The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  The man died in an instant, the razor-sharp edge slicing through his skull. It punctured both his eyeballs before exiting on the other side. His body swayed for a moment, and then collapsed. The top of his skull fell against the ground beside him.

  It all happened in seconds. The mounts nearest Dracula shied away from the spray of blood. They collided with other horses and caused several riders to fall.

  Dracula worried more about the ambush he sensed he was riding into. The man he had just killed was an assassin. Of that, he had no doubt. And where there was one, there were sure to be others. It angered him that such a man could infiltrate his camp. He should have seen it coming, and prepared for it. The fact that he had not, upset him even more.

  He touched his hand against his wound. Looking down, he saw the blood that coated the fingers of his glove. He turned his mount around to go back. “Move away from the pass!” he shouted. “We must return to the open ground!”

  A hundred horses bunched up together. Those that did not have riders jostled about as the others pushed them back. The men on the ground scrambled around on hands and knees to avoid having their skulls crushed by stamping hooves. Some of those at the back of the group were unaware of the situation at hand. They blocked the path of their comrades who now turned their mounts around.

  “Go back!” they heard the order repeated.

  “What is wrong?” one of them asked.

  “There is an ambush!” another shouted. “The voivode is hurt!”

  Dracula saw at once the situation was hopeless. His men blocked any chance of riding back down the open slope. Those around him struggled to control their panicked mounts. It left him with only one option. He would have to ride on through the pass at speed. If he remained here, then he knew he would surely die.

  Why did I not send scouts on ahead? When have I ever been so remiss before? This is the price one pays for acting without due care. Ignoring the numbing pain in his side, he leant as far forward in the saddle as he could. He dug his heels hard into the stallion to urge it into action.

  A hail of arrows whistled by, barely missing his head. Many of them found targets close behind, and the ensuing mayhem saw him separated from his men. A number of them found a way through the carnage of dead comrades and horseflesh. Still, there was already too great a distance between them and their leader.

  Dracula spurred his mount on, his heart racing as it sprinted through the pass. This rush of adrenaline was what he had lived for since his release from Buda, and it brought back instant memories of days long ago. He reached the crest at the end of it and came out on the wider downward slope that looked down on the lake in the distance.

  Three men jumped at him from a rocky height to his left. They made contact and pulled him from his mount. He crashed down hard to the firm ground, the fall opening his wound still further. Blood now trickled in a steady flow down his left thigh. Despite the pain, he was on his feet in an instant. He swiftly took off the head of the man nearest to him with a horizontal sweep of his sword.

  Dracula still possessed the blinding speed and agility that set him apart from other men. He ran his sword through the second man, and hacked an arm off the other. The third man dropped down to his knees, and then fell onto his back. Blood gushed from his severed limb as he lay there screaming, clutching it with his remaining hand.

  He took a moment to survey the scene. The ambush comprised an infantry unit of some fifty men; fifty to his one. Behind them, he saw as many as a dozen archers.

  Time seemed to freeze for a moment. His enemies eyed him with a mixture of fear and awe. Here before them stood the man they heard spoken of in legends. The same man who had impaled an army of twenty-two thousand Turks many years before, all in a single day.

  The moment was soon shattered. Dozens of Dracula’s bodyguard burst through the top of the pass. His very own Maglak warriors led the way. The Moldavian soldiers that Stephen had left there in his stead, followed close behind.

  Chaos erupted all around him. The deafening sound of steel on steel, mingled with the cries of both horse and man, stung his ears.

  Dracula’s men fought savagely to protect him. They killed the enemy soldiers without mercy, or delay. But few could avoid the arrows that found targets in many of them. The Turks dragged others from their mounts to meet with a brutal end. Still, they fought on and managed to form a strong circle around their leader. Any time the cordon was broken, Dracula fought his attacker and prevailed, but with each effort, his strength slowly began to ebb away.

