by Scott Bury
Javor found some nuts and dried fruit, remnants of the gifts from the people of Bilavod. They stepped outside of the village and ate as much of these as they could, sipping water from the skins they carried. “Don’t drink the water here, either,” Photius warned.
“Why didn’t you help?” Javor asked Danisa.
Danisa shook her head. “I just could not … touch them.”
“Sometimes, to help people, you have to get messy, Princess,” said Photius drily.
Danisa glanced over to the circle of huts where the villagers slumped and sprawled. “It does not look like you have helped them at all,” she said, her lips compressed thin. Javor could tell that she meant to sound sarcastic, but she only came across as very scared.
He looked up. The day had begun bright, but clouds had gathered as they had worked. Now, the sky seemed unnaturally dark. Evening seemed to be drawing on faster than normal. And Javor’s amulet was vibrating again.
Thunder growled low in the east without lightning. Photius peered into a villager’s eyes again. Javor look to the west, but the sun was hidden in almost solid grey clouds.
“Danger.”
Javor turned. “What? Where?”
Danisa looked up. “What? I didn’t say anything.”
“Didn’t you just whisper ‘danger’?”
Photius came back quickly, loosening his sword. “Did you hear a voice?”
But Javor didn’t answer. He reached for his grandfather’s knife, just to feel it in its sheath on his thigh. The amulet was quiet under his skin now, but the villagers were beginning to stir. One by one they stood and turned toward their visitors. Some shambled closer, jerking and awkward with dead eyes. Some drooled, others moaned quietly.
“Photius, I don’t like the looks of them,” said Javor, backing away.
“Make them stop,” said Danisa, hiding behind Javor.
Photius looked nervous, but stepped toward the villagers. “Well, I’m glad to see you on your feet again. My name is Photius…”
One of the villagers, the wasted young woman who looked old, reached for his arm. For a moment Javor thought she was going to kiss Photius’ hand. “Well, that’s… ” Photius’ expression turned to horror as she parted her jaws and sank her teeth into his forearm. He screamed and yanked his arm free.
Javor drew his sword. He and Photius stood back to back with Danisa between them, swords held out. They hurriedly shouldered their packs. “To the stream, Javor,” Photius ordered, and they moved awkwardly away from the villagers.
An owl hooted, and then another. Javor felt his amulet trembling again as owl after owl screeched from the trees. Fluttering like a hundred wings came from the tops of the huts, and then from under the trees that surrounded the village they saw human forms approaching.
The light was almost gone. Photius stamped his staff on the ground to make it glow. In its bluish light, they could see three women, emaciated, naked and grinning, striding toward them. Their faces were drawn and bones stood out from their shoulders, chests and elbows. They all had red hair and black eyes. Their hands were hideous, bony and cracked with long nails like talons.
“Hello, Photius and Javor, and Princess Danisa,” said the one in the middle in a voice as cracked and horrible as her face. The others grinned and Javor could see their long teeth, pointed like a dog’s. “So nice of you to stay for a meal,” she cackled, and the three stepped even closer.
Javor jabbed his sword into her chest. She looked down at it and laughed as he wrenched it out again. No blood spurted—there was just a hideous, gaping wound in the middle of her chest, beside a sagging, shrunken breast. She snatched at the blade but he managed to pull it away.
“The knife, Javor, the knife!” growled Photius. He waved his glowing staff at the three horrible women, who shrank back from the light. One drooled and spat as she dodged. Javor had just enough time to re-sheath his sword and pull out his great-grandfather’s dagger. He brandished it toward the centre bloodsucker and she shrank back, hissing. The other two howled as he swept the shorter blade toward them.
“To the water, children, hurry!” said Photius. They ran, stumbling over rocks and uneven ground. Javor tried to hold the dagger out behind him, which threw off his balance. The light from Photius’ staff wavered and sputtered. Javor was surprised to see how fast Danisa could run. She reached the stream-bank first.
