by Brian Lumley
'What of Nestor,' he was eager. 'Does he live?'
Our grey brothers in Settlement saw him taken into the creature's mouth, the other's snarling answer came at once. He was snatched up, whirled aloft, carried east and towards the barrier peaks. But in the hills and all along the spine of the mountains, we observed the creature's clumsy flight. Wounded where a great bolt was lodged in its flesh, it could not clear the mountains. With fluids raining from its wound, it fell to earth, came down in the pines and expired on the slopes above a Szgany township. And so your brother, who is our uncle Nestor, is not in Starside but Sunside. But…. cannot say if he lives. Members of the pack were close to hand, but not that close. And the men of the town are fearful now of creatures other than men. Aye, and even of strange men! The grey brotherhood must stay well clear.
'Which town?' Nathan could scarcely contain his excitement, which threatened to wake him up. 'Where did the flyer crash? If Nestor is still alive, I have to find him. He's all I have left.'
You have us.
'Among men, he's all I have.'
You have the Lidesci, who was our father's friend even before we were littered.
'But Lardis Lidesci… is not of my blood.'
(A nod of that wise wolf head.) The town is the next one to the east, between the rivers.
Twin Fords?'
That is its name, we think. But Nathan, you have your mother, and a young female of the Szgany. We have seen you together, and she is always in your mind.
'Misha? I don't know if she lives. And if she lives, I don't know where or for how long. She was taken by a… by a human dog! By a beast-thing, Wamphyri!'
The Dweller, our father, was a wolf-human, a werewolf.
Nathan shook his head. 'Your father could not have been like this one. You are animals, not-humans. But this one was a… a beast! He was inhuman.'
We know of him. (That nod of a wise head again.) In the east, beyond the pass, the grey brothers have heard him singing to the moon in Karenstack. For he worships our silver mistress much as we do. But you are right: he is not like us. We are… animals, and he is a man-beast.
'Wamphyri,' said Nathan, 'aye And your mother? What of her?
'I don't know. Perhaps she was taken; I pray by my star that she was not; perhaps she ran off into the woods. But if she did, then why has she not returned? Do you know anything of her?'
No. It is only by chance that we know of Nestor. We wish you luck in your search for him.
'Do you leave me now?' Nathan was reluctant to let them go.
New things have come to pass. (In Nathan's mind, Blaze's golden eyes seemed to burn on him. But their yellow fire was fading, and the wolf's telepathic voice was faint now, retreating.) Strange and monstrous creatures are come into Starside, from where they raid on Sunside. The woods and mountains are no longer safe, neither for wolves nor men. These are problems for which we have no answers, but there is one at least who might know. Now we go to find out about these things.
Desperately, Nathan tried to retain him, hold on to this one familiar thread — however weird, tenuous, unbelievable — in a world which in the space of a few short hours had become a nightmare. 'Answers? But there is no answer to the Wamphyri.'
You may be right. You may be wrong. (The voice was fading out and starting to lose all sense and meaning. How else could Nathan translate the next and last words he heard, except that he misunderstood them?) But our mother speaks to our father, who is your brother. And if anyone would know, he is that one. And so we go to speak to the one who suckled us.
'Your mother, a wolf?'
Aye, where her bones lie bleached in a secret place…
It seemed that a cold wind keened upon Nathan then, as the wolf-voice went out of his dreams -
— But the wind was only the night air where someone had uncovered his head. Squinting his eyes in the firelight he saw Lardis kneeling beside him, turning back his blanket. 'Nathan,' the old Lidesci growled. 'Be up, lad, and away from here. This one you've guarded so well, he wakes up — and I have business with him.'
As dreams are wont to do in the light of reality, Nathan's was quickly disintegrating, breaking up. Those parts concerning impossible relationships were quickly forgotten; his wolves had always called him uncle, so that he saw nothing strange or new in it. It wasn't worth retaining. But as for the one important item of information, about Nestor: he clung to that, repeating it to himself: The flyer that carried Nestor away has crashed to earth in the east, close to Twin Fords.
