A Coven of Vampires (9 page)

Stretching again and yawning hideously, she might perhaps have lingered longer over thoughts of Tarra Khash, but that was a luxury not to be permitted. No, for she was in serious trouble and she knew it, and now must prepare whatever excuses she could for her lateness and unseemly mode of arrival here in this unholy place.

Aye, for the eyes in the lava lamia’s head had cracked open and now glared sulphurously, and from the smoking jaws came the voice of inquisitor, demanding to be told all and truthfully:

“What have you to say for yourself, Orbiquita, borne here by djinn and weary nigh unto death, and late by a day so that all your sisters have come and gone, all making sport over the idleness or foolhardiness of the hated Orbiquita? You know, of course, the penalty?”

“I hate my sisters equally well!” answered Orbiquita unabashed. “Let them take solace from that. As to your charges, I cannot deny them. Idle and foolhardy I have been. And aye, I know well enow the price to pay.” Then she told the whole, miserable tale.

When she reached the part concerning Tarra Khash, however, the lava lamia stopped her in something approaching astonishment: “What? And you took not this Hrossak’s life? But this is without precedence!”

“I had my reasons!” Orbiquita protested.

“Then out with them at once,” ordered the lava lamia, “or sit here in stony silence for five long years—which is, in any case, your fate. Of what ‘reasons’ do you speak?”

“One,” said Orbiquita, “he saved me from Gleeth’s scorch ing beams.”

“What is that? He is a man!”

“My father was a man, and likely yours too.”

“
Hah!
Do not remind me! Say on, Orbiquita.”

“Two, though I suspect he guessed my nature—or at least that I was more than I appeared—still he offered no offence, no harm, but would have fed and protected me.”

“Greater fool he!” the lava lamia answered.

“And three,” (Orbiquita would not be browbeaten) “I sensed, by precognition, that in fact I would meet this one again, and that he would be of further service to me.”

And,
“Hah!”
said lava lamia more vehemently yet. “Be sure it will not happen for a five-year at least, Orbiquita! ‘Precognition’, indeed! You should have gorged on him, and wrapped yourself in his skin to protect your own from the moon, and so proceeded here without let and indebted to no one. Instead you chose merely to sip, summoning only sufficient strength to call up detested desert djinn to your aid. All in all, most foolish. And are you ready now to take my place, waiting out your five years until some equally silly sister’s deed release you?”

“No,” said Orbiquita.

“It is the law!”
the other howled. “Apart from which, I’m impatient of this place.”

“And the law shall be obeyed—and you released, as is only right—eventually…. But first a boon.”

“What? You presume to—”

“Mylakhrion’s ring!” cried Orbiquita. “Stolen from me. My rune-book, too. Would you deny me time to right this great wrong? Must I wait a five-year to wipe clean this smear on
all
lamias? Would you suffer the scorn of
all
your sisters—and not least mine—for the sake of a few hours, you who have centuries before you?”

After long moments, calmer now but yet bubbling lava from every pore, the keeper of this place asked, “What is it you wish?”

“My powers returned to me—fully!” said Orbiquita at once. “And I’ll laugh in Gleeth’s face and fly to Chlangi, and find Mylakhrion’s ring and take back my rune-book. Following which—”

“You’ll return here?”

“Or be outcast forever from the sisterhood, aye,” Orbiquita bowed her warty head. “And is it likely I’ll renege, to live only five more years instead of five thousand?”

“So be it,” said the lava lamia, her voice a hiss of escaping steam. “You are renewed, Orbiquita. Now get you hence and remember your vow, and return to me here before Cthon releases the sun to rise again over Theem’hdra. On behalf of all lamias, I have spoken.”

The sulphur pits which were her eyes lidded themselves with lava crusts, but Orbiquita did not see. She was no longer there….

• • •

Tarra Khash left Chlangi by the south gate, two hours after the sun’s setting. By then, dull lights glowed in the city’s streets in spasmodic pattern, flickering smokily in the taverns, brothels, and a few of the larger houses and dens—and (importantly) in Fregg’s palace, particularly his apartments in the tower. It was a good time to be away, before night’s thieves and cutthroats crawled out of their holes and began to work up an interest in a man.