  A quartet of foot soldiers forced their way through, finding a gap created for them by their archers. Dracula felt his heartbeat quicken. He had rarely ever known fear before, but as these men faced him, it made his pulse race. They circled him slowly, ready to finish their task.

  His nerves affected him for only a moment, and he squared up to the four men. With his sword at the ready, a grin extended across his face. “You think you can defeat me?” he taunted them, in their native tongue. “I am Vlad Dracula. No man alive can better me in combat.”

  Even four to his one, they feared him. They each wondered what it would take to kill this man. Their eyes fell on his famed sword. He clasped the hilt of the mighty Fier Negru in both hands, its blade stained red with the blood of those he had already killed.

  “Take a good look at it,” he goaded them. “You shall feel its bite soon enough.”

  The men hesitated a moment. None of them had the courage to make the first move. They all knew of his speed of hand and foot. The soldiers they served with spoke of it often, as some had ridden with him in the old days. Although they were enemies now, the respect they felt for him had never gone away.

  A sharp pain tugged at his side. The men looked down at it when he winced and touched his wound. They all saw the blood oozing from the padding below his armour. It gave them hope, and like a hungry pack of wolves, they circled him again, ready for the kill.

  Dracula did not wait for any of them to make the first strike. He called on the lightning speed that had not yet deserted him. Lunging forward, he raised the Fier Negru behind his head. He brought it down in an arc against the neck of the nearest of the four.

  The Turk screamed out loud as the blade sliced through his collarbone and split his sternum down the middle. It sheared muscle and bone and the arteries around his heart. They exploded in a gush of crimson.

  The blood poured out all over the man’s padded shirt. He was dead even before Dracula had removed his sword. In the same movement, Dracula spun around one hundred and eighty degrees. Lowering to a crouched position, he ran the tip of the blade across the belly of a second.

  He dazzled them with his speed. Dracula was on his feet again before either man had hit the ground. The first man fell flat on his face, dragged by the movement of the sword. The second dropped to his knees and clutched at his stomach. His eyes bulged and watered, both in disbelief and from the pain. Gasping, he tried to hold the contents of his stomach in. He tumbled forward and fell against his shoulder. When he did, his intestines spilled out in a heap in front of him. With them, the foulest stench filled the air.

  Dracula grinned at the other two, his sword at the ready to mete out more of the same. The adrenaline that coursed through his veins enabled him to almost forget the pain in his stomach. They branched off to either side, well aware of the risk of standing in front of him. He stood with his sword poised, waiting. As soon as they made their move, he would cut them down.

  He knew they shared the same thought. “Do you still possess the courage?” he asked them. “Are either of you man enough for me?”

  Just then, an arrow plunged into his left thigh. He gasped in shock and pain. The force from the missile knocked him off his feet and dropped him onto his right knee.

  Seeing this prompted the Turks into action, and they closed in on him from both sides. On his right, one of them swung their sword. Aiming for Dracula’s neck, the soldier threw all his weight behind the blow.

&nb
sp; Dracula ducked to avoid its arc and felt the rush of air as it whistled past his ear. At the same time, he drove his own blade into the man’s crotch.

  The Fier Negru tore through the soldier’s genitalia and ruptured his bladder. With the sudden shock, he lost the grip on his own weapon. It flew through the air and struck a Maglak warrior full in the stomach.

  Dracula withdrew the famed Toledo blade. His victim cried out and fell onto his back. He ignored it and, instinctively, turned on his knee to block the downward thrust from the fourth man.

  A hot rush of liquid hit him full in the face and blinded him. He fell backwards and tried to wipe his eyes. Unable to see, he feared his life might end at any moment. Very soon, he realised it was the blood of the fourth man that had caused his sudden loss of vision. The man’s head dropped in his lap as Ivan Olescu towered over him. His good friend had severed it with one clean swoop of his sword.

  Dracula managed to wipe the blood from his eyes. They stung, but at least he had his vision restored, and he was alive. Not for the first time in his life, his friend had come to his rescue.

