I loved these lands, the vampire answered. Perhaps you cannot understand that, but if I ever loved it was this land, this place. Thibor could tell you how much I loved it.
Now Harry understood. Gerenko… invaded your territory!
The vampire's growl was deep and merciless. He sent a man here who was responsible for reducing my house to dust! My last vestige on earth! And now there is nothing to show that I ever existed at all! How then shall I reward him? Ahhh! But how did I reward Thibor?
Harry saw what was coming. You buried Thibor, he answered.
So be it! cried Faethor. And he gave the Szgany on the ridge his final command — that they throw themselves down!
Half-way along the ledge, Ivan Gerenko heard the clattering of ancient, leather-clad bones and fearfully looked up. Down from that high place they fell, breaking up as they came; skulls and scraps of bone and flaps of fretted flesh, a rain of dead things that might drown him in mummied remains.
‘You can't hurt me!' Gerenko gibbered, covering his wrinkled head as the first ghastly fragments thudded down onto the ledge. ‘Not even dead men… can… hurt me?'
But it wasn't their intention to hurt him; they didn't even know he was there; they'd simply obeyed Faethor and hurled themselves down. And after that it was out of their hands, those of them who had hands. The clattering cascade continued, echoing loudly; and over and above the pelting of gristly bones, now there swelled a new sound: a terrible grumbling and groaning, but in no way the groaning of the dead. They were the groans of riven rock, of sliding shale and scree and accumulated debris. Avalanche!
And even as that fact dawned on Gerenko, so the face of the cliff fell on him and he was swept away.
Long after the dust had settled and the last rumbling echo faded away, Harry Keogh stood with Zek and watched the rim of the moon come up over the mountains. ‘It will light your way,' he told her. ‘Take care, Zek.'
She was still in his arms, had needed to be there else she might have fallen. Now she struggled free, wordlessly left him and headed for the scree-buried ledge. At first she stumbled, then straightened up and went with more certainty, more resolve. She would pick her way over the fallen cliff to the bottom of the gorge, then follow the stream down to the new road.
‘Take care,' Harry called after her again. ‘And Zek, don't ever come up against me or mine again.'
She made no answer, looked straight ahead. But to herself: Oh, no, I'll not do that. Not against you, Harry Keogh — Necroscope!