Bloodwars

by Brian Lumley

  Tonight was a fierce battle,’ Nathan said. The Wamphyri came here, to Sanctuary Rock .. . which is something new?’

  Lardis nodded. ‘Indeed, for it seems they’ve found us out at last. I anticipated it years ago, and we’ll move out later tonight.’

  ‘I couldn’t help noticing that there were a great many of them. The Wamphyri themselves weren’t much in evidence - not on the ground, at least - but their men and beasts . ..’ He let it hang in the air, unspoken.

  It was the emphasis he put on themselves that told Lardis what this was about. And now the Old Lidesci must find a way to tell him what he wanted to know - without telling the others.

  ‘We’ve heard rumours out of the east,’ said Lardis slowly, grinding out the words. There were always supplicant tribes in the east - cowardly dogs! Well, Wratha and those other blood-suckers have started them up again! What’s more, it seems the Wamphyri are united again; they’ve been building their forces without let-up. Also, we’ve been hearing that there’s a brand-new Lord among them. We don’t know too much about that one as yet, but what we do know isn’t good. Rumour has it that he’s a necromancer! He’s supposed to have been seen by some of Karl Zestos’s people, rummaging in the old mounds and tumuli in the woods. It’s only to be expected, I suppose … of a necromancer!’ (There: he’d done it!)

  And Nathan nodded to show he understood. Understood that Lardis knew his brother Nestor was a vampire, and not ‘merely’ a vampire but also a Lord. And now … a necromancer? It made sense, in a way: his father’s talent was coming out in Nestor just as it had in Nathan. But whereas in Nathan it had been for the good . ..

  The Old Lidesci had kept it to himself so as not to hurt Nana Kiklu, and so as not to damage Nathan’s credibility. His reasons were obvious:

  While it was not forgotten among the Lidescis how Harry Keogh (called the Necroscope, or Harry Hell-lander, and occasionally Harry Dwellersire) had joined with his son The Dweller to destroy the Old Wamphyri and reduce their aeries to rubble, it was also remembered how in the end Harry had become Wamphyri! If it should now be learned that Nestor was this ‘brand-new Lord’ in Wrathstack, and not only a Lord but a necromancer too .. .

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  … Perhaps that quaint old adage, ‘like father, like son’, might take on a new and frightening meaning! And how would that affect Nathan? Necroscope now, aye .. . but what about tomorrow? Would it make any difference that he had been born before Harry Keogh became Wamphyri? Would anyone remember that, or even consider it, when they discovered that his brother was a monster?

  Even Lardis himself had lost sleep worrying about it; and if he didn’t love Nathan like a son, and if he hadn’t lost his own son … but he did and he had, and that was that.

  Nathan was still looking at Lardis, but the tense look had finally gone out of the Old Lidesci’s face. The secret was theirs to share between them; theirs alone, for the moment at least.

  Lardis relaxed, nodded and said: ‘Very well, I think I’m ready for a proper introduction to these friends of yours, Nathan, and then we’ll hear your story. If memory serves, the one you told us last time was pretty damn good, but I’ve a feeling this one is going to top it! Only let’s get on without delay, for your mother’s given us an hour, no more.’ He rubbed his chin in mock concern, grinned and said, ‘A bit of a girl, your mother, in her time. I won’t be the one to cross her, be sure!’

  The introductions, somewhat stilted and complicated by language differences which required interpretation in places, followed …

  PART FIVE

  Nathan:

  a Champion for the Living, a Dreamer for the Dead

  I

  OJd Contacts Renewed

  Glancing left and right at Trask and Chung, Nathan spoke to the Old Lidesci: ‘As they were my father’s friends before me, these men are my friends. Hell-landers, if you like, but despite what Zek Foener told you, it isn’t really hell. I’ve met Zek, incidentally, and she remembers you with great fondness!’

  ‘Ahhh!’ Lardis’s long drawn-out gasp. ‘But. .. you actually met Zekintha? Is she well? And Jazz - ah, how that one could fight! They should have come together and stayed here! In fact, I think they did get together. Why, I was almost jealous of him upon a time .. . er, it was before Lissa, of course! Jazz and Zek: their blood was good and hot, very nearly Szgany. And their children would have given us new life right across Sunside.’

