Much Fall of Blood-ARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  "Oh. Well. Tell her I would like to thank her sewing this for me."

  Mirko blinked and swallowed.

  Down the hill one of the Sergeants bellowed. "Move out."

  The quartermaster saluted. "Have to go, Sire," and scuttled away, plainly welcoming the interruption.

  Vlad went to mount his horse, wondering just what he'd learned.

  They rode or marched to the new camp that the scouts had located some days before. There was even a half tumbled down old shepherds hut for him to sleep in. For some reason, his sergeants decided that it was appropriate accommodation for their Prince. It was a gesture of consideration and respect. Vlad understood this. He hoped they would also understand why he had refused it. It had walls. Walls and a roof. And no windows. The thatch was old and rotten, and there was no door—or flooring. Yet it was still too confining for him now. For that reason, although it was a hovel, it reminded him far too much of his tower in Buda Castle. Walls might provide shelter, but they also provided confinement.

  Instead, Vlad chose to bed down a little way away from the main encampment between some gray rocks that would provide some shelter from the wind and privacy. He had always had privacy, and had grown accustomed to the solitude. The together-living of his soldiery he found hard. The men were used to sharing small accommodations with a large family. He had had six commodious rooms to himself, most of the time. He would have the stars and openness, and a quiet place by himself. His sergeants were welcome to the shelter and its fleas.

  He was becoming quite a seasoned campaigner by now. He cut some heather for a bed. It did not look as if there was any chance of rain that night. So he did not bother with any form of lean-to. He simply laid his old cloak on the heather. He would wrap himself in the generous, thick folds of his new cloak after they had eaten.

  That night as they were sitting around the fires—the schnapps had added a little volume and a little extra cheer to the troops, but they were anything but raucous—one of his sergeants came to him. "Sire, the poachers that Sergeant Emil assigned to follow that trader are back. You were right, Drac." He said with deep respect. "The traitor met a Hungarian patrol. They escorted him. And the men say the patrol was waiting for him. We will kill him if he ever sets foot in these mountains again."

  Vlad digested this information. "I must forbid you from killing him, even if he deserves death."

  The sergeant looked puzzled. "But why, Sire?"

  "It seems probable that they will try to attack our camp again. When they do not find us there, they will probably punish him. However, I owe him an amount of silver. That debt must be paid. And then I will deal with the traitor in an appropriate fashion."

  The Sergeant saluted smartly. "I shall make sure that everyone knows that, Drac." There was something approaching reverence in his voice as he said that. Vlad wondered why. It seemed only fair.

  As usual, he found himself sitting slightly aside from the rest of the men. He did understand that they felt this to be a measure of respect. It would also seem that they found themselves a little uncomfortable too close to him. However he had keen hearing. He did not think they realized just how much he eavesdropped, and how much he was learning from them. It was better than admitting he knew little of how to deal with people, let alone organize armies. The breeze brought him to wafts of conversation, some of which he could make very little sense of, and others like " . . . Knew it was a trap." Or " . . . he'll pay. Look at what he said he do for that German merchant."

  Satisfied, Vlad took himself off to his rest. This time at least, he had made the right decisions.

  He had found that he was quite a light sleeper—once he had recovered from the sheer exhaustion of his first few days as a free man. He had little fear that anyone would be able to sneak up on him while he was asleep. He also noticed that among the sentries the Sergeants appeared to have one whose duty it was to watch over him. They were careful to leave him his space, however. He lay there looking up at the stars, somewhere in the region between wakefulness and sleep, when he heard a slight noise. A rustle of cloth. He was sharply and suddenly very awake, ears pricked, not moving but with every sense alert. His hand rested right next to his dagger haft . . . and he waited. Vlad was unsure just how late it was. There were no sounds coming from the camp fires. And yes, that was definitely someone trying to move closer quietly.

  There was also, now that his senses were so utterly keyed up a faint scent. He caught sight of a black figure silhouetted by the moonlight. Whoever it was, was not particularly large. Ever so slowly, trying not to rustle cloth, Vlad drew his dagger. He closed his eyes, and then peered through a tiny slit, and tried to breathe easily and evenly. He expected the attacker to rush him at any moment.

