Vampire Khan

by Dan Davis

  “They wanted to eat the family,” Hassan admitted to me later.

  “You did right to punish them,” I said, although I could not judge them too harshly, for I had momentarily considered the very same thing. Still, it did nothing to allay my fear of the desperate killers.

  “If it comes to it,” I whispered one day to Eva while we walked, far back behind the others. “We will kill the Assassins, drink their blood and eat them.”

  She screwed up her face but nodded. “Thomas will not like it,” she said.

  Even without speaking their language, I knew that Orus and Khutulun would have committed any atrocity if it meant getting their revenge on Hulegu and William. I did not care what Abdullah thought.

  “Stephen will be trouble, too,” I said.

  “No,” Eva said. “He will be first in line.”

  It was true that the monk had dealt with the hardship well, far better than I had expected. When his shoes wore away to pieces, he silently cut strips from his clothes and bandaged up his bleeding feet and continued on without a word. In response to my gaze, he merely nodded once and set his eyes on the horizon once more. Yes, he did rather well. Especially as he remained a mortal, as did Abdullah. Still, Eva’s certainty about him surprised me.

  “Have you not noticed?” she asked, incredulous at my naivety. “Stephen is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He would kill us all if it gave him what he wanted.”

  “And what does he want?”

  “I do not know,” she said.

  “He wants the Gift,” I said. “He wants to become one of us.”

  “Obviously,” Eva said, rolling her eyes. “But that is only a stepping stone toward the shores of his ambition.”

  I should have heeded her words, and the sense of foreboding that they aroused in me.

  Other than Stephen and Abdullah, Hassan was the only other mortal amongst us. He was a remarkable man. A warrior, a leader, and a diplomat. Yet, the fall of his people, the loss of his castle, the deaths and unknown fate of the men, women, and children who he had sworn to protect, all weighed heavy on him. The first few days he was so dejected that I expected him to turn back or go mad. But, like Stephen, there was some ember deep within him that did not go out. And, despite the privations, he started to come back to himself.

  Hatred can be a powerful motivation.

  Stephen and Abdullah helped me to feed Eva, Thomas, Orus and Khutulun with our blood. While Hassan allowed Jalal and the fedayin to drink from him.

  The mortal men resented it, for it was degrading and uncomfortably intimate, but they did it all the same. With familiarity, it became less unpleasant for them and even at times seemed to be an almost ritualistic undertaking. A ritual, if one could call it that, which was as disturbing as it was comforting. What is more, the immortals made sure to take good care of the mortal providers of their sustenance and usually offered them the first of the food and water.

  So, stage by stage, over weeks that turned to months, we crisscrossed the highland plateau and finally descended to the fertile plains fed by the Tigris and the Euphrates. It was there where Abdullah, finally, began to show his worth. For all his faults, and for all he cowered in fear at the sight of physical danger, he could talk the hind legs off of a donkey. Local people would challenge us with scowls on their faces and after only a few moments listening to Abdullah jabbering away at them, they would be leading him into their homes for refreshments and begging his pardon for the state of the place.

  The land around Baghdad, stretching for fifty miles or more from the city, was something like paradise on Earth. After so long in the pale, dusty, frozen hills and uplands, I had almost forgotten what deep green looked like. It was a land of superbly ordered canals and irrigation ditches, dividing the land into perfectly arranged parcels. It was a balm for the soul, I do not mind admitting so, despite it being the Saracen heartland. I felt like I could breathe again. The people were wary but welcoming, and they were of a healthier stock than the desiccated folk just up over the hills in Persia.

  They were aware that the Mongols were threatening the caliph and they were understandably concerned. And no matter what we said, they did not believe that the Mongols could come that very year to threaten their great city.

  And finally, after months of walking, we were there. We were exhausted and dragging our feet along the road, looking like the desperate beggars that we were.

