Necroscope 9: The Lost Years (54 page)

The place was a great cavern in the mountains of western Moldavia, not far from a scrabbled-together ‘town’ or village, more properly a makeshift encampment of refugees, caled Krawlau by its one hundred and fifteen polyglot inhabitants.

As to why he chose this place: Radu’s reasons were several. For one, the heights were inhospitable and almost inaccessible. To gradually establish oneself there would be one thing, but for any would-be invader to launch an attack, or even want to? … That seemed unlikely. Two: being simply a holow crag, the redoubt would not
invite
attack in the manner of an ‘aerie’ or castle; and at its rear, its lowest crevice exits opened on the shore of a broad, bitterly cold lake.

In the event that he
was
attacked, Radu could easily slip away by boat to the far shore. For while it was a time of relative quiet, there would continue to be sporadic invasions from the east (Radu’s dreams were full of them) …

Three: while a true aerie would be his first choice for a permanent dweling place, its construction would prove prohibitively expensive. The cavern on the other hand required no actual or external building as such but only some interior works, and what monies Radu had amassed were better put aside against the vagaries of an uncertain future - his precognition was by no means infallible. Four: an entire work-force, with which to make the crag habitable, was immediately to hand in the shape of the folk of Krawlau. These former farmers -driven into the mountains by war and the collapse of the Eastern Empire’s borders in the face of invading Asiatics - had no work. Like

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Radu, they were simply wintering out the bad times. In order to survive they’d become scavengers, hunting the land and fishing the lake for food. Which was why, when first Radu found them, they saw him as a godsend. •

At first, aye …

And when he was established … then they saw him almost as a god! Oh, it was in his bearing when he walked among them: his penetrating gaze and lordly mode of speech, his attire and generosity. Obviously, with his dark, wolfish good looks - standing tall and lean as a tree, and equally strong - this was no ignorant, guttural farmer born in the fields but a gentleman landowner, a
boyar
removed from his own place by those same savage forces that had removed them. And he had gold, and the wit to fashion himself a fortress from a raw crag! His money was of little value now - not in these naked mountains where there was nothing to buy - but it would be when the land was quiet again. As for Radu’s cavern: when all of the work was finished and if the winters were hard, then it would provide refuge for all of them. This was his promise.

Oh, Radu knew he shouldn’t bring himself into prominence, but up here in the heights that was in any case a near-impossibility.

Who was there to see him or his, or know what they were about? No one but these low persons in their sod-roofed, timber huts. Radu hired them by the dozen, and chose men to watch over them while they turned the great cavern into a lair. When a man joined him, Radu would state his wages and promise him a bonus if he should later decide to go his own way, perhaps back down to his ruined fields to start again.

In that first winter, when the snow lay deep, a good many of them did just that: approached Radu and told him they’d left families in Moldavia, and would now return to see if they survived … and if so provide for them out of the monies Radu had paid them, and the bonus he stil owed them. For his part, he would always require one last day’s work of them before paying them their due, wishing them wel and seeing them on their way in the dusk of evening. But in the dark of night he would send members of his pack loping after them, to make certain no word of him and his works - and none of his money - found its way down out of the mountains.

And because new refugees were arriving day after day, and others trying to leave, there was a steady turnover of workers and no lack of… provisions. (Likewise, there was no gradual trickling away of Radu’s funds).

The keep took shape. He would go among the workers directing them, so that every stone was laid in accordance with his design (even as it had been in Wolfsden in Starside in another world). Massive timber lintels for the several ‘doors’ that he left open, and piled boulders in

other holes that Radu desired closed; archways with keystones to bolster the dripstone ceilings where they were eaten with rot, and stone staircases leading to ledges, lesser caves or high ‘window’ observation ports in the rough outer walls; the levelling of various floors, and laying of an uneven but serviceable paving of slate slabs. And so to the fireplaces and ovens, and the flues to channel smoke to the rear of the crag, there to drift with the mists rising off the lake.

