The Saga of Larten Crepsley (3) – Palace of the Damned

by Darren Shan

  Larten could see a mixture of fear and hope in their eyes. They wanted to think that he was one of the good spirits, that they could trust him. But he looked more like a messenger from hell than heaven. And red was the colour of the devil.

  Larten was exasperated, but he couldn’t blame them. In their muddy, bloody boots, with so much at stake, he might have faltered too. Looking from one to the other, he isolated the soldier in the worst condition. He was missing his lower left leg and his upper body had been pierced by shrapnel in many places. Larten stepped forward, brushed past the raised bayonets and picked up the wounded man. He settled him on his shoulders like a lamb, then set off through the wire, corpses and darkness. If the others followed, he would guide them. If not, at least he had tried.

  When he heard the rest of the group scrabbling after him, Larten smiled tightly and bent lower, trying not to appear as so much of a target if any of the soldiers in the trenches spotted him.

  He felt the man on his back shudder then stiffen on their way to the trench. He knew that life had passed from the young soldier, but he didn’t pause or set him down. I will make a deal with you, Larten said silently to the spirit of the dead man. If you protect us from the guns and grenades, I will carry you all the way to your people and ensure that you are not buried in a nameless grave.

  Maybe the soldier heard and hid them from the gaze of their foes, or perhaps it was only the luck of the vampires, but Larten made it to the trench in one piece and the others toppled in behind him. Some were giggling hysterically as they slid out of the line of fire. All were gawping at the figure in the red cloak. A couple crossed themselves.

  Saying nothing, Larten set down the dead soldier. One of the man’s eyes was open. Larten closed it then made the death’s touch sign and silently repeated the ancient words that vampires had said over their dead for time immemorial.

  Then, before the soldiers could challenge him, Larten swept out of the trench and retraced his steps through no-man’s-land. He didn’t congratulate himself as he wound his way back to Wester and Vancha. Nothing could ever truly atone for his crimes on the ship. A life saved couldn’t cancel out a murder.

  But in that land of chaos, that time of blood-drenched madness, Larten had done a decent thing. In the end that would have to be enough, because no matter how long he lived or where his path took him, that was the best he would ever be able to do.

  It was probably a foolish fancy, but for a shadow of a second Larten thought he sensed the shade of a young girl behind him. She had been called Malora when she was alive, but he didn’t know if the dead had any use for names. He imagined her hovering in the darkness, a spirit of the battlefield. And he thought… he hoped she was watching him with a slight but heartfelt flicker of an approving smile.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  They found Arrow in the remains of a mansion. It had been bombed earlier during the war. Now the troops had moved on and the area was eerily peaceful. It felt like the graveyard where Larten had first run into Seba, the scorched earth dark and alien beneath a quarter-full moon, just a scattering of grass and weeds, hints that the land would one day recover from even this brutal treatment.

  Arrow was sitting on a log in the middle of what must once have been a grand dining room. Now there was no glass in the windows, the walls were black with soot, half the ceiling had fallen in, and there were old blood stains on the floor.

  “I didn’t expect you to come with support,” Arrow said as the trio of vampires slid into the room. He was sitting with his back to them and there was scorn in his voice. “Were you afraid to face me on your own?”

  “Why should I be afraid of a friend?” Vancha asked.

  Arrow spun with shock, his eyes widening. He looked much the same as when Larten had last seen him, except he had a scraggly beard and his eyes were dark with horror and hatred. “Vancha!” he gasped, lurching to his feet. “And… Larten, isn’t it?”

  “Aye,” Larten nodded.

  “And that’s Wester Flack,” Vancha said cheerily. “I assume by your reaction that you were expecting somebody else?”

  “Yes. I never…” The large vampire frowned, the tattoos of arrows on the sides of his head crinkling. “What are you doing here? It can’t be coincidence.”

  “Of course it isn’t,” Vancha chuckled. “We heard about your quest to single-handedly rid the world of vampaneze and we–”

  “–came to help me, I hope,” Arrow growled. “Or do you plan to stand in my way? That had better not be the case. We’re old friends, Vancha, but don’t assume that I won’t strike you down like one of the purple scum if you try to stop me.”