  The city of Baghdad was on the horizon, her walls every bit as imposing as their legend had suggested even from a distance. Towers jutted up all along the lengths of the varied walls and behind them thrust the peaks of minarets, some glinting in the powerful sunlight. Coming as we were from the sparsely populated wilderness, running for cover at the sight of horsemen on the horizon and conversing with locals only rarely, the masses of people travelling to and fro along the roads into the city were quite overwhelming and we gathered close to each other like a clutch of newborn chicks.

  “We cannot enter like this,” I said, standing up straight and shaking Eva from my arm. Wincing in the sun, she pulled her robe tight over her face and muttered black curses at me. “Come, Abdullah, come to the front here. We must wash ourselves clean in the waters and comb our beards with sticks if we must.”

  On the city-side of the river, a wide sloping bank descended into the water on the inside of the lazy arc of a bend. There, hundreds of fishermen mended their nets while remarkably large coracles bobbed upon the sparkling, wide river. Strange vessels, circular with bowed sides coated in thick, black bitumen, large enough for a dozen men. Behind them were clustered a multitude of suburban houses on the outside of the grand walls that rose above it all and stretched away for miles to either side like the ramparts of fabled Troy. Our way across the river was a pontoon bridge with a sturdy roadway raised high over the anchored boats. Though the floating bridge was thronged with tramping feet, horses and camels, it hardly swayed at all.

  “Abdullah,” I said, dragging him by the arm as we crossed, “why are you dawdling so?”

  His mouth gaped as he stared at the city and I believed first of all that he was overwhelmed by his homecoming.

  In fact, he was staring in horror at the heavily armoured riders pushing their horses through the crowds.

  They were coming right for us.

  “Do not concern yourself,” I said to my company as we clustered together once more, “they cannot possibly be coming for us.”

  We were promptly surrounded, seized, and thrown into gaol.

  Part Five – Baghdad ~ 1258

  “You still wish to become an immortal, Stephen?” I said into the darkness.

  We were locked in a cell beneath the city. We Christians together in one cell, along with the two Mongols. Hassan, Jalal, and the two other fedayin were somewhere else. Whether they had been given better treatment as fellow Mohammedans or had been taken away and executed as Assassin heretics, I had no idea.

  Abdullah had been taken away from us as soon as we were brought within the massive gateway through the grand outer walls. That wall was thicker even than the length of Ashbury manor house.

  The riders from the city had surrounded us on the pontoon road as we crossed to the far side of the Tigris. Magnificently-attired men, all big, fine-looking fellows with shining armour and glistening beards.

  “Someone we spoke to along the way,” Abdullah had said, “must have run on ahead and sent word that Franks and Assassins were coming.”

  “Bloody shitting bastard Saracens,” I had cursed.

  But there had been no point in fighting. We had lost most of our equipment during the journey, through one means or another. I had dropped my shield not far from the mountains and sold my precious mail hauberk weeks after that for a pittance. Even my helm, which I had been determined to keep, had been sold for the price of six scrawny chickens. All I had left of note was my sword and white dagger, and the Saracens of Baghdad had taken those from me, too.

  It was not quite the arrival into the city I had bee
n hoping for. Not by any means. Still, it did not dampen my astonishment at the sight of the city itself. All my life, I had heard of how the place was a wonder, was enormous, was beautiful. Soldiers in Outremer had spoken of the impenetrable walls and myriad towers, of how it would take an army from all Christendom to take the city. The Franciscans had spoken of it as something akin to Rome, in that it was the spiritual home of the Saracens, as Rome was to us.

  Seeing it with my own eyes, though, demonstrated the limits of my imagination. It was vast. Far bigger than any city I had ever seen. The waters around it were wide and beautiful. The towers and spires jutted over it all like the masts in the ports of Constantinople, only far larger, more numerous and almost as lovely.