  What he did not expect was for the person to kneel down, and say in a quiet but recognizably female voice, "Drac?"

  Vlad rolled and stood up in one easy movement. In his hand the knife gleamed silver, as his cloak flared around him. The woman gave a small gasp of horror and held out her hands defensively.

  "What are you doing here?" He asked, not relaxing. She had been looking for him, not a quiet place to relieve herself.

  She giggled nervously. "Mirko said that you want to thank me. So . . . um . . . I came to be thanked, Drac." It was clear moonlight. Vlad could see that she was smiling warily at him. "I am Rosa. I sewed the lining into your new cloak."

  Vlad slipped his dagger back into the sheath. "Ah. Yes. But why now, young lady? I very nearly killed you by accident."

  "I did not want everyone to see, Drac. I had to wait until people were asleep," she said her voice husky. He looked at her and saw how she looked back at him, brow lowered. She licked her upper lip. "Can we lie down among the rocks again. I do not want the guard to see me."

  Vlad nodded. He sat down on his bed of heather again. She came too and pushed him back down gently on it, lying half on him, half next to him, her body soft against his, her lips brushing against his jaw line, hands running across his shoulders. She rolled slightly, and undid the buttons on her blouse. Moonlight shone on the full curves of her white breasts, and she began undoing the buttons on his shirt.

  This was more alarming and confusing than merely being stalked by some killer. "What . . ." She put a finger to his lips and began to slowly, languorously kiss her way down his chest, unbuttoning as she went. She paused just short of the last button, and then slid her way up again, her breasts brushing against his chest. She put a leg over him and ground her hips against his. Then she sat up on top of him, rubbing her pelvis against him. She took his hands and led them up to touch the great soft globes and the firm nipple standing out from them. He felt the curve of them, touching and caressing, barely knowing what he was doing, but not wanting to stop either. He could feel his own pelvis thrusting up and against her. His body seemed to know what it was doing, even if his mind was less sure.

  She rolled off him again and began to undo his breeches. He'd had strange and confused dreams involving this. She lifted her skirts and put her bare leg over him, and guided him into somewhere warm and wet and soft, and slid it down onto him.

  Perhaps this was just one of those confusing and oddly relieving dreams again, he thought, as he thrust . . . she gave slight groan, and pushed down onto him, moving rhythmically, and then panting, faster.

  The stars looked down. They were quite small and reachable, really.

  "I understand now. I did not understand what she was talking about," Vlad said later, thinking of Elizabeth. She was very different to this full ripe woman. To be admired, not . . .

  "What?" asked Rosa, tracing a pattern on his chest.

  "I did not know this was what men and women did," said Vlad, humbly.

  She gaped at him in the moonlight. "You mean . . . I was the first?" She asked.

  He nodded.

  "Well!" she giggled. "I was going to go, but I see I have a lot to teach you, Drac."

  Vlad did not do a great deal of sleeping that musky scented night. On t
he other hand he did learn a great deal about women, and indeed, about men. And the world seemed a better, richer, fuller place. Rosa slipped away just before dawn.

  But she did promise she would come back. And that he was a stallion. He assumed that that was a compliment.

  * * *

  "We found these two riding around, Drac," said Sergeant Mihai. "They claim that they are looking for you. They say they need to speak to you and that it is important." His tone said that he did not believe them. "Poles. You can trust them nearly as much as you can trust gypsies."

  After their experiences of the previous day, Vlad was not inclined trust anyone. But on the other hand the gypsies had brought him here. They had treated him well enough when he had fled in their company. And besides the world, now that he had discovered Rosa, was not the most evil of places. "I can hear them speak, I suppose," said Vlad. It would help to pass the time until nightfall.

  "Thank you, Prince Vlad," said the short stocky man. "Your man has the right of it. We are Poles. But we have lived in these lands for twenty years, my cousin and I. King Emeric gave us license to build our workshop and ply our trade here."

  "The bargains that my enemy makes scarcely bind me," said Vlad tersely.

