But even in Canker’s case the choosing of new lieutenants had taken priority for a while; for with the single exception of Gorvi the Guile, all of the Lords and the Lady too had lost their right-hand men in the first raids on Twin Fords and Settlement. In Turgosheim’s Sunside it would have been unthinkable, and here it was a major setback which not even Wratha had anticipated. Of the six of them, Gorvi had been the fortunate one; or … could it be that his lieutenant had learned something of the wiles of his master? Whichever, he had survived, and the one thing Gorvi lacked now was a warrior.
Ah, but the makings were to hand in the shape of a procession of dazed Szgany thralls drawn irresistibly out of Sunside and across the boulder plains to the last aerie, all bemoaning their fate even as they came shuffling through the lengthening shadows of the barrier range. The Guile had wasted no time; in the bowels of the stack his vats were seething even now, where altered metamorphic flesh shaped itself to Gorvi’s design.
Canker, too (once he’d inspected his get, chosen his men and rutted among his new harem), had set to work at the vats. In just nine or ten sundowns he would have a warrior to beggar the one which he’d lost over the Great Red Waste! And in thirty more there would be a litter of yelping bloodsons to replace the ones left to their fate in Mangemanse.
And so the Lords had been busy when Wratha’s great bats called them to attend her. But since they desired words with the Lady anyway, it seemed as good a time as any.
Gorvi, Wran the Rage and Spiro Killglance took the easy route up from their freshly peopled manses, and landed their flyers in Wratha’s spacious bays. Canker and Vasagi the Suck, situated that much closer, climbed the stack’s internal staircases of hewn stone and grafted cartilage. However they chose to come, upon arrival they all greeted Wratha in the same way: with surly, suspicious, even angry stares and glances. She had anticipated no less and was ready for them.
“So, all goes reasonably well,” she started without preamble, speaking to them from where she sat in the gaping jaws of a huge bone-throne at the head of a table in the largest of her several halls. “Our new thralls attend us, and though they are fewer than we bargained for their blood is good and strong and fresh: superior in every way to our get of tithelings in Turgosheim. At least we can all agree on that, I think.” The way she expressed herself indicated her presentiment of trouble.
“As far as you go you state hard facts,” Gorvi answered at once, his voice a sly, oily, accusing gurgle. “Alas, you don’t go far enough. And the hardest fact of all is the one you choose not to mention.”
The five were seated with her: Vasagi and Gorvi on one side of the table, Canker and the brothers Killglance on the other. Wratha was dressed in her robe of bat-fur ropes. She had chosen to look like some wanton young Gypsy: precocious, provocative, proud of the power which her sex gave her over men. It was her way of distracting them from their course, their argument. But now she saw that it might not be enough. These Lords had taken their fill of women; for now, there was no lust left in them.
Putting all posing and posturing aside she sat up straight, pulled a wry face and uttered an exaggerated sigh. “So, here we are,” she said. “Right at the onset of our great adventure, and already you find something to complain about, Gorvi. Better, I think, if they’d named you Gorvi the Grouch!”
“What you think becomes less important moment to moment!” Gorvi snarled. He stood up and put his knuckles on the table, hunching his shoulders and thrusting his head forward like a great carrion bird. “Wratha, you are a thief!”
His words seemed to freeze her … for perhaps a second. Then she reached up and lifted the bone scarp upon her brow, until her eyes were no longer in shadow. And in a moment her image of true life had fallen away and her flesh was grey as undeath. Her nose became ridged and convoluted, with black, flaring nostrils, and her top lip curled back a little in the right-hand corner, displaying a gleaming fang. And:
“A thief?” she hissed.
Before matters could deteriorate further, Vasagi flowed to his feet and put himself between Gorvi and the Lady. The Suck was extremely susceptible to kneblasch—even more so than the others—and knew Wratha’s mind and therefore her temper better than them. She considered this her place now; only subject her to too many “insults” in her own aerie … she would very likely stink them all right out of here into their sickbeds, so making an end of their complaints. Well, for the moment Vasagi had enough of healing pains. If that bolt which he took in his side last night had been dipped in kneblasch … even Vasagi, with all of his powers of metamorphism, would have been in trouble then! It didn’t bear thinking about.