  He looked up at Olescu, and they exchanged a brief smile, the image of his friend transfixing him for a moment. The two men could have passed as twins. Even friends had confused them for each other in the past. It often left Dracula wondering if Olescu might indeed be his brother. Only subtle differences allowed people they knew to tell them apart, and his father had sired others outside of marriage. So it was plausible that this might be the case.

  Olescu stood a few inches taller. His moustache was shorter and not quite as thick. Later that same day, another would make this very mistake. An undercover agent would cut off the head of Olescu believing it to be the prized scalp of Dracula.

  Now, as Olescu looked down on his lord, he did not see the arrow with his name on it. It smashed through his spine and upper body armour. Blood spilled from his mouth. When his knees sagged, Dracula saw the arrowhead protruding from his chest.

  He cried out in grief, and watched Olescu drop down dead right before him. Incensed at this, he struggled to his feet. The third man he had fought groaned quietly nearby. He limped the few yards between them and drove his sword through the man’s heart.

  Dracula then used his sword as a support to take the weight off his injured leg. The arrow still remained embedded in his thigh, and every time he moved it, it caused him much distress. He shifted his weight to his other leg and, with his sword at the ready, he surveyed the scene around him.

  His men had warded off the attack. Reinforcements arrived in the thick of the battle to join in the fight. They routed what was left of the enemy. The injured and the dying they killed without mercy where they lay.

  Bodies lay strewn all around; Turkish and Wallachian warriors caught in the intimate indiscriminate embrace of death. He looked down on the corpses of many of his own men. They had given their lives bravely to protect him. These were the noblest of warriors, and he felt the loss of every one of them.

  He threw the Fier Negru down in despair, weak from his blood loss. Looking down at the arrow in his thigh, he grabbed it with both hands. He gritted his teeth and snapped it in two. Then, taking a deep breath, he pushed the arrowhead through.

  The pain was excruciating and caused him to nearly pass out. He screamed as the arrowhead ripped at muscles and tendons. Once he had it out, he discarded it on the ground beside his sword. He tore away the hosiery on Olescu’s left leg and made strips from it, which he tied around his bleeding thigh. By this time, he was gasping for air.

  Where is my horse? He squinted in the fading daylight to locate his trusted mount. The animal had bolted at the beginning of the attack without its rider to direct it. Once the fighting had ceased, it returned again to the slope and stood now about thirty yards away. He sighed with relief when he saw it there, grazing on what little green grass it could find.

  He put his fingers to his lips and whistled. The animal pricked its ears at the summons and reared its head back before trotting over. Dracula then leant down and retrieved the Fier Negru. He groaned again before returning it to its scabbard.

  His horse nudged him with its nose and snorted a greeting when he rubbed its neck. With great angst, he placed his left foot in the stirrup and hoisted himself up. For the second time, he cried out in agony, a black wave passing before his eyes. He sucked in several deep breaths, finding it a struggle to clear his head.

  The fighting in the day’s main battle had ended. The hundreds pouring through the pass told him this. His entire army now mustered to his flag and saw an end to the ambush. One of his officers rode to his side. The elderly Dancu had been with him in the old days, and with his father before that.

  Dancu saw the large amount of blood on the voivode’s left leg and the nasty wound there. “Send for the physician!” he shouted at the men nearest to him.

  The exhausted medic soon arrived. He rode up alongside Dracula and climbed down from his horse. Fresh and dried blood caked his bare arms. It covered his face, his hair, and a tattered shirt that he had torn many strips from. He pulled a fresh towel from his bag and cleaned his hands as best he could. To taint his voivode with another man’s blood would not be to his favour.

  Dracula dismissed the request to climb down to make it easier to treat him. He did not possess the strength or the desire to do so. For that reason, the physician had to stand beside his horse to examine him. He saw at first glance the wound was a serious one and set to work. The strips Dracula had tied around it were already soaked with his blood.