  “That’s Sire Vancha actually,” Vancha said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m a Prince now.”

  Arrow blinked, then smiled thinly. “Congratulations. I mean that, even if I can’t muster the enthusiasm to make it sound genuine. The clan chose well. I’m sure you’ll serve admirably.”

  “Larten’s had an eventful few years too,” Vancha said, the artless signal for the General to try and reason with Arrow.

  “I fell in love with a human,” Larten said. “I asked her to marry me. I thought I could be happy with her, as you were with Sarah.”

  Arrow’s face softened at the mention of his dead wife’s name. He relaxed, sat on the log again and said to Larten, “Did she accept your offer of marriage?”

  “Aye.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Larten grimaced. “I told her many things about myself when I was wooing her, but I forgot to tell her that I was a vampire.”

  “A strange oversight,” Arrow remarked drily.

  “I was going through a bad time,” Larten said softly. “I did not want to be a night-walker. I hid from myself and she fell in love with the man I was pretending to be. For a while we were happy. But when the truth came out…”

  “She banished you?” Arrow guessed.

  Larten nodded. “If I had told her to begin with, maybe things would have been different. But nothing good can come of lies. A lie will always come back to haunt a person in the end.”

  “You speak wisely,” Arrow said, then cackled bitterly. “But your loss – and if I’m any judge, that’s why Vancha brought you – is nothing like mine. I was always honest with Sarah. She didn’t cast me aside for being a vampire. She accepted me for what I was. But I lost her anyway. She was murdered.”

  “Can you tell us about it?” Larten asked. “We do not know much, only that she was killed. Did a vampaneze feed from her?”

  “I would have roasted in the fires of a dozen hells before I’d have ever let that happen,” Arrow snarled. “The vampaneze aren’t fools. They drink carefully, never from a human who has anything to do with vampires. They fear war as much as the clan does, as much as I once did.”

  “You don’t fear it any longer?” Wester asked.

  “I’d welcome it with open arms,” Arrow said darkly.

  Larten shot Wester a dirty look – Keep quiet! – then focused on Arrow again as the heartbroken loner told his story. He and Sarah had adopted a few children, as they had said they would when Larten and Vancha last saw them. They reared the children and lived happily. Arrow sometimes felt sad when he watched Sarah grow older, but she was healthy and he hoped they’d have maybe another twenty or thirty years together before death parted them.

  Then a vampaneze found Arrow by chance. He was young, in search of glory. He challenged Arrow to a duel, but the vampire refused. The vampaneze persisted. Arrow rebuffed him, hoping he’d lose interest and move on, but the young warrior came one night and grabbed Sarah. He threatened to kill her if Arrow didn’t fight.

  Having no choice, Arrow met the vampaneze’s challenge and they duelled in front of the cottage where he, Sarah and their adopted children had lived for so many years. Sarah watched with terror, praying for her husband to survive.

  Arrow hadn’t fought for a long time, but he was stronger and faster than the
vampaneze. It soon became clear that he had the beating of his brash challenger. When Arrow knocked him down for the fifth or sixth time, the vampaneze lay stunned and bleeding in the grass. All Arrow had to do was bend over and finish him off. But the vampire’s wife had no taste for blood. As Arrow advanced, she cried out to him to be merciful.

  “I should have known better,” Arrow croaked, trembling with rage and self-hatred. “Vampires and vampaneze don’t give any quarter when they fight. Mercy is a human conceit. If I hadn’t been apart from the clan for so long, I would have killed him cleanly, the way any true warrior deserves.”

  But Arrow didn’t want to act like a brutal beast in front of the woman he loved. His years spent living as a human had clouded his judgement and led him to think and reason as one of them. With a heavy sigh, he spared the vampaneze’s life and told him to leave. He forgot that a vampaneze would rather die in agony than live in disgrace, that mercy would be misinterpreted as an insult by any member of the night clans.