So, time now to make their point—merely that, and delicately if at all possible—so that at least she would see how she had offended. Time later for correction, if or when she tried it again. There were five of them, after all, and only one Wratha; it should not be too difficult to take her unawares and so even up the account. And if the instrument of such correction were a crescent of sharp metal to scythe the bitch’s head from her neck … so be it! But for now:
We are all thieves, Vasagi’s thoughts were given form by an elaborate, intricate shrug. He fluttered his hands, shaped his fingers into expressive webs, struck a pose and angled his head a little. It’s just that we think it unnecessary to take from one another. Especially in a place like this.
The Suck is right,” Wran tweaked the small black wen on the point of his chin. “Sunside teems, so why poach your colleagues” thralls, eh, Wratha? We converted them, and yet they have come to you. Why, if my brother and I had not been quick to recognize some of them who climbed through our premises on their way to yours, we’d have lost even more! And them with our marks upon them, which are unmistakable.”
“Did you think it solely for your benefit, Lady,” Wran’s brother, Spiro put in, “that we went recruiting last night on Sunside?”
She studied the five sourly, each in his turn—Gorvi and Vasagi on her right, standing—the brothers and Canker on her immediate left, still seated. But her gaze lingered on Canker, whom she believed most easily swayed. “Well, and have you nothing to say?”
He shrugged, scratched a fretted ear, finally barked:
“I haven’t the patience for all this yelping and bickering. Also, I’m weary unto death! But you’ve kept your promises as far as I can see. There are women now in my kennel, and a new warrior brewing. But if you must know how I feel—well, I’ll admit to being a little disappointed.”
“How so?” She was genuinely curious; Canker was a strange one, whose true mind was hard to know.
“Of men,” he answered, his voice a low whine now, “of lieutenants,” (he shrugged, awkwardly) “well, I converted a few, not many—but all of them well-fleshed and strong, mind! And now it seems I’ve lost most of them to you! Wherefore a pat on the head won’t suffice, Lady, not this time. If you expect me to fashion you another warrior, like the one I made for you in Turgosheim, then first you’ll return my thralls to me.”
“What?” she hissed at him. “Didn’t I warn you against taking too many women?” She jumped to her feet and glared at all of them. “And how was I supposed to watch your backs and still find time to make changelings of my own? A thief, am I? Is that what you think? Only count my thralls and you’ll see who got the better of it. You did, all of you! Now listen: so far I’ve had time to fuel my creatures, choose my new lieutenants—just two of them—and set about the fashioning of my siphoneers. And how many thralls do I have left, eh? Well, I’ll tell you: I have seven! And you, Wran?” She swung to face him. “What was your get? And you, Gorvi the Greedy?” She spun on her heel. “How few for you? Twice as many, I’ll warrant!”
“But you were the one—” Wran thundered, his blood beginning to boil, so that he must calm himself before going on, “—who said there’d be no such thing as a tithe, not here in Old Starside. Yet now you make yourself a tithemaster, or mistress, no less than old Vormulac himself in Turgosheim! They were our best which
you took, Wratha, as well you know. Now enough of prevarication, admit your guilt!”
“And what of the provisioning of the stack?” She glared back at him. “Do you breed gas-beasts or warriors, Wran? Hah! I thought so! Never a thought for the rest of us, but you can stand and accuse me. And you, Gorvi: have you fashioned a creature to clean the wells, or is it something else that waxes in your vats? And how many things wax there?”
They made no answer but stood there enraged and glowering; all of them, with the sole exception of Vasagi, whose wound was not yet healed. And again looking at each of the vampire Lords in his turn, Wratha saw that she was right: never a thought for the stack in a single head, only for their own well-being. But she saw more than that, for to a man they had reached the end of their tether—where Wratha herself had driven them.
Ah, and these were furious Lords! Despite that they kept their thoughts cloaked, Wratha could read them clearly enough in their scarlet eyes. They had tasted war and wild, untamed blood, finding both much to their liking. Why stop now? The stack was a big place, true, but bigger still without Wratha. And what was she anyway but a woman?
