Necroscope 9: The Lost Years (53 page)

Necroscope: The Lost Years - Vol. I

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274

Brian Lumley

And finaly he did scream, except it was a
howl
that went vibrating up to the sinking moon. And a ful moon, at that…

There were Vandals in the heights around the cavern and in the defile that led to it. They had thought that Radu would not be back until ful daylight, which would be to their advantage for he was a night fighter. Yet here he was, albeit weary from his abortive journey to the coast and back. By comparison Radu’s hundred was a handful, while Gaeseric’s ambush party, a formidable assault unit, outnumbered them four to one.

But despite that the two sides were unequal, and that the Vandals held the high ground, still their advantage was not so great as might be reckoned. Not against furious, vengeful men, and men who were werewolves at that! So the batle was joined, as bloody as might be imagined.

It was the twilight before the dawn, when the eyes of men may not be trusted. But the eyes of wolves are feral; they see in the twilight just as wel as in the night.

Also, a mist was rising … a vampire mist, conjured out of Radu’s pores and up from the bone-dry earth! But al in vain; the pack was beaten from the start, almost before it began. For they must strike up at the ambushers, while the Vandals need only strike down. And Radu’s wolflings fought in ragged clothes, with staves, knives, axes, and their bare hands and fierce teeth; while the Vandals had leather armour, lances, bows and primitive crossbows. (And that last was an irony in itself, for it had been the Wamphyri who brought the first crossbows with them out of Sunside/Starside. In their world the crossbow had been a Traveler weapon, which the vampire Lords had neither the skill nor the patience to duplicate or manufacture for themselves in this one. As for the few entirely human Szgany thrals they had brought through with them: they had become scatered among the peoples of this new world. Aye, and al their skills with them. Hence that the Vandals had crossbows).

Yet still Radu’s pups slew three to one, except there was always a fourth to come. And pierced by lances, feathered with red-streaming shafts, one by one they went down. And al their tribute stolen, their women raped and butchered, finaly their very lives forfeit to the treachery of the Vandals …

The sun rose on a hillside that seemed to smoke from al the blood and urine, al the sweat and guts and foulness that had been spiled there; four hundred and ten bodies reeking under the hot sun. But Radu and two of his lieutenants had survived; seeing how al was lost, they’d crept away through Radu’s mist to find refuge in a deep dark crevice till nightfal.

And coiled like a snake in the cool dank of their hiding place, and wiling his leech to heal his several wounds, Radu had vowed a Wamphyri vow where he sheltered - not only against Gaeseric and the

Vandals but against mankind in general. For so far Radu had been the most ‘lenient’ of al the Lords, the most ‘human’ of an inhuman lot. But that was over now.

What, treacherous, the Wamphyri?
Hah!
For now it seemed to Radu that those old Starside Lords had been the veriest beginners in the ways of the traitor! And as for cruelty …

The lust of the vampire was that of a man, increased tenfold by his parasite. When he raped it was because he
must!
His passions, rages, delights, al of his emotions were larger than life or even undeath. He could no more turn away from a shapely woman than a drunkard refuse a jack of wine, or the furnace sun hold still in the sky. He could no more resist blood than a fly avoid fresh dung, or the tides resist the pul of the moon. For the blood was the life! But the men of
this
world - Romans and barbarians alike - they fucked simply because it was there; not because they were driven to it, but because it was right of the conqueror! To the victor the spoils!

And while the vampire as often as not created life - or undeath - the men of
this
world invariably destroyed it. Radu had seen how it was when Gaeseric and his Vandals stormed Rome; he had
seen
how inhuman were these humans. And as for the ‘civilized’ Romans: why, in the Eastern Empire they would crucify a man for stealing a loaf of bread!

Wel, Radu was halfway between the two, or so he’d liked to fancy. As much wolf as man, yes, but
more
wolf than vampire. That was how he’d seen himself: greater than a mere man by virtue of his strength and awesome vampire powers, yet superior to the Wamphyri by virtue of the last lingering traces of his humanity!

