Harry sighed, and thought: thank God for you, Ma!
'Your mother, yes,' said the other. 'She half-swayed me, and Sofia did the rest.'
'Your wife?'
'The same,' Bodrogk nodded, leading the way back towards the ruined castle in the heights. 'She said to me: "Where is your honour now, you who once was mighty? Rather the applause and cold comforts of the teeming dead, and thralldom to Janos forever, than another urn filled with screaming ashes in the monster's vaults!"'
Harry said, 'We have much in common then, your lady and I.' And, on impulse: ^Bodrogk, I already have my cause but she must be yours. Only fight with Sofia in mind, and you cannot lose,' And deep inside, unseen, unheard, he prayed it was true. Except: 'I have no plan,' he admitted.
Bodrogk laughed, however grimly, and answered, 'A warrior without a sword, nor yet a plan of campaign!' But he grasped the Necroscope's shoulder and added: 'I have been dead a long time, Harry Keogh, but in my life I was a king of warriors, a general of armies. I was the Great Strategist of my race, and all the centuries flown between could not rob me of my cunning.'
Harry looked at the Thracian, striding gaunt, grim, dead and resurrected beside him. 'But will cunning suffice, when the vampire need only mutter a handful of words to return you to dust? I think you'd better tell me how this magic of his works, and then something of your plan.'
'The words of devolution may only be spoken by a Master, a Mage,' said Bodrogk. 'Janos is one such. He must direct his words, aim them like an arrow to their target. And to hit the target he must first see it. Wherefore ... we go up against him as individuals! You, me, my six, each man of us a unit in his own right. We approach and enter the castle from all sides. He cannot smite us all at once. And with mere words, even Words of Power, he can't smite you at all! Some of us shall fall, aye. What of it? We've fallen before; we desire to fall, and to remain fallen! But while Janos deals with some of us, the others - especially you, Harry - may live long enough to deal with him.'
Harry nodded. 'It's as good a plan as any,' he said. 'But surely he isn't alone?'
'He has his vampire thralls,' Bodrogk answered. 'Five of them. Three who were Szgany, and two but recently joined him. One of these is a woman with Powers -'
'Sandra,' Harry breathed her name, felt sick in the knowledge of how it must be for her, and how it was yet to be.
'And the other a man likewise talented,' Bodrogk continued. 'Janos broke him to force his obedience. As for the woman: he did to her what he does to women, the dog!'
Then we have them to deal with, too.'
'Indeed - and now!'
'Now?'
They are waiting for us, there beneath the trees, beyond which lie those tumbled, cursed ruins. I am now supposed to give you into their hands, when they in turn will take you to their master.'
Harry looked, saw twisted, wind-blasted pines leaning towards the cliffs of the ultimate ridge. And in the shadows formed of their canopy, he also saw the yellow flames of vampire eyes, feral in the night. He reverted to true deadspeak, using only his mind to ask: Do you know how to deal with them?
Do you? Question matched question.
The stake, the sword, the fire, Harry answered, grimly.
Swords we have, said Bodrogk. Fire too, in the torches which my men carry. And stakes? Aye... we cut a few while we waited for you at the cliff. For, you see, there were vampires in my day, too. So let's be at it.
Janos's undead thralls came ghosting out of the trees. Their long arms reached for Harry; they smiled their ghastly smiles; not a one of them dreamed that Bodrogk had renegued. But even as they ringed the Necroscope about, so the Thracians fell on them and cut them down!
It was butchery, and it was quick. All three vampires were beheaded, thrown to the ground and staked through their hearts. But only three? As Bodrogk's men took up the bodies of their victims and draped them across low branches, and set fire to the tinder-dry, resin-laden trees, Harry saw a crooked figure standing a little apart. And in the next moment Ken Layard stepped into view. 'Harry!' he sighed. 'Harry! Thank God!'
Moonlight turned his sallow flesh golden as he opened his arms wide, closed his eyes and turned his face up to the night sky. The Thracians looked at Harry; there was nothing he could do; he nodded and turned away -
- And saw a tall, dark figure standing at the edge of the ruins, only a dozen paces away.
Janos!
Bodrogk's men had done with Layard now. They too saw the vampire there in the dark of the ruins, his scarlet eyes furiously ablaze. The Thracians began to melt quickly back into shadows, but not quickly enough for two of them who stood close together.
Janos pointed at them, and his awful baying voice swelled out like a curse on the night air:
'OGTHROD AI'F - GEB'L EE'H - YOG-SOTHOTH!
There was more, but the effects of the rune of dissolution were already apparent. The two Thracians who were Janos's target had already cried out, fallen against each other, collapsed to insubstantial wraiths which, as he finished his devocation, drifted to the earth as dust!
Harry glanced all about; Bodrogk and his remaining four were nowhere to be seen; another terror approached.
The wolf - the Grey One which had also been part of his escort, but who had kept himself well back behind the party of Thracians - was now creeping up on him, shepherding him towards the castle's master. The Necroscope stooped, took up one of the bronze swords of the dematerialized Thracians, felt its great weight. Smaller than Bodrogk's sword, still it was no rapier. Harry knew he couldn't hope to wield this thing, but it was better than nothing.
He looked for Janos, saw the monster's fleeting shadow moving back into the darkness of the ruins. A ploy, a feint: Harry's cue to pursue him. Well, and wasn't that what he was here for?
As he followed after Janos, so the Grey One rushed up behind him and snapped at his heels. Harry stiffened his leg into a bar of flesh and bone and lashed out, and felt teeth crunch as his foot concertinaed the beast's slavering muzzle. He snarled at the creature and took up his sword two-handed... and astonishingly the wolf shrank back, whining!
Before Harry could wonder at the meaning of this, Bodrogk and one of his remaining four stepped from cover and together fell on the animal. The sounds of their attack were brief and reminded Harry of nothing so much as a butcher's shop as they first crippled the beast, then cut short its yelping and howling by taking its head.
Harry's eyes were more accustomed to the dark now; in fact his clarity of vision in the night was entirely remarkable and a wonder to him. But that was something else he had no time to consider. Instead he looked into the heart of the tumbled pile and saw Janos standing behind a toppled wall. The monster's gaze was fixed on a point beyond Harry - the Thracians, of course. But as he pointed his great talon of a hand, so the Necroscope shouted: 'Look out!'
'OGTHROD AI'F...' Janos commenced his crackling rune of devolution, and before he'd finished another Thracian had cried out, sighed, and crumbled into smoking, drifting dust. One of the two had been saved at least, and Harry found himself hoping it was Bodrogk.
But now the Necroscope went after Janos with a vengeance. Athletic, sure-footed even in the dark, he saw the vampire commence a descent apparently into the earth itself behind a mound of rubble. In the last moment before he disappeared he turned his freakish head and looked back, and Harry saw the crimson lamps of his eyes. There was a challenge written there which the Necroscope couldn't resist.
He found the stone trapdoor raised above hollowed steps leading down, and almost without thought began his own descent - until a voice from behind stopped him. Looking back, he saw Bodrogk and his remaining warriors converging on him. 'Harry,' the great Thracian rumbled. 'You'll be first down. Go swiftly! Preserve my Sofia!'