She did not like the way Canker looked at her, stripping away her bat-fur robe with his feral dog’s eyes; neither that, nor the way in which Gorvi sidled closer. Her hand went inside her robe … and Vasagi, bobbing wildly and gesticulating like a madman, finally held up a quivering hand.
NOW HOLD! His thought came so hard, a mental shout, that all grew quiet in a moment. But beneath that great blast of a thought were others, which the Suck kept closer to his chest. Cloaked though they were, Wratha could read something of them at least:
Last night after Vasagi had been shot, before the attack on Settlement, Wratha had asked him if he felt capable of further venturings. Knowing he was wounded, she’d taken his condition into account. Oh, he had known that her concern was not for him alone but for the party as a whole: seeing herself as a general, she needed her troops in fine fettle. But still it had been worth something. Also, Vasagi could see the value of an aerie properly maintained and provisioned. Right now the stack was little more than a hollow fang of rock, a pesthole of vampires, but it could become a fortress. In that respect the Lady’s ideas were good and sound.
And finally … finally Wratha’s hand was still inside her robe, where she kept oil of kneblasch in a small bladder, to fill the air with poison. That, too, was worth taking into account, for now at least. But later, when the stack had been put to rights …
Gorvi’s oily voice broke the uneasy silence. “Well?” he inquired of no one in particular. But he, too, saw the Lady’s hand inside her robe, and wisely he drew back a pace.
Have we come all of this way, Vasagi gestured, out of the tyranny of Turgosheim, to fight among ourselves?
“But —” Wran continued to glower at Wratha. Heart pounding and chest heaving, he remained uncomfortably close to raging.
Now listen to me, Vasagi cut him short. For it seems that I’m the only one who can see what’s happening here. We are Wamphyri! And now that the restrictions of Turgosheim are lifted, we are reverting to type. But isn’t that why we desired to come here in the first place: to give our leeches full rein? To be as our nature intended us to be? He paused …
… And seeing that he had their attention, continued:
Wratha is no thief—but she is Wamphyri! And apart from this one incident, this one—lapse?—she hasn’t put a foot wrong. Well, except in her belief that she could lead us like a warrior Queen. For we’re all of us men and warriors in our own right, and as such we resent giving up our hard-earned spoils to any self-styled leader. And I say again: to any leader!
Very well, so from now on we are our own men and Wratha is her own woman. But on the other hand she’s right: without that we show a degree of co-operation, the stack can’t survive and we are doomed. It is imperative that Gorvi puts the wells in order, that Wran and Spiro service and maintain the refuse pits and methane chambers, and that Wratha fashions siphoneers to draw up water from the wells, for the benefit of the whole stack. To this extent—if only to this extent—we must be of one mind. To this extent, we need each other.
Wran, fingering his wen as before, was calmer now. And: “I agree all of that,” he said. “Except —” and he scowled at Wratha, “—she appropriates no more of our thralls!”
Wratha, too, was calm and “lovely” again. So, she’d lost her army at a stroke. Well, and so what? She could soon build another, and next time loyal in every way. “So from now on we hunt alone,” she nodded, curtly. “We attend to the needs of the stack, for everyone’s sake, but other than that we fend for ourselves and to hell with the rest! Very well, see if you like it better that way.”
Gorvi had second thoughts. “But what if we are attacked out of Sunside, or worse, out of Turgosheim? Am I required to hold the lower levels on my own?”
“Oh, we’ll be attacked, eventually,” Wratha assured him. “Though I think not from Sunside. When it comes, once again we stand or fall together. The stack is our refuge; though we may never be friends, we must be allies.”
All the more reason, Vasagi made elegant shrugs and wriggles, to practise a modicum of co-operation now.
Spiro, clad in his customary rags of breechclout and headband, took his brother’s arm. “Come,” he said. “Enough of talk. We have tasks aplenty. But when darkness falls we’ll leave our lieutenants to supervise the work, and go raiding for ourselves in Sunside.” He cast a vilifying glance at Wratha. “Except this time we’ll keep what we catch!”
“What of me?” Canker barked. “Do I get my thralls back?”
