Son of the Dragon

by Victor T Foia

  Despite the fatigue of the long day, sleep eluded Vlad for a long time. Under the shelter of his blanket he smelled Christina on him, and his desire for her returned stronger than before. But when he finally succumbed to slumber, it was Esmeralda who approached him with outstretched arms, dressed in a white chemise that clung to her body. “Do you like kissing?” she murmured, her lips glistening with honey.

  When Vlad awoke, most of the stars had disappeared and pink light had begun to advance above the hilltops to the east. Gruya and László were still asleep. Lash was frying mushrooms on a hot stone, letting sheep’s cheese melt on top of them.

  “You took my turn on the watch and let me sleep late,” Vlad said to Lash, reproachful, but not stern. “That’s never happened before.”

  “Some things happen only once in a lifetime,” the Gypsy replied, fussing with his cooking. “This won’t happen again, Master.”

  “This” meant Christina. Vlad tried to summon her image, but the thought of the Akincis barged into his mind instead, brutal and oppressive. He fought it at first, grasping at still-fresh memories of Christina’s touch, smell, and taste. But the looming threat of his encounter with the Turks was stronger, and soon crowded out all other thoughts. A crushing weight settled on his chest.

  This was how condemned men must feel on the eve of their execution. Vlad had sentenced himself to death by being prideful and impetuous. And he’d also sentenced Gruya. His childhood friend wouldn’t save himself if Vlad was in trouble. What about László? Vlad felt bile rise in his throat. He’d told that brat not to come. He’d have Lash remain at a safe distance and take László back to Targoviste if Gruya and he were killed.

  Vlad wondered what went through Rostam’s mind before his first battle. None of these cowardly thoughts, for sure, or he couldn’t have turned out such a great hero. But Uncle Michael said everyone knew fear before a hard fight. So perhaps Rostam, too, had felt this way.

  Was Vlad’s fight going to be hard?

  Four killers, fighting for survival against Gruya and him. Yes, that was going to be hard.

  “You can undo your mistake,” a voice whispered inside him. “Just turn back now and say you couldn’t find the Akincis.” Vlad’s stomach somersaulted. Utterly unacceptable, as long as there was the slightest chance of finding them. “Nobody will ever know,” the voice insinuated.

  “I’ll know it,” Vlad shouted aloud, angry and ashamed.

  Lash looked up from his work, startled, but said nothing.

  Then a new thought struck Vlad. What if this entire story was only a prank on Nestor’s part? It had to be. Just saying that to himself made the weight on Vlad’s chest feel lighter. The peasant lad? Nestor’s invention. How convenient he should disappear before Vlad could question him. Nester had fooled him, Vlad thought, and chuckled. Relief made him feel something akin to affection for his devious cousin. Was Marcus party to this hoax? Vlad had often accused his brother of being gullible, so he might’ve decided to get back at Vlad. He could see Marcus laugh as he’d say, “Who’s the dupe now, Brother? Falling for the words of some imaginary monk?”

  They got one of the Orthodox monks to scribble on that stupid rabbit pelt. “‘I, humble slave of the Lord, monk so-and-so, of Holy Mount Athos’... What was the name Nestor had come up with? Something imaginative Vlad had never heard before. It sounded Greek, as if the man hailed from somewhere in the Peloponnese. Oh, yes, from Arcadia. Arcadicus was the name.

  The moment Vlad recalled the monk’s name he realized it had nine letters, and his hand flew to his talisman. Nestor knew nothing of Theodore’s prophecy, or of the numbers ordained for Vlad in the Book of Life. A cold wave passed over him and the weight on his chest returned, crushing this time. No, the Akincis weren’t Nestor’s invention. They’d been sent to test Vlad’s courage, and he’d failed.

  But failure of thought wasn’t the same as failure to act. He rushed to Timur and began to saddle him with frantic moves—the act had yet to take place.

  “Hey, what’s the rush?” László called after him, emerging from under his blanket. “It smells like a decent breakfast for a change.”

