by Brian Lumley
An eruption of smoke and sulphur stench from breaks in the curtain, and a spew of monstrous life emerged! Human (inhuman?) torches blazed as vampire thralls beat at themselves to put out the flames, and spilled breakneck down the course of the solidified lava river. A small warrior came coughing into view; puffed up, confused, furious and perhaps even a little frightened, it fired its propulsors to get aloft. But its aerial gas-bladers were on fire; exploding one by one, they blew the creature to and fro in mid-air, until suddenly it lost its balance, capsized, and went crashing down among the howling men. To add to the confusion, Nathan and Trask tossed grenades into the mefee.
Then, as Chung continued to pour fire down the blowhole, a trio of bulky, scorched, shouting lieutenants came scrambling into view. There could be no mistaking such as these for common thralls. They were huge men; they wore leather armour studded with gold; war-gauntlets swung from their belts, and their eyes were feral yellow, cored with red. While they were not yet Wamphyri, the time would come when they might be - if they survived. But Nathan didn’t intend that they should.
At the Necroscope’s signal, Ben Trask opened up with his machine-pistol. His fire scythed among the disorientated vampires. Two were cut down . .. and were back on their
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feet almost as quickly; with such as these, simple bullets wouldn’t get it done. But Nathan’s vendetta, especially with these vampires, was a personal thing, and his weapon was something special.
As the three lieutenants limped to the side of the lava falls and came scrambling, one lurching, up a moonscape jumble of rocks towards their attackers, Nathan took careful aim and fired his first bolt. It took his target through breastplate, sheathing muscle and ribs, and knocked him backwards on to the man immediately behind him. A split-second later, the detonation of the explosive bolt killed both of them, while the third was drenched in their blood and draped in red and black shreds of gristle. Before he could recover, Trask lobbed a grenade.
By the time the flash had burned itself out on their retinae, and the detonation had stopped echoing off the mountains, Nathan’s guerillas saw only a grotesque disassembly: a crumpled torso and a tangle of meat barely identifiable as the innards of a man, steaming on the rocks.
But some fifty yards away at the eastern end of the lava falls, other men and monsters were now streaming like hornets from a broken hive, out of caverns unaffected by David Chung’s firestorm. Even as Trask opened up again with his gun, a small warrior fired its propulsors and throbbed aloft, and a lieutenant leaped to grab his flyer’s trappings as the beast skittered skywards. It seemed a good time for the guerillas to make an exit. Except —
Who? What? How -? A vampire Lord appeared from the wreck and reek of the cavern immediately below their vantage point, and probed the night with senses more than the usual five. He must have been in a partitioned, private area that hadn’t suffered Chung’s cleansing fire. And this was the one - the man himself - that Nathan wanted.
He knew him at once. Eighteen months ago in Runemanse, in Turgosheim, Nathan had been present at a meeting of Maglore and Lord Grigor Hakson of Gauntmanse. Grigor’s luck in the draw for the get-out of Sunside had been bad for
a long time; his tokens brought him no girls. The Seer-Lord had ample females, and Grigor wanted to trade young males. Maglore needed men for work he was carrying out in Runemanse - the excavation of living- and work-areas -and Grigor wanted the girls … for his own purposes. They didn’t call him ‘Grigor the Lech’ for nothing.
This was the selfsame Lord, Grigor the Lech: tall, thin, slate-grey, shifty- and slant-eyed, his black topknot shiny with grease - human fat, as Nathan well knew. A loathsome Lord of the Wamphyri. But more than that: this was the creature or the master of creatures who had killed Dock for food!
He was naked; he carried a young woman, obviously Szgany; she was naked, too - and recently dead. Her suffering rang in the Necroscope’s metaphysical mind! The dead-speak aether shuddered with it! She wasn’t hurting now, but the torture she had known would burn in her memory for a long time, perhaps forever.
Hush now! Nathan told her. Let it go. For aJI of that’s behind you now. And you’re not aJone, wait and see. Only Jet them in, and you’ll have friends galore. I for one would consider it an honour. Afraid for now, the girl couldn’t answer. But she had heard and would remember.