Out of the gate the Hrossak turned east for Kluhn, heading for the pass through the Great Eastern Peaks more than two hundred miles away. Beyond the pass and fording the Lohr, he would cross a hundred more miles of grassland before the spires and turrets of coastal Kliihn came into view. Except that first, of course, he’d be returning—however briefly, and hopefully painlessly—to Chlangi.

Jogging comfortably east for a mile or more, the Hrossak never once looked back—despite the fact that he knew he was followed. Two of them, on ponies (rare beasts in Theem’hdra), and keeping their distance for the nonce. Tarra could well imagine what was on their minds: they wondered about the contents of his saddlebags, and of course the camel itself was not without value. Also they knew—or thought they knew—that he was without weapon. Well, as long as he kept more than arrow or bolt’s flight distance between he was safe, but it made his back itch for all that.

Then he spied ahead the tumbled ruins of some ghost town or other on the plain, and urged his mount to a trot. It was quite dark now, for Gleeth sailed low as yet, so it might be some little time before his pursuers twigged that he’d quickened his pace. That was all to the good. He passed along the ghost town’s single skeletal street, dismounted and tethered his beast by a heap of stones, then fleet-footed it back to the other end and flattened himself to the treacherous bricks of an arch where it spanned the narrow street. And waited.

And waited….

Could they have guessed his next move? Did they suspect his ambush? The plan had been simple: hurl knife into the back of one as they passed beneath, and leap on the back of the other; but what now?

Ah!—no sooner the question than an answer. Faint sounds in the night growing louder. Noise of their coming at last. But hoofbeats, a beast at gallop? What was this? No muffled, furtive approach this, but frenzied flight! A pony, snorting its fear, fleeing riderless across the plain; and over there, silhouetted against crest of low hill, another. Now what in—?

Tarra slid down from the arch, held his breath, stared back hard the way he had come, toward Chlangi, and listened. But nothing, only the fading sounds of drumming hooves and a faint whinny in the dark.

Now instinct told the Hrossak he should count his blessings, forget whatever had happened here, return at once to his camel and so back to Chlangi by circuitous route as previously planned; but his personal demon, named Curiosity, deemed it otherwise. On foot, moving like a shadow among shadows, his bronze skin aiding him considerably in the dark, he loped easily back along his own route until—

It was the smell stopped him, a smell he knew at once from its too familiar reek. Fresh blood!

More cautiously now, nerves taut as a bowstring, almost in a crouch, Tarra moved forward again: and his grip on the haft of his knife never so tight, and his eyes never so large where they strained to penetrate night’s canopy of dark. Then he was almost stumbling over them, and just as smartly drawing back, his breath hissing out through clenched teeth.

Dead, and not merely dead but gutted! Chlangi riff-raff by their looks, unpretty as the end they’d met. Aye, and a butcher couldn’t have done a better job. Their entrails still steamed in the cool night air.

The biters bit: Tarra’s trackers snared in advance of his own planned ambush; and what of the unseen, unheard killers themselves? Once more the Hrossak melted into shadow, froze, listened, stared. Perhaps they had gone in pursuit of the ponies. Well, Tarra wouldn’t wait to find out. But as he turned to speed back to his camel—

Another smell in the night air? A sulphur reek, strangely laced with cloying musk? And where had he smelled that dubious perfume before? A nerve jumped in his neck, and twin scabs throbbed dully as if in mute answer.

To hell with it! They were all questions that could wait….

• • •

Half a mile from Chlangi Tarra dismounted and tethered his camel out of sight in a shallow gulley, then proceeded on foot and as fast as he could go to where the east wall was cracked as by some mighty tremor of the earth. Here boulders and stones had been tumbled uncemented into the gap, so that where the rest of the wall was smooth, offering little of handholds and making for a difficult climb, here it was rough and easily scaleable. Fregg knew this too, of course, for which reason there was normally a guard positioned atop the wall somewhere in this area. Since Chlangi was hardly a place people would want to break
into
, however, chances were the guard would have his belly wrapped around the contents of a wineskin by now, snoring in some secret niche.

