Seven great Thracians, dead for more than two thousand years, raised up again from their burial urns to do Janos's bidding. They had the aspect of life at least, but there was a great deal of death in them, too. They wore helmets and some pieces of armour of their own period, but wherever their grey flesh showed naked it was scarred, disfigured. Their helmets were fearsome things, designed to terrify any beholder: they were domed, of gleaming bronze, with oval eye-holes dark in the flicker of their torches, and curved, downward-sweeping flanges to cover the jaws of the wearers.
All seven were big men, but their leader stood a good four inches taller than the rest. He stepped forward, massive, but the eyes behind the holes in his mask were red — with sorrow.
Bodrogk looked at Harry Keogh and the five who cowered behind him. 'Free him,' he said. His tongue was ancient but his meaning — the way his bronze sword touched Harry's ropes — couldn't be mistaken.
The Szgany spokesman stepped cautiously to Harry's side and loosened the nooses a little around his neck. And to Bodrogk the Gypsy said: 'You are… the Ferenczy's creatures?'
Bodrogk didn't understand. He looked this way and that, frowning, wondering what the man's question had been. Harry read his deadspeak confusion and answered: 'He wants to know if Janos sent you.' He spoke the words aloud, letting his deadspeak do the translating. And now Bodrogk's gaze centred on Harry alone.
The massive Thracian paced forward and the Gypsies fell back. Bodrogk caught the ropes around Harry's neck and snapped them like threads. He grunted an introduction, then said: 'And so you are the Necroscope, beloved of all the world's dead.'
'Not all of them,' Harry shook his head, 'for there are cowards among the dead even as there are among the living. If I can't know them — because they are afraid to know me — then I can't befriend them. And anyway, Bodrogk, I've no great desire to be loved by thralls.'
Bodrogk's men had come forward, moving closer to the Gypsies on the bluff, herding them there. Now their huge leader took off his helmet and tossed it clanking aside. His neck was a bull's, his face full-bearded, fierce. But it was grey, that face, and, like the rest of his flesh, gaunt with an unspoken horror. His haggard, harried aspect told far better than any words the way in which Janos had dealt with him and his.
'I heard you talking to the dead,' said Bodrogk. 'You must know that all of Janos's thralls are not cowards.'
'I know that the Thracians in the vaults of his castle are dust, and so can't help me. They told me they would but can't, because only Janos himself may call them up, for he alone has the words. On the other hand… you and your six are not dust.'
'Are you calling us cowards?' Bodrogk's calloused hand fell upon Harry's shoulder close to his neck, and in his other hand a great bronze sword was lifted up a little.
'I only know that where some suffer Janos to live,' Harry answered. 'I came to kill him and remove his taint forever.'
'And are you a warrior, Harry?'
Harry lifted his head, gritted his teeth. He had never feared the dead, and would not now. 'Yes.'
Bodrogk smiled a strange, sad smile — which faded at once as he glanced beyond Harry. 'And these others with you? They captured you and brought you here, eh? A lamb to the sacrifice.'
'They belong to the Ferenczy,' Harry nodded.
The other looked at him and his eyes went into Harry's soul. 'A warrior without a sword, eh? Here, take mine,' He placed it in Harry's hands — then scowled at the Szgany and nodded to his men. The six Thracian lieutenants fell on the Gypsies with their swords, swept them from the bluff and over the edge of the cliff like chaff. It was so swift and sudden, they didn't even have time to scream. Their bodies went bumping, bouncing and clattering into the deep dark gorge.
'A friend at last,' Harry nodded. 'I thought I might find a few, at least.'
'It was you or them,' Bodrogk answered. 'To murder a worthy man, or slaughter a handful of dogs. Thralldom to the Ferenczy, or freedom — for as long as it may last. Not much of a choice. I made the only decision a man could make. But if I had paused a moment to think… then it might have gone the other way. For my wife's sake.' He explained his meaning.
'You've taken an enormous chance,' Harry told him, giving back his sword.
'The dead called out to me,' Bodrogk answered. 'In their thousands they cried out, all of them begging your life. Aye, and one especially, whose tongue lashed like none other! Why, she might have been my own mother! But instead she was yours.'
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?