The villagers and the three strigoi followed at a distance. “Into the water!” Photius cried and jumped in. Danisa and Javor followed, and the cold water was a shock on Javor’s sandaled feet. Photius led them, splashing and stumbling downstream, walking backwards to watch the strigoi and their enthralled villagers.
Danisa waded fastest, intent on escape. She’s strong! Javor realized.
Their pursuers stopped at the bank. The strigoi ran along the stream, careful to stay outside the circle of bluish light from Photius’ staff. Then one of the villagers stepped into the stream. He stiffened when his foot touched the water as if a spear had jabbed his back. He pitched face-forward into the water and lay still.
Javor, Danisa and Photius ran downstream, but it got deeper, slowing them down. Soon, they were waist-deep, but the stream was also wider, and they were farther from the bloodsuckers on the bank. The strigoi screeched, waving their arms and legs. Then Javor could no longer touch the stream-bed with his feet.
“Can you swim?” Photius asked, holding his staff over his head to keep the glowing end out of the water.
“Yes,” Danisa gasped.
“Sort of,” Javor lied.
“Then do your best, boy!” Photius lowered his staff and launched himself into the water, kicking and sweeping his arms before him to propel himself forward. The staff’s tip hissed as it touched the water and the light went out, and they realized just how dark the night was. Danisa did not seem to be having any trouble keeping up with Photius, swimming just as strongly and confidently.
Javor somehow sheathed the dagger underwater and tried to mimic Photius’ actions. He kicked and splashed, but was having trouble keeping his head out of the stream and kept swallowing water.
Behind them, the stigoi began a terrifying, high-pitched chant. Javor could hardly see anything. He was cold and the weight of his clothing and weapons dragged him down. What am I doing? I can’t swim! He panicked and his head went under the water.
He sank until his feet touched the mucky bottom; he pushed and his head broke the surface. He took a shuddering breath, swallowed more water, coughed and sank again. This time he pushed harder against the bottom and managed to take a deeper breath when his head came above the water. He found a pattern: breathe in above the water, shut the mouth tight, sink, breathe out under water, push against the bottom, try to swim forward, breathe in again when he breached the surface.
The stream was now a full river. Javor concentrated on keeping his head above water when he realized the current was pulling him from their pursuers faster than he could swim. He looked to his right: the strigoi had stopped, stymied, where another stream entered the river he floated in. They can’t go into the water!
Photius and Danisa were swimming, slowly but strongly, toward the left bank. They held onto a branch that extended over the river, and Danisa climbed onto the shore. As Javor floated by, Photius grabbed his shoulder and pulled him sputtering and flailing to the bank. Slowly, they dragged themselves out of the water and collapsed on the ground. Everything was heavy: clothes, packs, weapons, even their sandals felt heavy. They panted until they began to shiver.
“Let’s find some shelter,” said Photius when he had caught his breath. They found a protected spot under a leaning tree. Javor used his sword to chop pine-boughs into a windbreak. Photius tried to make a fire, but even with magic couldn’t get a spark from his staff. Javor found a tinder-box wrapped in oiled cloth in his pack, and managed to start a fire naturally. Photius grinned gratefully as the flames caught the tinder and kindling, holding his shaking hands to the heat. Danisa threw dried twigs and
pine needles on to build it up, then huddled against Javor for his body heat.
“What were they?” Danisa asked when she could control her chattering jaw.
“Strigoi, shape-shifters, damned undead women who drink the blood of the living,” Photius answered. “They have taken over that whole village, and the people are completely under their spell. Every night, the women come to feed, draining not just their blood but their will and their very humanity. Even with our help, the villagers are unable now to prevent the demons from taking more blood. They do the bidding of their parasites—that was why they pursued us. And they are becoming strigoi, blood-drinkers and cannibals, themselves. You saw how that one young woman bit me!”
“What would they have done with us?”
