Bloodwars

by Brian Lumley

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  Risen’s mind. But even his relief was only temporary, for the worst fears of each and every one of them were suddenly come true. Then …

  … The Lady’s jaw fell open and her eyes stood out like lamps in her gaunt and haggard face. And she beat her breast and cried her frustration: ‘Why now? Why now?’ Until finally she croaked the very last name that any of her colleagues had ever wanted to hear:

  ‘Vormulac!’

  What of him? Wran the Rage ‘gasped’ in her mind, unwilling to believe it despite that he knew.

  He’s crossed the Great Red Waste, she answered, speaking to all of them at once. He’s here, in the east of Olden Starside, even now. Our mortaJ if not our immortaJ enemy … Lord Vormulac Unsleep of Turgosheim. Him and his, aye. And they are many!

  IV Vormulac

  In Turgosheim, Maglore the Mage had been busy for a night and a day; which was the equivalent of an entire week in a parallel world currently beyond Lord Maglore’s ken. He’d been busy ever since the warrior-Lord Vormulac Taintspore (called Unsleep} had ventured forth from melancholy Vorm-spire, and from the gorge of Turgosheim itself, into the unknown west with his vampire army. That had been in the twilight before the night; and how Maglore had gloated where he watched from the roof of Runemanse, as his supposed ‘colleagues’ and all their creatures vacated the gorge to fly west in the shadow of the mountains, bound for a legendary land of plenty beyond the Great Red Waste.

  In the eye of memory he could see it even now: the beginning of that grand crusade, and all the pomp and splendour of Vormulac’s marvellous exit from Turgosheim. (Marvellous, aye. Especially in the greedy eyes and heart of the Seer-Lord Maglore, who had vowed in the hour of their departure that once they were out, Vormulac and the others would never get back in! - which were thoughts he’d kept to himself, of course.) But quite apart from his ambitions, to actually witness that exodus had been a wonderful experience.

  To stand there on the roof of promontory Runemanse with Karpath Seersthrall, his right-hand man, watching first the flypast, then the departure; to see the massed might of Turgosheim ‘on parade’, as it were, under its many generals, and all of them under Vormulac’s over-all command. The gradually burgeoning whorl of that aerial army within and

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  level with the rim of the gorge as, emerging from the landing-bays of individual spires and manses, the contingents filled their spaces within the soaring ranks. Awe-inspiring!

  The gleam of polished leather body-armour, iron-studded trappings, golden ornamentation; the raucous banging and blaring of drums, gongs and horns from the various aeries, where common thralls made noise to speed their masters (and mistresses) to victory in far foreign places; the rumbling cough and sputter of warrior exhausts …

  Then to see the great spiral unwind as Vormulac Unsleep himself led the column westwards out of the gorge; to recognize and check off the various sigils, standards and pennants fluttering in the vile slipstream of propulsive gases, where they passed level with Maglore and dwindled into distance:

  Vormulac’s own ‘hanging man’ emblem, Grigor (the Lech) Hakson’s odious ‘rampant rod’, the virgin grandam Deve-taki’s ‘grin-scowl mask’, the Lady Ursula Torspawn’s ‘Szgany bells’, Lord Eran Painscar’s ‘spiny gauntlet’, Lord Tangiru’s ‘warrior-tooth necklace’, Zun’s ‘bloodied tusks’, and Lady Zindevar Cronesap’s ‘spitted pig’, (in fact a spitted man, right down to the apple in his mouth!) and many another.

  They had all been there:

  Lorn Halfstruck, Lord of Trollmanse; Lady Valeria of Valspire; Black Boris, who kept trog mistresses; Lord Wamus (pronounced ‘Vamus’), whose far-reaching, folding claw-tipped arms were in fact membranous pinions, for his metamorphic skill was such that he effortlessly maintained the guise of a great bat; Lord Freg of Fregscarp; Laughing Zack Shornskull of Zackspire, oh, and at least a dozen and a half more.