A paradox but a fact. Oh, realy? And again,
hah!
Wel, so much for humanity! And this was the final change, the
true
change, the last straw that turned a man to a pitiless monster.

But naive? Aye, he’d been that. In Sunside, naive. Looking back, he knew that he’d always had the measure of the Ferenczys and Zirescus. But he’d been a mere youth and inexperienced. And in his Starside aerie, naive: to believe he stood the slightest chance against Shaitan the Unborn, yet still he’d gone against him.

Finaly in this world, oh so naive. The golden ingots he’d thrown in a river believing them worthless - while in fact men would kill for them! The way he’d made werewolves to run with him, when he should have stayed a loner. Last but not least, to have sold himself to a warlord, and think he’d actualy be
paid
for his services and accepted as an equal!

What, an equal? Radu Lykan? But he had the measure of al these so-caled ‘warriors.’ Their only advantage was that they were men, and could live here as men.

Ah, but in the long term time was on Radu’s side. He could outlive them al … if only they would let him!

And so, with al such notions as ‘honour,’ ‘trust’, and ‘faith’ put aside forever, a new strategy was needed. From now on Radu would
honour
neither man nor creature, but only his own vows. He would
trust
no

Necroscope: The Lost Years - Vol. I

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one, not even his pups, but continualy assert his wil and ensure that his word was law. He would have
faith
only in himself, and in the blood which is the life.

And above al, he would be the most secretive and watchful of men, so that no one could know him, or come upon him unsuspected.

So, perhaps old ‘Onarius Ferengus’ had got it right and Radu should find himself a position, elevate himself, and prepare bolthole dens and lairs along the way, with caretakers to keep them in his absence. Then, like Nonari the Gross Ferenczy, he would be able to venture forth in the world as before, indulging himself as
never
before, but always knowing there would be a refuge jn needful times, or when the number of his years was such that he should ‘retire’ a while.

Or perhaps he misjudged Nonari and that one had not gone into hiding since his ‘murder’ as a Roman senator but was out and about, reveling in al the great reel and roil of things. If so, no doubt he’d come to Radu’s atention again, when the time was ripe for him to rise up in other parts. And who could say, perhaps then the time would also be ripe for ‘Onarius’ to vanish forever? Likewise his egg-son, this Belos Pheropzis.

These were some of Radu’s thoughts, and some of the plans he made, while hiding the day away in a hole in the ground …

Came the night. One of Radu’s pups had died of too many cuts in his side, which had leaked al his blood away. He had gone uncomplainingly, simply stiffening where he crouched. The crevice would make as good a grave as any; Radu and the other survivor of Gaeseric’s treachery had dropped stones on him from on high, to block the crevice and keep away any lesser wolves and wild dogs from the body of their ex-coleague.

Then away into the night under a moon that was still ful, heading north for the Appenino heights that stretched the ful length of Italia. For in a land overrun by Vandals, that would be the safest route out.

Werewolves run swift. The next night, up in the mountains, the pair met up with other survivors, men of the pack that Radu had sent north to spy on the aleged legion massing there. They had their own story to tell: of a vile ambush not twenty miles along the river north of Rome, which had left forty-two of them dead.

Only eight had been lucky; they’d somehow managed to swim to safety across the river, and left Gaeseric’s lot bogged down in their armour with al their weaponry. After that, like Radu, the eight had made for the heights, for they’d known that they were dupes.

So ten of them now, ten of a hundred and fifty. Wel, and that must suffice, for Radu would make no more werewolves for a while …

He started … a nervous twitch of his limbs that spent itself uselessly in his resin matrix. Not enough to wake him entirely, but enough to make certain subconscious connections, so that he dreamily wondered:

What…?

But is there someone here, someone coming?
What was it he thought he had heard, footsteps? But
footsteps,
in this riddled rock, which barring the furtive creep of spiders and fluter of bats had been so long silent? Perhaps a stone had roted out of the high ceiling, and the thunder of its fal had caused him to dream of a past age when he had piled boulders on the body of a dead coleague … and secondary shocks had caused him to start? Yes, that must be it.

