‘Quiet,’ Elize murmured. She tapped the side of her head. ‘Can’t you feel it, cousin? Can’t you feel him? He’s watching us.’
‘Who?’ Erikan asked, though he knew the answer as well as any of them. He could feel the presence of another mind scrabbling in the shadow of his own, prying at his thoughts and probing his feelings.
‘Who else? Welcome to Sylvania, my brethren,’ a voice called out as the doors of the outer keep opened with a squeal of long-rusted hinges. The heavy, bloated bodies of two gigantic ghouls, each the size of three of its lesser brethren, burdened with chains and rusty cow bells, moved into view as they shoved the doors open. Each of the creatures was shackled to a door, and they squalled and bellowed as a group of armoured figures stepped between them and moved to meet the newcomers.
‘Well, look what the dire wolf dragged in, finally. Elize, Markos and… some others. Wonderful, and you’re all late, by the way. I expected you days ago,’ Tomas von Carstein said as he drew close. The current Grand Master of the Drakenhof Templars looked much the same as he had when Erikan had last seen him. He’d been handsome enough as a living man, but centuries of undeath had crafted him over into a thing of cold, perfect beauty. The warriors who accompanied him were cut from much the same stripe – blood knights, Templars of the Drakenhof Order, who’d fought on thousands of battlefields. Each of them was a capable warrior, more than a match for any living man or beast. Erikan knew one or two of them, and these he nodded to politely. They returned the gesture warily – as Elize’s get, he’d been inducted into the inner circle of the order almost immediately, and Tomas was among those who’d been somewhat incensed by what he saw as her profligate ways.
‘Welcome to Castle Sternieste, where the seeds of our damnation have been sown,’ Tomas continued, extending his arms in a mocking gesture of welcome.
‘Very poetic, cousin. But I, for one, have been damned for a very long time,’ Markos said. Tomas laughed harshly.
‘This is a different sort of damnation, I’m afraid.’ He frowned. ‘We’re trapped.’
‘What do you mean? Explain yourself,’ Anark demanded. Tomas made a face.
‘Must I? You felt it, didn’t you? That grotesque frisson as you crossed the border?’ He looked at Anark. ‘We are trapped here, in Sylvania. We cannot cross the borders, thanks to the sorceries of our enemies – rather, say, Mannfred’s enemies.’
‘Lord Mannfred, you mean,’ Elize corrected.
‘Yes, yes,’ Tomas said, waving a hand dismissively. ‘Lord Mannfred, in his infinite wisdom, decided to openly secede our fair homeland from the Empire. They responded in kind.’ He laughed. ‘They locked the door behind us after we left, it seems.’ His laughter grew, becoming a harsh cackle. He shook his head and looked at them. ‘Still, I am glad to see you. At least I’ll be in good company for the next millennia.’
‘Are we the only ones to arrive?’ Alberacht rumbled. ‘Where are the others? Where is the rest of the inner circle? Where is my old friend Vyktros von Krieger? Where are the Brothers Howl and the Warden of Corpse Run?’
‘Maybe some of us were smart enough to run the other way,’ Markos muttered.
Tomas laughed harshly. ‘Vyktros is dead, killed trying to breach the damnable sorceries that have us trapped. As for the others, I don’t know. What I do know is that Mannfred wished to see us – you – as soon as you arrived. And he’s been getting impatient.’ He smiled. ‘It is to be as it was in the old days, it seems, with us at his right hand. Exactly what it is that we’ll be doing, seeing as we are confined to this charming garden of earthly pleasures, is entirely up for debate. Come,’ Tomas said. He turned and stalked across the bridge. Erikan and the others shared a look, and then followed their Grand Master through the dark gates of Castle Sternieste.
The castle was a hornet’s nest of activity. Skeletons clad in the armour and colours of the Drakenhof Guard marched to and fro, in a mockery of the drills they’d performed in life. Bats of various sizes clung to the ceilings and walls, filling the air with their soft chittering. Ghouls loped across the desiccated grounds, the leaders of the various packs fighting to assert dominance. The dead of ten centuries had been wakened and readied for war, and they stood, waiting silently for the order to march.
There were vampires in evidence as well, more of them than Erikan had ever seen in one place. Von Carsteins as well as others – Lahmians, in courtly finery, and red-armoured Blood Dragons, as well as gargoyle-like Strigoi. For the first time in centuries, Castle Sternieste rang with the sound of voices and skulduggery. They clustered in the knaves and open chambers, sipping blood from delicate goblets, or fed on the unlucky men and women rounded up at Mannfred’s orders from what few nearby villages had not been abandoned and dragged to Sternieste to serve as a larder for the growing mob of predators. They spoke quietly in small groups or pointedly ignored one another. They duelled in the gardens and plotted in the antechambers.
None of them attempted to hinder Tomas and his companions. Everyone knew who the Drakenhof Templars were, and gave them room – even the scions of Blood Keep, who eyed them the way a wolf might eye a rival from another pack. No one was tempted to try their luck at gainsaying him just yet. It wouldn’t be long, though. Erikan could smell resentment on the air. Vampires, by their very nature, seethed with the urge to dominate and they chafed at being under another’s dominion.
Tomas led them through the castle, up curling stone stairwells and through damp corridors where cold air, and things worse than air, slipped in through broken walls. Ghostly knights galloped silently through the corridors, and wailing hags swept upwards, all drawn in the same direction as the vampiric Templars. It was there, in the bell tower of Sternieste, that the great black bells tolled, calling the dead to their master’s side. The sound of the bells was as the creak of a coffin lid and the thud of a mausoleum door; it was the crunch of bone and the wet slap of torn flesh; it was the sound all dead things knew, deep in the marrow of their bones.
Tomas’s warriors peeled off as they approached the narrow stairwell that led up to the bell tower. The meeting was obviously only for the inner circle. Erikan felt a twinge of doubt as they ascended, and the others seemed to share his concern, save for Anark and Elize, who chatted gaily to Tomas as they went. Markos caught Erikan’s eye and made a face. Something was going on. Erikan wondered if Mannfred had truly summoned them, or this was some ploy on Tomas’s part. Or Elize’s, a small, treacherous voice murmured in the depths of his mind. Those who took the von Carstein name tended towards ambition. To assume the name was a symbol of your devotion to the ideals of Vlad von Carstein, of a vampire-state, of an empire of the dead, ruled by the masters of the night. Only the ambitious or the insane announced their intentions so openly.
When they climbed out into the bell tower, the air throbbed with the graveyard churn of the bells, and the soft cacophony of the gathered spectral hosts that surrounded the top of the tower. Hundreds, if not thousands of spirits floated above the tower, pulled to and chained by the dull clangour. The bell-ringers were ghouls, and they gave vent to bone-rattling howls and shrieks as they hauled on the ropes.
And beyond them, his back to the newcomers, his eyes fixed on the innumerable spirits dancing on the night wind, stood Mannfred von Carstein. He had one foot set on the parapet, and he leaned on his raised knee as he gazed upwards. He did not turn as they arrived, and only glanced at them when Tomas drew his sword partially from its sheath and slammed it down.
‘Count Mannfred, you have called and we, your most loyal servants, have come. The inner circle of the Drakenhof Order is ready to ride forth at your command and at your discretion,’ Tomas said.