Necroscope II: Wamphyri!

‘Old bastard, you were lucky!' I boasted. ‘You'll not be so fortunate next time.'

Now listen. He ignored my bluster. You have incurred my wrath. You will be punished. The degree of punishment is up to you. Stay and guard my lands and castle and all that is mine while I'm gone, and I may be merciful. Desert me —‘And what?' And you shall know hell's torment for eternity. This I, Faethor Ferenczy, swear!

‘Faethor, I'm my own man. Even if it were in me to serve, I could never call you master. You must know that, for I did my best to destroy you.'

Thibor, you do not yet understand, but I have given you many things, great powers. Ah, but I've also given you several great weaknesses. Common men, when they die, lie in peace. Most of them.

That last was some sort of threat and I knew it. It was in his voice, a DOOM delivered in a whisper. ‘What do you mean?' I asked

Only defy me and you shall find out. I have sworn. And for now, farewell!

And he was gone.

The mirror twinkled once more, like a brilliant star on the far ridge, and then it too was gone.

I had had enough of vampires, male and female. I locked my bedmate of last night in the dungeon with her sister, Ehrig and the burrowing thing, and slept in a chair in front of the fire in Faethor's apartments. Come daybreak and there was nothing to hold up my departure. Except… yes, there were certain things I must do before leaving. The Ferenczy had made threats, and I was never one to suffer threats lightly.

I went out of the castle, shot two fat rabbits with my crossbow, and took them down to the dungeon. I showed them to Ehrig, told him what I wanted and that he must help me. Together we tightly bound and gagged the women, dumping them in one corner of the dungeon. Then, though he protested loudly, I also bound and gagged Ehrig and put him with the women. Finally, I cut open the rabbits and threw their crimson carcasses down on the black soil where the flags were torn up.

Then it was a matter of waiting, but not for long. In a little while a tentacle of leprous flesh came to explore the source of the fresh blood; came groping up through the crumbly soil, pushing it aside, and in a trice I took what I wanted. I left Ehrig and the women tied up, barred the door on them, and went up into the base of the tower. Above the dungeon the steps wound about a central stone pillar. I broke up furniture, piled the pieces around this pillar. I scavenged through the castle, breaking furniture wherever I found it and sharing the wood between the towers. Then I poured oil on all the timbers of the battlements, in the hall and rooms where they spanned the gorge, down all the stairwells. At last I was done, and the work had taken me half-way through the morning.

I left the castle with my loot, walked out a little way from it and looked at it again, one last time, then returned and set a fire in the open door and on the drawbridge. And never looking back, I started out to retrace my steps to Moupho Aide Ferenc Yaborov.

At midday I met my five remaining Wallachs come to find me. They saw me coming down the cliff-hugging path and waited for me in the stony depression at its base. ‘Hallo, Thibor!' the senior man greeted me when I joined them. He looked beyond me. ‘Ehrig and Vasily, they are not with you?'

‘They are dead.' I jerked my head towards the peaks. 'Back there.' They looked, saw the column of white smoke reaching like some strange mushroom into the sky. ‘The house of the Ferenczy,' I told them, ‘which I have burned.'

Then I looked at them more sternly. ‘Why did you wait so long before coming to look for me? How long has it been, five, six weeks?'

‘Those damned gypsies, the Szgany!' their spokesman growled. ‘When we awoke, the morning after the three of you left, the village was all but deserted. Only women and children left. We tried to find out what was happening; no one seemed to know, or they weren't saying. We waited two days, then set out after you. But the missing Szgany menfolk were waiting along the way. Five of us and more than fifty of them. They blocked the way, and they had the advantage of good positions in the rocks.' He shrugged uncomfortably, tried not to look embarrassed. ‘Thibor, we'd have been of use to no one dead!'

I nodded, spoke quietly: ‘And yet now you have come?'

‘Because they are gone.' He shrugged again. ‘When they stopped us, we went back down to their so-called "village". Yesterday morning, the women and kids started to drift off in ones and twos, small parties here and there. They wouldn't speak and looked miserable as sin, as if they were in mourning, or something! At sun-up today the place was empty, except for one old grandad chief — a "prince", he calls himself — his crone and a couple of grandchildren. He wasn't saying anything, and anyway he looks half simple. So, I came up the trail alone, sticking close to cover, and discovered that all the men had gone, too. Then I called up these lads to come and look for you. ‘Truth to tell, we'd long thought you were a goner!'

‘I might well have been,' I answered, ‘but I'm not. Here —, I tossed him a small leather sack, ‘carry this. And you —, I gave my loot to another, ‘you burden yourself with this. It's heavy and I've carried it far enough. As for the job we came to do: it's done. Tonight we stay in the village; tomorrow it's back to Kiev to see a lying, cheating, scheming Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich!'

‘Ugh!' The spokesman held out his sack at arm's length. 'There's a creature in here. It moves!'

I chuckled darkly. ‘Aye, handle it carefully — and tonight put it in a box, sack and all. But don't sleep with it next to you.

Then we went down to the village. On the way down I heard them talking among themselves, mainly of the trouble the Szgany had given them. They mentioned putting the village to the torch. I wouldn't hear of it. ‘No,' I said. ‘The Szgany are loyal in their way. Loyal to their own. Anyway, they've moved on, gone for good. What profit in burning an empty village?'

And so they said no more about it.

That evening I went to the ancient Szgany prince in his hut and called him out. He came out into the coolness of the clearing and saluted me. I stepped close to him and he looked hard at me, and I heard him gasp. ‘Old chief,' I said, ‘my men said burn this place, but I stopped them. I've no quarrel with you or the Szgany.'

He was brown and wrinkled as a log, toothless, hunched. His dark eyes were all aslant and seemed not to see too clearly, but I was sure they saw me. He touched me with a hand that trembled, gripped my arm hard above the elbow. ‘Wallach?' he inquired.

‘That I am, and I'll return there soon,' I answered. He nodded, said, ‘Ferengi! — you.' It was not a question.

‘Thibor's my name,' I told him. And on impulse:

‘Thibor… Ferenczy, aye.'

Again he nodded. ‘You — Wamphyri!'

I began to shake my head in denial, then stopped. His eyes were boring into mine. He knew. And so did I, for certain now. ‘Yes,' I said. ‘Wamphyri.'

He drew breath sharply, let it out slow. Then: ‘Where will you go, Thibor the Wallach, son of Old One?'

‘Tomorrow I go to Kiev,' I answered grimly. ‘I've business there. After that, home.'

‘Business?' He laughed a cackling laugh. ‘Ah, business!'

He released my arm, grew serious. ‘I too go Wallachia. Many Szgany there. You need Szgany. I find you there.'

'Good!' I said.

He backed away, turned and went back into his hut.

We came out of the forest into Kiev in the evening, and I found a place on the outskirts to rest and buy a skin of wine. I sent four of my five into the city. Soon they began return, bringing with them prominent members of my peasant army — what was left of it. Half had been lured away by Vladimir and were off campaigning against the I'echenegi, the rest remained faithful; then had gone into hiding and waited for me.

There were only a handful of the Vlad's soldiers in the city; even the palace guard were away fighting. The prince tad only a score of men, his personal bodyguard, at court. That was part of the news, and this was the rest: that tonight there was to be a small banquet at the palace in honour of some boot-licking Boyar. I invited myself along.