Yesss. That must… be … it…

After Rome Radu had taken his much reduced party north to the Danube, then east through the forests and mountains, and eventualy down into the Dacian territories that they knew so wel. This was Lombard, Ostrogoth and Hun territory now, but south of the river the people were mainly Christian. Radu himself had no religion except blood; the superstitions and beliefs of local Dacians made little or no difference to him, except Christian-held land made safer journeying than land under the control of the barbarians.

In any case it wasn’t his intention to stay south of the river; finaly he headed north again for the mountains of what would much later become Walachia. For he believed that in taking the high ground he would be secure a while from the bloody tides of war washing al around on the fertile plains below.

In this he was correct. The mountains were mainly barren and inhospitable. Unatractive to invaders, they contained little or nothing of value; Radu knew he could safely recruit the hardy locals for the building of a castle, an aerie of his own in a place as high and inaccessible as he could find.

That would require funds, of course, but he had learned a valuable lesson: that while wine and women can do a man a power of good, gold can do him even more.

And on his way from Rome to Dacia he had not been remiss in accumulating monies. There had been Romans fleeing the barbarian slaughter of their land; Radu had slaughtered them, for their wealth. There’d been parties of Vandals scathing in the land around; he’d done some scathing of his own, taking back what they had stolen. Finaly, on the Danube, there had been a last handful of Roman merchants and traders. Radu had traded death for their blood and their gold.

And journeying through the nights and paying his way during the days in Christian camps and villages, he’d listened to rumours and learned a new word which the local folk associated with the devil and every evil thing. But this word was in fact a name, one that had filtered through the high passes and from far across the mountains. It was the name of a family - or of a curse now - and one that was by no means new to Radu:

The Drakuls!

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Upon a time Karl and Egon had been Radu’s alies against Shaitan the Unborn; now they were his greatest threat, in that they continued to scourge among the horseshoe of the high Dacian mountains, so bringing themselves into unnecessary prominence. Unlike Radu - who had developed a certain tolerance for weak sunlight, until he could abide to venture out in a hooded cloak - the Drakuls were true children of the night; sunlight would kill them instantly. But they’d developed their metamorphism to such a degree that like Shaitan the Unborn they could shape themselves into bats to fly out in the night and so take their prey.

And they’d been doing it ever since. Moreover, in Starside they had been reared by wolves. They
knew
wolves, and in this world kept grey brothers as familiar creatures. Wolves of the wild kept watch for them, by means of which the Drakuls were secure in their aerie and feared no man.

For the moment it worked for them, hence the rumours now finding their way to Radu. For the barbarian invaders who were settling the plains north of the mountains were no less superstitious than the locals they usurped. And when their wives or children died mysteriously or vanished in the night, then they knew who to blame: the winged devil in his mountain retreat - the ‘obour’ or ‘viesky,’ the vampire - the Drakul! The brothers had long since built a castle or castles in no-man’s-land, at least one of which aeries stood on a rocky promontory over a chasm.

This much Radu learned, and no more. Sufficient to determine him to avoid the error of bringing himself into prominence. And he kept reminding himself: anonymity and obscurity are synonymous with longevity. The Drakuls were true legends now; when al the fighting was over and done with and Dacia was united as a single tribe or country, then the people would remember these monsters and go looking for them. But even if the locals should forget, be sure that Radu Lykan would not. Territorial the Wamphyri, aye, and this place was where Radu had come forth.

And anyway, there’d never been much love lost between him and Karl and Egon in the first place.

Ever vengeful - and smiling grimly, if only to himself - Radu dreamed

I

MORE OF RADU’S STORY. BONNIE JEAN: SHE VISITS HER MASTER

In those days if you would live, the high mountains were most probably the safest place to do it. And for the time being the werewolf Radu Lykan had had his fil of war. In the last quarter of the year 467 AD, he and his small pack wintered down in what was to be their lair for the next sixty years.