  Nathan nodded wryly; Nana and Misha would be lucky to see him in just one hour. Lardis made a wonderful audience (like a small child, all agog), but just like a child he would be full of questions. Best to ignore them and get on with it, except - well, the Old Lidesci must be told about Zek and Jazz.

  And so: They did get together,’ he said. ‘Zek … remains, and she’s well, yes. She took me to Jazz’s grave, in a place so beautiful you’d scarcely believe. I was pleased to … go there with her.’ (He had almost said something else: that he had been pleased to meet Jazz and speak with the hero of so many of Lardis’s tales of the old days, but Lardis and the others wouldn’t have understood. To mundane minds a man may only ‘meet’ someone in the flesh, not at that someone’s graveside.)

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  Changing the subject, Nathan clapped a hand to Ben Trask’s shoulder. ‘This man is as brave as they come in any world, and without him I couldn’t have returned; why, he even came with me to help you destroy the Wamphyri!’ Which was true as far as it went. ‘He is called Ben - and Lardis, Zekintha misses him very much in the hell-lands! Theirs is a new thing, too soon broken. Ben has a talent: he sees the truth of things. Only lie to him, he’ll know your betrayal. Show him a false trail, he’ll choose the right one.’

  Lardis studied Trask anew; but what was to study? If Zek found him good, then he was good!

  ‘And this small yellowish man is David,’ Nathan continued, and grasped Chung’s arm. ‘You’ve much in common with him, Lardis: he sees afar. He is a seer! As the talent was in your ancestors and remains in your blood, so it is in David.’

  Looking from Trask to Chung and back again, Lardis nodded. ‘All good things, these strange skills of yours, and we can use them. Aye, for the Wamphyri are talented, too. Well, welcome to Sanctuary Rock, Ben and David. A pity you won’t get to know it any better, but we’ll soon be out of here. Now that Wratha and her lot know we’re here, it’s no longer safe.’

  Trask nodded, and carefully, haltingly - mainly in the Szgany tongue - said, ‘Thank you for accepting us. Obviously, Nathan has your complete confidence. That’s not hard to understand: his father, Harry Keogh, had mine those long years ago. I knew him when he was … just a man; and afterwards, before he came back to Starside. Nothing changed him — not the real Harry - not even at the end.’

  ‘I know,’ Lardis answered, ‘for I was there at the end!’ And then, in a surprised tone: ‘But . .. you speak our tongue! Not very well, but you speak it. I noticed it before: when we joke, you laugh! Now, how is that?’

  Trask shrugged; he looked somewhat mystified himself. ‘I have a way with tongues. In my world there are many

  languages. I know a little - not much, a word here and there - of most of them. But yours is a strange world and … I have to admit that I’ve surprised myself!’

  For once it was Nathan who knew the ‘truth’ of it. ‘It’s your talent,’ he said. ‘I’ve noticed that all espers have this knack with tongues, especially mentalists. Myself, Zekintha - others too, I suspect. Matching words to thoughts makes it that much easier. In you, Ben, it’s the fact that you’re a human lie-detector: you know the truth of things, even the truth of words. I can’t explain it any better than that. lan Goodly has it, too, and .. . David?’ He looked at Chung.

  ‘I’m getting most of this, yes.’ Chung nodded. ‘I’ve never questioned my skill. Chinese parents, English upbringing, some German and a little French in school - the rest just seemed to come naturally.’

  ‘No.’ Trask shook his head. ‘Metaphysically! Nathan has t
o be right: it’s our ESP.’

  They settled down and Nathan indicated the silent, as yet astonished, even shaken, cavers. They were seated on his right beyond Chung, between the Chinaman and Kirk Lis-escu. But here Nathan found himself embarrassed; he had met these men at the Romanian Refuge; since when, things had moved so fast he hadn’t had time to get to know them. Even their names escaped him now.

