by Brian Lumley
‘A Lady?’ Zahar called back. ‘But you must bring her on at once! My Lord Lichloathe, a mighty necromancer, loves only one thing better than a corpse — and that’s a good fuck! Moreover, Lady Commanders have always been one of his preferences.’
‘Alas, then he’s out of luck,’ the thrall answered back, more at ease than when conversing with a true Lord (or Lady). ‘Devetaki isn’t called the “virgin grandam” for nothing. Depending on Lord Lichloathe’s other preferences, however, she might well consider finding him a well-greased lance to sit upon - upright, of course!’
‘Begone,’ Zahar told him haughtily. ‘I watch the skies for enemies, not stink-gnats.’
‘Surrender your manse and live!’ offered the thrall.
‘On your way, wretch!’ growled Zahar.
Less than a mile and a half away now, dark storm-clouds were gathering in the south. Except Wratha knew they were not clouds but simply a crowded sky. And from where she stood on a flexing cartilage gantry, to one side of her main landing-bay, the curving double fronts looked like a scythe blurred from the speed of its approach!
Meanwhile, the parley-thrall had side-slipped down to Madmanse, and now called on Spiro in the yawning funnel of a bay: ‘My Lord, the Lady Devetaki calls on you to surrender. Give up your manse and retain your miserable life!’ Successful so far, he was now full of himself. Or as full as he ever would be …
Does your Lady have contact? Spiro sent, directly into the thrall’s vampire mind. Is she touching you even now?
Indeed, Lord, the other answered. Why, she directs me.
Then tell her this, Spiro snarled: that Spiro KillgJance is
heir to his father’s eye. And if she doubts me, here’s the proof.
He crouched down in the mouth of the bay, glared hatred and pus, and murder and shit, and sheer disruptive CORRUPTION from his terrible eyes. And the thrall and his flyer scarcely knew what hit them!
The flyer crumpled, disintegrated, flew apart in tatters, and the parley-thrall burst open as if sliced by a sharp knife from crotch to mouth, so that his guts bloomed on the air even as his riven corpse commenced to fall.
And up in Wrathspire, Wratha sighed and thought:
Well, that’s that. Now for the night’s real business …
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II
The Whelming of the Stack -
Vasagi’s Story -Desertion, and Just Deserts
Devetaki stood off and directed the righting. Her flyer was a huge construct fashioned of several men, stretched and warped, metamorphosed and reshaped, redesigned in the soup of a Masquemanse vat in Turgosheim. It was the same beast which had borne her safely over the Great Red Waste seated in a natural saddle formed of cartilage flanges (once scapulae) where an elongated, many-knuckled neck met shoulders that curved into mighty manta wings. Insect-like, the body was formed of a trio of stretched torsos, joined end to end, with three massive hearts to circulate the thin blood. Specially designed to glide, the wings had an enormous span, with the once-normal skeleton of arms, legs and grotesquely extended fingers and toes showing through the sheathing, grey-gleaming membrane. The creature was all heart, muscle, alveolate bone and flexible cartilage, but mainly wing.
Behind Devetaki, Alexei Yefros clung like a leech to the long horny saddle, which he gripped with knees and heels while aiming his vampire-enhanced locator probe at Wrath-stack to seek out its principal centres of activity and its largest, fiercest bodies of fighting men and monsters. Thus by a process of elimination, the Russian’s scrying was an invaluable part of Devetaki’s intelligence; while she used her mentalism to direct the battle and read the thoughts of the aerie’s defenders, Yefros channelled his skills to discover the stack’s weak spots.
And there were weak spots, certainly. Devetaki had been quick to detect a lack of morale in the defenders of Suckscar, nor had she found any truly powerful mind there; the penultimate level obviously lacked a Lord, just as she had suspected when her parley-thrall had spoken with a mere lieutenant. And so this alleged necromancer Lord Lichloathe was either a figment of wild imagination, or he was himself a lich, dead and departed.
Similarly, the men of the basement levels seemed singularly lacking in guts, and the sump was extremely ill-defended. The various gantlets cut through scree and rubble were not so much traps for invaders as for defenders! Devetaki had Tangiru the Grunt land his mightiest warriors on the piled ramps at the sides of the gantlets, where their sheer mass was sufficient to collapse the walls inwards, smothering who or whatever waited in ambush, and effectively blocking any possible future escape route.