  "They don't bind him either," said the stocky man's companion, who was barely less broad. "He promised our families one thing, and we have found that he demands another."

  "On the other hand," said the stocky man, "According to my wife, your grandfather kept his bargains, and paid fair price, and your father was a fair man too, as much as King Emeric allowed him to be. I took the liberty, Prince, of inquiring of some of your men while they walked us here, just what manner of man you are. They told me about a trader that was here yesterday. They told me that he had betrayed your Highness. But that you owe him money and you will not see him dead until he is paid." He smiled grimly. "It was supposed to frighten us, I think. But instead it told us that we can maybe trust you. We wish to make a bargain with you, your Highness."

  That in itself was unusual. Vlad might be ignorant of the ways of the world but he knew this much: tradesmen and nobility did not mix. Tradesmen chaffered with the lower orders. They did not 'bargain' with Princes. Any overt 'bargaining' rapidly would end up being done at the sword's point. Most of Vlad's adherents adopted at least a mildly submissive posture and tone when speaking to him. This man looked him the eye, and by the cut of his jaw was not good at being submissive to anyone. Vlad knew he should be offended. But he found himself liking the short, craggy fellow. "We are honest tradesmen," the fellow continued, holding out hands that were work-calloused, and that ended in thick stubby fingers. "All we want is to ply our trade and be paid fairly, and stay where we have built our workshops, and not be evicted just because we are not from here. That is what you grandfather did to foreigners."

  "And with good reason too," said one of the guards. "They were all thieves and rogues. And traitors too."

  The man ignored him, and continued to address Vlad, as if they were the only two men there. "We were offered land and a charter. Now we find our charter ignored and destroyed, and our holdings, our families and our lives threatened—just for plying our trade. Where does your Highness stand on that?"

  "I don't know," said Vlad smiling despite the man's effrontery. "Just what is your trade, good man?"

  The two men looked at each other, smiling slightly. The stocky solid fellow slapped his own forehead. "Forgive me. I forget, your Highness. Everyone where come from knows us. We're gunsmiths, Prince Vlad. Gunsmiths from Lwów. We fled from Galicia when Prince Jagiellon killed our Prince. King Emeric's father gave us leave to settle, gave us a charter, in Harghita and Corona and the cousins in Várad. Józef Smerek is my name. This is my cousin Stanislaw. We are makers of fowling pieces, arquebuses, wheel-lock pistols. We settled here and we would continue our trade here, but now we are proscribed from doing so." There was no mistaking the fury in the man's voice at saying this.

  "Smerek. They make good guns," said the guard, considerably more respectfully now.

  "And there is the problem," said Stanislaw. "We make good guns. We sell them. The King's armies do not buy from us, but there are a other customers. Not too many, but others. We make good guns, and we make them not too expensive. Then someone shoots one of King Emeric's Magyar officers with one of our guns. Shoots him dead, through the armor. And they catch him, find the gun, and now we are proscribed from following the family's trade. So the family sent a delegation to King Emeric four months ago to appeal the decision."

  The two looked at each other again. Vlad saw how their shoulders were set in anger, the big hands balling into fists. Eventually Stanislaw spoke. He spoke in a cold, unemotional tone, very carefully and very deliberately, as if he was controlling a volcano of rage, but barely. "He tore up our charter. Ripped it apart and threw it in the dirt. And he had Papa Stanislaw impaled for daring to question him. For our part in killing his officer we were flogged. A hundred lashes for Edward and Thaddeus. I had to watch. I was the youngest. I got only fifty lashes—he told them to leave me alive to carry the message." He lifted his shirt, and turned, revealing the keloid mass of a terrible beating. "My brother Edward died there. Cousin Thaddeus died a week later."

  Vlad looked. And nodded, slowly. It might seem a ridiculous punishment for such a thing, but he too knew Emeric's reputation. On the wrong day, the wrong word could earn you that sort of treatment. And that would have been just after the King returned from his disastrous expedition to Corfu. His temper had been very, very savage just then. "Fetch us some Schnapps from Mirko," he said to the guard. Then to the two gunsmiths. "Come. Let us go and sit down and discuss the guns I wish to buy from you. And a new charter. One from me. I expect you sell your guns to me, but I will not blame the maker of the tool for the use it is put to."

