I walked backwards to the far end of the barn, keeping my eyes on the hayloft. As I moved, I heard the sound of their movement. When I stopped, they stopped. I could not see them, but I knew that Pyetr and Iakov Zevedayinich were up there. Then, between two bales of hay, I saw the glint of a pair of gleaming dark eyes. I fixed my gaze on the eyes and began to approach. They made no move, nor any indication that they knew I was looking at them. My hope was to get back underneath the hayloft, directly under whichever of the Oprichniki those eyes belonged to and to stab at him upwards from below. I knew that I could not kill them that way, but I had seen how disabling the wound to Iuda had been the night before and I hoped it would give me enough of an advantage to move in for the kill. I glanced occasionally toward the ladder and along the edge of the hayloft. There was a second vampire up there as well, and I did not want my attack on one to leave me vulnerable to the other.
With a start, I felt something land on my cheek. I brushed it away and looking at my hand saw that it was a spider, curled up into a defensive ball. I glanced upwards to where it had fallen from and came face to face with Iakov Zevedayinich. He himself was perched much like a spider, his limbs spread across the oak roofbeams without any visible means of purchase. It was the same climbing skill that I had seen Foma display once in Moscow. Iakov Zevedayinich dropped down towards me from the ceiling, and though I had enough warning to take a step back, he still knocked me to the ground.
The vampire was immediately looming over me, ready for the kill. Over his shoulder I saw Pyetr emerging from the hayloft along the central beam, managing to crawl on all fours along a path no wider than his hand. I slashed wildly at Iakov Zevedayinich with my sword and he held back, giving me a chance to get to my feet. I swung the sabre sharply back and forth in front of me, aiming for his neck. On one stroke, I felt a tiny impediment as the sharp tip made contact with his skin. He put his hand to his throat. It was a trivial wound, but enough to make him wary. He backed further away and I looked up to see Pyetr now even closer to me, climbing his way deftly through the web of beams as though he had spun them himself.
I made a few upward jabs at him, but he easily dodged them, emitting a feral snarl. Iakov Zevedayinich made another lunge for me, but I was not so distracted by Pyetr that I could not connect the blade of my sword with the back of his hand. He snatched it back. Pyetr swung down from above, his legs hooked around a beam, and grabbed at my sword, holding the blade tightly with both hands, oblivious to any pain that the action might cause him. I tried to shake the sword free from his grasp, but he held firm. Iakov Zevedayinich approached again, more slowly now, not out of fear, but to savour the moment of my death. With Pyetr holding my sword, I had nothing with which to fend him off. My wooden dagger, though a fine device to despatch the creatures, was no weapon for engaging them in open combat.
I grasped the handle of my sword and lifted my feet, as though trying to drop to my knees. Pyetr managed to sustain my full weight for a fraction of a second, before the sharp blade of my sabre sliced its way out of his grip and I fell to the ground. I lashed out with the sword at Iakov Zevedayinich's ankle and landed a blow which made him leap sideways. Pyetr was still hanging upside-down from the beam, examining his injured hands, his head dangling like a ripe plum ready for the harvest. I swung at his neck and only a cry of warning from Iakov Zevedayinich told him to raise his body back up to the roof as my blade whistled inches beneath his head.
Pyetr retreated back across the rafters and I followed, jabbing at him with my sword. Iakov Zevedayinich too had retreated back under the hayloft. I soon discovered why, as a pitchfork from amongst the tools I had noted earlier flew towards me, flung like a trident from across the barn. I side-stepped and parried it with my sword, but still it caught my upper left arm, tearing through my coat and drawing blood before continuing to the ground, where its tines sunk in deep. The battle was not going my way and I decided now was the time for departure. I raced to the door, but Iakov Zevedayinich beat me to it. He now held a scythe in his hands and swept it in front of him, keeping me away from both himself and the exit. With a leering smile he slid the bolt across the door. It was not a serious impediment, but it would delay me.
'Just like you locked Ioann in,' he said, still smiling.
Behind me I heard a thud which I took to be Pyetr dropping to the floor of the barn. With the two of them now on my level and with Iakov Zevedayinich armed, the fight was most definitely going away from me. Iakov Zevedayinich was the closer of the two and I knew he had to be removed from the picture before Pyetr could take the few steps needed to reach me. Despite all that I knew of the inefficacy of the traditional use of the sword against these creatures, years of training and experience had built up in me so strongly as to make it almost an instinct. I attacked Iakov Zevedayinich as though he were a mortal man.
As he swung at me again with the scythe, I took a step back. He followed my movement and became slightly off balance. I grabbed hold of the shaft of the scythe and pulled him closer towards me and towards my sword, wincing even as I did at the pain it caused to my wounded arm. In fear, he let go of the scythe, and took a step away from me. The door was at his back and he could go no further. At that moment I lunged and the tip of my sabre pierced his chest, went through his heart, out of his back and through the wooden door behind him. So great was the force of my thrust that the blade continued, stopping only when the guard came to his chest. I let go the sword and took a step away. Any human would have died in an instant, his heart rupturing as the blade penetrated it, and with its rupture would come the withdrawal of that force which supplied blood so vitally to the body. But vampires had different means of supplying their bodies with blood and had no need – in any sense – for a heart. I heard Pyetr's laughter behind me, and a broad grin spread across Iakov Zevedayinich's brutal face.
'You should stick to fighting against men,' said Pyetr, mockingly. 'You'd be good at that.'
Iakov Zevedayinich prepared to take a step forward to resume the attack, but found that he could not. Although my sword had done him no serious injury, it had pinned him to the door like a butterfly in a collector's case. He put his hands to the handle of the sword and tried to pull it out, but he had no leverage. Pyetr's laughter ceased.
I turned to face Pyetr, drawing my only remaining weapon – my wooden dagger. Pyetr backed away in what struck me as unnecessary fear, but I took full advantage of it. I began to run towards him, and he backed away faster. Behind him, the handle of the embedded pitchfork jutted out of the ground towards him like a spear. It would be a lucky chance if he fell on it at the correct angle.
In the event, Iakov Zevedayinich foresaw the danger and shouted to his comrade. Just in time, Pyetr twisted his body to one side and avoided falling on to the handle of the pitchfork. Instead he fell on to his back on the ground beside it. I wrenched the pitchfork out of the earth and thrust it back down on to Pyetr's throat. His flesh offered only a momentary resistance before yielding deliciously to my pressure and allowing the sharp points to penetrate through it and deep into the ground beneath. It did not kill him; it didn't even appear to hurt him, despite the blood that oozed from the punctures in his neck, but it kept him from moving. His body writhed and arched as he tried to get free and he could even raise his head a little, his pierced neck sliding up and down the tines of the pitchfork, but unable to escape them.