She couldn’t know it, but Gorvi the Guile had already made his escape along a subterranean watercourse which he’d discovered during his very first night of occupation, three and a half years ago. No doubt the tunnel had been excavated in the olden times as a bolthole for some previous tenant; this wasn’t the first bloodwar on Starside, not by a long shot.
Gorvi had resurfaced something more than a mile and a half north-east of Wrathstack, amid the rubble and in the shadows of a toppled aerie where he kept a well-fuelled flyer tethered and waiting. Now, keeping low, the Guile was already speeding east out of trouble, intending to return to the Gorge of Turgosheim to see how things stood there.
As for the rest of the rebels:
Wran’s thoughts were noticeable by their absence, as was the Rage himself, but his loathsome brother more than covered for Wran’s desertion. Spiro Killglance’s evil eye was devastating, and Madmanse was left pretty much alone while the rest of the manses attracted a maximum of attention. As previously reported by the parley-thrall, Wratha
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was in residence in the topmost levels; she wasn’t remiss in sending out a continuous stream of vitriolic taunts, mainly directed at Devetaki. Also, in the third manse down, that matchless hound, that inimitable lunatic Canker Canison! At first he’d been plainly visible in his main landing-bay, fighting off invading forces alongside the best of his ‘pups’, but at the rising of a tumbling moon he’d made an exit from the fray. Immediately thereafter, and no doubt inspired by the frenzy of a sudden thunderous uproar of crazed sounds from the rear of the stack, Canker’s defenders had redoubled their efforts! Their ferocity was such that Devetaki felt obliged to forecast heavy losses in that arena.
So then, lieutenants galore - thralls, warriors and an apparently endless stream of flyers and riders issuing out of the many bays like hornets from a nest — but a dearth of true vampire masters, the Wamphyri themselves. Well, they were fled and that was all there was to it. All to the good, it made the virgin grandam’s task that much easier. Obviously the deserted lesser denizens of the various manses were already much demoralized; with no one to whip them on, it wouldn’t be long before they began reckoning the value of their undead skins.
Meanwhile, the bloodwar was in full swing; the defences of certain levels and manses would soon be swept away, crumbling to nothing, while others were as yet best avoided. (After all, why expend good blood and effort externally when, with any luck, internal routes would soon be opening up?) Take Guilesump, and work up into Madmanse. Take Suckscar, and work down into Mangemanse. And finally, take Wrathspire itself - up from Suckscar and down from the plateau roof - until last, but certainly not least, the very prize herself: Wratha!
So Devetaki rode the thermals high above the fighting and considered her options, and pointed out the way for her troops. But as for her own ever-expanding contingent (which had formed the bulk of the second wave), they’d been kept back; they now circled and protected her in the sky where
she performed lazy, drifting spirals round the great fang of Wrathstack, with all the action clearly visible below.
The minutiae of the battle, however, were neither visible nor known, for there was just too much going on. For instance: down on the sprawling boulder plains, where they extended from the foot of the stack, Gorvi’s ground-based warriors had long since given up trying to distinguish friend from
foe. Now, if it fell out of the sky, it was an enemy. Their thrall minders were either fled into Guilesump or dead from all the snapping and snarling; the plain was littered with all the gory debris of the undead, now truly dead. It was as if a mad painter had taken up a giant brush and daubed the grey and barren boulder plains scarlet! And across this landscape of death, the warriors rumbled, glutted yet still killing and feasting, bloated but never satisfied and ever lusting; and no one to say them nay, and the dumb beasts themselves too frenzied to know when to stop.
Still the sky rained mauled and mangled horror. Bleating flyers with broken wings crashed down; their thrall and lieutenant riders were tossed or leaped from their saddles, only to be maimed and devoured by lunging, blood-crazed beasts. Aerial warriors with blazing gas-bladders went sputtering and shrieking across the sky like semi-sentient shooting stars; now and then they would careen to earth in mewling red and black tangles, adding to the turmoil.
But the gantlets had been breached; Tangiru the Grunt and Lord Eran Painscar led a surface attack on Guilesump and, despite a molten machicolation from the corbels, fought through to the interior! Up into the stack they struck, and down into the bowels of the place, to the sump itself and the aerie’s wells. Devetaki Skullguise had warned them to leave the wells alone, but the Lords were on the sack now and what they couldn’t take, they’d destroy.
