by Brian Lumley
“Do you have a name, vampire, or are you satisfied to be remembered as a stench and a puff of black smoke rising from our fire?”
The creature gave a start, and glared harder than ever; but he also trembled a little where he hung suspended on the cross. Poisoned by the silver shot which had ripped into his great chest—also by the long silver spikes which pinned his wrists, elbows, and the twitching muscles of his calves to timbers hard as iron—he was weak by a vampire’s standards, but still strong by a man’s. Even now, if only he could get down from this cross, he’d wreak havoc among his tormentors before someone put a bolt through his heart. That was how he would prefer to go: fighting bloodily the one minute, with a bolt through his chest the next, and finally his head flying free in a crimson welter! After that, they could burn him all they wanted. But … not while he was still alive.
It was as if Lardis read his mind. “Oh?” he said. “And is it that the fire worries you?” He knew it was, for a vampire burns slowly, and the thing inside him fights it all the way.
Meanwhile, Kirk Lisescu had slipped away and returned with a spade. Whistling tunelessly, he bent his lean, muscular back at the foot of the cross and commenced digging in the loose soil there. Whenever his spade struck the upright, it shivered a little. Looking at the lieutenant, Lardis nodded to indicate Kirk’s activity, and said:
“He digs here at the front, so that eventually the cross will be weakened and topple towards the fire there.” Standing up, he jerked his thumb negligently to his rear where a long, deep pit of glowing embers lay behind him. And: “Phew!” Lardis wiped his brow, “but it’s hot!” Then, walking to and fro—with his great head jutting a little, though not aggressively, and his hands clasped behind his back—he continued conversationally:
“Of course, if you were to loosen up a bit and talk—why, my good friend here might stop digging in order to hear what you were saying!” He gave a shrug. “And really it’s as simple as that: while you talk you live, at least as long as you make interesting conversation. And when you stop talking you burn. Meanwhile, you still haven’t told us your name, or where you come from, or how many there are of you … or anything at all which we might find remotely interesting!”
Snarling the last few words, finally Lardis gritted his teeth, sprang forward and snatched Kirk Lisescu’s spade, and began shovelling himself with a vengeance; until the cross gave a lurch and an ominous creak, and tilted forward a fraction towards the fire in the trench.
But a fraction was enough, and now at last the vampire started to talk …
II
“My name?” the undead creature on the cross gabbled, his red eyes starting out, staring at the fire-pit into which he would topple slowly, face down, unless he chose to speak first. “Is that all you want to know? My name and a little useless information? Well then, and for all the good it will do you, they call me Vratza Wransthrall. There, and what else can I tell you?”
Lardis tossed the spade aside, stepped back a little and filled his labouring lungs. Then he looked up at the other, nodded, and smiled albeit humourlessly. “So you’ve taken your master’s name, eh? And was it also your plan to step into his shoes one day?”
Beneath lowered eyebrows, the vampire’s slitted eyes shot scarlet loathing at him. “In Turgosheim,” he grunted, “the Lord Wran the Rage had several lieutenants. Here and for the moment, he has just the one—myself! Yes, I would be Wamphyri. Or I would have been.”
Again Lardis nodded. “Turgosheim, eh? And where, pray, is Turgosheim?”
The other glared at him, flared his nostrils, remained silent … until Kirk Lisescu took up his spade again. Then:
“East!” Vratza cried, straining on the silver spikes until the blue veins jerked and writhed in his arms, but straining uselessly. He might tear his flesh but he wouldn’t tear those nails loose. And: “East,” he croaked again, relaxing as best he could and hanging there shivering, panting. “Beyond the Great Red Waste. There are mountains there, a lesser range—Starside to the north and Sunside in the south, much the same as here—but smaller. Turgosheim lies hidden from the sun in a gorge. It was our home but Wratha brought us away, to this.”
“Wratha?” Lardis cocked his head on one side. “A girl’s name? A Lady, your leader?”
“Wratha the Risen, a Lady, aye. She led us out of Turgosheim.” Vratza’s floodgates were fully open now; Lardis need only question him.
“Why did she bring you here?”
