by Brian Lumley
Ben Trask and most of his ‘hell-lander’ companions were there with Nathan, but no one more concerned about the youth than Trask. ‘It can only be grief.’ He stood up as Lardis approached. ‘He loved his mother dearly. Grief, passion, fatigue . .. you name it. These last few days, Nathan has been through a hell of a lot - and in more worlds than one! Now, he needs care and attention.’
‘Then care for him,’ Lardis answered, looking down on the Necroscope where he moaned, sweated, shivered. ‘We’ll aJI have to take care of him. For after all, Nathan’s your one hope of ever getting out of here, and he’s our one chance of ever living here! And one way or the other, I’m sure it’s close now. I can feel it thickening like the air before a storm. Everything has a turning point, and every war reaches a climax. It’s coming, I know it…” He turned away.
‘What will you do now?’ Trask called after him.
Lardis looked back. ‘We have to make camp, build shelters of sorts, prepare defensive positions.’ He shrugged. ‘We know how. This isn’t the first time.’
‘And us?’
‘Care for yourselves, and for Nathan, as best you can. As the camp takes shape, spread yourselves — and your weapons, of course - around the perimeter. Then sleep as peacefully as you may. I shall set a watch. We won’t be caught napping again. Not this night, anyway.’
The Wamphyri have been here once tonight?’ Trask appeared doubtful; he wasn’t privy to Lardis’s knowledge about this most recent atrocity.
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Lardis nodded. ‘Aye, but you must let me be the authority on the Wamphyri. Take it from me, they’re not likely to return tonight. On the other hand, we won’t be taking any
chances.’
As he went off to rouse his men and get them working, a drizzling rain started to fall, hissing among the last smouldering fires …
It had started to rain over the barrier mountains, too, where the warrior-Lord Vormulac Unsleep and Devetaki Skullguise gentled their manta flyers down out of a lowering sky, and called down their lieutenants, men and warriors to the rim of a scarp high over Sanctuary Rock.
Then, sniffing the damp air and scanning the dreary night with vampire eyes and senses: ‘This has to be the place,’ Vormulac grunted. ‘Even up here I can smell the smoke of fires, the reek of furious fighting, the sweet scent of Szgany blood. Zindevar’s familiar creatures were right: down there was a battleground, and recently!’
He and Devetaki sat in their saddles not far apart, their voices echoing hollowly in the still, damp darkness. But hers was low and thoughtful as she answered: ‘Your senses are acute as ever, my Lord. But there is blood and blood. Myself, I smell more than Szgany blood. Oh, men died down there tonight, it’s true - but so did vampires!’
Vormulac gazed redly across at her where she sat wreathed in mist and drizzle. ‘What do you think?’
She glanced at him. ‘Wratha’s last throw at provisioning, before we close our jaws on her?’
‘And she had to fight to take her share?’ He was puzzled. ‘How so, when so far we’ve encountered only supplicants?’ The men in the pass were not supplicants.’ ‘Ahhh! You think there are more of these weaponed humans down there! Now that you mention it, Lady, you could be right, for indeed I smell more than blood in the air. A sulphur reek, as when Lord Wamus fell at the keep in the pass!’
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The very same.’ She nodded and, turning, she looked back into the grey, penetrating, calculating eyes of Turkur Tzonov where he sat at the rear of her long saddle. ‘But I’ve someone here who knows the truth of it, who has told me how extremely unlikely it would be to meet up with such weapons here.’
‘What do you suggest then?’ For Vormulac had indeed come to rely upon her far too heavily.
‘Why, that we go down and see what’s to be seen! For if there’s been fighting, patently there was resistance. Perhaps Wratha has softened them up for us, in which case we may profit from her losses.’
‘Good! And do you care to lead the way?’
Devetaki laughed, and launched, and behind her Turkur Tzonov held tight to her waist, and heard her whisper in his mind: Ah, my pretty! But those are good strong hands! And is the rest of your body so strong? Perhaps we’]] look into that Jater. Ah! Do you trembJe? WeJJ, then, have no fear but be of stout heart . .. for remember, we have an understanding, you and I. In tune with Tzonov’s telepathic mind, her words were for him alone.