They sliced through a hanging garden of siphons (in fact, the extruded veins of Wratha’s siphoneers, which drew up water to Wrathspire and from there supplied the entire stack), poisoned the wells with piss, kneblasch and silver
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dust, and generally made a shambles of the place … but expensively. Eran Painscar was gutted by a warrior (fatally this time), and all Tangiru’s bones were broken in a booby-trap; it was a pitfall, and the things in the pit made small work of him. Their passing was scarcely mourned; their lieutenants fought more viciously yet, in the knowledge that two at least would ascend to Lords, but first must face a bloody ascent through the basement levels of Guilesump.
Higher, Suckscar was taken! Zahar, Grig and two lesser lieutenants gave way under the simultaneous assault of half a dozen great warriors that perched in bays and windows to fire their propulsors into the manse. Burned or poisoned, Nestor’s demoralized thralls succumbed in droves to Hesta the Herm, Lom Halfstruck and Grigor the Lech where they secured the landing-bays, landed a squadron of flyers and fighting men, and commenced slaughtering the sick and mazed defenders out of hand.
Alas for Grigor, on his way to ‘inspect’ his get in women, he met up with a child of Vasagi’s vats and stepped on a carpet which was not. Instantly enveloped by the Thing and drenched in digestive acids, he was badly eaten into by the time he managed to hack himself free - only to be snapped up by the monster’s twin! Finally, this latter creature was dispatched by others of Suckscar’s invaders; when they opened it up, Grigor was discovered a jumble of clattering bones. So much for the Lech. Later, when Devetaki heard the news of his demise, she would don her smiling mask, however briefly . ..
The roof of the last great aerie of the Wamphyri was now a bloody battlefield; even Wrathspire’s sloping plateau, issuing smoke and jets of flame from burning creatures, awash in blood, guts and urine as Wratha’s men and beasts and Ursula Torspawn’s invading forces saw it out hand to hand.
The stack had its limitations and was less than impregnable after all. Exits from Wrathspire onto the roof were few; Wratha had difficulty resupplying her fighters there, and when finally it came to retreating, many of them died in
the crush on the few steep stairwells. The roof was taken, and in part secured, but Ursula’s troops had been reduced to a handful - which Devetaki thoughtfully replaced with her own people . ..
Only then, landing on the roof herself, in a corner free of fighting, she dined on the hearts of three freshly-slaughtered captive defenders, fed and rested her great flyer, transferred to a second mount and was soon airborne again. But during her short visit to the roof, Devetaki had not failed to notice the silver cage and its hoisting gear, which she’d found most appropriate . ..
While down below, in the sixth hour of the night, Guilesump was finally taken; at which, a lesser struggle at once broke out between rival lieutenants, over who should now ascend in place of Lords Eran and Tangiru!
But in the next manse up, Spiro Killglance had already had enough. He was mad, aye, but not that mad; his power was waning with each withering blast from his killing eye; he knew by now that Wran would not be back. His brother was dead or fled, and Spiro suspected the latter. (What’s more, he guessed that the bloodwar wasn’t the only reason for Wran’s flight!) But Spiro was only one Lord and Mad-manse was vast; he couldn’t be everywhere at once; the more he used his eye, the less destructive the result. He wasted his inheritance here, and would be wise to seek a new and glorious future in fields afar.
For by now (he thought), Wran was well on his way back to Turgosheim, to re-establish himself in advance of any return by other survivors. Well, and Spiro would soon be hot on his tail … to punish him, aye, for cowardice in the face of an enemy, and foul desertion of duty! So thinking, and while the battle raged on, Spiro rested his eyes for an hour, then saddled his best flyer and a spare, and flew out on the night wind.
By now Suckscar had been secured; Lom and Hesta had commandeered new flyers and re-entered the fray raging around Wrathstack’s exterior; seeing and recognizing Spiro,
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they zeroed in on him. Devetaki saw them go and knew their danger and gave no warning. Both of them were freaks and had always irritated her. Half a dozen other, lesser Lords joined them where they ringed Spiro in, each whirling a bolas of glittering hooks.
