Necroscope 9: The Lost Years (45 page)

And suddenly Giorga suspected that this wasn’t about land, and likewise that he wasn’t much interested what it was about. Simultaneously, he suspected it had been a mistake to invite this man into his tiny cramped caravan in the first place.

‘Whatever I’ve been - and whatever I’ve done - it was my way,’ he answered at last, and placed his pilow as a rest for his back. But beneath that pilow he kept a long ironwood knife with a bone handle. Its edge wasn’t so keen, but its point was sharp as a splinter.

‘It was your way, aye,’ Radu growled, ‘and always for your own good: yours and your sons’. But never for the good of your people. They
do
hate you, Giorga! -even as I hated you, upon a time …’

‘Eh?’ Giorga sat up straighter, puled the pilow round in front of himself, clasped the handle of his knife. There was a good crossbow hanging on the wal, but it wasn’t loaded. Supposing it had been, so what? This man looked as fast as he now looked dangerous! This isn’t… it isn’t about land?’

‘Oh, but it
is!’
Radu answered, sitting down carefuly at the other end of Giorga’s bed and moving fractionaly, inch by inch closer. And now his voice was a hoarse throb … of anticipation? ‘Indeed, for it’s about a man who
worked
that land for you, who
hunted
it for you, and
beat the bounds
with you, year in, year out, and for payment suffered the jibes and insults of a fat, greedy old man and his loathsome sons. It’s about how he was murdered because he stood in the way of his daughter going to one of your sons; and it’s about the girl, too, who was as good as you and your lot were bad! She was held down, Giorga, raped time and time again, then murdered because her father - by no means a brave man -had not obliged the Zirescus by letting her go as wife to Ion or Lexandru!’

‘I … I … I
know
you now!’ Giorga pointed with his left hand. But Radu knew that the old pig was right-handed, and saw that treacherous right hand trembling behind the pilow in Giorga’s lap. And indeed al of Giorga trembling: his fat bely, his chins, the very jowls of his face. And: ‘You’re Radu, son of Freji L-L-Lykan!’ he stutered.

‘Aye, Freji’s son, and Magda’s brother. That same brother who was outlawed - or who outlawed himself - when he avenged his father’s death and his sister’s rape and murder. Except he was stopped in the hour of his vengeance …
by you,
Giorga, I fancy! And was it Ion and Lexandru who also tried to drown me? And the Ferenczy brothers, likewise on your orders? Ah, I know it was! But as you see, I am not drowned, and not nearly dead! And it
is
about land, or soil, after al -
this
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soil, Zirescu soil, where you’ve rooted like a pig all your days, and where you’re now destined to die a swinish death.
This
earth, which the poisons of your loathsome gases shall turn putrid even as you’re lowered into it! And no one to mourn over you, Giorga, even if they would. No, for your sons wil be down there with you!’

Giorga lunged; his black ironwood knife was in his hand, upraised; Radu grinned as he caught the other’s fat wrist in his own taloned hand, and held it effortlessly. And his grin was the grin of a wolf as his leech poured metamorphic juices through his system, causing his teeth to scythe upwards from his raw red gums as his mouth yawned wider yet!

In the space of five heartbeats Radu Lykan had changed - changed before the Old Zirescu’s bulging, disbelieving eyes - into something radically different from … from anything he’d ever seen before! The man was gone, and a monster crouched in his place. And the
face
on that creature: the flame-eyed, salivating, grinning, panting visage of hell itself! That monstrous, gaping mouth …!

Giorga sucked at the suffocating air, and opened his own mouth - to cry out! But too late. Pain snatched the cry from the circle of his rubbery lips, turned it to a yelp, a gurgle, a great
whoosh!
of expeled air, as Radu twisted his arm until it snapped at the elbow, closed a hand over Giorga’s hand, and slid the knife home through unprotesting layers of fat and up under bulging ribs. Oh … it hurt, and it did great - even fatal - damage! But not immediately. Giorga’s fat protected him; the knife’s tip couldn’t reach his heart, not angling up from his bely like that; his left hand ceased its fluttering and reached for the knife, clasping its handle where it protruded from his gut. And he panted, ‘Oh! -
ah! -
oh!’ as he tried to draw it out, but couldn’t because of the pain.