The sheer power of Nathan’s emotional sending was such, however, that she wasn’t the only one who heard. Grigor could not know what the psychic disturbance signified, but his vampire probe tracked its source instantly. His grey-gleaming head jerked up; his scarlet eyes swivelled like some weird chameleon’s to light on Nathan and the others at the rim of the lava falls. Then he glanced at the girl in his arms — a lifeless rag thing, a mere distraction — and tossed her down. She went slipping and sliding down the stone river, gathering speed until she hurtled over a lesser rim and plunged from view. With a little luck, no creature would find and devour her.
And: ‘Eh?’ Grigor grunted. ‘What? Men?’ As if they could not possibly be the source of this disaster.
Nathan had reloaded his crossbow. Now, without knowing why - or without consciously thinking it, in a
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moment of red rage — he cried, ‘Aye, men! Szgany! Szgaaany!’
And feeling his passion, Ben Trask and David Chung joined him: ‘Szgany! Szgany!’
Lieutenants and thralls had meanwhile climbed up onto the far lip of the falls and came running, crouching; small warriors were in flight, circling; a flyer and rider came swooping, setting the night thrumming with vibrating air-trap wings.
Nathan got off a shot at Grigor, but his hands were shaking with rage and the bolt flew wide by inches. Striking rock, it was deflected into the air and there detonated with a blinding flash and loud report. It was enough for Grigor the Lech; he took cover at once.
Trask opened up on the oncoming vampires, scything their legs from under them, and Chung torched the air above, driving the flyer off-course. But they’d done all they could here and knew it. As Grigor stuck his head out from behind an outcrop, Nathan would make one last effort to get him. ‘A grenade!’ he cried huskily. ‘Give me a grenade.’
‘I’m out,’ said Trask and Chung, as one man. ‘We’ve used them all.’ And Trask added, ‘Nathan, those warriors are descending!’
The Necroscope groaned his frustration - and grew calm in a moment. Then, aiming his telepathic thoughts direct into Grigor’s mind, he sent: We go now, but we’ll be back. Tonight, maybe. Tomorrow and tomorrow, certainly. AJways!
And despite that his mentalism surprised Grigor, still he sent back: Bastard Szgany dogs! You are dead men! You and whoever you serve!
Oh? Nathan returned. No, you are wrong. VormuJac was the one to die. And if Devetaki has her way, the rest of you Lords will be next!
Warrior stench was falling all around; a monstrous shadow came sputtering across the lava falls. Nathan conjured a door, guided Trask and Chung inside -
- And out again at the Sunside camp. His exit area was in a roped-off clump of trees; a cry went up, and Lardis
Lidesci came running. ‘How did it go?’ Then he stepped back a pace, for he’d smelled warrior!
‘It went well,’ Nathan answered, steadying his colleagues where they swayed and staggered. The Mobius route was dizzying, even to esper minds. And before Lardis could question further:
‘Where are Zek, lan Goodly, Andrei Romani?’
Several of Lardis’s men had followed him; he sent one of them to find Andrei and the two latest arrivals in Sunside. And while the Necroscope waited, he told Trask and Chung, ‘Get what rest you can. Don’t worry about me — I’ll be resting, too, as soon as I have a chance. But not until I’ve caused a deal more havoc!’
‘What do you want with Zek?’ Trask was worried for her.
‘She and Goodly left weapons at the Starside Gate, mainly grenades,’ Nathan answered. ‘We’re running low and
should try to recover them while we can. Just the one jump, Ben, and then Zek is out of it; I won’t use her again if I can avoid it. But she and I are both telepaths. We can stay in contact with each other while simultaneously watching the boulder plains. Remember, I can’t get too close to the Gate personally, not and use the Mobius Continuum. But in any event, I won’t take Zek along if lan says it’s going to be in any way dangerous. Okay?’
Trask nodded. ‘Look after her, that’s all.’
Misha came and Nathan walked aside with her a little way. Tomorrow morning, you’re all mine,’ she said. ‘Hero or not -Necroscope or whatever-you’ll lie with me out on the savanna, in the clean sunlight and sweet long grass, and like it!’
‘I’ll love it!’ he told her huskily, hugging her close. ‘But the night isn’t over yet, and -‘
‘- You still have work, I know. How is it going?’
