“You doubted it?” asked Harry.
“Never for a moment,” said Lee. “I just didn’t think it would happen in my lifetime.”
Ibaka continued to sob in the Dragon’s arms.
Honor
Sawyer started to say, “We’ll have to go around—” but Kask hadn’t finished speaking. He’d made a decision.
“We have to kill the Vampires.”
Sawyer looked to Finn. “Kernel d’Vashti won’t like that very much.” They both grinned at the thought.
Harry said, “I have a responsibility to point out that such an action would violate the laws of Thoska-Roole.”
“You don’t have to come,” said Lee. He unslung his weapon and began checking its battery load.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t come. I just wanted to say that it violates the law.”
“Count me out,” said one of the prisoners, a man whose name Sawyer had never learned.
“Me too,” said his partner. They both began sliding back down the hill.
“I’ll fight,” said Arl-N. “I want to kill Vampires.”
“We’ll need to reconnoiter, make a plan—” began Finn.
Suddenly, Sawyer looked up. “Kask!” he shouted. The others looked. The big Dragon had made his decision and hadn’t waited to see if the others would follow. He had already travelled halfway down the hill toward the camp.
“Oh, shit!” said Finn.
“Come on! Let’s back him up.”
“Right! To hell with Plan B!”
They began charging down the hill after Kask. Skidding and slipping on the rocky slope, they couldn’t catch up, but they had a great view of what happened next.
Kask strode straight into the center of the camp.
As he walked, the Vampires—all male—began gathering around him. They followed him in, a crowd of thirty or forty of them, lustrous and beautiful and intrigued that a Dragon would come out of the desert and into this very private place of Phaestor recreation.
Kask stopped in the center of the plaza. He looked around at all the golden Phaestor faces. Some of them still had blood trickling down their cheeks.
“Take me to the lord of this place,” he demanded. “I have information that he must hear.”
The Vampires crowded around Kask, laughing in high musical voices. Almost child-like in their amusement, they seemed both delighted and dangerous at the same time. Kask ignored their merriment. Resolutely, he headed for the main hall of the villa. It sprawled like a palace. It wore a crown of red and black filigree, ornate decorations, and lanterns of green and pink and pale blue.
The huge door dilated to its full diameter to allow Kask to enter. He strode directly into the spacious central chamber where Lord Drydel laughed and feasted drunkenly with his friends. He wore a frivolous-looking, pink silk daygown with red trim and a purple sash. He stood upon the head table, holding a bloody leg of something in his hand, waving it about while he caroled obscene verses about eating and killing—in that order. He paused in his recitations only to pull raw wet chunks off of the leg and gulp them down salaciously. The other Vampires, almost all young and pretty boys, had goblets of blood in their hands, and they toasted their host’s every utterance with broad high gestures, loud cheers, and raucous jokes.
Drydel held up a hand for silence. “I demand respect!” he insisted. “For soon, very soon, I shall stand before you as the most powerful Vampire in the Regency.”
“Don’t let Zillabar hear you say that,” cautioned one of his consorts, a ruddy boy with a scornful lip.
The drunken Drydel strode down the length of the table to the boy who’d spoken. “Falex, you always bring me such dreary warnings,” the Lord confronted him with a deceptive laugh. “I shall have to call you Cassandra to honor your skills at precognition.” He bent down low and took Cassandra’s chin in his bloody hand, tilting the boy’s face up to his, almost close enough to kiss. “The Lady has named me her Consort. We have posted the bans and soon we will exchange our formal vows. I will father the next generation of Vampires in the Zashti line. And do you know the first thing I intend to do?”
Cassandra managed to shake his pretty head. His ringlets of curls bounced around his face.
“The first thing I will do . . . I will eat d’Vashti’s sky-damned heart.” He said it with such fury in his eyes that no one dared to speak. “And for dessert,” Drydel taunted, “Perhaps I will eat one of you. Or maybe just a part of one of you.”