On arched air-trap wings they floated, stalling and gliding by stages, descending through the mist and the night until the Rock came more clearly into view. Losing altitude rapidly at first, they then glided in a lazy spiral, finally came down and landed in the lower foothills on Sanctuary Rock’s approach routes. And as the Lord and Lady, their men, and Turkur Tzonov dismounted from their flyers, so the rumble and sputter of warrior propulsors died away, and the pair of fighting beasts put down on top of the Rock itself.
Signs that others had been here before them were all too obvious. Despite Lardis Lidesci’s best efforts at cleaning up, the lesser debris caused by Nathan’s alien weapons was visible everywhere: soggy scraps of iron- and gold-studded leather, a broken sandal and shattered gauntlet, blood-spattered patches of gorse and heather. And as the rain stopped and the writhing mists rose up, the silence was
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almost a living thing that Vormulac and Devetaki probed with all of their vampire senses.
Until: ‘No one here,’ said Vormulac shortly. ‘Not now.’ But Devetaki shook her head, and whispered, ‘They are artful, these people. They have retained what Turgosheim’s Szgany surrendered long ago: their pride, their individuality, their skill in concealing themselves - bodies and thoughts alike — their freedom! Oh, they’re here, be sure of it! Hiding in that great rock there — I sense them! Some of them, at least. And now I begin to see it as it must have been.’ He glanced at her. ‘Your female intuition?’ ‘If you will,’ She tossed her head. ‘Should I go on?’ ‘Huh!’ But he nodded his great head anyway, and followed her where she made for Sanctuary Rock on foot.
Herded along by lieutenants and thralls, Turkur Tzonov went with them and stuck as close as he dared to Devetaki. His machine-pistol swung from a strap across his shoulder … but its magazine was hooked to Devetaki’s belt.
‘Wratha and her gang of renegades must have known that these people were here,’ Devetaki began to outline her theory. ‘Ah, but Wratha also knew that they were fierce fighters! Well, no matter; as long as Wratha had supplicant tribes in the east beyond the pass, she need not attack the people of this great rock and risk expensive losses. But eventually, when she discovered that we were come out of the east -‘
‘— Then she must provision her aerie!’ Vormulac finished it for her. ‘And she did some of that provisioning here! Yes, I see it …” And then, more gloomily: ‘Which means that we’re too late. Any good stuff has been stolen into Starside, to the last aerie.’
‘But not all of it!’ Devetaki sniffed the air. ‘I tell you, I sense them in there, deep in the rock!’
And now that they were closer to that massive boulder: ‘So do I,’ Vormulac had to agree. ‘But … how many? And more importantly, what are we going up against sight unseen?’
‘We?’ Devetaki looked at him sideways and shook her head. ‘What, do we keep wolves and do our own howling? We go against nothing, my Lord. Our men and monsters go up against whatever awaits them, which by my reckoning isn’t much. Wratha has worn them out, which is why they hide in the rock. See, their traps are all sprung or burned up, their defences are unmanned. They wait like chickens in a coop — to have their necks wrung!’
They passed through the outer semicircle of warrior-traps (many of which were still smoking, and some issuing the hideous stench of burnt flesh), skirted the inner pits, finally arrived at the dry-stone wall where Lardis’s makeshift rocket-launching tubes stood empty and idle, fronting the mighty cavern entrance or ‘mouth’ of the Rock. And indeed, it was not unlike a pock-marked f
ace, that huge skull of a boulder. As the clouds began to break up, its round window eye-sockets gleamed blue in the ice-shard starlight, and its mouth wore a frozen yawn or grimace. Like a skull, and dead as a skull. No lights were visible anywhere; the Rock might well be deserted. Except -
‘- There!’ said Devetaki. ‘Did you not feel it: a tremor of terror? They watch us from those window-holes. And they’re defenceless as newborn babes, else by now they’d have fired a bolt or two.’
At which Vormulac immediately felt vulnerable, and joined Devetaki where she kneeled in the lee of the wall. ‘So, then,’ he said. ‘And to flush them out —?’