And while all such works were in progress to make the cavern liveable if not ‘comfortable,’ Lord Radu was not remiss in seeing to its defences:

Outside, between the natural spurs of the crag, he built awesome death-trap gantlets for would-be invaders; on high, he piled rocks behind logs stopped with chocks that were easily knocked away in the event of an invasion. And at last Radu saw that his lair was safe. But in any case these were no puny castle’s wals to fal to the first assault of an enemy’s battering rams - they were the wals of the mountain itself! And as each external work was completed, so Radu would disguise it as living rock, in imitation of its surrounding formations.

But inside:

In strategic places Radu buttressed certain works of stone with good timber; which would seem odd to some, for obviously the wood could not outlast the stone. But Radu reasoned that when the time came for him to leave his mountain fastness, then by lighting a handful of fires behind him he could easily topple it, or at least reduce it to the original shell. Wamphyri and savagely territorial, he could not bear the thought of another dweling in a place that his hands had wrought! But by the same token he also knew that if ever he desired to return, then that he had the knowledge and skill to put the place back to rights.

Radu’s ‘pups’ worked side by side with the men of Krawlau, showing never a sign of their lupine natures except perhaps in their silence and the feral intelligence of their eyes. The ex-farmers saw nothing peculiar in it; they’d seen wave after wave of slant-eyes (and of yellow-eyes,
and
-skins, too) long before Radu came on the scene. He and his retainers were from foreign parts, that was al. Plainly this rangy
boyar
in his fur boots and jacket, with his long, grey-to-white hair faling on his colar, and golden crescent moons in his fleshy ears, was some rich expatriate. Certainly he was ‘Lord’ Radu to his men!

And he was fair to a fault. When his hunters went out and kiled a pig in the night (though where they were able to find such game up here in the mountains was a mystery) then there’d be meat off the bone for the common workers too, be sure! And Lord Radu laughing and joking with them as they sucked at the sweet, smoking flesh.

Radu ‘recruited’ the strongest of them - but by the light of a full moon, and not as workers! For while earlier he’d determined to

‘make

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no more werewolves,’ still he was on the lookout for men of quality. The ones he chose from these ex-farmers were hard as men come; they’d make superb lieutenants when next he went out into the world …

So the dog-Lord proceeded.

A long, hard winter came and went, and several more like it, before finally ‘Wolfscrag’ was finished to Radu’s satisfaction. But only Radu himself, and those who were his, knew what he’d named it.

By then the men of Krawlau were much reduced in numbers; they worried about the fact that of all their fellows who had left Radu’s employ, not a one had been known to return to it. They went down from the mountains to the steppes -aye, allegedly - but they never came back! Not a one? And this so-called ‘Lord’ in his lair of a cavern: why, his looks were more wolfish than ever! And his men …
their
looks, too. The way they loped like upright dogs!

As for the three or four ex-Krawlau men who had actually joined Radu and dwelled with him now in his great cavern: why, they were visibly changed! As quickly as that, they had become indistinguishable from the rest of his retainers. Loping, long-haired and wild … their eyes were feral in the night… and when they grinned their upper lips wrinkled back, curling like the muzzles of snarling wolves!

Thus legends that were already one hundred years old - which had been almost but not quite forgotten - were re-born and lived anew.

Radu heard their whispers where the men of Krawlau crept about like so many mice, putting the final touches to his den. Well, let them whisper; he had other problems. The sixth winter was on its way, provisions were low, and the dog-Lord had no more use for clods such as these …

… No, not so: there was
one
more use for them, yes!

As to why they’d so suddenly become aware or at least suspicious of their danger: Radu had relaxed certain strictures on himself and his pups both, until they went about more nearly as ‘nature’ intended. Now it was plain to see that nature had
not
intended, that these were by no means natural men. Yet in some respects they were all too natural.

