Nyal's Story (The Oldest Living Vampire Saga)

by Joseph Duncan

  Was she being punished for that flash of selfish relief?

  Korte-Anthe and Ganni’s parents were beyond consoling. Their mother did wail and beat at her breasts with her fists. One of her husbands bent to lift her from the ground, but Breyya spat like a cat and raked his face with her nails. Nyal was ordinarily disgusted by Breyya’s displays—she had always been such a stormy child!-- but her daughter’s fit was justified this day. It took both of her husbands to drag her, kicking and screaming, to their hut.

  Nyal spotted Gilad standing near the back of the crowd. She rose laboriously and limped to him.

  “Can you do nothing for the girls, Gilad?” she said pleadingly to him. “Is it truly hopeless?”

  Gilad was exhausted, his body smeared with dirt and dried blood. He had killed one of the Foul Ones himself, and bore the badges of his victory: a gash on the upper arm where the beast had slashed him with his blade, and several scratch marks on his chest and the left side of his face. The wounds to his face looked as if they were already becoming infected.

  Gilad glanced toward the west, where the sun had fattened like an overripe fruit. He appeared reluctant to answer his grandmother. Finally, he sighed. “I lost their trail, Grandmother. They are very good at hiding their tracks.”

  “Then they are gone,” Nyal whispered.

  If Gilad could not track them then no one could.

  He shrugged miserably.

  “I hope they perish quickly,” Nyal said. Her face was grim, drained of all color. She looked as pale as Eyya had the night she passed away.

  She didn’t want to imagine all the terrible thing those devils would do to her granddaughters, but she was helpless to stop the visions from capering through her mind. Again, she wondered why Gon had not interceded in their battle. Where had he been? Why had he abandoned them in their moment of need?

  And then her mind seized on a thought.

  Perhaps he simply had not seen the raiders coming. Perhaps he did not know that his granddaughters had been taken. He was no god. He could not see all things. He was simply a man who had been terribly cursed. And yet, he was not only a man. He was the Ghost Who Is a Man. He had strange and awesome powers. He could move faster than the human eye could follow. He could leap great distances through the air, fly like a bird through the treetops. If she sent word to him that his granddaughters had been taken by the Foul Ones, he would come down from his mountain lair. He would hunt the Foul Ones down. Kill them and bring back her babies. She knew he would, just as surely as she knew her name was Nyal.

  Nyal clutched Gilad’s bicep, her nails digging into the flesh. “Gilad!” she hissed. “Come with me now!”

  She pulled him away from the crowd gathered at the mouth of the Siede. Judging by the expression on his face, Gilad must have thought she’d gone mad. She had the gleam of madness in her eyes. Yes, she could feel it herself. In her eyes. On her face. But it was not madness that made her frantic, unless hope was a kind of madness.

  “What is it, Grandmother? Why are you so excited?”

  “Hush!”

  She did not want the others to hear. What she was going to ask—no, demand—that her grandson do was for his ears alone. If they overhead her plans, the men would insist on marching to Gon’s lair in numbers. Her husband had already confessed to her that he was tormented by human contact. Her nearness alone had distressed him when he came to retrieve Eyya. If a large group of men approached Gon’s hideout in the mountains, he would be forced to retreat from them, and just when they needed him most. No, only two would be journeying to Old Stone Man to find him, and those two would be Nyal and her grandson.

  It was a good thing Gilad was strong, and she so frail and light.

  He was going to carry her there.

  8

  To his credit, and cementing his position as favorite grandson, Gilad did not object to her scheme to go to Old Stone Man. She thought he might be hesitant because Gon had frightened him on the Mound of Ghosts, but Gilad agreed almost immediately. The only thing he said was, “Can I eat first?” He had gone all day without eating, pursuing the Foul Ones through the valley and to the outer reaches of their territory. It was a wonder he had not already collapsed in exhaustion, but Gilad was part Fat Hand, and he had the endurance of his forefathers.

  “Yes, of course, but make it quick,” Nyal said urgently. “The longer we delay, the further away those devils will carry my granddaughters.”