  Our captors did not treat us with any malice. Perhaps that was Abdullah’s doing, for he had jabbered at them so rapidly that I could understand barely one word in ten, and he had spoken incessantly. The leader of the guards had hardly responded at all, and I could not tell if we were being escorted directly to the Vizier himself, or to our deaths.

  In the end, we were dragged through busy guard quarters and pushed into a series of cells. The Mohammedans into one cell, and the rest of us into another. Before I was impolitely propelled inside, I saw Abdullah being escorted back up the steps into the light.

  “Why would I not want to become an immortal?” Stephen replied. “Surely, that is better for me than being your blood slave, is it not? What shall my fate be now? To be drunk dry by Eva and Thomas and these two heathens, prolonging their lives while ending my own? Perhaps I would rather lose myself in the blood hunger and become a savage like those Ismaili revenants.”

  I considered turning him, there and then. Giving Thomas and Eva and the Mongols one last drink by draining Stephen, then make him one of them.

  But he was right, in a way. What if I was taken, and could not provide Eva with my blood? I had to keep him human so that she might not be driven mad by the hunger.

  “If you want me to turn you,” I said to him in the darkness, “you must have something to offer. Can you fight for me?”

  “So, I am unwise in war. But as I have shown you, I have my mind and my knowledge. I could advise you on the course of action you might take, for example, drawing on the writings of…” He trailed off, perhaps realising he sounded absurd. “I would do whatever I could,” he said, quietly.

  “Which is nothing,” I said. “Nothing of value.”

  Eva, beside me in the dark, spoke. “Richard.”

  It was all she said. By her tone, I knew that she was warning me that I was being unnecessarily antagonistic and that I should stop bullying Stephen. She was always the more sensible one. The more rational one, less fuelled by rage, more aware of what was in men’s hearts.

  One day, not too long after, Eva would be at my side no more and I would miss her presence in every way.

  “But why, Stephen?” I asked, softening my tone. “Why would you want this? You know the price. You renounced your vows, did you not? You could yet take a wife. Make some sons.”

  Thomas cleared his throat but said nothing, while Stephen shuffled around on the cold floor before answering. “I already feel the years slipping through my fingers. There is so much that I could accomplish, yet I am so far from where I need to be.”

  “And where is that?”

  “You speak often of England, Richard,” Stephen said. “And that is where my heart lies, also.”

  “I do?” I asked.

  Thomas, Eva, and Stephen chorused that it was, in fact, the case. Eva reached out and patted my leg.

  “You said before,” Stephen continued, “that you feared what Hulegu could achieve as an immortal king. And rightly so. But what if there was a king who was good?”

  Not bullying the man was all very well but I was exhausted, starving and fretting and so had little patience remaining. “You do understand that the blood could never make you into a king, do you not, Stephen?”

  He sighed, almost growling in frustration. “You could advise a king. You could advise an entire dynasty, king after king, and shape a kingdom into what it needs to be. Make England into what it could be.”

  “And what is that?”

  “A great kingdom. The greatest kingdom. A kingdom greater even than France.”

  I burst out laughing. “Your hunger has made you delirious, Stephen.” He began to protest but I spoke over him. “It is a laudable fantasy, I am sure. But you are dreaming about something so far away from where we are, that it is meaningless. Stephen, we sit in a gaol, confined in darkness. Show me your worth by freeing us from this place. You do remember why we are all here? We have each sworn to kill William, Hulegu, and the immortal Mongols who serve him. We are here in the hope that we can somehow help the Caliph’s army defeat the Mongol hordes and so complete our quest. Even if the Saracens cannot defeat them, we can use the chaos of the siege to creep into Lord Hulegu’s tents and execute him there.”

  “And to save the Christians of Baghdad from slaughter,” Thomas said.

  I sighed. “If such a thing is possible.”

  Stephen was hurt, I could hear it in his voice. “I know why we are here.”

  “Good. Now, we all know what we need to do. But, ignorant and uninspired as I am, I do not know how we might accomplish these things. Can you show me your worth and tell me what we should do, Stephen?”