  Noticeable if only by their absence (curiously, Maglore had actually found himself looking for them), were such as Wran ‘the Rage’ and Spiro Killglance, Wratha the Risen, Canker Canison, Vasagi the Suck, and Gorvi the Guile. But

  since ostensibly they had been the spur for this allegedly punitive expedition, that was only to be expected. For, in fact, all six of them were fled into the unknown west, where they’d hidden themselves away for more than three years now, and where Vormulac and his army hoped to seek them out to punish them for treason against all of Turgosheim’s Wamphyri.

  But in fact they had committed no such heinous crime, nor any crime at all, or only a middling one at best. For in truth Wratha and her gang had only ever sought to be what they were: Wamphyri! Which, by reason of Turgosheim’s politics, was a sort of treason in itself. Against Zolteism.

  And: Hah! Maglore thought. Zolteism, indeed!

  Turgo Zolte had been the father of them all, the founder of Turgosheim, who had fled with his children out of the west from the wrath of Shaitan the Unborn. But all of that was history, an immemorial legend. As for Zolteism: that was Turgo’s legacy, and some would say his curse. For of all the Wamphyri who had been and were to be, Turgo was the one who had denied himself to do battle with his leech. He had been and had continued to be his own man even unto death, following which the creed of Zolteism was passed down to them who survived him in Turgosheim.

  The blood is the life, aye - but in moderation. To lust after power, territory, thralls and possessions is the way of life - in moderation. The thrill of the kill is a joy - but all in moderation and according to rules. That was the essence of Zolteism: to deny one’s parasite, keep it in its place, and be master of one’s own urges, one’s own destiny.

  Moreover, Turgo’s creed had been seen to make sense; the Szgany of Turgosheim’s Sunside had become so reduced in number that the bloodwars must cease, or the Wamphyri themselves die out from lack of nourishment. For in the beginning, in Turgosheim’s youth, the interstack wars had been many and the toll in human lives, in Szgany beasts and vitals in general, enormous. Without that Zolteism was enforced, the blood itself would soon become enfeebled, run

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  cold, run out! Thus, if the vampire Lords would live, so must the creed. And of course the weakest of them had been eager to embrace it - or if not the weakest, the wisest, certainly.

  It was all history now, aye, but the creed had survived, and Maglore the Mage had been a ‘true Zolteist’, an ‘ascetic’, all of his days. Well, within limits, of course. Maglore and Devetaki Skullguise, even Vormulac Unsleep himself: ascetics of sorts. For these three had been Turgosheim’s secret triumvirate, its regulators, who recognized the folly of depleting Sunside to the dregs. And, besides, life had been good for them in their mighty manses, towering high over Turgosheim’s lesser knolls and hovels .. .

  … Until Wratha the Risen and her renegades had made warriors that flew, and with them had flown out of Tur-gosheim into the fabled west! That was their crime: that of their own admission, Wratha and her outlaws had stolen forbidden flesh out of Sunside from which to build millennia-banned constructs. Also, that they had cheated in the tithe in order to further improve their get. But it was not why Vormulac had ordered his massive war effort, culminating these three years later in a so-called ‘crusade’. No, that had been done out of fear.

  Fear that indeed a fabulous land of plenty lay far to the west, beyond the Great Red Waste, and that the Lady would utilize its riches to build an invincible vampire army of her own. And fear that she would return one night, and wrest Turgosheim from its rightful leaders. For in her time she’d made a habit of rising up and returning, this Lady; which was why they had named her Wratha the Risen …

  In his room of meditation, these were some of the thoughts that passed through Maglore’s mind as he gazed upon his golden sigil shewstone and considered putting it to use. Where was Wratha now, he wondered, and where Vormulac? And how would it go when they met - or collided? And where for that matter was Nathan, Maglore’s ‘w
indow on an unknown world’?

  That was why the Seer-Lord merely considered using the Mobius loop sigil: because the last time he’d done so … well, it had been to discover that the crafty Nathan was oh so much more crafty than Maglore had ever guessed. Oh, he had long suspected that Nathan was a weird one, but never the extent of his weirdness! Still, with all of those unknown miles between - and the Great Red Waste itself as a buffer zone - where would the harm be? But being a ‘mage’ of sorts, and certainly a seer, Maglore respected the talents of others; and despite that he was Wamphyri and knew no real fear (or so he told himself), for the time being he curbed his curiosity with regard to Nathan and turned instead to Vormulac.