‘On the Starside slopes of the barrier mountains, we spilled a deal of Wamphyri blood!’
‘And more to spill?’
‘A lot of it.’
‘Where next?’
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‘After I’ve recovered a new cache of weapons … the last aerie.’
‘Wrathstack?’ Her jaw fell open. ‘Nathan, that’s -‘
‘- Dangerous? Living here is dangerous! But I’ve seen a free world, Misha - or almost free - and I want the same for us. While Wrathstack and the barrier mountains, Tur-gosheim and Starside remain safe habitat for vampires, that free world simply can’t be. We’ve been their sustenance for far too long and now it’s our turn. So while I may, I’ll strike at them - again and again!’
She kissed his mouth to a standstill, breathlessly said: ‘Whatever you say - but tomorrow you’re mine.’
‘But not in the long grass.’
‘Where, then?’
‘In a place you won’t believe.’
That place?’ She meant the Mobius Continuum, and looked wary, uncertain.
But he smiled and told her, ‘No, but we’ll use it to get there -unless you like the idea of a long, long walk across the furnace desert!’ At which point, the timely arrival of Zek, Goodly, and Andrei Romani saved him from further questions …
The recovery of the weapons at the Gate went without incident. Out on the boulder plains to the north-east, there were signs of some activity: strange shapes in the sky, and what sounded like the echo of a distant explosion, but nothing in the immediate vicinity. Nathan stood off from the Gate with Zek, and let the other men drag the buggy out on to the crater rim and collect the weapons. When they were through they toppled the buggy down on to the faintly phosphorescent plain, wheeled it into a small clump of rocks and did their best to disguise it. Then they rejoined Zek and Nathan, and he took all three back to camp.
The Russian-made hand-grenades proved simple things to use; they were armed by twisting small projecting fins until the internal mechanism began to tick like a clock; then, for best effect, a count of three before hurling. Nathan
let Lardis test just one; it caused a flash, made a loud noise, felled a small tree. The Old Lidesci was satisfied. He and his senior men, the cavers and Nathan’s party received four each of these deadly eggs, which used up half of them. The rest of them were to be treated like gold - or on Sunside, like silver!
The remaining ammunition - explosive bolts, and bullets of various calibre - was shared out between the men with hell-land weapons. David Chung had proved himself more than proficient with a flame-thrower and retained it; the other ‘torch’ went to one of Carling’s cavers. Nathan ordered the remaining rocket-launcher wrapped up in an oiled skin, along with its warheads. If the time should come, he would use it himself. And so, finally, the weapons had been apportioned.
Then Trask took Nathan aside and said, ‘Why so keen to get these arms distributed?’
Nathan looked at him. ‘Was it that obvious?’
To me it was. If anything happens to you, you want to be sure these weapons will be put to the best possible use.’
Nathan nodded. ‘I’m going into Wrathstack again,’ he said. ‘Oh, I’ll be in and out as quickly as possible - but accidents sometimes happen.’
‘You are going in,’ Trask repeated him, with the emphasis on you. ‘On your own? Why that nightmarish place again?’
Nathan’s shrug was perhaps fatalistic, but in no way careless. ‘I’m going in alone because I can’t risk taking anyone with me,’ he said. ‘I have to be able to get out fast. As for why I’m doing it: well, we’ve given the army out of the east something to worry about, so now I want to even up the score a bit.’
‘But didn’t you do that with Uruk Piatra? Lardis told us all about it.’
‘Yes, but Wratha and the others in the last aerie don’t know about Uruk, not yet. I want to do something that’s a lot more immediate, dramatic. Something they’ll remember, to play on their nerves and throw them off-balance.’ While he spoke, he pocketed extra grenades.
‘You’ll be careful, of course.’
Nathan nodded. The worst thing about it is I’ll have to
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use Zek again. I know I promised not to, but I need a lookout. She’ll be on the boulder plains, in a safe place, just watching, or rather “listening”, out for me.’
‘And if something goes wrong? She could be trapped there? Is that why you wanted me to get some sleep?’
‘You know it isn’t. I hadn’t thought it out, that’s all.’
And of course Trask knew it was the truth. ‘Then I’m glad I didn’t sleep,’ he said. ‘Because I’m coming with you.’