  Gilad jogged to his wetus to grab some food. Nyal paced restlessly as she waited for him to return, glancing repeatedly toward Gon’s mountain. The light of the setting sun glowed on the side of Old Stone Man. It looked like floes of molten rock. Or blood.

  Her people were still gathered outside the Siede, debating how best to set up their defenses should the Foul Ones raid the village again. Posting a guard now was like checking for snakes after dropping your breeches, Nyal thought. The Foul Ones would not come back. Not soon, anyway. Not from what she remembered of them. They had what they wanted. They’d taken eight children, three of which had been recovered. They’d lost four men in the process, and killed two of Nyal’s people: Ypp’ham’s little boy and a young mother named Yort, who had defended her babies to the death. Several other members of the tribe were grievously wounded and might yet join their ancestors in the Ghost World. It was a dark day for the People of the River.

  Gilad came jogging back, his face set determinedly. He had put on some long-legged breeches and his wolverine skin hood, was chewing on a strip of dried venison. A knife and his water bag bounced on his thigh. Nyal hoped no one looked in his direction. It was very obvious that he was up to something.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, only slightly out of breath. When Nyal nodded, he bent to pick her up.

  “What are you doing?” Nyal hissed. “Not here! Walk with me down to the river, and then I’ll climb on your back.”

  Gilad nodded. He took his grandmother by the elbow and escorted her from the main camp.

  “Don’t look back,” Nyal said from the corner of her mouth. “We don’t want anyone to notice us leaving.”

  “I don’t know why you want to come along, Grandmother. You should be resting in the Siede. I can run there much faster if I don’t have to carry you.”

  “Gon may not give you an audience. He doesn’t know you. But he will speak to me.”

  Gilad nodded.

  They followed the path down to the river. The Foul One was still lying dead beside the trail, though his head had been cut off. The stump of his neck was raggedly hewn. Nyal kicked the headless devil again as she passed. It gave her a terrible amount of satisfaction.

  “It will be dark soon,” Nyal said, peering at the purpling sky.

  “I can see well enough in the dark,” Gilad boasted. “If we travel through the night, we should be there by daybreak.”

  Nyal’s heart was full of pride at her grandson’s courage. The wilderness was a dangerous place, full of hungry creatures eager to devour those foolish enough to tempt the fates. The thought that she was also daring the jaws of those forest beasts didn’t register on her consciousness. Of course she would do it! It was her carelessness that had thrust her granddaughters into the clutches of those perverse creatures! She would smear honey on her hind end and wag it in a bear cave if it would get Korte-Anthe and Ganni back.

  On the stony shore of the river, Gilad turned his back to his grandmother and squatted down. “Here, Grandmother, climb on my back,” he said. “The water runs fast in the middle of the river. You won’t be able to cross it.”

  Nyal put her bony arms around the boy’s muscular neck. When he rose, she hooked her legs around his waist. Pain flared in her joints when he stood and her weight settled upon them, but she ignored the pain.

  “Do you have a good grip?” Gilad asked.

  “Yes, yes, let’s go,” Nyal said.

  Gilad started across the river, feet splashing. It was not a deep river, not at the moment. It was still early in the spring. When th
e snow and ice melted completely from the high wooded ridges that surrounded the valley, the runoff would swell the river to twice its width and depth. More if the rains were heavy. But for the time being, Gilad was easily able to cross it. At its deepest point, the water rose only to chest height before receding back down his body.

  Gilad stumbled once on the slick, smooth stones on the far shore of the river, but he recovered quickly. Muttering an apology to his grandmother, he continued on.

  Past the stony shore, the ground sloped quickly upwards, the edge of the forest thick with tangles of brush and new tree growth. Cutting through the undergrowth, a well-worn path wagged uphill, leading toward the Mound of Ghosts.

  Still breathing easily, not yet breaking a sweat, Gilad jogged along the path toward the eerie forest. They passed over the first ridge, tromped across the broad open dale on the other side, then headed into the Mound of Ghosts. The pines closed in on them, dimming what was left of the day’s light. The carpet of fallen pine needles, orange and soft as bedding, seemed to absorb all sound in the immediate vicinity so that the piney woodland was strangely quiet. It’s why the People called this place the Mound of Ghosts. The hush had an ethereal quality.

