Bloodwars

by Brian Lumley

  Thus only Mangemanse and Wrathspire remained, with both Canker Canison and Wratha the Risen in residence, and the rest of the last aerie (with the exception of a handful of inaccessible pockets of resistance) was now Devetaki’s. Her forces had suffered losses, of course … but

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  she was glad of them! Keeping her generals in the front of the fighting, she had seen the bulk of them go down, never again to rise. The handful of surviving Lords were of little consequence; they’d be like pet dogs following her to heel, fighting for the crumbs she dropped.

  Now, in the fifteenth hour of the night (even the virgin grandam was astonished at the scale and speed of her success), she gathered her forces out of the sacked, fallen manses, and concentrated them on Wrathspire. But she left one bolthole to the roof clear, and kept back her troops from a certain turret, where she’d been informed of a lone flyer saddled and ready for flight. And as fire and the occasional screaming thrall gouted from Wrathspire’s windows, and roiling black smoke poured from every exit, Devetaki landed there, gave Alexei Yefros into the care of thrall bodyguards, stationed herself close to Wratha’s flyer but out of sight, and waited. And eventually Wratha came.

  She came panting, scurrying through the battling crush, and in her urgency to be away never once paused to wonder why she wasn’t recognized or stopped. She had been recognized, of course, but Devetaki’s orders were plain and simple, and left no room for errors: Wratha the Risen must not be harmed! She is mine! And now she truly was.

  As Wratha entered the turret she saw her flyer stretched there, leaking life from a throat slit to the spine, all flopping and gurgly, and definitely finished with things. And she also saw Devetaki. Wratha’s gauntlet, clogged with flesh, was on her hand, strapped to her arm - but in another moment, so were two of Devetaki’s strongest lieutenants, one to each arm, and a third man behind her with a sharp ironwood stake in the small of her back. Devetaki stepped forward and quickly took the kneblasch dispenser which she had known would be hidden in Wratha’s robe, and so the Lady was disarmed.

  And despite that she was thwarted and her plans in ruins, for the first time in Wratha’s life there was no wrath left in her. The glow beneath the cartilage scarp on her

  brow was grown dim, and her flesh had lost much of its customary youthful lustre. Devetaki found it odd that even in defeat a women such as Wratha should be so subdued (so cowed?) and said as much. Then, as if remembering the Gorge of Turgosheim - the fact that they had been friends there upon a time . .. well, friends of sorts, within limits -Wratha looked at her and quietly said:

  ‘So I look down in the mouth, do I?’ She shrugged, and in a while continued, ‘Well, that’s how it is: one day up, and the next day down.’ And now a grim cold smile. ‘This is a down day, that’s all.’

  ‘True,’ Devetaki answered, ‘but the last of them, I fear.’ And putting a leather-clad arm around Wratha’s shoulders, as if to hold her up, she walked with her towards the rim of the high plateau roof. Wratha was wan; she slumped down into herself and seemed very fragile. Devetaki was not deceived (if any deception were intended), and her men stayed close to hand.

  But the worst of the fighting was over now, and the victors mopped up. Devetaki knew she was secure, and Wratha at her mercy. Of which there was very little. Eventually they came to the open turret that housed Wratha’s silver cage. Then, seeing where the virgin grandam had taken her, Wratha started and made to draw away. But Devetaki’s men took her and, when their mistress nodded, put her in the cage, fastened its door, and made to hoist her aloft. At which Wratha cried out:

  ‘Devetaki! We were friends, you and I — I even . .. admired you, and tried to pattern myself after you. I still admire you! You are the winner, after all. Of everything.’

  ‘It’s true.’ Devetaki put on her smiling mask. ‘But what’s this? Do you seek to plead with me? You were the rebel, Wratha. You are the one who caused all this.’

  Wratha shook her head. ‘No, I won’t plead. My time is up, and I know it. But I want you to know, Devetaki, that I won’t hold anything against you.’

  Devetaki nodded. ‘You are pleading, then, in your subtle fashion?’

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  Again Wratha shook her head. ‘No, it’s just that … all my life I have hated, one thing or another. And now that it’s over … I wish there had been more love in it, that’s all.’