“Ungrateful wretch,” Wratha was openly scornful. “You who have nothing better to do but whine and wench! What’s that for co-operation? Best quit your yelping, Canker, if you’d have gas to warm your kennels and clean water to drown your fleas!”
In return, Canker snarled a little and bared his canines, but while Wratha had the kneblasch that was as much as he could do.
And with that it was over. Their courses set—as individuals, as well as interdependent members of the stack—the Lords took their departure from Wratha’s apartments. Vasagi was last to leave …
On his way down, Vasagi must pass close by the Lady Wratha’s draughty landing bays. There he found Wran the Rage waiting for him, still seething like an active volcano. Wran came straight to the point: “Why did you defend her? We could have been rid of her at a stroke; I would have taken her apartments, and left the ones I share now to my brother.”
She had kneblasch, Vasagi shrugged, gestured, backed off a little. Also she has commenced to fashion siphoneers. Why waste the Lady’s best efforts? Time later to punish her—if such is required—when the stack is in working order. You agreed as much yourself, if not in so many words.
“It isn’t simply that you fancy the whore?” Wran grinned unpleasantly. “After all, you and she would make a grand team. You with your freakish face, and Wratha a hag under all that sweet girl-flesh! Is that it? Do you hope to partner her? Are you so tired, then, of the shrieks of your odalisques when you go to service them? Do they insist you mount from the rear, so that they need not see your face?”
Vasagi flowed forward now, his gestures sharper, less subtle, his telepathic “voice” a hiss: Why do you insult me, Wran? Do you seek to provoke me? I have no chin, it’s true, but that is of my choosing. Rather that than your chin, with its black and possibly leprous growth!
“Now who speaks insults?” Wran thrust his red face to the fore. “As for my wen: it is a beauty spot.”
Oh? the Suck laughed scornfully. Then you could use a few more! But as Wran grunted and stepped closer still, Vasagi’s tapering snout stiffened and his sharp siphon proboscis slid into view, dripping saliva. And: Best to remember, he warned, that your gauntlet is in your apartments, Wran. But me, why, I carry my weapon with me at all times!
Wran knew that Vasagi could strike at lightning speed, to pierce or pluck an eye, or penetrate an ear to the b
rain. He withdrew, however grudgingly, then turned on his heel and headed for the launching bays. But over his shoulder: “Let’s have one thing understood, wormface,” he snarled. “Eventually the Lady’s options will be down to two: to be my most obedient wife in Wranstack, or to die and make room for her betters! If it’s the first—I’ll enjoy cutting the sting out of Wratha’s tail, believe me! And if it’s the second,” he shrugged, “so be it.” With that he passed from sight behind a jut of stone.
Not to be outdone, Vasagi sent after him: Better stick to your girl-thralls, Wran! Wratha’s far too much woman for a fop such as you! His dart was too late; Wran had closed his mind; Vasagi’s thoughts came echoing hollowly back to him.
It was probably as well. Wran was a maniac, after all. And shrugging off his irritation, Vasagi continued on his way …
II
Nathan stirred. The sun had been off his island for quite a while now and he was cold. The river gurgled close by; a fish jumped for flies, making a splash; the combination of sounds woke him up.
He awoke cold, stiff, aching, and saw in a moment how long—and how late—he’d slept. The sun was a bright flash of fire glimpsed through the treetops to the south; except for silvery glints striking from the river’s ripples, its entire expanse stood in green, gloomy shade from bank to bank. Nathan had been asleep for … about fifteen hours?
He waded to the bank and began to backtrack westwards. As he left the boggy region for firmer ground, so something of the stiffness went out of his muscles and a little of the gnawing ache out of his back: Eleni’s ointment, he supposed, and wondered where she and the Szgany Sintana were now.
… Jingling along the approach route to their new home, most likely. Tonight they would set up a makeshift camp, and tomorrow camouflage the place, make it semi-permanent, settle in. And if only Nathan could make his legs go a little faster, he would be with them—with Eleni——and have a place among them. In a way he felt like a traitor: to Lardis, to the memory of Misha and his mother, especially to his Szgany vow. But in another way he felt … new? Certainly he was making a new beginning. And in any Case, he knew that as long as he lived his vow would never be entirely forgotten.