  Their spokesman, aware of Nathan’s difficulty, said: ‘I’m John Carling. My friends are Jim Bentley and Orson Sang-ster. I think we all understand a little of what’s being said, but nothing of what’s going on. As for this - this what? This parallel world? It’s just a nightmare! What we’ve seen so far is unbelievable! But for the fact that we’re all cavers, used to being underground .. . well I’m pretty sure we’d all be out of here on the double! Except we wouldn’t know where the hell we were running, or what we’d be likely to run into! At least these people here are friendly and . .. well, people!’

  Carling was a compact, capable looking man; small, wiry,

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  dark haired and crew-cut. His hands were large and strong, and he used them for emphasis when he spoke. He had a small mouth, straight nose, slightly hollow cheeks. If his hair were longer and his skin a shade darker, he could pass for Szgany.

  Jim Bentley was also slender and agile, but stood two or three inches taller than Carling. He had a lop-sided mouth, a nervous grin, red hair and brown eyes. A deep, crescent moon-shaped scar on his forehead was the legacy of some minor caving accident.

  Orson Sangster was the odd man out. Heavy-set for a caver, he was long-armed and lumbering, and shared many features with the Old Lidesci, who might best be described as ‘simian’. Also like Lardis, his looks were deceptive; a good disguise for his sharp mind and ready wit.

  Ben Trask found himself feeling sorry for the three, said: ‘When we get the chance, I’ll fill you in more properly on what you’ve got yourselves into. But if I tell you that what happens here could well determine the future of our own world, then you might appreciate that this is bigger than all of us. But in any case - like it or not - you’re in it for the duration. Listen in and make your best effort to learn the language. We could be here for some time to come.’

  While Trask was speaking, Nathan had been looking at Lardis’s senior men. He was well acquainted with Kirk Lisescu and Andrei Romani, of course, but the rest were new to him. Also, it seemed that several of the old crew were absent.

  So, before beginning his story — directing his gaze at Andrei, who sat silently now, apparently lost in thought -Nathan began to inquire, ‘What of your …?’ — and immediately paused. It was his telepathy, which he’d learned from the Thyre to use sparingly, so avoiding intrusion into the minds of others. Andrei’s thoughts had been so strong, however, that they’d almost spilled over, making Nathan’s inquiry unnecessary. Almost without trying, he’d read his answer in the other’s mind: that the Romani brothers, Ion

  and Franci, were dead, killed in a recent attack on Settlement.

  Seeing Nathan’s confusion - guessing what he’d been about to ask - Andrei nodded, said, ‘Gone, aye, like so many before them. They were two of a team on decoy duty in old Settlement. They’d been setting small fires and burning beast-flesh, sending cooking smells up to lure the Wamphyri down. And it worked. There were a lot of the bastards that night, but what with Dimi Petrescu’s exploding powder and our rockets and all, the Settlement team had their measure. One of our rockets hit a warrior in the gas-bladders and set them and his mantle on fire; crashing down, the beast was half-stunned on impact. Ion and Franci went to fling boiling tar on him. But … there was more life in the devil than they’d thought.’

  Andrei’s eyes had shone misty in the candlelight. Now, as he gave himself a shake, he said: ‘Well, that’s how it goes.’ And Nathan felt him blank it from his mind so that it wouldn’t creep back again … not until the next time. It was sobering, saddening, and it brought the situation home to everyone, with the exception perhaps of the cavers.

  Out of respect, Nathan waited a moment before starting to tell his story, but once underway he progressed with some speed and wasted as little time as possible. Picking up the tale from where Lardis must have left it at the time, he told how he had been taken by a flyer whose lieutenant rider, for some unknown reason, had thrown him into the glaring hell-lands Gate. On the other side, in a place called Perchorsk, he’d been taken prisoner but had managed to escape. In enemy territory, hell-lander Travellers (this part was greeted with utter amazement by Lardis and his men. What, Travellers in the hell-lands? And Nathan knew that he’d have to go into greater detail some other time) had befriended and hidden him until Trask and his organization could pick him up and convey him to a place of safety.

  Then, with the assistance of his new-found esper friends, Nathan had discovered his Necroscope connections.