  For prior to Lord Taintspore’s departure, his old ‘friend’ and colleague Maglore had given him a good-luck piece: a golden ring for his ear … in the shape of a twisted figure of eight, Maglore’s sigil! Surely a sign of undying, even undead friendship, that a man honour another with his own talisman, the sign of his house and being? And so, in precisely the same way that Nathan Kiklu wore a ring of gold six inches from the centre of his brain, so now Vormulac Unsleep, absent vampire Lord of melancholy Vormspire, wore another.

  An hour and a half had passed since Maglore last expended psychic effort on that powerful image, that abstract symbol of alien mathematics; during which interval he’d taken sustenance and satisfied … other appetites. Now, replete and a deal more relaxed, he would try again.

  Vormulac, yes.

  So thinking, and closing his mind to everything else, he rested long, talon-like hands on the massy, gleaming, strangely twisted loop of gold, and sent his seer’s probe winging west in search of the warrior-Lord Taintspore.

  And in another moment…

  Vormulac Unsleep’s mood was black as his soul would be, if he had one. The flight out of Turgosheim and across the

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  Great Red Waste into these unknown western parts had been arduous, to say the very least; in fact, and in proper perspective, it had been a hair-raising, nail-biting, apparently endless nightmare of a journey!

  Of course, Lord Vormulac would never dream of admitting such to any of the lesser Lords (and certainly not to a Lady); throughout, he had appeared the Great Leader, entirely unshakable, utterly inscrutable: the warrior-Lord Vormulac of Turgosheim. But to himself … on several occasions he had wished that he’d never set out, and there’d been as many times again when he’d thought he would never see it through.

  Known for his fits of melancholy as well as for his might, now that most powerful Lord of the Wamphyri looked more morose, withdrawn and doom-fraught than ever; yet at the same time - seated upright and solid as a rock in the saddle of his flyer, at the head of what had been an awesome army - he seemed more determined, too. For he’d made a vow of vengeance those three long years ago, after Wratha had flown the coop, and he wasn’t about to deny himself the pleasure of sealing it now.

  Vormulac was a huge man, almost seven feet tall. He was no strict adherent to Zolteism, but neither was he a glutton. He had not dealt his fellow Lords ill, not even in his prime. His forces had never attacked - other than in the defence of Vormspire - but when on occasion he had been obliged to make war, then it had been utter and ruthless; Vormulac was a hard man. Eighty years ago, he’d lain Gonarspire and Trogmanse to waste, bound their masters in chains and hung them out to dry where the sun’s hot smelt would discover and dispose of them. Since when, the gorge had stayed relatively free from internal feuding.

  Despite that Vormulac had ascended to Vormspire all of one hundred and twenty years ago, he kept his head shaved and wore the forelocks of a common thrall. A creature of lifelong habit, what had suited his old master Engor Spore-son in an earlier age continued to suit Vormulac to this day.

  His thralls, his lieutenants, and even his women, were similarly cropped, and several younger Lords had emulated the fashion, not least Laughing Zack Shornskull of Zackspire.

  Vormulac’s forelocks, having lost most of their jet sheen through long years of sleeplessness, were iron-grey as if covered in dust; they were plaited and finished with lead weights which dangled onto his nipples. His eyes, not quite uniformly crimson but marked with yellow flecks, were close-set and deepsunken in ochre orbits. His nose was long, slender and sharply hooked at the bridge. Its convolutions and the gape of its nostrils were less marked than in most Lords, but its great length was a singular anomaly; its tip came down almost to the centre of his upper lip, lending his looks a hawkish severity.

  Severe, yes, yet melancholy, too. Some said it was a lost love had robbed him of seventy years’ sleep; others had it that he feared to sleep, lest starting awake he might find himself a leper, as his old master before him. Only combine the two theories, and something of the truth would be known. Vormulac himself had mastered the art of not dwelling upon it … except when he slept. Which was why he didn’t.

