And when the Wamphyri did come, why, then there were offerings to be made, and the Wamphyri Lords, their warriors and undead soldiers would collect their tithe of one hundred Travellers and depart. In short, the Wamphyri became like tax-collectors; and true to the scenario, they did no harm to those who paid this regular human tribute.
With the result that the people of Gorgan's tribe grew weak, fat and increasingly careless. They lost their urge to travel and so avoid Wamphyri incursions; they used regular routes, watering-holes and harbouring areas, and their treks along the Sunside flank of the mountains fell into ever more foreseeable patterns; contrary to the very nature of Travellers, there was no longer any mystery to their movements. In short, they no longer bothered to hide themselves and thus were easily found. Now there were far fewer nights of peace and rest, when more and more often the Wamphyri would come and carry off their human tribute; but what did that matter? The tribe itself was safe, wasn't it?
Safe, yes — until the brief alliance of a handful of Wamphyri Lords had fallen apart, until they had quarrelled and split up, and each faction of the former alliance determined to build up its individual forces, refill its storehouses, define once more its old territorial boundaries and become strong again in the former Wamphyri traditions! For when armies build for war — and in the case of the Wamphyri not against a mutual enemy but internecine, each vampire Lord against his neighbours — then they take and use whatever resources are available, with never a thought for conservation. And the natural resources of the Wamphyri had ever been the flesh and blood of Travellers!
In a single night of terror and madness — one sundown, the space of time between the sun's setting and its rising again, a matter of only forty hours — Gorgan's tribe was decimated! The Wamphyri had come, first Shaithis to demand the usual tribute, which he took; then Lesk the Glut; finally Lascula Longtooth. More might have come, Belath and Volse and the others, except that by then there was nothing left to take; or if they did come, then the survivors of Gorgan's tribe were no longer in their customary holes waiting for them. For after Shaithis, when the Lords Lesk and Lascula found no tribute, they had simply killed the Council of Elders out of hand and proceeded to herd off the flower of the tribe itself! At which the handful of survivors, maybe fifty old ones and a hundred children, had fled for whichever sanctuaries they could discover. And not many of those in a land where the people of Gorgan's tribe were universally loathed! From which time forward the tribe had been no more, and the youth Gorgan had vowed never to put his faith in any 'deals' with the treacherous Wamphyri. Lardis, in his turn, was of the same mind: let other tribal leaders do what they would, go their own ways and good luck to them, his people would never submit to the Wamphyri, nor would they prey on brother and sister Travellers for dubious personal benefits and the well-being of vile, inhuman Starside overloads. As to how Lardis's convictions worked in his favour: There were still tribes who operated one tithe system or another, using either captive Travellers stolen from other groups to placate the Wamphyri, or even drawing lots and sacrificing members of their own nomad communities. Such Travellers who had adopted or accepted this servile existence were generally of large eastern-flank tribes numbering more than a thousand strong. Their size protected them from any retaliatory attacks which previous victims might possibly dream up, and/or allowed them to make the required periodic sacrificial cull without appreciably diminishing the strength of the tribe.
They dwelled east of the pass because the game was more plentiful there and survival, in one sense, that much easier. Lardis knew this and kept his people west of the pass; it was a little harder to make a living but it was also that much safer. When it was sunup he kept lookouts in the southern extremes of the pass, to warn of Travellers moving west and supply intelligence reports of their strengths, persuasions, and any possible dangers to his own people springing from their presence or route of passage.
Lardis did not as a matter of course make war on Travellers who kowtowed to the Wamphyri but preferred to keep out of their way. In the event that they should war on him, however, he was always ready. His men — even many of his younger women — were well-trained, formidable fighters; they were skilled in ambush, entrapment, hand-to-hand combat, and in the use of all manner of weaponry. On the few occasions when outsiders had attempted to raid on him, then they'd been severely chastised; so that in the five years of his leadership the legend had spread abroad that he was not a man to fool with. He would accept small groups into the tribe for its own good, but would not amalgamate with larger bodies. His motto was this: to be medium-sized is to be safe. Not large enough to stir too much Wamphyri interest, mobile enough to confuse them, and just a trifle too vicious to tempt raiding parties from Wamphyri-supplicants. Up until now, at least, these integers had made for a remarkably effective equation.
But Lardis's scepticism (if not scorn) with regard to Wamphyri superiority, and his disgust at the mere thought of appeasement, were not the only reasons for his success. Oh, he knew well enough the purely physical and tactical superiority of the vampire Lords — their strengths and cruelties, the awesome horror of their war-beasts, the silent, speedy efficiency of their familiar spies the great bats, and the mobility of their flying creatures — but he also knew and made use of their weaknesses.
They could only raid at night, usually in the lull before (or in the wake of) one or other of the interminable vampire wars — to supply their war effort or replenish a depleted capability as the case may be — and they invariably completed their raids with dispatch. They didn't like to spend too much time Sunside, for while they were away they could never be sure what their Starside enemies were up to; aeries were wont to become occupied while their rightful masters were raiding abroad! Lardis knew, too, that the Wamphyri rarely raided west of the pass: most of the tribes, and especially those which were Wamphyri-supplicants, dwelled east; so why should the Wamphyri waste time chasing their prey in the west when it was openly on offer in the east? For the fact of it was that for all their much-vaunted pride and arrogance, the Wamphyri tended toward laziness. If they weren't warring with each other or raiding, then they were scheming for war, indulging themselves, or asleep! That was a weakness, too. For the great part, Lardis Lidesci went without sleep. And at sundown he took his rest in the briefest snatches.
Another Wamphyri weakness was this: that while it was hard to kill them, they could and did die eventually — and Lardis knew how to do it. But there was death and there was death. At the hands of another vampire, that was thinkable; Wamphyri pride would allow, however grudgingly, for that possibility. But at the hands of some lowly Traveller? Never! Where was the glory in that! Who would record that? What sort of way was that for a life to blink out? Lardis had killed no actual Lord, but he had twice dealt with aspirants to that final level of vampire power. They had been the sons and lieutenants of Lesk the Glut, who'd thought to come against him in the hour immediately before sunup, when he'd be unwary and emerging from his cave sanctuary; except Lardis didn't know the meaning of the word 'unwary'.
Put a hardwood bolt through a vampire, behead him, burn his corpse… he was dead. But Lardis had made an example of Lesk's lads. Staked out, the sun had found them and steamed them away slowly and with a great deal of shrieking. Aye, let other Traveller leaders balk at the difficulties involved in the slaying of vampires, but not Lardis. The Wamphyri had come to know his name, perhaps even to respect it. Being able to live for centuries, near-immortal, it was generally deemed unwise to go up against Travellers like Lardis, who could — and would, given the chance — so rapidly and cruelly shorten one's span to nothing!