Then, stil grinning, Radu towered over him, cocked his head on one side in the inquiring manner of a great dog, and looked him right in his cringing eyes, as if he were looking into his soul. And he said, ‘Farewel, Giorga!’ - then caught his beard and yanked it up, and without pause drove his fangs into and slicing
through
the old man’s windpipe!

Giorga flopped and vibrated in Radu’s grasp, until the werewolf released him and let him topple from his bed to the floor, where he got jammed in the narrow space. It was over, this part of it at least. And the Old Zirescu bled and tried to scream (but had neither the air nor the strength for it), and flopped about in his own blood, and bled some more; great steaming jets of crimson, pulsing from his gaping throat and punctured gut. Air whistling in and out of his severed windpipe, where bright red bubbles formed a livid froth, but al slowing down now as life quickly ebbed.

Until finally it really was over …

Outside the caravan in a mist of his own making, Radu paused for the merest moment to spit Giorga’s taste from his mouth. His taste and the last trace of his blood. For despite that Radu was hungry, and his leech
ever
hungry, Giorga Zirescu’s blood tasted vile to him. Yet the memory of what he had done would always remain sweet - and sweeter still when the rest of it was over and done with.

Radu had taken down Giorga’s crossbow. Now he loaded it and his own weapon both, hooked the one to his belt and took the other firmly in a paw-like hand. And as the woods and the earth continued to issue his wreathing mist, he headed direct for the communal fire’s dul orange glow in the centre of the encampment. For he had realized his strength at last; he knew his awesome power, and that he need not fear anything in man or nature - not yet at least.

And loping low through the mist, his senses were alive with al the sounds, scents, and sensations of the night. He was a
child
of the night! He heard the rustling in the undergrowth that tracked the hunting shrew; sensed the hooded eyes of an owl upon him; detected an almost inaudible shrilling of tiny bats, sounding clearer than ever before in his vampire-enhanced ears. And he smeled blood, of course - the blood of the Zirescus and the Ferenczys! For Giorga’s blood had not been enough. But that of his sons and their friends might yet quell the fire raging in Radu’s veins …

The moon was up again, a ful and briliant disc shining like silver in the sky! Its beam fel in a swath, undulating on Radu’s ground mist and lighting his way to the fire. Passing like a wraith between the innermost caravans and carts, he was almost there. Now he could see the ruddy faces of men in a huddle about the fire, and saw that they were frowning. Their conversation reached him; they talked about - the watchdogs, the camp’s wolves!

For the wolves were there, those tame dogs of creatures; their tails were down and their ears flat, and they whimpered around the feet of their human masters. Aye, and if they could talk they’d be telling of Radu’s presence, too! They probably were, in their way, but the men were too stupid to know it.

Except if the blood of men had a scent, so did the blood of the Wamphyri - Radu’s blood! And now the wolves around the fire smeled it. Moreover, they smeled the death which he had so recently wrought. There were three of them; they quit their slinking about the feet of the seated men and as one creature turned in Radu’s direction. Their ears pointed him out in the shadow of a caravan, and now that they stood in the company of men, they felt safe to issue a series of growls and yips.

‘Eh?’ someone said. ‘Is there something there?’ And indeed there was something there. Radu loped forward more surely into the fire’s glow, came to a halt and straightened up. Without pause he scanned the faces in the firelight - and saw that Ion and Lexandru were there! Also the Ferenczys, and three colleagues. As scurvy a handful as he could imagine, but he hated the first four above al other men.

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All jaws dropped, all eyes were on Radu, who now grinned in his fashion and growled, This is between me and the Zirescus - those two, Ion and Lexandru, rapists and murderers!’ He pointed with his crossbow. ‘And also the Ferenczys,’ he pointed again. ‘I’ve killed Giorga and now I’ll kill his sons and their friends. As for the rest of you: you don’t have to die if you don’t want to. Enough of talk; too much, even.’ No longer just pointing his weapon but
aiming
it, at Lexandru, Radu squeezed the trigger.