  “How are you doing?” Gilad asked. “Do you need to rest?

  “I’m fine,” Nyal answered. “If you can run, run. Fast as you can. Don’t worry about me.”

  He could run.

  9

  Nyal groaned as she dragged herself over the ledge. She pushed her torso up and over the outcrop, arms trembling, then rolled onto her back, hauling her hips and legs after her.

  She lay there a moment, breathing raggedly and staring up at the sky, her heart pounding against the inside of her ribcage. She had caught a rabbit barehanded once and felt its heart racing the exact same way. Tud-tud-tud-tud-tud! as she clutched it to her chest. She could sympathize. She was just as frightened as the rabbit had been.

  Nyal turned and peeked over the ledge. Gilad still lay where he had fallen, his body tiny with distance now, sprawled across the gray scales of rock embedded in the grass at the foot of Old Stone Man. He was breathing when she’d abandoned him, when she started up the sheer face of the mountain, but was he breathing still, or had his spirit passed into the Ghost World? She couldn’t tell. Her eyes were not strong enough to see so far.

  If Gilad perishes and I cannot find Gon, that will be three grandchildren I’ve led to their doom, Nyal thought. Her frustration and guilt made her feel like howling.

  So she did.

  “Gon!” she shouted. “GOOOOON! Come to me! Your wife calls your name!”

  Her voice did not echo, snatched away by the wind.

  She waited to see if her heart would slow its drumming pace, but it did not, so she turned over and pushed herself to her hands and knees. Placing a palm against the face of the mountain to steady herself, Nyal rose—and an involuntary moan escaped her lips. Hazy blue mountains surrounded on all sides, looming giants, vaster than she’d ever imagined. And just a step away, a fatal drop to the earth below.

  She fell back against the cold face of the mountain, legs weak and trembling.

  No, no, you must go on, she thought. It is your fault the Foul Ones took your granddaughters. If you hadn’t taken them down to the river, if you hadn’t lingered there so long yesterday, they wouldn’t have been stolen away. They would have been safe in the Siede when our enemy raided the village.

  Not fair but true, so she turned to measure the climb that remained.

  Up, up, an impossible distance up. She could see the dark crevice that Gilad swore was Gon’s lair. She couldn’t see it when she was down below, when Gilad had pointed it out to her from the foot of the mountain, but she could see it now—a dark fissure zigzagging up from a narrow ledge. That was where Gon took Eyya’s body, Gilad claimed. She had no choice but to believe him now.

  “GON!” Nyal shouted. “GON, COME!”

  She waited.

  Cursing, Nyal examined the rock face. She placed her hands and feet and tested the mountain’s solidity. Gilad had fallen when one of his handholds crumbled loose. She didn’t want to share the same fate, though she undoubtedly deserved it. She lifted herself from the outcrop where she had rested for a moment. She moved her hands and feet, hauled herself up again. The wind splashed across her like a wave of cold water, invisible fingers trying to pry her from the mountain. She ducked her head and clenched her teeth and climbed.

  She climbed and climbed, and then paused to shout for her husband again.

  “GON!”

  It took her a moment to realize she’d fallen off the mountain.

  It was the wind that did it. It had whipped up in a sudden gust, howling in all the little crevices, and plucked her from the mountainside like an errant leaf. She maintained her posture for a second or two, her fingers curled around stones that was no longer there, her knees bent and her back hunched, and then she realized what had happened, saw the face of the mountain rushing past her in reverse, and let herself go limp.

  Oh, no, she thought, curiously calm.

  She had always worried, when her time came, when death tired of playing with her and clamped its jaws around her throat, that fear would break her. She had always prided herself on her stubborn pragmatism, her indomitable will. She had rarely, if ever, lost her grip on her emotions, allowed fear or doubt to overwhelm her. Yet, she had always worried, deep down inside where she seldom cared to look, that she would lose control of herself when she died. That she would weep, bargain, soil herself in terror. It was the most terrible thing she could think of, a fear that had dogged her for years.