  He was silent.

  “Perhaps you could begin by drawing on the wisdom of ancient sages to get us out of this gaol?”

  His only answer was a wet sniff.

  Thomas cleared his throat, then spoke very softly. His voice gruff with age. “There is no need for you to turn your frustration at your own failures on the young man, Richard.”

  I was about to turn my anger on the Templar but Stephen finally answered.

  “Perhaps we could pray,” he said.

  “I shall pray with you,” Thomas said.

  “Ha!” I scoffed. “Do what you wish. I am going to get some sleep.”

  I do not know how long I slept for. It seemed but a moment before the bolts on the door slammed back and it was thrown open, flooding us in the painful glare of lamplight.

  ***

  We were escorted with relative civility by the soldiers who came for us. They wore magnificent armour, all polished and shining. All their cloth was shimmering silk. These men were the personal guard of someone important. I hoped that the Caliph of Baghdad had ten thousand such men in addition to his other troops, but I doubted it.

  It was with some considerable relief that I saw Hassan, Jalal, Radi and Raka waiting for us in the antechamber of the gaol, blinking and dishevelled from their incarceration but no worse for wear than we were. A strange thing, to feel so connected to Saracens, to Assassins, men who would have happily seen me and my loved ones dead, had we been strangers to one another. I tried to tell myself that my relief was a result purely of their utility to me as soldiers but going through such an ordeal as our journey across Persia together had helped to strengthen the bond formed in Alamut. What is more, three of them had been changed forever by their ingestion of my blood and I felt a faint sense of responsibility for them. Not as one might feel for their own child but perhaps reminiscent of the accountability one feels when one of your trusty old hounds suddenly mauls the face of a little servant girl.

  The Saracen soldiers guarded us closely as they led us through the corridors, beneath covered walkways and across courtyards that resounded with the sound of tinkling fountains. It slowly dawned on me that we were weaving our way deep into a magnificent palace via the routes used by servants rather than guests. The guards barked orders at servants and functionaries we crossed along the way, demanding they stand aside for us. We climbed flights of steps and were finally ordered in through a rather magnificently gilded doorway and into a large audience chamber.

  One side was open with a view onto a beautiful courtyard, with bright green trees sculpted into perfect shapes surrounding a series of small pools. The hig
h ceiling above was supported by slender pillars of pale red marble that arched together in scalloped carvings of intricate patterns. Beneath my filthy, half-rotten shoes, the floor was a gleaming cream and grey marble, polished so highly that it reflected everything above it with remarkable clarity.

  A handful of men stood at the edges in small clusters. They had the demeanour of minor lords and senior functionaries but their clothing was very handsome indeed, and I felt utterly out of place in my tattered, Persian serf’s robes. I was very aware of how we prisoners radiated a foul stench into that civilised beauty. Some of the Saracens glanced in our direction, disgust, and contempt on their faces.

  In the centre, an angry Saracen lord was ruining the harmony of the space by ranting in a loud voice whilst pacing back and forth. His deep blue coat, worn over his patterned cream and white robes, flowed behind him and his huge sleeves flapped as he gesticulated. All of his clothing, including his red slippers, was trimmed in flashing gold. Over his neat, glistening beard and beneath his white and orange headdress, his dark eyes flashed and bulged.

  The target of his ire was Abdullah.

  Dressed as he was in fine robes, I hardly recognised him at first. And perhaps would not have done were it not for the way he bowed his head and curled his shoulders, withering under the verbal barrage from the older man.

  “I assume that is Abdullah’s uncle,” I said under my breath to Eva. “The vizier.”

  The captain of the guard escort whipped around and snarled an order at me under his breath. I smiled and nodded, bobbing my head in what I hoped was a subservient manner. As I did so, I took note of how he wore his sword and where his dagger was beneath his sash. Probably I could snatch both of his weapons and cut his throat before he could raise a warning cry.