“I will cheerfully volunteer for such a death my Lord,” Cassandra offered. He lowered his long lashes seductively, but before he could amplify on his remarks, the room fell curiously silent. Drydel released his grip on Cassandra and straightened. He turned to see who dared intrude on his private pleasures. His eyes widened at the sight of Kask. His anger began to rise. “How dare you—”
The huge Dragon bowed low. Despite his dirty appearance, he still made an impressive sight. Behind him, the rest of the Vampires came crowding in, giggling and tittering like children.
“Forgive me, my Lord, for interrupting your feast. I acknowledge my bad manners and humbly beg your pardon for this breach of courtesy. But I have information that you must hear at once, and the need for immediacy outweighs the lesser concerns of courtesy.” Kask bowed again.
Drydel’s eyes narrowed. He had no intention of granting any forgiveness easily—not to a Dragon, not to anyone, and certainly not today. Truly important information only came from Vampires. Nevertheless, he wanted to hear what the Dragon had to say. He strode across the table and sat down languorously on the edge of it, adjusting his gown, and preparing himself for whatever curious information this crude Dragon might have to impart. “Go ahead,” he waved, casually.
“Thank you, my Lord,” Kask said. “I have the solemn duty to inform you that this place and this gathering and the Phaestor who celebrate with you have all violated the most sacred oath of the Charter of the Regency. I regret to inform you that my duty to the honor of the Dragon’s Claw requires that I kill each and every one of you immediately. I will try to make it painless. Please do not resist, as that will only make the job more difficult. Thank you.”
Drydel’s jaw had fallen open as Kask had spoken. Now, he started to laugh. He laughed loudly—he did not laugh long.
He died with the laughter still choking in his throat.
Night of the Damned
Despite his size, Kask could still move quickly. He seized Drydel’s neck in his claw and squeezed until he heard it crack. Perhaps he overdid it—Drydel’s head came off in his hand and bounced away across the floor.
Panic and pandemonium.
The Regency had designed the Dragons as warriors, not the Vampires. They never had a chance.
Half the Vampires in the room went scattering and screaming, crowding toward the exits; some went scrambling for their weapons—and some died fighting. They hammered futilely at the Dragon. He waded into them, plucking them out of the crowd, first with one hand, then the other, and squeezing them easily to death in his claws. The blood spattered on the walls. The screams became horrendous.
Kask grimaced as he worked. A rictus of anger and ferocity spread across his face. He could not enjoy this killing as he would enjoy a battle; he could only perform the distasteful task with dispatch and duty. One after the other, he broke their backs and their necks and flung them aside. The Vampires screamed and begged, they shrieked and wailed. The shining Phaestor children scrambled and slid across the floor, slipping in the blood of their comrades. But they could not get out the door fast enough to escape the Dragon’s wrath—Kask just lunged and grabbed. The bones went cra-ack and he threw the boys away without emotion. The golden bodies slammed against the walls and collapsed in ghastly postures.
Behind Kask’s back, one of the Vampires had found a hunting rifle. He scrambled to aim it at the Dragon’s broad back; Kask moved like a fury; the ruby-red targeting dot of the laser slid across the wall as the Vampire tried to follow him, tried to focus�
�
The Vampire with the gun exploded in a blast of light! Two beams simultaneously pierced him. Lee and Sawyer came tumbling into the room from the back, shooting wildly in all directions, puncturing the screaming Vampires like hot needles stabbing into a pack of frenzied cockroaches. The noise became intolerable.
Finn and Arl-N pushed into the room from the front. They had to climb over the bodies. They caught their bearings and aimed—
The silence fell suddenly. One last scream of a Vampire in Kask’s grasp—and then it too ended in a choke and gurgle. The body thumped limply to the floor. Kask turned around slowly, looking to see if he had missed any of the Vampires. His cruel gaze swept the room like a smoldering searchlight.
Finn turned quickly to the door to stop Harry and Ibaka. “Don’t come in here. Keep him out—”
Arl-N asked, “Huh? Why—?”
Sawyer pointed grimly to the remains of the meal spread across the table—a gender-female human boy. “They must have caught her last night.”