  But she was not frightened. Surprised, yes. Disappointed that she had failed, that she was going to die and no one would save her granddaughters. But she was not afraid, and she was glad. She actually smiled a little in relief. The end had come and she was still Nyal.

  Oh, there it is! she thought, her eyes widening. For the first time, as she plummeted to her death, Nyal saw the stone face that her grandson Gilad had spoken of. There is his big stone nose, and there is his chin, jutting out the way the chins of toothless old men do. That’s funny.

  And there was Gon, clinging to the side of the mountain, hands and feet spread out, his long and slightly curly auburn hair writhing in the wind. His upper body was twisted around so that he could watch her as she fell past. His expression was comical: eyes wide, mouth hanging open. She flew past him with a whooshing sound, and then he shrank with great rapidity.

  Too late, Nyal thought, with more amusement than bitterness.

  Perhaps he would be curious why she’d come. Perhaps he would investigate, and discover that the Foul Ones had raided the village. It was a comfort to think that Gilad’s sacrifice had not been in vain, that her sacrifice would not be in vain, that her husband might remedy the mistakes that she had made.

  And suddenly he was there again, scurrying down the mountain as fast as she was falling. His body was turned so that his head was pointed earthward, his hands and feet moving in a blur. He drew closer and closer, his head crooked back, his eyes fixed on her. There was a fierce scowl on his mouth, an expression of great effort, the muscles in his neck and shoulders standing out.

  How close was the earth now, Nyal wondered. It seemed she had been falling for days, not moments.

  Gon leapt at her, one arm straining out.

  Then darkness.

  10

  She awoke in pain, expecting to find herself in the Ghost World, but when she opened her eyes she saw blue sky and clouds. She saw grass and mountains… and Gon.

  But how can that be? she thought. Unless Gon lives in both worlds, the world of the living and the world of the dead.

  It was a possibility. How could she know? It was that or else she lived. Judging by her pain, she decided she lived. Surely, there would not be so much pain if she had died. The bones of her back and ribs felt as if they’d been crushed, and her lungs burned like someone had shoved hot coals down her throat.

&nb
sp; Gon was standing at a little distance, gazing at her with a worried expression, elbows in his hands. He seemed more alive than he had before. His flesh was ruddier, not quite so pale, and there was a fullness to it, a plumpness, where before his skin had looked like it was stretched taut across the bone. But for the strange, glinting texture of his flesh, and eyes weeping gummy black tears upon his cheeks, he was every bit the man she remembered from her youth.

  She tried to rise and yelped at the bolt of pain that shot up her spine.

  “Lie still,” Gon said, stepping toward her a little. He put out one hand to stop her. “I’m afraid I injured your back when I caught you. I heard bones crack. I’m not sure how severe your injuries are.”

  She had never tolerated being told what to do, even when she was injured. Nyal struggled to a sit up, groaning at the agony the movement inspired. She caught her breath, waited for the pain to abate, then took stock of her surroundings.

  She was lying on the grassy slope at the base of the mountain, Gilad’s still body sprawled beside her. His blood had dried on the rocks he’d struck when he fell, but the bleeding appeared to have stopped, and his chest continued to rise and fall. He still lived, and she thought maybe he’d moved his limbs. They weren’t in the same position they’d been when she left him.

  “Why were you climbing my mountain, Nyala? Don’t you know how dangerous that is?”

  “Of course I know how dangerous it is! I was standing right here when our grandson fell off. You think I wanted to climb up there after he fell? I was frightened out of my wits!”

  “Then why did you do it? Why did you put this boy in harm’s way? Tell me why you’ve sought me out!”

  “Because your people have need of you, Gon!” Nyal shouted, infuriated by his questioning. “How dare you speak to me like this! Like I’m some senile old fool! Do you think I would have done this if our need were not so great? Gilad is your grandson, and he has fallen and dashed his head on the rocks. He may die, and you won’t even come near him!”