“Because Turgosheim was used up. Too many vampires, too few Sunsiders.”
“Ah!” Lardis craned his neck, narrowed his eyes. “And how many Lords were there, in Turgosheim?”
“More than forty, less than fifty. Including the Ladies.”
“And how many here, now?”
“Six. Wratha and her five.”
“And lieutenants?”
“Myself, and one other.”
Lardis drew in his chin. “What? Six of them and only two of you?”
“Four of us died last night,” Vratza scowled, “when we came out of Starside to raid on a town standing east of here.”
Andrei Romani nodded and clapped his hands appreciatively. And: “Well done, Twin Fords!” he chuckled, however grimly. “A little good news at last. At least they were prepared!”
“No,” Vratza shook his head. “It was that we were not prepared. Some of the men fought back! In Turgosheim, that would have been unthinkable. But afterwards, striking here, by then we were prepared. As for myself, I was unlucky …”
“Very,” said Lardis, quietly, “for it will cost you your life—this loathsomeness which your life has become, anyway. But in fact we’ll be doing you a favour.”
“You’ll burn me anyway?”
“You know we will.”
“And you call that a favour? Hah! Why then should I talk to you?”
“To live a little longer,” Lardis answered, as Kirk rammed the spade into the earth again.
The cross gave a jerk and Vratza cried, “No, wait!” And in a moment: “What else?” he groaned.
Lardis considered it, stroked his chin. “Six of the Wamphyri, and two—no, one—lieutenant. And thralls?”
“Only those which we recruited in Twin Fords. And a few recruited here tonight, perhaps.”
“Aye, precious few,” Lardis told him, grinding his teeth. “For we’re old hands at dealing with your victims!” Clenching his fists, he took a pace forward; Andrei Romani was there to grab his arm and bring him to a standstill.
But the passion had gone out of Lardis in a moment; he was his own man again; he sighed and let his shoulders slump. “And we have dealt with them,” he said. “Most of them … I think.”
He drove from his mind all of the gaunt, accusing faces of those he had examined and found wanting, and tried to concentrate on the business in hand. But it was hard, for he was very tired now. And: “Warriors,” he growled at last. “How many?”
“Three,” came back the answer. “But they will make more, as soon as they have the stuff for it.”
What? The ‘stuff’? Lardis couldn’t contain a shudder. This nightmare thing was talking about people—decent human beings, good Szgany flesh—mutated by the Wamphyri into monsters! Deep inside he felt his gorge rising, also his fury and everlasting hatred. And he knew that he wouldn’t be able to talk to Vratza Wransthrall for very much longer.
But for now he must control himself, keep a tight rein on powerful Gypsy emotions, and say: “Something here rings like a bell without a clapper—hollowly. You say the Wamphyri came here out of this Turgosheim with only a handful of lieutenants and warriors between them? What, and were they banished?”
“Not banished, no,” Vratza answered, sweat dripping from him where he suffered the agonies of the silver spikes. “But she would have been, the Lady Wratha, if the others had known of her works earlier. It was this way:
“Warriors, the aerial sort, are forbidden in Turgosheim. But as you have seen, Wratha the Risen and her colleagues
made fighting creatures that flew. To do so they must work secretly, in the privacy of their manses; it was the only way they could escape the restrictions of Turgosheim and make new lives here. But in the end they were discovered, and so forced to flee.”
Lardis frowned, scratched his head. “There are no warriors in Turgosheim?”
“Not which fly. Of other types: a few lesser creatures are kept in the spires and manses, and there are those which roam in Turgosheim’s bottoms, guarding against intruders.”
Lardis frowned, tried to picture all he’d been told, and slowly nodded. He looked around at his men, narrowed his eyes, and continued the questioning. “But eventually—I mean, now that this Lady Wratha has found her way here—it’s entirely possible that the others will breed monsters of their own and follow her, right? And is that why she’s in such a hurry to make new lieutenants, warriors, thralls?”