‘— We send our lieutenants and men in, aye.’ She nodded. ‘But first, and to ensure that we’re not sending them into an ambush . ..’ She turned her burning gaze on the high rim of the Rock and sent: Come, my brave one. For your mistress Devetaki has work for you!
Then from on high, the answering roar of her warrior and the sounds of its propulsors sputtering into life; a dark shape launching from the Rock’s rim, and a second blasphemous outline close behind as Lord Taintspore followed suit and ordered down his own creature.
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Landing room between the defensive positions and the Rock itself was limited; both beasts came down clumsily; they hissed and spat at each other, jostling awhile until Vormulac and Devetaki intervened. Then, turned hind-on to the cavern, they were ordered to prepare their most noxious gases for release under pressure within the Rock. Poisonous fumes at once began to fill the labyrinth of tunnels and caves, venting in steamy jets from several lower windows, cracks and crevices.
And from within . .. terrified thoughts! The desire to run, flee, escape! A great leaping, a mad rout of thoughts, this way and that … panic! Devetaki’s superior mentalism picked up all of these emotions and knew them at once -for lies! Ah, and indeed these people were artful, yes! But this time they went too far.
What? Did they really think to play their games with the virgin grandam herself, the very mistress of deception? And she knew that there was nothing in the rock but death. She knew it, but on the other hand … Vormulac did not.
‘I hear them now!’ he chortled, his voice a clotted gurgle of anticipation. And to his men: ‘Spread out. Take them as they emerge!’
‘Ah, no!’ Devetaki saw her chance. ‘They’re too proud for that, my Lord. These people would rather die than surrender to a stench. If we want them, we must drive them out. Here, let me send in half of my brave lads.’
Vormulac glared at her. What? Would she upstage him to the last? ‘Mine go first!’ he cried. ‘Yours . .. may follow on.’ And to his dozen lieutenants and thralls: ‘In, and sort it
out!’
Driving the warriors before them, Lord Unsleep’s dozen sprang to obey. Devetaki’s six followed them in, but the rest stayed close to their Lady. And from within the Rock: was that a sigh, the thrill of pleasurable anticipation, the sure knowledge that a trap was about to be sprung? Devetaki knew that it was, but Vormulac had heard nothing.
The warriors were inside, deep into the larger tunnels
which would take their bulk. The lieutenants and thralls were exploring lesser caves and burrows, all well within the labyrinth. There was no resistance … because there was no one to flush out! Oh, there had been: men, minds, human lures, within the Rock, whose function Devetaki had read to perfection; she’d used no less a ploy herself! But they were there no longer. Now they plunged along Lardis’s boltholes to secret exits where the steep slope of the foothills met the Rock’s worn-smooth stone; and now they struck flints to send sparks flying into multiple trails of Dimi Petrescu’s powder, trails that led sputteringly back into the heart of the Rock.
White-blazing, hissing, smoking fire ran like small bright rivers through claustrophobic confines. And all of these eager, almost sentient tongues of hungry flame licking their way back to an instantaneous feast of sudden, explosive, crushing death; all of them eating distance and darkness as they raced to their targets.
The base of the Rock was itself a massive mine! There were sacks of Dimi’s powder in cracks in the ceilings, barrels of it in caves around the perimeter, drifts of it in walled-off corners and niches in the narrow tunnels!
And: Now! Devetaki ‘heard’ the exclamation in her mind.
And again: Now! Two separate but equally triumphant cries going up; and although she couldn’t foresee the outcome and wouldn’t be able to understand it, certainly not the mechanics of the thing, still she found herself borne along on the waves of excitement generated by these mental declarations of victory. So much so that she reiterated them:
Now! -and waited to see what would be.
But she’d been careless, and Vormulac had heard her.
‘Eh?’ Scowling suspiciously, the warrior-Lord turned gold-flecked scarlet eyes on her. ‘Now, did you say? Now what?’ But it wasn’t Devetaki who answered him … it was as if Sanctuary Rock itself answered; first with a series of lesser explosions, then several colossal ones!
