away, so it went rolling halfway across the throne room.

  The body continued to spasm, and the wolves stepped on it with their paws, pinning it in place.

  Vlad wiped his face with the back of his hand, clearing the blood from his eyes and mouth. His uncle’s blood. It tasted dark, and vile, and so much more volatile than what he’d tasted the day he’d bit Mehmet as a boy. Mehmet had been an infection, but this was the source. The font of the evil.

  He spat on the ground, and drove his sword straight down into Romulus’s heart.

  Finally, he lay still.

  ~*~

  “He’s not dead,” Eira said. She strode boldly across the floor, heedless of the blood that stained the trailing hem of her skirt. When she reached the body, she knelt beside it, sniffing, lip curling in distaste.

  “He will be,” Vlad said, hand resting on the pommel of his sword where it jutted upward, still embedded. “If I can actually cut his heart out.” He glanced down at the body and frowned; already, the flesh was trying to heal around his sword, the heart repairing itself.

  Cicero, human-shaped again, came back to them with the head, fingers threaded through the thick curly hair. The features had gone slack, the eyes shut, and the stump of the neck so longer bled. But Romulus didn’t look dead; asleep, only, and almost peaceful. Cicero held the head out away from himself, face caught in a snarl. “How did he heal himself? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Eira stood, dusting off her skirt, brow knit. “I have,” she said, grimly.

  “What?” Vlad and Cicero asked together.

  “The old gods,” she said. “All the pagan ones. I haven’t met them all, none, actually, save one, once, when I was a girl. I’ve had this theory, ever since. That they aren’t gods, maybe, not really. But they aren’t like regular vampires either.”

  Vlad glanced down at his uncle’s headless body. “Can they be killed?”