Spiro gathered his nightmare energies to him and located them behind his vengeful eyes. He ducked low in his saddle as whirling death whistled overhead - and at once leaned forward as it sliced the air close behind! But sooner or later they’d get him; he’d be pierced through and through, dragged from his saddle and dropped. Enough!
He hunched astride his mount like a monstrous toad, settled his gaze on Lorn the Dwarf and fixed him with his eyes, as in the sights of a weapon. Lorn sat rigid as a rod and couldn’t look away! Spiro’s eyes were magnetic and drew his gaze; they issued a seething mental bile that sped down Spiro’s line of sight like a hawk stooping to its prey!
And Lorn … burst like a bomb! Scarlet froth flew every which way as his guts escaped at once, from every exit and in all directions! It was as if he’d been a bubble of blood in a vacuum, whose skin had dissolved in a single moment, letting the void suck him apart.
‘Hah!’ cried Spiro, and rapidly reduced two lesser Lords, and their mounts, to shreds. Then Hesta the Herm wheeled into view, and it was his or her turn. Ho, great half-and-haJ/ling! Spiro called out with his mentalism. And do you have any last words?
You .. . you bully! Hesta pouted - but was unable to look away. Do your worst!
And Spiro did. He flicked his head forward as if to lend his mind-bolt greater velocity, speeding it on its way. For a long moment Hesta’s eyes stood out from his/her skull, and he/she screamed: ‘Sp - !’ Just ‘Sp - !’ before dying. But the way of it! Hesta’s manicured hands and female feet shot from their limbs, while his/her head blew off at the neck! And the grotesque corpse sat still awhile, then toppled from its saddle and cartwheeled down the night, spraying red
from all five stumps. Spiro stood tall, shook a great fist, glared threateningly all about; but the others had had enough. He laughed long and loud, then headed east, and no one else got in his way or even considered doing so. Not for many a mile, anyway.
And behind him, its thunder dwindling, the bloodwar for Madmanse, Mangemanse and Wrathspire raged furious as
In a collapsed cave, two-thirds of the way through the pass to Sunside, Geoffrey Paxton worked like a madman at a great wall of boulders where they blocked his way to freedom. Hands bleeding, nails broken and clothing t
orn, he wondered why he wasn’t exhausted; also wondered why he wasn’t blind in the pitch-darkness. In fact, he knew why, for there was a weird hunger on him, and an even weirder thirst - which wasn’t for ordinary sustenance - but the human part of his mind continued to query such seeming anomalies.
Well, he supposed he would get used to most of them soon enough, if not to the hunger. Of course, if he were to get too hungry . .. there was always the headless body of Zindevar where she lay crumpled in the rear of the cave, or the crushed corpse of Bruno Krasin. But Paxton wasn’t that hungry . ..
… Not yet.
And then there were other hungers: for life (or undeath), for power, and definitely for revenge. As for life, he clung to it with the tenacity of the vampire. Revenge? Well, as far as he knew, the son of Harry Keogh was still alive, and so revenge was by no means impossible. Power? That would come when he had his telepathy back; he was a step closer in that direction, at least. And this had always been his plan, after all: one step at a time.
Again, he attacked the wall of boulders, hurling rubble to the rear of the cave as he burrowed his way towards the night and freedom and destiny.
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For somewhere out there, in Sunside/Starside, he knew that he could satisfy all of his hungers in one and the same throw, and that after that -
- Then that there probably wouldn’t be any satisfying him ever again …
To give him credit, Vasagi (no longer the Suck) had been very patient. In one way he’d been patient, at least, but in another he had acted hastily; because he had many things to do and Wran the Rage was only one of them. But Vasagi and Carmen had dined royally, and their meal had been of the essence — or flavoured with it — of everything dearest to a vampire’s stomach. Namely, the blood of another vampire; in fact, Wran’s blood, and especially that of his leech. And since cutting his parasite out of him would probably have sufficed to render him once more unconscious, Vasagi had not delayed the meal but performed the required butchery while Wran still lay in a heap, with his head all dented from Carmen’s blow. Which was also the reason why it had taken him so long to wake up. The damaged head, the loss of so much blood (which had not gone wasted), and of course the removal and wringing-out of his leech; much like squeezing oranges, except oranges don’t writhe and slither and try to escape.