  Nor had he slept this last sunup, but had weathered out an entirely wretched day in the shade of the barrier mountains, sitting in a cave with only the meat of trogs and a cup of vile mushroom wine for consolation; and thoughts of red revenge, of course. Against Wratha, whose fault it was that he was here at all.

  Now, flying west again in the early hours of sundown, he found himself looking back on the misadventure - so far as it had proceeded - with something of relief, and thanking whichever star he was born under that things had not been worse …

  First the planning, which had not been of the best. But Vormulac’s generals had thought: If Wratha the Risen

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  managed it in total secrecy, with mainly untried men and monsters, and no apparent effort all of a hundred and fifty sunups ago, then there can’t be that much to it! How can we fail with all the thought and effort that we’re putting into it, and having the choicest materials out of Sunside with which to work?

  Then, as if simply thinking these things had been enough, the very idea of failure had been put aside; thought and effort had become less than adequate; liaison and cooperation between the manses had broken down as the vampire Lords vied to create the finest contingent of men and fighting creatures for Vormulac’s aerial army. The thrill or ‘glory’ of the coming venture (and anticipation of its successful conclusion, of course) far outweighed any niggling doubts with regard to the possibility of failure. In short, the Lords and Ladies of Turgosheim were grown over-confident.

  But contrary to their beliefs, and prior to Wratha’s departure from the gorge, she had worked in close (albeit covert) liaison with her conspirators. And because their departure had been an escape from dire punishment, they’d put that much more effort into it. It had only looked easy by virtue of its simplicity:

  A handful of aerial warriors and a dozen or so of lieutenants and flyers … not much in the way of logistical problems there; a fuelling stop in the western heights of the mountains, before attempting the Great Red Waste; finally the mighty leap westwards, into the unknown.

  Simple, aye …

  The differences had been these: that Wratha the Risen’s party had been small, while Vormulac commanded a polyglot and potentially unruly army. That her constructs were comparatively light creatures and built for flight, because she had dispensed with weapons, ornamentation, and almost every other unnecessary encumbrance or accessory of war and death in favour of the basic requirements of life; while the warrior-Lord Unsleep’s creatures were weighty, and armoured to the hilt for battle. And that while she

  pursued ambition, she was herself pursued out of frustration, revenge and fear. Not only differences, but positive advantages - to the Lady, that is.

  And one more advantage, which Vormulac was only now beginning to take into account: Wratha had fled knowing that she would be pursued. So that by now .. .

  … Surely three years had been time enough for her to take adequate precautions? Wherever she was now - in whatever manse she called home — the place would be a fortress, be sure. But fortresses have f
allen before, and so would this one when Vormulac found it. Then . .. there would be war: a bloodwar, aye, if only to pay the Lady back for all of his troubles.

  Now, in the eye of memory, the warrior-Lord reviewed those troubles, which had started as early as stage one: the refuelling stop on the westernmost jut of the eastern range …

  Wratha had stopped there, too, at the beginning of her flight into the west. After she’d gone, Vormulac had sent his lieutenants to check the place out. They’d found signs of her halt: spilled meal from her flyers’ feedbags, beast-droppings, various other signs. Yes, her creatures had refuelled themselves there … and so had Wratha and her renegades, as witness the discarded clothing of several thralls. After she and her lads had drained the thralls of their lifeblood, then their cadavers would have gone to the warriors. There had been just four of those, one of which Vormulac remembered very well indeed.

  The handiwork of Canker Canison, that had been a terrible construct. It had all but wrecked the Great Hall in Vormspire, and would have wrecked Vormulac and the others, too, if they hadn’t escaped into boltholes! It had been as a direct result of that nightmare that the Lords had proved so zealous in the construction of their own warriors. But Lord Unsleep couldn’t fault them there; he had built a Thing or two himself in the last three years. And not all of them successful, either.

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  But of the seventy fighting creatures that did finally set out that night from Turgosheim with Vormulac Taintspore, his fellow Lords and Ladies, and their one hundred and twenty lieutenants and thralls - they had been warriors . ..!