Outside, they could hear Ibaka screaming, “Let me in! I have to see!” He burst into the room and skidded, slipped to a terrified halt.
Harry rushed in after the dog-child. “Sorry,” he said. “He bit me.”
Finn tried to grab Ibaka, but the little pup squirmed away. Very casually, Sawyer tossed a fallen drapery across the center of the table, so that Ibaka wouldn’t see what lay there.
The dog-child stood alone in the center of the room, staring in horror at the carnage around them. After a moment, he bent down and picked up one of the Vampire’s weapons. He held it in stiffly front of him and turned around slowly, in case any of the dead Vampires dared to move.
Harry said to Sawyer, “Only a few came out the front. We got them all.”
“We got the ones who tried to come out the back.”
Finn said, “We’ll still have to scour the camp. We don’t dare let any escape to tell.” He pointed. “That way—”
Kask grunted. “I’ll lead.” None of them argued. Only Ibaka saw Falex-called-Cassandra rising from under the table with a needle-beam in his hand, aiming at Kask. Ibaka fired without thinking. The upper half of Cassandra’s body disappeared in a flash, along with half the table. The remaining half collapsed with a heavy crash. The bloody goblets shattered, the silver utensils clattered on the floor. The bloody sheet-covered lump rolled aside, but remained thankfully covered.
Kask looked at Ibaka, astonished. “You defended me—why did you do that?”
Ibaka stared back at Kask in anger and annoyance that the big Dragon would even have to ask.
The Transport
The alarm still shrilled. Now, in the sudden silence in the hall, its noise became intolerable. Lee went prowling through the service bays behind the decorative screens, looking for the main data-console. After a moment, the alarm choked off, but when he came back into the room, he wore a grim expression.
“What?” Sawyer asked.
“I think the attack triggered a remote alarm. We don’t have the all-clear code. That means that we can expect a squadron of Dragon-Guards and Vampires any time now. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“No,” said Finn. “Let’s find a way to defend ourselves. This place has armor and guns.”
“And if we don’t find them, they’ll pick us off like stink-bugs.”
“They’ll do that anyway. You saw the countryside around here. Where can we hide?”
Harry spoke up then, “I saw transports and flyers out back. We could use one of those to escape.”
“I like that idea best,” said Lee.
“We can’t take a flyer. They’ll shoot us down.”
“One of the trucks then,” said Lee. He headed for the door with Harry and the others following. “We’ll head out into the badlands. We can use the summer-tunnels.”39
“Come on, pup,” Sawyer came around the edge of the table, and carefully guided Ibaka toward the door and away from the cloth-covered lump.
Finn gave Kask a heavy shove. “You too, lizard. I don’t think you’ll have many friends among the Phaestor after today.”
“I don’t want friends among the Phaestor,” Kask rumbled. “They have no honor.” He let Finn push him toward the door.
The largest of the transports rested in a shallow pit, like a giant nesting tortoise. It looked like a fat red pumpkin seed. Harry came around the back of it and stopped abruptly. Lee and Kask came up beside him quickly. The others followed—
Several bioforms sat disconsolately in the back of the sealed truck. They looked sad and desperate. They sat with their heads in their hands or curled up in fetal positions.
Lee said an oath in some unfamiliar language and began unlocking the rear hatch. He climbed into the truck and went to the largest of the bioforms, a familiar-looking LIX. He put his hands on its muzzle and tilted its face upward to look at him. “Now, do you understand, Ota? Now, do you see? This struggle has your name on it too. No one may claim neutrality when the Vampire wants to feed.”
Ota didn’t answer. The creature barely even recognized Lee. It stared at him, almost unseeing, almost as if its eyes had lost their ability to focus and its brain had lost the power to resolve.
“Drugged?” asked Harry.
“No. Vampires don’t like the flavor. Probably just traumatized. I don’t know if it can recover.”
Ibaka pushed forward, hopefully. “My brothers? He scrambled into the back of the truck, looking around. “Ujama?”
“Sorry, kid,” said Lee. “No dog-children here. We’ve got to go.”