Up on his cross, Vratza was growing weaker by the moment. The alien stuff in his blood, which made him a vampire, was poisoned; his flesh could not repair itself; each of the small silver balls in his peppered chest was an agony in its own right. Even so, and for all his suffering, he was beginning to see Lardis Lidesci in a new light. He nodded, as much as the spike through his topknot would allow, and grunted, “I can see … can see that they will have their work cut out … with such as you. And I believe that I … that I am not the first thrall of the Wamphyri with whom you’ve spent an hour or so in … in polite conversation. A shame we weren’t destined to meet on terms more equal.”
“Aye, too true!” said Lardis with a snort. “What? Equal terms? You with your gauntlet and the strength of five men, undead and almost impossible to kill? Hah! Do you remember how you were taken? And were those equal terms? No, don’t try appealing to my humanity, Vratza Wransthrall. For where you and your like are concerned, I am a monster in my own right!”
Kirk Lisescu tugged urgently at his elbow. “Get on with it,” he whispered. “He grows weak. Get what you can out of him and then make an end of it.”
Vratza scowled down on them. “I have a vampire’s ears,” he growled, “in which your whispers ring like shouts! Anyway, you are right: I am weak and fading fast. You should go away now and let me die. That is what I wish.”
“A few more questions,” Lardis told him, “and then I’ll see to your wishes personally.”
“No! No!” Vratza protested, groaning. “It is … it is enough. I … I am finished.” He hung his head, slumped down on his spikes.
Lardis nodded, but grimly. “So you’re finished, are you?” he repeated the other. “Yes, and I’m the village idiot, lured away from a nest full of eggs by a partridge with a “broken” wing!”
Vratza said nothing but simply hung there, even when Kirk took up his spade again.
Lardis waited a little while, then said, “Vratza, listen to me. We can’t stay here but must move on; all of us, the entire village. And we certainly don’t intend to take you with us. Now, you are going to die, I make no bones about that. But how you die is up to you. This is your choice:
“Answer a few more questions, and then go cleanly, without even knowing it. Or hang there till morning when the sun comes up, and suffer the worst of all possible deaths—for such as you. Now listen: you are right and I’ve had dealings with vampires before. I have seen and heard the likes of you melting in sunlight: the swift blackening and peeling of your skin, the black smoke boiling as your fats begin to melt, the awful screaming as your guts rupture and your eyeballs start out upon your cheeks. After an hour, two, three at most, you will be a black and tarry rag-thing hanging there, with all your bones protruding and your black skull frozen in a final scream! Is that what you want, Vratza Wransthrall?”
Vratza twitched a little but made no answer.
“So be it,” Lardis nodded. And: “Men, bind this creature more firmly yet, with good silver wire round his arms, legs and neck. And knock a few more nails in him, so that he won’t jerk himself loose when the sun’s first rays hit him. Then clear the village. We’re moving out, right now, within the hour.” It was a bluff, of course, but Vratza didn’t know that.
“Wait.” The vampire’s scarlet eyes shot open as he began to strain again, but less powerfully, against the spikes where they pierced his flesh. Then, panting, genuinely exhausted, he hung there glaring at Lardis as before; but helplessly now, hopelessly. And:
“I’m good as dead anyway,” he choked the words out. “Your silver is in my blood. But … do I have your word? Will you make a clean end of it?”
Lardis nodded, and growled: “Which is more than you ever granted.”
Vratza lay back his head against the cross, closed his eyes and breathed deep, and said, “One bolt won’t be enough. I was Wran’s thrall for long and long. I’ve come very close to being Wamphyri…”
Lardis nodded again, and quietly said, “So I’ve noted. Be sure we’ll take care of it.”
“Then … ask your damned questions and be done!”
To one side of the cross and a little behind it, just out of sight of the crucified vampire, Andrei Romani’s brothers placed loaded crossbows in readiness on the now empty table, and Kirk Lisescu snapped his shotgun shut. They didn’t want Vratza to see their preparations, in case he should resolve to remain silent to the end. But, strangely, there was no hatred left in them now—not for this one, who was finished—just a grim determination.
And Lardis said: “You’ve told us about this Lady Wratha, who is the leader of the six. Also about your master, Wran the Rage. Now tell me about the rest. Who are they, and how may we know them?”