  It was an effort for Dracula to try and maintain his composure. He had to put on a show, even now, for his men. To them, there was no man more fierce; no man who was stronger. Many of them knew he had taken an arrow and watched from afar. He was aware of this and could show no sign of weakness, even in his current state.

  The lightest of touches on his leg caused him to wince. He sucked in a deep gulp of air and held his breath so that he might not cry out. But even then, he had to close his eyes to try and combat the pain. He lowered his head so none of his men would see it on his face.

  Sweat ran in streams down the medic’s face, mixing with the dried blood that covered it. It worried him that his efforts pained his voivode so. He paused to wipe the blood from his hands and took a step back. Dracula opened his eyes at once, which alerted the watching Dancu.

  “Why have you stopped?” the officer asked. “I did not hear our voivode say that you could. Resume at once, lest I shall remove your head.”

  The physician sucked his next breath of air in hard and stepped forward once again. “I humbly beg your pardon, My Liege,” he said, removing the last splinters from the arrowhead he could see in the wound.

  Dracula closed his eyes again without speaking. He gritted his teeth hard as he felt the tweezers pick at his exposed flesh. Never before had he endured wounds such as these. As great a warrior as he was, he knew he was growing too old for it.

  His head still down, his teeth still gritted against the pain, he did not see the arrows that rained in on the group around him. The physician fell to the ground at the stallion’s feet. The thud of his fall and the cries of his men alerted him to the latest attack.

  The man lay dead on the ground. Dracula looked down to see an arrow had struck him in the head, just above the ear. A number of others close by took hits also. He reacted fast to the threat and leant forward, and low, steering his mount away from the melee.

  A second arrow found him as he turned his horse, and struck him in the chest below his left shoulder. His breath caught in his throat as the force of it threw him backwards. He clung on to the reins in desperation as Dancu reached out and managed to place an arm around his waist. Only for that, he would have fallen from his horse. Already, blood began to fill his left lung, and his laboured breathing left traces of it on his lips.

  “My Liege?” his friend asked him. “Can you ride?”

  Dracula looked at him through eyes that welled with tears. “T
ake me to the chapel at the monastery,” he rasped. “If I am to die, I wish for it to be in a sacred place.”

  Chapter 2

  WALLACHIA. THE CHAPEL OF

  THE MONASTERY AT SNAGOV.

  DECEMBER 11, 1476. SUNSET.

  Dancu’s heart raced on hearing his master’s words. He reached for the halter of the horse and steered them towards the monastery. The island, where it stood, was less than two miles away. They would not need a boat, for the surrounding lake had frozen over weeks before.

  The other members of the bodyguard saw their master slumped in the saddle. They forgot everything else and raced to his side.

  There were no further incidents along the way. Dracula’s men hunted down the archers and killed them. Those who rode with him ensured nothing blocked his path, and remained vigilant in case of any further attacks.

  Blood oozed steadily from his wounds, and the colour had drained from his face, leaving a ghostly pallor. Upon arriving at the monastery, his men lifted him gently from his horse. They could see he was not in a good way. Few of them had known anyone as tough, but he looked as close to death as a man who still breathed could. Some of them thought then that the tips of the arrows might have carried poison.

  The men pushed open the door of the chapel. Taking him inside, they laid him down at the top of the steps below the altar. Two monks who saw them, ran off in search of their master. The abbot arrived soon after with a group of them at his side. It led to a fracas with the soldiers over the intrusion into his building.

  “What is the meaning of this?” the abbot demanded to know.

  “Mind your tongue,” one of the boyars warned. “I could soon cut it out for you.”

  The abbot looked aghast. “You cannot violate the sanctity of the chapel.”

  “How dare you come in here and threaten the abbot!” one of the monks shouted, in support of him.

  The same boyar pushed him back. Soon all of Dracula’s men became involved.