“What about these poor creatures?” asked Harry. “We can’t leave them here—”
“We’ll take them with. Everybody get in.”
“No!” shouted Ibaka. “My brothers. We can’t go without my brothers. I have to find my brothers!” He ran out toward the dome-shaped barns on the other side of the villa.
“Uh-oh,” said Finn.
“We have to have certainty—” Sawyer said with resignation, and headed out after Ibaka. The others followed.
Ibaka called out names as he ran, “Ujama! Ibaka! Ribaba! Can you hear me?” He ran pell-mell from one building to the next. He dashed into the gaping doors of the largest barn—
The others heard a yelp. And then silence.
Finn looked knowingly to Sawyer. “Your turn to take the point.”
Sawyer entered the barn cautiously. He took slow careful steps and scanned the lofts above as well as the stalls on either side of the entrance. Heavy chains and metal cages and various pieces of restraining gear filled several of the stalls; Sawyer didn’t recognize some of the other devices, but none of them looked like they served a noble purpose. Above, the lofts groaned with the weight of many sacks of dry meal—another indictment. The grain served as evidence that the Vampires brought their prey here to fatten it before they fed upon it.
The place smelled bad. Sour and dank—like something decaying. He knew this smell, but he couldn’t remember where he had first known it. The memory had unpleasant associations, and he could feel a shudder starting to creep up his spine.
For just a bare moment, he had the eeriest feeling of deja vu—
In the Barn
He felt it before he saw it. The ground shook underfoot. He turned, bringing his weapon up before him. Murdock came charging out of the darkness, wielding a club twice her own height. Sawyer groaned, “Oh, no!” and leapt sideways. He felt the impact of the air as the tip of the club missed him by a whisker. He leapt backwards again, stumbling to keep from falling. Murdock swung the club around over her head and prepared to bring it down again.
Sawyer fired. The beam splattered off her armor, throwing molten specks in all direction. He kept firing—and the beam caught the base of the club near her meaty paw. He flung himself to one side, falling and rolling. The club thumped the ground next to him. He knew she had missed on purpose. The bitch liked to play with her food! Finn had guessed right. She did like him.
Sawyer aimed at h
er eyes, but her visor protected her from the blast. “I’ve. Had. Enough. Of. You!” she grunted. She towered over him. “Time to die.”
“I agree!” said Sawyer. He fired again—not at Murdock this time, but at the beams above her, the ones holding up the loft. The first one splattered. The second one exploded. The third one crunched and broke. The loft began to sag. Murdock hesitated. She looked up, alarmed. She lifted her club up over her head as if to stop the imminent collapse of the upper story of the barn. Sawyer scrambled back in panic, rolling and kicking.
And then the whole thing came down in a great rush. The beams cracked and shattered. The sacks of meal split and poured. All the weight came roaring down on top of Murdock. She stood for an impossible moment against this avalanche, longer than Sawyer would have believed possible . . . and then, at last, she began to weaken. The bags of meal slid down on top of her, one after the other, pummeling her about the head and shoulders, finally knocking her down with their repeated poundings. She sagged and toppled. She took forever to fall. She screamed in anger, a pitiful sound, like some enormous prehistoric beast wailing out its doom as it sank inexorably beneath the tar. Murdock struggled vainly against her collapse, but still the sacks of grain came tumbling down, smacking her heavily in the chest or in the face. They pinned her great white body to the ground. She looked like a beached leviathan. The debris of the loft continued to pile up around her, pouring down in a dusty stream, covering her, until at last she disappeared for the last time beneath the rubble and the beams and the growing heaps of grain. The dust rose up in yellow clouds.
“Do you need any help?” came Finn’s voice from the other side.
“No. I don’t think so,” Sawyer called back sarcastically. “I’ve got everything under control now.”
The others entered the barn slowly, picking their way carefully around the edges of the collapse. One of the beams cracked. Another gave way suddenly. A final sack of grain came toppling down from above, punctuating its impact with a grunt from something deep within the pile.
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