  ‘Love?’ Devetaki raised an eyebrow. ‘True love, you mean, as the Szgany know it? Among vampires? Is there such a thing?’

  ‘We were Szgany, upon a time,’ Wratha answered sadly.

  That time is past.’ Devetaki smiled.

  ‘Kiss me once, through these bars,’ Wratha begged. Then they can hang me up to wait for the sun.’

  ‘Eh?’ Despite that Devetaki was wearing her smiling mask, she frowned. ‘A kiss?’

  ‘A fond farewell,’ said Wratha (and began to gather a gob of phlegm at the back of her throat). ‘If nothing else, it will show that we can die with a flourish, flamboyant as our lives.’ Her voice was choked - but with the phlegm, not from emotion; or a cold, cold emotion at best.

  The virgin grandam cocked her head. ‘I think I like that, aye! So be it.’ And stepping to the cage, avoiding the silver bars, she pressed her mouth to Wratha’s - who, quick as thought, straightened up, caught Devetaki through the bars and spurted phlegm into her convulsing throat! Then, as Devetaki choked and struggled, Wratha massaged her throat until the loathsome stuff was down, finally biting her mouth and tonguing the wound! And as Devetaki jerked free, Wratha threw off her robe to display her nakedness … and a great deal more than nakedness!

  The signs of her curse were plain; Devetaki saw them and her eyes stood out; she pointed, gabbled something unintelligible, turned aside and hurled the contents of her stomach into a corner of the turret. And finally: ‘Hang the hag!’ she cried in her fury, her fear, as tears dripped from her eyes and bile from her mouth. ‘Hang the plague-ridden bitch on high, to wait for the rising sun!’ And sucking furiously (fearfully?) on her torn lips, she spat the contaminated blood away. Then: Cleanse me! she commanded her shuddering vampire, willing it to be so; though whether it would be, remained to be seen.

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  Then, shutting out Wratha’s shrieking, cackling laughter where she was hoisted up and swung out under the gantry, Devetaki swept regally away, and stumbled only a very little …

  Later, when Devetaki had regained her composure and called her generals to her, she saw that Ursula Torspawn was missing. Her first thought was that Ursula must have gone down in the fighting, but one of that Lady’s lieutenants assured her it was not the case. ‘Her flyer suffered some injury,’ he reported. That was what she told me, as she limped off south.’

  ‘South?’ Devetaki was suspicious. There’d been times recently when Ursula had given her some funny little looks. ‘What lies south, except the barrier mountains? Did she have a fresh mount back there? Why didn’t she land on the roof?’

  Ursula’s lieutenant looked blank, or perhaps surprised by Devetaki’s outburst. The roof was awash with blood and fighting,’ he answered, ‘of which my Lady had done her share, but in the sky. I have no doubt she’ll be back immediately.’

  ‘Huh!’ Devetaki breathed heavily. ‘Well, and perhaps she will. We’ll have to wait and see.’ Then she set about to detail her plans concerning in part an indefinite siege on Mangemanse, but mainly the saturation and subjugation of Sunside by vampire forces. For now that Wrathstack had all but fallen, the locator Alexei Yefros had come up with a scheme to bring this guerilla, the so-called Necroscope Nathan Keogh out of hiding . ..

  Crossing the barrier mountains a little west of the great pass, Ursula Torspawn was glad that she’d deserted. A pity she hadn’t thought to do it earlier, that’s all, when there was still time to fly back across the Great Red Waste and return to Turgosheim all in the one night. For in Tormanse in Turgosheim, she’d left sufficient of thralls and creaturesr />
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  behind that she could start up again and be a power, while here she was devoid of power - and at the mercy of Devetaki!

  Hah! Small mercy there! But cunning? Aye! And Ursula cursed herself that she’d watched it all happening without seeing anything, until Devetaki herself had let it be known what she was about: the ‘elevation’ of the Ladies … a ‘grand matriarchy’! Hah! No such thing — she would be Empress! Where was Zindevar Cronesap now? And what of Ursula Torspawn, now that her contingent was reduced to a handful? Oh, yes, she’d be next on Devetaki’s list, be sure. Except when the power-crazed slut looked around for her, she’d be nowhere to be found.