It started as quickly as that, without any warning other than that

furnished by the watchdogs. Lexandru had come to his feet as Radu |

spoke, and as the bolt flew to its target he held up his hands in denial. j

The bolt passed between them and struck him in the left breast, burying i

itself to the ironwood flights. ‘Oh?’ he said in a loud voice, as if he

queried the thing. ‘And is it - what, Radu? Not dead? Well, there’s a i

th-thing!’ Then he coughed blood, crumpled to his knees and fell on his
\

face.

i

But one of the men at the fire had sufficient wits about him to shout, j
‘Attack!’
to the wolves. And as Radu hooked the empty crossbow to his belt and levelled the other, the wolves at once sprang towards him. The leader fastened to his weapon forearm; snarling fangs bit deep; Radu grasped the wolfs mane with his free hand, whirled in a circle, and i released the disorientated animal into the sprawling fire! Twin strips of ! his flesh and skin went with it, torn from his forearm by its eye-teeth, j but Radu scarcely felt it. For he was in action, doing what he’d dreamed of doing for so long. Except for now Ion and the Ferenczys must wait, for the other wolves were here.

One of them was in mid-air, coming head-on, forepaws outstretched and muzzle slavering. Radu couldn’t miss; he shot his bolt and ducked, and the skewered wolf yelped, passed overhead, bounced once and struggled to its forelegs, then collapsed and lay still. The third skidded to a halt as Radu fixed it with a feral-eyed glare and said growlingly, ‘Oh?

And would you die, too? Come on, then, let’s get done with it. For there’s room in the fire yet.’ But the grey one had seen more than enough of Radu and backed off whimpering.

Radu sensed trouble, retaliation; he’d spent too long on these tame wolves! Quick as thought he fell to all fours, felt a crossbow bolt fly inches overhead even as he dropped, glanced across the fire at the knot of men.

The Ferenczys had already bolted. Ion Zirescu was making off between the caravans, heading for the forest. The man who had shot at Radu was now readying his weapon for a second try. The others stumbled this way and that; startled out of their wits, they scarcely comprehended what was happening.

Radu loped to the fire, stooped to snatch up a burning brand. And as the man with the crossbow nocked his bolt, Radu let fly with the firebrand, which hit him full in the face. His beard went up in fire and smoke; in another moment his head was a ball of fire! Dropping his weapon, he danced; yelped and beat at himself, and went rolling into a patch of undergrowth close by. By which time the others were all fled. But Radu had seen Ion go, and knew which direction he’d taken.

The moon came up over the trees at the edge of the clearing, and seeing it Radu went to all fours, threw back his head and howled. It seemed the most natural thing in the world, despite that the sound it made was surely one of the most terrible. For although it was the cry of a beast, the howling issued from the throat of a man! And all of his pent-up passions went into it. It told of all the pain and frustration of a tortured youth remembered and stored, and now released in a torrent of monstrous pleasure as it burst like a flood over the last of those who had caused it. It cried all his years of torment relieved, or in the process of being relieved, at least.

For Ion Zirescu and the Ferenczys brothers still lived, and the fact of their living was itself a great torment. But their deaths would be a pleasure incomparable: like a sigh in the soul of Radu Lykan - a sigh of relief! -
if
he still had a soul.

Ah, and the werewolf knew what he wanted from Ion! For he’d dreamed a dream from time to time, which he now believed was more memory than dream:

Of lying face-down in the trampled earth of a clearing, and hearing voices as if from a long way away, yet coming to him clearly
through a darkness shot with brilliant flashes of light but otherwise devoid of sensation except for a terrible pain at the back of his
head, and a great anger seething deep in his core, and a yearning even as great as his current yearning: to tear the living, smoking
hearts out of the ones who spoke these words:

‘…
Radu’s sister - dead, and by your hands! Six of you, onto one girl! This pair of mangy corpses here, Arlek Bargosi and Kherl Fumari, and the Ferenczy brothers, Rakhi and Lagula … and you two, of course!’
(Unmistakably Giorga’s voice. And the answer):

‘Not all our fault. It was you who sent us after Freji, to do him in. Well, and there was that in Radu’s eyes as told us he knew!

He must have found his father out in the woods. As for the girl: that … was an
accident,
for she wouldn’t hold still.’

That one had been Ion. And Magda’s death had been an ‘accident,’ because she had tried to fight them off where they’d rutted
over her like beasts!