Strange to think that just yesterday, in the late afternoon, Nathan and the rest of Lardis's party had passed through Twin Fords on their way home. Since then, it was as if a new age had dawned. An age of darkness.
Perhaps he had spoken out loud before he was fully awake. For Lardis at once demanded: 'Eh? Twin Fords? What of it?'
'I… I was dreaming,' Nathan answered. 'Of Twin Fords, I think.' He'd long ago learned not to talk about his dreams. Especially the stranger ones.
But Lardis was shaking his weary, hag-ridden head. 'No, it was no dream. Twin Fords was hit last night, as prelude to what happened here. A handful of refugees came in while you lay sleeping, and you must have overheard us talking. Twin Fords is no more; its people won't go back there; the tribes are sundered, Nathan, and we're all to be Travellers again. The days will be ours, and the golden sun our one sure friend, but all the long dark nights will belong to them, the Wamphyri!'
The Wamphyri lieutenant was groaning, stirring on his cross. Nathan stood up, eased his cramped bones and felt fire in his bruises. He glanced at the stars over the black barrier range, saw that the hour was well past midnight. He had never slept so long in one place, at one time. His bladder was full of water, which he must be rid of.
Stumbling away into the shadows, he found a place to relieve himself. The ground all around was already desecrated, steeped in vampire mist, warrior stench, and unavenged Szgany blood. A little urine couldn't hurt. Already Nathan's thoughts had turned as sour and cynical as the bitter brown taste in his mouth..
When he got back to the cross the lieutenant was fully awake, turning his head this way and that, as far as the spike through his topknot would allow, glaring at the handful of men who were gathered there to question him. For a moment the vampire's scarlet eyes lit on Nathan, burned into his soul, drove him back a pace before they moved on. Nathan was no threat; he was a mere youth, of no importance. But the men were something else. Especially the apish, hollow-eyed leader of this Szgany rabble.
Vratza Wransthrall brought his scarlet gaze to rest upon Lardis and scowled at him. 'Man,' he croaked, 'you are doomed. For what you have done and will do to me — ' his eyeballs swivelled left and right, observing the silver spikes which pinned him to the cross, '- my master, the Lord Wran, will stuff your throat with your own tripes, rip out your living heart and eat it smoking, and feed your tatters to his warriors. Whoever you were, you are no more.'
Lardis looked up at him, tilted his head a little on one side, sniffed at the air suspiciously, disdainfully. He glanced at the men around him: Kirk Lisescu, Andrei Romani and his brothers, and one or two others, inquiring: 'Do the words rise or fall from his lips? I think they fall; or is it the stench of warriors lingering on the night air? No, for that is sweet by comparison. And so it seems we've erred and should have nailed him higher. But what the hell… a stench is only a stench.'
The vampire's muscles bunched as he flexed grey arms on silver spikes; he gave a shudder that wracked his entire body, then groaned and hung still. But in another moment, lifting his head to glower at Lardis as before, he said: 'Aye, make your jokes while you may. For all of this — ' he snorted and tossed his head derisively in a small, sneering gesture which dismissed Settlement in its entirety, '- is finished. And all of your people are as dust. Let every man, woman and child of them that are yours count each breath he takes from this time forward, enjoying it individually as if it were his last. For the lucky ones have very little of breathing left to do. As for them th
at are unlucky: they shall be heir to the dubious delights of the great stack on Starside; from the mills where their bones will be ground down for meal, to the pens of the warriors and the reeking methane pits. They shall be fuel for my master's lusts, flesh for his fashioning, fodder for his beasts. So be it.'
Someone had brought Lardis a stool where he sat with a hiked knee supporting his elbow, and his square chin resting on the knuckles of a calloused hand. His attitude towards his captive seemed almost casual, but anyone in his acquaintance would recognize how doomful was his calm, quiet voice as he answered, 'Long-winded bastard, aren't you?' And then, more businesslike:
'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.1
'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 poJite 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!'