Nathan couldn’t deny him. They went and found Zek …
Out on the boulder plain, the Necroscope found a suitable place to leave the two - the vacant ruins of a toppled stack on the very fringe of the miles-wide cluster of ancient Wamphyri tumuli — and went on alone. Keeping well clear of Gorvi’s ambush party, he emerged several hundred yards away from Wrathstack’s scree- and rubble-bedded base, and moved quickly into the shadow of a massive boulder. The numbers vortex swirled in his metaphysical mind, shielding it and ready at a moment’s notice to conjure an escape route. But with less than seventeen hours to sunup, he should be comparatively safe.
In Wrathstack, and wherever Gorvi’s ground-based creatures lurked now, the vampires would sense dawn’s approach. From personal experience in Turgosheim, Nathan knew that the Lords and Ladies, and common vampires alike, normally took to their beds in the hours before sunup. Maglore himself had been a rare exception. But in the last aerie, the barrier mountains, Turgosheim, and wherever vampires were to be found, they’d be sleepy now. Indeed the Necroscope knew they were; their thoughts were vague, disjointed and fragmentary where he probed them with a light telepathic touch. But … perhaps not all of them? There were rather more active minds, well-guarded, on the other side of the stack.
In any case, satisfied, he contacted Zek. All’s well?
Yes.
And it was time …
II
Assault on Wrathstack -The Dog-Lord’s Dire Predictions
Nathan used deadspeak to contact Jason Lidesci. Jason, how is the stack arranged? Not Guilesump, but the rest of the levels. Where are the gas-beasts situated?
Jason came back at once: In Madmanse. The Killglance brothers have control of gas production. They have the levels over Gorvi’s. You’ll recognize the gas-beast pens from their round windows: not windows at aJJ but vents.’ They surround Madmanse in an almost complete circle, like a ring that dips from south to north and follows the slant of the rock strata. This effect is most pronounced in Suckscar — named first after Vasagi the Suck, then for the sloping ‘scars’ where soft rock has weathered out. The rock of the gas-beast level in Madmanse has to be soft, too, for the vents are far too regular to be natural; they were tunnelled in ages past by the Wamphyri!
Nathan could see the ring of circular openings that banded Wrathstack like a bracelet. The pens were on the perimeter, and
so there must be access to them from within .. . and, as he now saw, from without! For looking closer in the blue-tinged starlight, he could make out ledges and bone and cartilage scaffolding on the stack’s exterior — for maintenance, of course! It was all he needed to know.
Except: Vasagi the Suck? he sent, his deadspeak hoarse as a snarl. He dwells up there, near the top of the stack, where its sides are worn into scars?
Ah, no — no longer! Suckscar was Vasagi’s place, but now it belongs to … another.
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Vasagi was usurped? There was something here that Nathan couldn’t understand.
Usurped, no — he was killed by Wran the Rage! And Suck-scar went to your brother, the necromancer Nestor Lichloathe!
But .. . that can’t be, Nathan said. Why, this very night, Vasagi has murdered my mother, Nona Kiklu, in Sunside.’
I can only report what I’ve heard from the dead of Wrathstack, Jason answered. For I was already dead when Vasagi and Wran duelled on Sunside. Two flew out, but only Wran returned.
Nathan would like to explore the riddle further but must let it go for now. In any case, the dead of Wrathstack would be vampires; in death as in life they would be liars; perhaps they had lied to Jason, too.
Jason had heard his thoughts, of course. Quietly he said, I know that you don’t incJude me in that.
No, of course I don’t, Nathan told him.
The other’s deadspeak sigh.
My thanks, Jason, Nathan sent -
— And jumped, to within two hundred yards of the base of Wrathstack. Now the last aerie of the Wamphyri towered over him like some monstrous menhir, a dizzy pile rising up and up, taller than the mightiest building of Trask’s Earth and broader at its base than three city blocks. But Nathan had precious little time to feel awed or even afraid.
A moment for orientation . .. and he jumped, up onto a high ledge in the face of Madmanse, close to the wide rim or sill of one of the vents, which was all of seven feet in diameter. From within, nothing. No sound, nor even the noxious smell of a gas-beast. The chamber was empty.