“Taken our blood, too, which is more potent than what’s left in those poor villagers. We would have made them even stronger, and able to create yet more bloodsuckers.”
“How did they know our names?” Javor asked.
“The strigoi have some ability to read minds, or perhaps to tell the future; I am not certain,” Photius answered, staring intently into the flames. Is he making it burn hotter that way? Javor wondered. “We must dry off and rest tonight, and leave at first light. And until we are through the mountains, we had best stay away from any people we find in these lands.”
Photius took first watch, but chilled and terrified, Javor found it hard to fall asleep, and when he finally did, it seemed like mere minutes before Photius woke him again for the second watch. Nervous and cold, Javor peered into the darkness until dawn purpled the sky. They had no more food, so they shouldered their damp and clammy packs and walked along the river until Photius recognized his way south-west.
They continued walking during the day as quickly as they could beside the remains of the Roman road. On their right were low, sullen hills; on their left a flat, forested plain. The road followed a river valley which became a pass between the lower mountains.
By afternoon, Danisa had recovered her composure. “Javor, was that knife the one you cut off the dragon’s foot with?” she asked. Javor hesitated to answer. Photius gave him a warning look.
Danisa would not let the question go. When they made their camp in the evening, she asked Photius about the dagger. “Why did Javor’s dagger repel the witches, when the sword was no threat to them?”
“I have put spells on it,” he lied as he filleted a fish he had caught. His eyes remained focused on the thin blade. “Spells that repel creatures of the underworld. It was not so much the blade as the spells.” Danisa drew her lips together until they almost disappeared.
Nights grew longer and cooler, and as they climbed into the mountains, game got scarcer. They had to keep to the road most of the time, as it was their only path beside the swift river. The road grew steeper as they climbed higher; the mountains thrust jagged heads and necks of grim grey stone over evergreen-clad shoulders. They passed ruins several times a day, and often they could see more than one at a time.
At least twice a day, Photius would make them hide in thickets. He was spooked by the sound of hooves on the road, sometimes by a sound carried on the wind or sometimes even the number of birds in the sky.
At night, it got so cold that Photius let his chills overcome his caution and allowed Javor and Danisa to build larger and hotter fires. Of course, that meant that they had to gather more firewood. All of this slowed their progress. Photius spoke less as the road climbed higher and higher.
As the summer was coming to an end, they made camp in the midst of a small stand of trees that was almost isolated in the rocky ground. Danisa sat on a log to rest and Photius began setting up for supper. As usual, Javor went to gather firewood. The light started to fail before he had found enough, and he nearly lost his balance as he carried an armful of sticks and leaned with his free hand on a boulder that jutted into the path. Beyond the boulder, the ground pitched down steeply. A stream tinkled over a small waterfall.
And there, just below him, blinking great bright red eyes and dripping water from the end of its snout, was the dragon.
Javor had no doubt—the setting sun was behind his shoulder and shone right onto the beast. It was the dragon from Ghastog’s mountain: horse-sized, black-skinned, gleaming reddish in the setting sunlight. It blinked at Javor, then reared back, raising its snakelike head high on its thin neck, jaws gaping. Its front legs rose up, and Javor could see that the left leg had no claw, but a stump of light green with two long bumps.
He dropped the firewood and scrambled back around the boulder, then crouched and listened. There was a lot of crashing and trampling, but the sounds receded. His feet took over and he found himself running to the campsite. Photius was whetting his sword and Danisa was drinking water. They looked up in alarm.
“The dragon! The dragon from the mountain! It’s found us!”
Photius sprang to his feet. “Where?”
Javor pointed up the slope. “Where the two hills meet.” He described his encounter.
“It sounds like it was as scared as you were,” Photius concluded. “Still, we’d best not stay here.” The three retraced their steps down the slopes to a brook, splashed upstream for a while and then got out on the far side where the trees were low and thick.