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  Learning his father’s art of ‘going places’, he had become the ultimate Traveller! Now, by use of a second Gate, he had managed to return home, bringing back hell-lander weapons with him, hopefully to defeat the Wamphyri. As for Trask, Chung and the others: they were here mainly by accident, but also because they desired to destroy the Wamphyri. Not unnaturally, the hell-landers in general thought of the Gates as a monstrous threat to their world and desired to close them forever, and as soon as possible.

  Therefore Trask and the others must go back to their own world without delay and while they still could, but not before they had trained Lardis’s men in the use of their amazing weapons. Later, upon their return to the hell-lands, and if it was at all feasible, they would continue to send guns and ammunition through until the Gates were closed.

  Nathan also mentioned that the leader of his hell-lander enemies from Perchorsk had also come through, with a good many men, and that they had weapons too. The Szgany should be aware of this, that not all foreigners were good sorts. As for Turkur Tzonov, Nathan scarcely cared what happened to him at all, but it would not be a good thing if his weapons fell into Wamphyri hands.

  ‘Or into the hands of the Lady Wratha’s collaborators, her supplicants beyond the great pass,’ Lardis rumbled when Nathan had done. And he spat into the dust of the floor.

  Nathan frowned. ‘I had forgotten about them. Perhaps I’ll have to see what can be done about Tzonov after all. I have my own reasons for hating him, but I had hoped it would be ‘·· out of my hands. Apparently not. ..’

  ‘What about these Gypsies, these hell-lander Travellers?’ Plainly Lardis was fascinated by the idea. Nathan pondered a moment, looked for the best way to tell it, and finally said: They are true Travellers. Aye, Szgany — or their ancestors were, at least. And in the hell-lands, too, they’re called Szgany, or Zigeuner .. . they have various names. The Star-side Gate has been there a long, long time, Lardis.’

  ‘They’re from here, d’you mean? From Sunside/Starside?’

  Nathan nodded. ‘Originally, yes. Indeed, the chief of the tribe I spent time with - I lived in his caravan a day and a night - was a direct descendant. He was the last of his line, of the true Szgany blood, and carried the history of his forefathers with him. Likewise, it will go with him to his grave. And I know that you will say it’s as well.’

  Lardis frowned. ‘Really? How do you mean?’

  Nathan shrugged. ‘He was a Ferengi!’

  Lardis’s eyes bugged. ‘Ferengi? A Ferenc, d’you say?’ He turned his face aside and spat again. The Ferencs were cursed in prehistory, since time immemorial! There were always Ferencs among the Old Wamphyri. Fess Ferenc was one such, and I saw him once during a raid: a giant, bulge-headed and block-jawed, his bones all wrong and talons for hands. But… the Szgany Ferengi?’

  Nathan nodded. ‘But all myths and legends now - to them! Ancestral memory: of a time when their Lord was big in his castle, and they went out across the world to do his bidding. They remember the places where their ancestors came from: the Gates where
they emerge into the hell-lands!’

  Lardis said: ‘We have our legends, too. We know that as long as the Wamphyri have been, they’ve had three dire punishments for transgressors against their own “laws”. Or, in other words, they’ve had three especially unpleasant ways of getting rid of their greatest enemies! They were banished to the north, to die of hunger and cold in the Icelands. Or they were buried undead in deep pits out on the barren boulder plains, till they stiffened to stones in the earth. Or they were hurled into the Starside Gate, and sent to hell forever - for no one ever came back from there! Aye, and sometimes their thralls would go with them. Is that what you’re telling me: that the hell-lands Travellers were supplicant Szgany?’

  Nathan nodded. ‘Some of them must have been: unvampir-ized, in order that they could keep watch during the hell-land days, which are shorter and more frequent than ours, to ensure their Lords slept in safety.’

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  Lardis looked at him for long moments. ‘Just legends, you say. But are you sure that’s all they are, Nathan, these Lords, in this strange world you’ve visited - just legends?’

  Trask cut in, ‘We believe so. Harry Keogh tracked the last of them down, and killed him. That one was a Ferenczy, too. But Harry must have got too close, which was his undoing.’

  ‘Indeed!’ Lardis nodded. ‘It doesn’t do to get too close to the Wamphyri!’ He looked at Nathan. ‘And so, when this old chief who sheltered you goes down into the ground, it will be the end of his line?’