  As Arrow took a few breaths to steady himself, the vampaneze rose, slid a knife from his belt and threw it. But not at Arrow — at Sarah. It struck her in the middle of her throat and she collapsed with a soft whumph. “Whumph,” Arrow repeated, sounding it carefully, as if it was a precious word.

  Arrow screamed her name and rushed to her, but it was too late. Her lips moved as she lay dying in his arms, but she couldn’t say anything. She died with her eyes open, staring at the clouds.

  When Arrow finally set her aside and turned – he didn’t know if it was five minutes or five hours later – the vampaneze was standing behind him, sneering.

  “Kill me now, fool,” the vampaneze jeered.

  And Arrow did.

  “But it wasn’t enough,” he finished. A hard edge had crept into his voice. “Sarah was worth ten of his foul kind. Fifty. A hundred. More. I won’t stop until her death has been paid for in full.”

  “How many will it take?” Vancha asked quietly.

  “All,” Arrow croaked. Then he smiled savagely. “And here comes the next. Perfect timing.”

  Arrow rose and the others glanced over their shoulders. A vampaneze was standing by the open window. Larten had no idea how long he’d been there or how much of Arrow’s story he had heard. But by the nervous look in his eyes, Larten imagined he’d learnt more than he cared to.

  “You challenged me last night,” the vampaneze said stiffly.

  “Aye,” Arrow sniffed.

  “It was not the right time or place for a fight–”

  “So you said.”

  “–but I have come to face you now, as I vowed.”

  “I won’t keep you waiting any longer,” Arrow said and headed for the door.

  “Should we try to stop this?” Larten asked quietly.

  “No,” Vancha sighed. “We must let them fight.”

  The three vampires followed Arrow out to where the vampaneze was waiting. As the pair faced each other, no weapons other than their hands, the vampaneze said, “I know that you are Arrow of the vampire clan. Would you have my name before we fight?”

  Arrow shook his head. “I don’t care for it. Your kind aren’t worthy of names. If I kill you, I’ll think of you only as number nine.”

  “As you wish,” the vampaneze said coldly.

  They clashed.

  It was a short, brutal battle. To any watching human it would have appeared as a blur, but Larten could follow the action with his heightened senses. The pair tore at one another with their fingers, nails sharper than knives. The vampaneze almost slit open one of Arrow’s eyes, but just missed and scraped his skull instead. Arrow in return nicked the flesh beneath the vampaneze’s throat.

  They clutched each other and wrestled furiously. The vampaneze nearly threw Arrow to the ground, but the vampire managed to keep his balance. Wrapping an arm round his foe’s head, Arrow tried to snap his neck, but the vampaneze dug his chin down and bit into Arrow’s hand.

  They broke, panting. A moment’s pause, then they hurled themselves into attack again. The vampaneze straightened the fingers of his right hand and jabbed them at Arrow’s stomach. The vampire twisted out of the way, but the makeshift blade stabbed into his side and stuck. He roared with pain, but instead of pulling clear, he rolled closer, trapping the vampaneze’s hand in his flesh and bending it back.

  The vampaneze’s wrist snapped and he screamed. He tried to push Arrow away, but the vampire grabbed hold of his foe’s good hand and pinned it to his side. He made a fist of his free fingers and smashed it into the vampaneze’s throat.

  The vampaneze’s red eyes widened and his purple face turned a darker colour as he gasped for air. Arrow punched his doomed opponent’s throat again, crushing it completely. Then he prised out the hand imbedded in his side and shoved the stricken vampaneze away, leaving him to fall, thrash weakly and die.

  Vancha stepped forward as Arrow was examining his wounds. Crouching by the dying vampaneze, he made the death’s touch sign by placing his middle finger on his forehead, the fingers beside that over his eyes, and stretching out his thumb and little finger. “Even in death may you be triumphant,” he whispered.

  When the vampaneze fell still, Vancha confronted Arrow. “You should have accepted his name,” the Prince growled. “He faced you openly and died bravely. He deserved to be remembered.”

  “Drink his blood if he matters that much to you,” Arrow sneered. Vampires could retain the memories of humans if they drained them of blood.