  Vlad mounted Timur and took off without a glance behind him. While the horse splashed across the brook’s frigid water, he conjured the image of four savage Akincis galloping toward him. He’d find them, and then let come what may. His shame and self-loathing began to lose their bite. It wasn’t the thought but the act that counted, he repeated to himself again and again.

  The others caught up, and they reached Bucur’s Crossing at sunset, finding a hamlet of about twenty wooden huts clustered around a tiny church. A three-wagon caravan was camped in the field outside the village. The place showed none of the bustle that had made its reputation as a major caravan stop in the days of Vlad’s grandfather.

  The handful of inhabitants, men and women well past their prime, crowded around Vlad and his companions, eyeing them, suspicious.

  “It’s the bandits that are killing the commerce,” the village alderman said when Vlad questioned him about the lack of travelers. “I wish the king did something about it, before we all perish from lack of customers.”

  “And the Turks don’t bother you?” Vlad said. “We’ve heard of a raiding party passing through this vicinity only a few days ago.”

  “Oh, we’ve had our share of misery at the hands of the infidel,” the alderman said, and spit onto the ground. “But that was years ago. After they stole the last of our children, all the young folks moved away. Now there isn’t anything for the raiders to take, so they leave us alone.”

  “When we pass away there will be no one to tend to the caravans anymore,” a toothless woman wailed. “Then the village will die—”

  “Will you show us the road leading north to the foothills?” Vlad said, determined to pick up the trail of his Akincis. “We believe the raiders are still somewhere up-country.”

  “There are five roads going in that direction,” the alderman said. “Which one do you want?”

  Five? A serious setback. The lad who’d seen the Turks would know which one to take. But that cretin Nestor had sent him away. “We’ll start exploring one road at a time in the morning,” he told Gruya and Lash when they settled down for the night, “and look for telltale signs of the Akincis.”

  “If you pick the wrong road to search on,” László said after Vlad explained the situation to him, “the raiders will be long gone by the time you realize your mistake.”

  “It wouldn’t be so if we had Nestor’s source with us,” Vlad said.

  “But then again, you might be hoping to pick the wrong road,” László said and began to laugh. “I know I would.”

  Before Vlad could respond, Gruya threw László to the ground and mounted him, a fist raised in his face. “I’ve put up with your sticking to us like shit on a cow’s thighs,” he sputtered. “But I won’t tolerate your calling my master a coward.”

  “Let him be, Gruya,” Vlad ordered. “László is—” he struggled with what to say next while Gruya watched him, inquiring. Vlad helped László to his feet, cheeks burning, and said, “You’re right. Until this morning I was a coward, hoping to find a way out of this adventure. But that’s behind me now, and there’ll never be another time when you’ll have cause to call me a coward.”

  The confession wiped away Vlad’s last trace of apprehension regarding his encounter with the Akincis. All that was left was an intense desire to find them and prove... that he wasn’t afraid? No. Prove that even though he feared the Akincis, he’d rather die than back down from confronting them.

  That night he slept untroubled and dreamless. When he took the watch from Gruya, his squire gave him a sly look and said, “I felt the same way, but didn’t dare say anything. I thought you’d take me for a weakling.”

  “Lord Michael says fear’s good fuel for planning,” Vlad said. “I guess between the two of us, we’ve got enough fuel to burn down the Ottoman Empire.”

  They laughed and hugged.


  A hacking cough came from the direction of the church.

  “Oh, it’s just an old traveler,” Gruya said when Vlad turned his head to the church. “I think he’s dying of consumption. He’s got these swellings on his neck and is spitting blood.”

  “The villagers wouldn’t take him in?” Vlad said.

  “He told me, ‘As a monk I prefer to die on the church steps instead of a bed.’”

  “A monk?” Vlad cried, and felt his heart leap. “Did he tell you his name?”

  “Yes, a strange one... Arco-something.”

  “Arcadicus?” Vlad cried, and before Gruya could confirm it, he was running at full speed toward the church.