  Ursula’s plan was simple: since she couldn’t make it back to Turgosheim tonight, she’d use the night to hole up, to feed and rest herself and her flyer, then wait out tomorrow in some dark and bitter crevice of a place further east. And tomorrow night, skirting Black Boris at the eastern extreme of the barrier mountains, she’d get a good start back home. After that, all would be in the hands of fate. But right now …

  At the back of her saddle was a bundle of clothes. Ursula had always affected Szgany looks and ways, had kept her girlish shape and Gypsy mannerisms. Let her get out of this battle-gear and into her patterned skirt, forest-green blouse, and crudely-fashioned shad-leather boots, shake down her black hair, shape her flattened vampire nose a little and quench the fire of her eyes… she felt certain she could go among them like a genuine waif of the woods, all unnoticed; well, except by the men. Easy to lure a couple of likely lads into the darkness, refuel herself, and carve a little fresh meat for the return trip.

  That was all there was to it. Risky? Well, perhaps - but not as risky as staying with Devetaki. That one would not stop now until she had it all, and what she couldn’t have .. . she’d destroy. Ursula could only hope that, when she failed to return to the fighting, Devetaki would assume her dead of an accident or misadventure. At which the virgin grandam would most likely rejoice …

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  Nona, Nestor, Nathan - Confrontation/

  Earlier:

  Unobserved (it might even seem, ignored), the Necroscope and his party had followed the ebb and flow of the bloodwar in and around Wrathstack. To any outsider they must seem a singularly disparate team: a light-skinned, blue-eyed man of Sunside, four psychically talented people out of a weird parallel world, and a Starside wolf of the wild. But Nathan, Trask, Zek, Chung and Goodly - and Grinner, of course -were a team and there was this mainly unspoken (their situation was scarcely conducive to chatter) but sensed camaraderie between them.

  Nathan had stuck close to Ben Trask; lan Goodly and David Chung had passed the time in low-toned conversation; Zek’s apparently inseparable companion had been Grinner. For in the devillish-looking wolf’s own ‘words’, as conveyed to Nathan: This one knows the Grey Brothers. She knows how to be with a wolf!’ It was a compliment, of course.

  Their vantage point or observation post had been a room in the stump of a collapsed stack whose jumble lay a mile and a half north-west of the last aerie. Open on two sides and minus its ceiling or roof, still the remaining walls were massive, and the one that faced Wrathstack had a vast window that provided an excellent view of the battle. Nathan would rather have been elsewhere, of course (namely, with Misha), but his reason for being on Starside was simple: to watch the fighting as best he might, and determine the next phase of his campaign against whichever side was the winner.

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  After nine hours it had been obvious which side that must be. Wrathstack was issuing fire and smoke from most of its levels, and the shattered debris of battle was beginning to strew itself across the boulder plains even as far as the ruins from which the Necroscope’s party kept score of the fighting. Several injured, riderlesss flyers had already crashed down within a one hundred yards radius of their hideaway; finally, one such creature had fluttered to earth with a lieutenant still rocking in the saddle. Mazed and stumbling, the man had made it a short distance away from his crumpled mount before himself collapsing face-down in the dust. The fact that he’d made it there at all seemed a sure signal to the huddle of humans that they should now move on.

  Via the Mobius Continuum, Nathan had then taken his party up onto a plateau in the barrier mountains midway between Twin Fords and Settlement, where Zek and David Chung employed their talents (and the Necroscope his) to scan along the range and try to find out what was going on. The enemy was camped there for certain; from the lava falls beyond the great pass even to a point some miles west of Settlement, they were scattered in a dozen or more secure locations in small but by no means negligible parties. Grinner’s fleet-footed, night-prowling pack of covert observers, and that of his brother Blaze, had already confirmed this fact; also that for the moment the vampires were keeping a low profile and seemed unaccountably immobile, inactive … as if they waited for something. But for what?

  Perhaps Devetaki had kept them in reserve for use, in the event that the bloodwar against Wrathstack went wrong or took longer than she expected; maybe they would form a blockade if Wratha should attempt to resupply herself out of Sunside. But Nathan didn’t think so. There was something very ominous about them, still and silent in the night, with their seething minds all guarded from telepathic intrusion, and their senses alert for any sign of attack upon themselves.