The wall was high at this point, maybe ten man-lengths, but Old Gleeth was kind enough to cast his rays from a different angle, leaving the east wall in shadow. All should be well. Nevertheless—

Before commencing his climb Tarra peered right and left, stared long and hard back into the night toward the east, listened carefully to see if he could detect the slightest sound. But…nothing. There were bats about tonight, though—and big ones, whole roosts of them—judging from the frequent flappings he’d heard overhead.

Satisfied at last that there were no prying eyes, finally the Hrossak set fingers and toes to wall and scaled it like a lizard, speeding his ascent where the crack widened and the boulders were less tightly packed. Two-thirds of the way up he rested briefly, where a boulder had long since settled and left a man-sized gap, taking time to get his breath and peer out and down all along the wall and over the scraggy plain, and generally checking that all was well.

And again the stirring of unseen wings and a whipping of the air as something passed briefly across the starry vault. Bats, yes, but a veritable cloud of them! Tarra shivered his disgust: he had little time for night creatures of any sort. He levered himself out of his hole, began to climb again—and paused.

A sound from on high, atop the wall? The scrape of heel against stone? The shuffle of bored or disconsolate feet? It came again, this time accompanied by wheezy grunt!

Tarra flattened himself to wall, clung tight, was suddenly aware of his vulnerability. At which precise moment he felt the coil of rope over his shoulder slip a little and heard his hook clang against the wall down by his waist. Quickly he trapped the thing, froze once more. Had it been heard?

“Huh?” came gruff inquiry from above. And:
“Huh?”
Then, in the next moment, a cough, a whirring sound diminishing, a gurgle—and at last silence once more.

For five long minutes Tarra waited, his nerves jumping and the feeling going out of his fingers and toes, before he dared continue his upward creep. By then he believed he had it figured out—or hoped so, anyway. The guard was, as he had suspected might be the case, asleep. The grapple’s clang had merely caused him to start and snort into the night, before settling himself down again more comfortably. And perhaps the incident had been for the best at that; at least Tarra knew now that he was there.

With infinite care the Hrossak proceeded, and at last his fingertips went up over the sill of an embrasure. Now, more slow and silent yet, he drew up his body until—

Seated in the deep embrasure with his back to one wall and his knees against the other, a bearded guardsman grinned down on Tarra’s upturned face and aimed a crossbow direct into the astonished “O” of his gaping mouth!

Tarra might simply have recoiled, released his grip upon the rim and fallen. He might have (as some men doubtless would) fainted. He might have closed his eyes tight shut and pleaded loud and desperate, promising anything. He did none of these but gulped, grinned and said:

“Ho! No fool you, friend! Fregg chooses his guards well. He sent me here to catch you asleep—to test the city’s security, d’you see?—but here you are wide awake and watchful, obviously a man who knows his duty. So be it; help me up from here and I’ll go straight to our good king and make report how all’s…well?”

For now the Hrossak saw that all was indeed well—for him if not for the guard. That smell was back, of fresh blood, and a dark pool of it was forming and sliming the stone where Tarra’s fingers clung. It dripped from beneath the guard’s chin—where his throat was slit from ear to ear!

Aye, for the gleam in his eyes was merely glaze, and his fixed grin was a rictus of horror! Also, the crossbow’s groove was empty, its bolt shot; and now Tarra remem bered the whirring sound, the cough, the gurgle….

Adrenaline flooded the Hrossak’s veins as a flash flood fills dry river beds. He was up and into the embrasure and across the sprawling corpse in a trice, his flesh ice as he stared all about, panting in the darkness. He had a friend here for sure, but who or what he dared not think. And now, coming to him across the reek of spilled blood…
again
that sulphurous musk, that fascinating yet strangely fearful perfume.

Then, from the deeper shadows of a shattered turret:

“Have you forgotten me then, Tarra Khash, whose life you saved in the badlands? And is not the debt I owed you repaid?”

And oh the Hrossak knew that sibilant, whispering voice, knew only too well whose hand—or claw—had kept him safe this night. Aye, and he further knew now that Chlangi’s bats were no bigger than the bats of any other city; knew
exactly
why those ponies had fled like the wind across the plain; knew, shockingly, how close he must have come last night to death’s sharp edge! The wonder was that he was still alive to know these things, and now he must ensure no rapid deterioration of that happy circumstance.