  CHAPTER 25: The Noose Tightens

  “You’ve convinced me, Vlad,” László shouted, straining to keep up with Vlad’s galloping horse. “I believe you’re earnest about finding the Turks. So why don’t we just turn back now before it’s too late?”

  Vlad didn’t reply, just rubbed Timur between the ears. The horse speeded up even more. His encounter with Arcadicus had put Vlad into a feverish mood. He no longer had doubts he’d meet the Akincis, if they hadn’t already returned to the Danube.

  “I’ve seen men ride like they were being chased by the Devil’s wife before,” László said, refusing to fall behind, “but they’d usually do it for money or glory. I’ve never seen anyone ride so zealous just looking to get killed.”

  At an abandoned watermill that soon came into view as Arcadicus had promised, Vlad slowed Timur to a walk and left the main road. From there they rode on a trail along the stream that had once powered the mill. An hour later they came across Lash, who’d taken off before daylight.

  “There aren’t any tracks fresher than a week on this trail,” Lash said.

  Vlad surveyed the flatlands stretching as far as he could see on both sides of their course. “Any chance they could’ve returned south across the fields?”

  “The land’s too scarred with ravines on both sides to let a wagon pass through,” Lash said. “And the grass shows no sign of having been trampled by either animals or wagon wheels.”

  “If the Turks are up there,” Gruya pointed to hills peeking through the mist in the north, “we ought to get to their campsite before they do. Then we can choose our position and ambush them when they arrive.”

  “You don’t have to go through with this, Vlad,” László whined, his past bravado gone. “I promise my father will take you into his army, as a commander of twenty men, when I tell him how fearless you’ve proven yourself here.”

  Vlad laughed.

  “Do you want thirty? Fifty?”

  “On what I’ve done so far, I wouldn’t accept myself into a nun’s choir,” Vlad said, “let alone to the command of brave men. For the sake of the crusade’s rank and file, I hope your father chooses his officers with a little more care than that.”

  “If this isn’t about your wanting to be an officer, what’s it about?” László said, flummoxed.

  “We’ve got another couple of hours before we get to the Akincis’ camp,” Vlad told Gruya and Lash, in Romanian. “You ride ahead and ensure we don’t walk into an ambush ourselves. I’ll try to calm the boy down before I catch up with you.”

  “Is it the children captured by the Turks?” László said. “A handful of peasant kids of no consequence?”

  It would be tempting to say yes, just to stop László from yammering. But it would also be untrue. Vlad would be pursuing the Akincis even if their prisoners got away.

  “What could be worth dying for?” László said, relentless.

  Dying? Vlad always assumed that all he needed to stay alive was skill and courage. And he had both, so he’d never asked himself that question. But what if the scale was decidedly weighed in the enemy’s favor, like it was now? László’s question was fair. He said, “The same things that are worth living for are worth dying for.”

  “That makes no sense,” László said. “It’s too much like a riddle. If you know the answer just tell me.”

  Vlad shrugged. “Each person must find his own answer. And it isn’t that much of a riddle, anyway. Think of the miser. He lives for his gold, and he’ll die rather than part with it. The vain man lives for glory, and is willing to pay with his life for it. The zealot—”

  “And you? What is it you live for?”

  Vlad rode for a while without replying. He knew the answer, and in his mind it rang true. But if he uttered it he’d sound pompous. Especially since he hadn’t yet done anything to prove what he believed in. “Good and evil,” he finally said, determined that László’s ridicule mustn’t inhibit him. “That’s what I live for. One to reward, the other to punish.”

  As Vlad anticipated, László made a mocking grimace. “So, you dragged us all here, to an almost certain death, because of your conceited notions? Do you see yourself as appointed by God to reward good and punish evil?”

  Vlad thought about reminding László he’d come on this trip of his own accord, but realized there was no point to it. “I’m here to find out what I’m appointed to do,” he said instead. Then he let Timur take off at a spirited canter.