  “You know that we cannot drink the blood of a vampaneze,” Vancha said.

  Arrow shrugged sarcastically.

  Vancha exchanged an uncertain look with Larten. They had come here to try and make the renegade vampire see reason, but the Prince could think of nothing to say. Larten didn’t believe that he could help Arrow either, but he steeled himself to try. He planned to ask Arrow what Sarah would have thought of such barbarism. He hoped that guilt would make Arrow pause and see sense.

  But before Larten could say anything, Wester said softly, “This is wrong.”

  Arrow cocked a bitter eyebrow. “You pity the vampaneze?”

  “No.”

  “You think there was anything unlawful about the way I fought?”

  “No.”

  “Then what was wrong about it?” Arrow growled.

  “You can’t kill them all by yourself,” Wester said.

  Arrow frowned. That wasn’t what he had expected.

  Wester knelt by the dead vampaneze, dipped three fingers into the blood that was pooling around the corpse’s body, and smeared it across his own left cheek, making marks similar to those that the vampaneze scratched on their human victims before they killed them. He dipped his fingers in the blood again and faced Arrow.

  “Others hate the vampaneze as much as you do,” Wester said. “They’re traitors to the clan, foul killers, worthless scum. They must be destroyed and forgotten.”

  Wester stepped closer to the startled, almost hypnotised Arrow. “You waste your time and energy fighting them alone. Come back with us. Train to become a general. Join those who feel as you do and help us. Only a war can ease your pain and satisfy the demands of your lost, dead love.”

  “The vampires will never go to war with the vampaneze,” Arrow mumbled.

  “They will,” Wester contradicted him. “If enough of us seek it, the Princes will listen. If we recruit vampires of influence and respect – as you once were and can be again – we’ll bend the clan to our will. It probably won’t happen soon, but there will come a time of reckoning. I swear it on this blood.”

  Wester reached out and wiped his fingers across Arrow’s cheek. Arrow flinched and almost withdrew, but then stood firm and accepted the mark, laying his hand over Wester’s and squeezing firmly. Larten and Vancha were disturbed by the grisly nature of the dark pact, but neither interrupted. They just stood, watching numbly, troubled by Wester’s prediction, wondering if this was the grim, vengeful face of things to come.

  C
HAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Later, away from the scene of the challenge, Vancha and Larten sat apart from Wester and Arrow. Wester was telling Arrow about those who hated the vampaneze and the steps they were taking to win others over to their cause. Arrow was listening intently. The pair barely noticed when their allies retreated to hold their own hushed council.

  “I don’t like this,” Vancha muttered, stroking the tips of his shurikens as if for comfort. “Vampires of good standing don’t scheme and talk of mass elimination. It isn’t our way.”

  “But you must have known that this was building,” Larten said. “Wester and his companions have been plotting the downfall of the vampaneze for decades. This cannot be news to you.”

  “No,” Vancha said. “But I hadn’t given the matter much consideration until tonight. I never realised feelings ran this deeply.”

  “Well, evidently they do,” Larten said. “What can we do about it?”

  Vancha sighed. “Not much, I suppose. As long as they don’t openly criticise the Princes, we can’t punish them for plotting. Every vampire is free to believe as he pleases. We expect members of the clan to respect our decisions, but we don’t ask them to accept our judgements without question. As long as Wester and his kind don’t undermine our command, we must leave them be. We can try to reason with them, but I doubt we’ll enjoy much success, not if that pair are anything to go by.”

  “What if they gather more support?” Larten asked. “If members of their group get invested as Princes, they could lead us to war.”

  “I think we’re a long way from that,” Vancha said, but he looked doubtful.

  “Maybe we should leave Arrow behind,” Larten suggested. “The clan might be better off without him.”

  Vancha shook his head. “We can’t hide from our fears. If we don’t openly engage with the likes of Arrow and Wester, they’ll scheme in secret and that will be even worse. I don’t think this is the true Arrow — he’s still grieving, in shock after Sarah’s death. I believe I can draw him back to his senses over the coming months, turn him from the path of hatred.”