For years now they had gone without good wine and woman-flesh, and all the other small comforts that men - even men of war - might easily grow accustomed to when they are not about their business. Radu was scarcely ignorant of his men’s needs, for he felt them, too. But now that he was set up …

Earlier in the year, aware that the Huns had had the run of the Moldavian steppe for decades and wondering if their supremacy was holding, Radu had dispatched scouts east to discover the state of things. He had also sent men west through the high passes and all along the twin spurs of the horseshoe range, and a spy into a handful of villages where they clung to the flanks of the mountains not too far removed from Wolfscrag. These latter places were small, isolated, self-supporting townships. But if Radu’s long-term plan was of merit, in time they might also support him. Now he waited for his scouts to return and report to him …

When the first snows came, Radu went down into Krawlau personally, to invite the last half-dozen of his former workers into the great cave for the winter. They thanked him, however cautiously, and told him they would take advantage of his offer … perhaps tomorrow? Radu sat by their fire a while - long enough that they noted the red cores of his eyes, and his talon hands which he made no effort to hide - and when all grew silent he left.

But within the hour, panting as they dragged their scant belongings behind them on makeshift sledges, the ragged survivors of Krawlau were off down the mountain trails. Except they were survivors no longer. They got to the first pass … where they found Radu and the pack waiting for them.

Which saw to the provisioning … for the next week or so, at least.

One by one as winter laid its white cloak on the land, Radu’s scouts returned. Utterly in thrall to their dog-Lord, they had given him away neither by word nor deed. But they brought home to him various items of information and al manner of rumours.

Information:

There were trappers, at least four teams of them, working along the river where it wound to lasi in the east. These were good clean, hardy folk; they’d make for good recruiting … or eating, whichever. They’d made their winter camps, and because the Moldavian steppe was still volatile they had brought their families - and more especially their women -with them!

There was a man with his two sons - aye, and a fine fat daughter, too. Another couple had
two
grown girls, who helped out with the skinning, curing and what all. Oh, and there were others, eating good red meat and taking pelts for the trading. Radu’s informant had seen these people from the tree-line over the river. He had noted their locations, discovered their rude lodges in the rocks, but done nothing to alert them to his presence. They were only a few miles away, seven at a guess. Why, he could lead a party back there this very night…

Radu himself led the raiding party, and at last there was woman-flesh in the dog-Lord’s cavern manse. Naturally, he took ‘first fruits’ of the women; he had all of them that were worth having, kept the one he considered best for himself -the only one who’d tried to have his eyes out… at first, anyway - and gave the rest to his men. They’d fight over them, he knew that, but it was only to be expected. Indeed, Radu

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watched the rough-and-tumbling with great interest, in order to discover the most worthy fighters. These were his lieutenants, after all…

Another scout came in, bringing more information:

He had gone into the mountain hamlets in the guise of a beggar (but in fact as a spy) and seen how they were ripe for conquest and destruction. Why, the people were so soft he had no doubt they could even be herded, like so many cattle! Isolationists, pacifists, they had cut themselves off completely from the outside world, from all the surrounding war-torn regions of Dacia and the great battlefields under the mountains.

Radu couldn’t really say he blamed them, and in any case it wasn’t conquest that was on his mind; or perhaps … a very subtle conquest? No, these people didn’t need a conqueror but a saviour! He would not kill them, not yet, but instead offer them his services as a mercenary warrior, their
Voevod
against who or whatever might brave these mountains and attack them. A grand scheme, and a safe one at that; for indeed it seemed that the dog-Lord had been right and the mountains were impregnable. What? But only thirty years earlier Attila himself had had his headquarters at the foot of these very mountains - but even he had skirted them to continue his assault on the west!

And since Radu first commenced building Wolf scrag here? Six years sped by, and not a single invader had ventured into these heights. Or perhaps … could it be that the threat from the east was finally over? Uneasy precognitive dreams told him ‘no, not yet!’ But Radu’s dreams weren’t always right. Or they were, but rarely worked out the way he thought they would. The future seemed a very devious thing. And just how long
was
the future, anyway … ?