The earth shook. A hot wind blew from the cavern mouth,
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showering pebbles and grit everywhere; lesser gusts hissed in pressured jets from windows and cracks. The windows lit up as white and orange flames spilled out from them. The grimace on the face of the skull became a rictus of agony, or a snarl of vengeance, as the porous chalky rock of the lower levels was fractured and blew outwards in crumbling chunks.
‘What?’ Vormulac stood up, his bottom jaw falling open.
Devetaki asked no questions but crept away, calling her six remaining men after her.
Turkur Tzonov went with them, cringing down into himself as Sanctuary Rock continued to erupt, spouting smoke and fire as its innards were torn out. Gutted in its soft chalk underbelly, it was finished, and the last and biggest explosion of all saw the end of it.
At the outer row of pits Devetaki stopped to look back. Vormulac came stumbling, clutching his head, bleeding from a cut where a flying rock had struck him. He looked dazed, disbelieving. And behind him the Rock went down, a million tons of it settling into its own foundations, tilting this way and that, easing into the earth like a great egg tapped gently on a flat stone and left balancing there. The Rock went down, and overhead a signal rocket went up, high into the now cloudless night sky, where it terminated in a great orange starburst.
What that last might signify, the virgin grandam couldn’t say — unless it was the death of the Rock. One thing was certain: it wasn’t the end of death this night.
‘Devetaki! Devetaki!’ The warrior-Lord staggered closer. ‘My men, my monsters . .. and you knew!’ And he would make her pay, right now, if that were possible. But it wasn’t.
‘My Lord, you have become a burden,’ she told him with a sigh. ‘But I’ve no time for speeches or recriminations. Men come and men go, and we’re keeping destiny waiting. But don’t be disappointed, for even now I serve you well. After all the long sleepless years that you’ve known, finally the greatest, longest sleep of all is upon you. And so, farewell!’
Putting on her smiling mask, she glanced at Tzonov meaningfully and tossed him his weapon’s magazine.
Vormulac reached for her with hands that could tear her throat out. Bulge-eyed, he stumbled towards her. Blood rained down his forehead and dripped from his hawk’s nose; his moustaches hung heavy with blood and his grinding gash of a mouth was full of it. He was almost upon her, and Devetaki standing there with one slender arm held out to keep him back - as if it possibly could.
At the last moment she stepped back, and Tzonov stepped forward. He aimed his weapon and drew back the cocking lever — ch-ching! Vormulac moved to brush him contemptuously aside, and Tzonov let fly with a dozen hammers of hot lead that thundered death and destruction where they ripped through the vampire-Lord’s armour into his chest, hurling him back and down!
With his heart in pieces inside him, Vormulac Unsleep lay on his back, looked up at the stars and
wondered what had happened. He was still wondering as Devetaki’s lieutenants fell on him with their murderous gauntlets, and reduced his head to so much pulp. But he was perhaps the greatest of the Lords of the Wamphyri, and they knew it. Despite that Vormulac was dead, he was not nearly dead!
Before the Thing inside him could recover and activate itself in a final frenzy, they dragged him to a firepit and toppled him in. In the bottom of the pit, embers were glowing still; close to hand, a small pile of Lardis’s tarred torches, left unused after the fighting with Wratha, would soon bring the embers back to life.
Vormulac went up in fire, smoke, and something less of a commotion than Devetaki had expected. Nevertheless, just to be absolutely certain, she waited until it was finished. Then she looked for Tzonov . ..
… And at first failed to see him! As her lieutenants had busied themselves with Vormulac at the pit, so the alien had taken his chance and slipped away. Then a thrall pointed him out, scrambling up a slope towards a bluff or
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outcrop of solid rock, where dark fissures showed in the cliff face. Devetaki saw his scheme at once: tucked away in a crack or shallow cave, he could take out her men one by one as often as she sent them in after him! His devastating firepower would destroy them as easily as he’d dealt with Vormulac.
One of her more adventurous thralls was after him even now, scrambling with a vampire’s strength and agility up the slope. But at the top Tzonov turned, aimed, and put two shots close together into his pursuer’s heart. The thrall cried out, threw up his arms, and came tumbling head over heels down the steep slope.