  Vlad noticed his men were nodding too.

  The two looked at each other. "Yes, your Highness," they said warily.

  "My people call me Drac. Or Sire."

  Józef looked at him strangely. "Drac . . . that means demon. Or Dragon. My wife is from the mountains."

  Vlad nodded. "King Emeric may find I am a demon. The Dragon guards his own treasure. This is my treasure." He waved his hand at the camp. "My land and my people. Give me your fealty and you and yours will be my treasure too. To be guarded. I will be both the demon and the dragon for you."

  He was surprised to see the stocky, solid men that had looked him in the eye so firmly, suddenly kneeling in front of him. Tears were trickling down the faces of men who would not easily cry. "Drac." They said, almost in unison. Vlad found his hand being kissed.

  "Józef can go back," said Stanislaw his voice cracking. "I have found my Prince. I want to be your gunsmith, Drac."

  Józef patted Stanislaw gently on the shoulder. "He is the best, Drac. He has even made cannon, though we were not supposed to. That is all we want. Revenge and to be your people. To belong."

  Stanislaw nodded. "Yes," he said, his voice still thick. "To belong. To have a place we can call our own again. To have a Prince who will be as loyal to us as we are to him."

  Vlad reflected that he would have to go very far to find a better recruiting sergeant than King Emeric. "You will both go back," he said, raising them up. "There are patrols, and you may fall foul of them. You may need each other for support. My men will see you on your way as far as possible. I want those guns. And then, Stanislaw Smerek, you can return to be my gunsmith. I am going to need you. And you and yours are mine. I will guard you to the best of my ability. I will have your loyalty and you will have mine."

  They nodded. "Drac." It was a commitment. Heart and soul.

  "They will not take us alive, or cheaply," said Józef with a slight smile. "Stanislaw carries more pistols about his person than most regiments."

  Chapter 35

  The knights found Bortai's cart easily enough. The bullock had pulled its stake and it took Kari a while to find it. He was a better-than-average tracker, Erik noted
. He was as useful out here as he had been difficult in more civilized parts. The knights were glad that he had found it. So was Bortai, Erik noticed. It was probably all she had in the world besides a couple of ponies. Good horseflesh, but not on a par with that owned by the Ilkhan's escort. That was to be expected, naturally. Erik did not have Svanhild's eye for horse-flesh, or utter passion for it. But he did like horses, and felt that he could tell a great deal about a man and his culture, from his horse. The Illyrians were not great riding people and generally the quality of the mounts of the scouts that accompanied them had not been of the best. Not that they didn't look after their horses, or were not proud of their steeds . . . but they came across as a people who fought on foot and fled on horses. The Ilkhan's men used and loved their horses . . . but the Golden Horde came across to Erik as men who lived in the saddle, fought in the saddle, and would probably mount a horse in order to cross the street in a town.

  With three rather unexceptional ponies to her name, no wonder a cart and a bullock had seemed so important to the girl. Well, his own family were not rich—the lands at Bakkaflói had always been more beautiful and wild than really productive, although they grew good sheep and tough Icelandic ponies, and the sea saw that no-one ever starved, but there were only little patches that were arable for rye and oats—so he knew what it was to be careful. And she smiled about it. She had an infectious smile, as well as a happy laugh—frequently, it seemed, when he was there. Erik was glad for her, although it gave him a pang of guilt. He'd never really thought he would enjoy listening to any woman's laughter again, after Svanhild. Svan had been quite a serious girl, most of the time. Except—he blushed, remembering—when he tickled her.

  * * *

  Finding the cart intact—and the bullock too, was a relief to Bortai. It meant that she could implement the second phase of her plan. With Kildai safely hidden in the cart, there was a chance that she could fool—or at least insert doubts into the minds of some of the Raven clan, that the boy who looked like Kildai, was in fact him, and up and about. There was of course one problem. He looked like Kildai. He ran like Kildai. But he did not ride like him.