  That last might be a clue in itself: for of course they were aware of the Necroscope now, and knew him for a powerful destructive force in his own right. That they would come after him and clash with him sooner or later was a bygone conclusion - indeed a foreseen conclusion! - as Nathan had seen it during his brief trip with lan Goodly into the future. Except … he didn’t much care to speculate what that ‘conclusion’ would involve. The word itself conveyed a termination, but of what? His life? So it had appeared when he and Goodly had been left spinning in time, ‘at the end of his tether’: the blue life-thread that literally tethered him to a physical existence.

  Finally - unsettled, anxious and frustrated as ever -Nathan had returned his party to the now deserted camp at the edge of the forest, where they would sleep and take it in turn to keep watch. Nathan himself, teamed up with Trask, had taken the first three-hour watch. While the others slept, the pair had also taken the opportunity to talk.

  ‘We seem a long way from, and a long time since, Earth,’ Trask had opened. ‘My Earth, I mean. And in fact we have come - oh, a very long way - an entire universe! But on the other hand, the whole thing has taken little more than a night and a day, your time. So paradoxically, I suppose we might say that time has flown!’

  Nathan had nodded, and a phrase remembered from Trask’s world, which hadn’t made much sense to him then, had suddenly sprung to mind. ‘Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun!’ he said, however drily. But now the phrase was entirely appropriate - especially the way he’d used it! In fact, and as he now saw, that was the entire point of the thing. So maybe the sarcasm of their two worlds at least wasn’t that dissimilar.

  Trask’s turn to nod, and to grin, but he quickly sobered and followed up with: ‘You haven’t said a lot about your trip with lan Goodly. Was it really that bad?’

  Nathan looked at him with that disconcerting, blue-eyed gaze of his, open as the sky, and thought carefully before

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  he answered. Because, in the moment of Trask’s question, he’d realized that he had been thinking carefully about that trip ever since returning from it. ‘It was — I don’t know, a dead end? It seemed to be, anyway. But I can’t be sure. And of course I don’t want to be sure! After all, I’ve been shown the future before, and by an expert. And he was wrong.’

  Trask remembered the story from the Necroscope’s debrief at E-Branch HQ, London, England, Earth, some five months ago. Thikkoul, the Thyre Stargazer?’

  Nathan glanced at the ice-chip stars and said, The same. Thikkoul saw me disappearing through a great glaring door, “in the blink of an eye!” And I’ll never be
able to forget the tone of his deadspeak voice when he said: “Then .. . you are gone!”’

  ‘But you weren’t.’

  ‘But I was! Gone out of this world, into yours - through the Starside Gate.’

  ‘But you weren’t “gone”.’ Trask insisted. ‘You lived on. It was just that you were no longer here.’

  That’s right,’ said Nathan. ‘And that’s why I can’t be sure — and why I’m glad I’m not sure — about what we saw in future time. If Thikkoul could get it wrong, so can I. Oh, he saw the future, all right. But not the way the future saw it! So maybe lan Goodly is right, about the future being sentient. Certainly it appears to protect itself; it’s jealous of being known; it does come to pass - of course it does, and must - but in its own way.’

  ‘What will be has been?’

  That, too,’ Nathan answered, ‘but we’re not allowed to know it. We were fashioned to be of three - and only three - dimensions; the fourth does its damnedest to keep it that way. So people like Thikkoul, Goodly and myself, we’re kept guessing. And it’s done so expertly - so deviously? - that we’re even a little, and sometimes a lot, afraid of it.’

  ‘As you are now?’

  ‘As I’m trying not to be. Like your saying: hope springs eternal.’

  ‘But does it really?’

  ‘For myself, yes. Let’s face it, if I didn’t believe I’d come through this, what would be the point? But for you … I don’t know. I’ll be glad when you’ve all had enough and I can take you out of here.’

  ‘But you must know we have to see it through? It isn’t just your world, Nathan, but ours too. When - if - we get back to our own place, we’ll have to report on things here. And if our report isn’t just exactly so … then the bloodwar you’ve seen so far won’t even nearly match the one that’s to come.’