Vratza levelled his head and stared out bleakly across ravaged, smouldering Settlement. And as if he were speaking to the night:
“Gorvi the Guile is one of them,” he said. “As his name suggests, he’s smooth and slippery as oil. Then there’s Spiro, Wran’s brother, called Killglance. They are twins, Spiro and Wran, whose Wamphyri father had the evil eye. In his youth he could kill men—kill the Szgany, burst their hearts—just by looking at them! The brothers have tried it, too, though as yet with no success to mention. Also, there’s Lord Vasagi, or Vasagi the Suck, as he’s known. I will not try to describe him but … you will know him anyway, when you see him. Last but not least there’s Canker Canison, who sings to the moon and leans to the fore, loping like a dog or a fox, but upright on two legs …”
A choked cry—half-gasp, half-shout—rang out from the flickering shadows a little beyond the range of the fires, and Nathan Kiklu stumbled into view, his eyes fixed on the terrifying yet tragic figure on the cross.
Standing in the shadows of an upended cart opposite the dull-glowing fire-pit, listening to all that Lardis had asked and every answer that Vratza Wransthrall had given him, Nathan had been witness to everything. Until a moment ago his eyes had been like misty mirrors: full of starlight, firelight, strangeness. But now, suddenly, he was alert as never before. Coming forward to stand beside Lardis, he gazed up hard-eyed at the wretched creature on the cross. And:
“What was that?” he said, his clear youth’s voice contrasting with the coarseness of the night, cutting it like a knife. “About a dog or a fox, a loping thing? Canker Canison, did you call him?”
The vampire angled his huge head to look down on Nathan. He recognized him: this was one of the first faces he had seen when he regained consciousness, before the questioning commenced. Then … the youth had seemed terrified; he’d backed off a pace and stumbled, moved away to where Vratza’s scarlet gaze couldn’t follow. Even now he was unsteady on his feet, but no longer awed.
And so Vratza was brought to this: even children dared to gaze upon him now, without cringing!
Curling his fleshy upper lip, the vampire snarled and showed Nathan his twin-tipped tongue and dagger teeth. But still the youth stood there. Until finally Vratza smiled—if what he did with his face could be called smiling—and said: “I was your age, when I was taken in the tithe. Since when … I’ve come a very long way.” He glanced
at Lardis. “Aye, even to the end.”
Lardis put an arm across Nathan’s shoulder. “The lad has … he has an interest in all of this,” he said. But looking at Nathan, he knew it wasn’t a healthy one.
“Oh?” Vratza cocked his head a little on one side, questioningly.
Nathan’s mouth twitched in the left-hand corner. “It… it’s my girl. This dog-thing, Canker, knocked me down and took her from me. Since when … she hasn’t been found.”
“Ah!” said Vratza, matter-of-factly. And as if Nathan no longer existed, his red eyes swivelled to look at Lardis. “Is it done? Am I finished?”
Lardis nodded; Kirk Lisescu and the others took up their weapons, came from behind the cross into view.
Vratza saw them, and fire and blood sprang into his eyes together. He opened his nightmare jaws and hissed, vibrating his forked tongue in the red-ribbed cavern of his throat.
“No, wait!” Nathan shrugged free of Lardis’s arm, pointed a steady hand and finger at the monster on the cross. “I want you to tell me: about Canker Canison, and about Misha. How will it be for her?”
“No!” Lardis got in front of Nathan, throwing up his arms as if to ward off some horror; indeed, to ward off a very real horror. “Vratza, don’t tell him anything! Your time has come.” He glanced at his men where they took up their positions, and nodded. But the vampire was already speaking—to Nathan.
“My last act,” he said, in a voice which bubbled like tar in a volcanic pit, “to curdle your dreams now and forever. You ask about Canker? And your girl?”
“Yes,” Nathan had to know. But behind him the men were lifting their weapons, aiming them.
“Canker takes women for one thing only,” Vratza gurgled. “To use them. And when he has used them—in whichever of the many ways he favours—then he worries them, as a wolf among goats!”
“Be quiet!” Lardis roared.