By now it was completely dark, and clouds blotted out what little starlight there could have been. The only thing they could see was a sullen red glow from behind the mountain. Photius chanced a dim glow on the end of his staff and led them under a dense bush. They found a hollow big enough for them to sit side-by-side. To Javor’s frustration, Danisa chose to sit with Photius in the middle.
The hollow was damp and smelled of rotting leaves, but Photius refused to move any farther. He dimmed his staff just as it started to rain. Thick as it was, the bush didn’t prevent the water from dripping on them. After about an hour, a little stream of run-off from up the slope found its way right under Javor’s buttocks. He tried to move, but Photius hushed him. “It’s looking for you right now,” he whispered. “I can sense it.”
“I thought I was invisible to it!”
“You are, but I am not. And if you keep shaking that bush, you’ll make it wonder what’s underneath the leaves, and it will come to investigate. Now hold still!”
The three spent a sleepless, miserable night under the bush, waiting for the sun to rise. And when it did, it rose behind thick grey clouds that continued to drizzle on them through the day. The drizzle continued for the next several days as they climbed up the long pass through the Montes Serrorum, until one day the sky cleared as they stood on a crest, looking down a long valley that fell slowly lower between towering crags of rock.
“Now, youngsters, the hardest part of our journey is done. It is literally all downhill from this point (well, nearly all downhill, but on average, all downhill) to the borders of the Roman Empire, and safety. We will go to the town of Drobeta, at Trajan’s mighty bridge over the Danuvius, and from there take a boat downriver to Constantia and the Euxine Sea; from there, a sailing ship to Constantinople.” He turned and beamed at Javor. “We’re almost home.”
Chapter 14: The Roman outpost
The mountains were behind them, the breeze hinted at coming chill, but the sun was warm on their right shoulders. Javor could see clusters of oak trees interspersed with meadows; in the distance to the south, the land turned into a wide plain. To the north, a rocky outrider of the mountains reached, shadowy and grim. Behind it, the mountains receded, darkening, their tops lost in clouds. Is a storm coming?
“At last, the first signs of civilization: the border-town of Drobeta,” said Photius. Javor and Danisa squinted eastward at a smudge on the side of a hill just at the edge of the horizon. Was that a broad river running just in front of it, winding across his field of vision? At that distance, Javor couldn’t be sure. But the road didn’t lead that way.
“What’s that?” Danisa asked, pointing where the road curved toward the shoulder of the mountains. There was some kind of struct
ure, bigger and more impressive than anything Javor had ever seen before. It was a massive pile of rock, purposely piled, obviously the hand of man. Since he had never seen any building larger than the hetman’s lodge in his village, Javor couldn’t imagine how people could construct anything so huge.
“Our immediate destination,” Photius answered in his usual grand way. “An ancient Roman fortress, once abandoned, and now, it seems, re-occupied.” A thin plume of smoke rose above the structure.
Photius strode purposefully down the slope, following the road rather than cutting across the curve. Shrugging, Javor followed him. Danisa looked at both of them, then trotted to catch up. Photius as usual prattled on, the bronze end of his walking stick tapping a regular punctuation.
“The Empire once held sway over all these lands, children, and the area beyond the mountains as well, even the lands where your village now stands, Javor. As I have mentioned before, the province of Dacia was lost centuries ago to barbaric tribes.
“The Emperor then set the northern boundary of the Empire at the great river Danuvius, all the way from Germania to the mouths of the river into the Euxine Sea,” Photius went on, waving his right arm vaguely southward. “You can’t see it, quite, from here, but the Danuvius is that way, too, across that plain. So you see, we are now very close to safety in the civilized world.”
Javor was only half-listening to Photius, but something bothered him. “If the border is still miles away, why are we heading for that fortress?”
Photius stopped, turned, and leaning on his staff, said wryly “Because we really don’t have a choice in that matter.” As he said that, Javor could see over Photius’ shoulder two riders galloping down the road toward them. Quietly, so that Danisa could not hear, he said “Hide your amulet and dagger, Javor, quickly.”