  Arcadicus had described the Akincis’ camp as a well-concealed place, on a pond nestled between two hills called Adela’s Twins. The hill to the west was wooded, and would afford Vlad and his party good cover, the monk said. The hill to the east was barren. Vlad and László reached the area at noon, rounded the west hill, and found Gruya and Lash waiting among the trees on the far side. Once they tethered their horses, the four men climbed to the top of the hill. From there they had a view over the road stretching to the north, where it disappeared into Carpathian foothills. Beyond the hills they could see snowy mountain peaks, their bases lost in haze.

  In the valley between the Twins, Vlad recognized the pond described by Arcadicus. It stretched about a hundred yards long and half as wide. The ground at the southern tip of the pond, where the water spilled into the creek bed, was covered in reeds and appeared marshy. The rest of the shore, choked in dense shrubbery, looked inaccessible, except from one point at the north end. There, someone had cut a narrow path through the vegetation and cleared a semicircular patch along the shore.

  “That’s the place where Arcadicus saw the Akincis camp a week ago,” Vlad said, pointing at the keyhole-shaped clearing.

  “It doesn’t mean they’ll be camping there again on the way back,” László said.

  Vlad turned stern eyes his way. “With men, horses, mules, and a bunch of children to water, it’s hard to conceive of a better place to camp than this.”

  “And it’s an easy spot to defend as well,” Gruya said. “They’d be at the cover of the shrubbery, while we’d be in the open.”

  “You know they’ll shoot you all full of arrows before you get anywhere close to them,” László said, and stared at Vlad, spiteful.

  He was hoping to stir Vlad’s fears. “I know ways of getting around that,” Vlad lied. He’d put off thinking about how to deal with the Akincis, and now he was being reminded he had no plan. If it were a matter of one-on-one combat, he wouldn’t worry. But with four skilled archers against him and Gruya, he was far from confident.

  László’s provocative stare exasperated Vlad. “Just stay out of the way until it’s safe, then,” he snapped, and turning his back to László, loped down the hill. Gruya and László followed, Lash staying behind to keep a lookout for the Turks.

  Inside the camp they found a fire pit of blackened stones and a pile of charred logs. The mud along the beach was dotted with the barefoot prints of a dozen boys. Vlad’s heart cringed when he noted that one of the children had fashioned a cross by imprinting the edge of his foot into the mud. I mustn’t let hatred cloud my judgment, he thought. He turned away and surveyed the place for any weakness in defense.

  “There’s no way to get in or out of here except through this opening,” Gruya remarked. “These briar bushes will shred anyone to ribbons just for trying.”

&nbs
p; “Yes, and the Turks will be guarding this passageway with particular care,” Vlad said. “When Arcadicus observed them last week, they’d placed the wagon in front of it as a gate. They’re likely to do that again.”

  “Attacking the Turks through this opening would mean walking straight into their arrows,” László said. “It’s time you acknowledged this challenge is too great for the two of you.”

  Gruya scowled at László but his shrug indicated he agreed with him. “We might be better off trailing the Turks from the distance on their way down to the Danube,” he said. “In time, we’d catch them in a vulnerable position and pounce on them.”

  “There might be more raiders scattered throughout the region, planning to rally with our Akincis before they cross the river,” Vlad said. “If that happened, they’d be lost to us. We’ve got to spy on them here, and try to learn about their plans. That’s how we might gain the upper hand.”

  A whistle sounded from the top of the hill.

  “Lash’s seen something,” Vlad said, casual, but his pulse quickened.

  László grabbed onto Vlad’s arm and whispered, “Are the Turks coming?” He turned pale and his lips quivered. “We’re trapped.”

  “If Lash just sighted them, they’re still a ways off,” Vlad said, feeling his entire body come alive with anticipation. Mother of God. They were coming. “With a wagon full of prisoners they can’t be moving too fast.” He walked out of the campsite with slow and confident steps, as if taking a stroll in the market. But his mind was a jumble of contradictory thoughts. He should’ve brought his bow. No. A hunting bow would be no match for the Akincis’ war bows. What if he and Gruya hid inside this clearing, and killed the Turks the moment they stepped through the opening? Not a good idea. They were likely to send one of them ahead to check it out. Getting himself and Gruya killed was all they’d accomplish with that plan.