Bloodwars

by Brian Lumley

  But despite that his leech was gone, its essence remained in his blood as it had always been, and being Wamphyri (or having been) he was not yet dead. Indeed, and if there were someone to care for him, he might even survive, though much reduced in spirit and no longer a Lord as such. So that, as Wran groaned and awakened, and opened eyes as scarlet as ever, if lacking in intensity, Vasagi could sympathize with him in part — though only in a very small part.

  For Vasagi knew how Wran felt; indeed, upon a time, he’d felt much the same and worse, and in similar circumstances.

  Can you speak? Vasagi spoke with his mind as always, with elegant weavings of his fingers and hands for empha-

  sis. In the long ago, this mode of speech had become necessary after Vasagi had extruded the diseased teeth and bones of his lower jaw, replacing them with a sleeve-like proboscis or siphon tipped with a fine, retractable hollow probe: an excellent weapon or tool for feeding, but useless for common speech. That proboscis was no more; severed by Wran during their Sunside duel, it had been reduced to a red-rimmed hole in the ex-Suck’s face. And looking up at his dark silhouette against the wheel of the stars - the glowing fire of his eyes, which was all that Wran could make out - he wondered what sort of face was there now, in the seething darkness under his cowl.

  And because Vasagi had asked it, Wran also wondered if he could speak. But his mouth was dry as old bones; his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth; he was barely strong enough to give his head a trembling shake. And even that was an agony he would not have believed, which threatened for a moment to sink him once more into oblivion. His back’ His ravaged spine, out of which Vasagi had torn his leech, to devour its juices!

  Good, said Vasagi. I don’t require you to speak, only to Jisten; for I’ve a story to tell. A tale of trial, and now -of tribulation! And who better to tell it to than a principal character who featured at the tale’s beginning, and as we now see has stayed to its end? Indeed, to his end .. .

  And sitting down almost within reach of Wran, who had not the strength to reach, and gazing out over Starside reflectively, in the manner of the storyteller - while, close by, Carmen fed gorse-flowers, honey, and possibly the crushed, empty sack of Wran’s leech to a pair of tethered flyers - Vasagi began:

  There was a duel, on Sunside, to the death, of course, and only one could survive and return home in triumph to the last great aerie of the Wamphyri. The combatants were Wran the Rage Killglance, a wretched creature of little or no refinement, and the noble Vasagi, called the Suck. The outcome should have been certain, would have been, but for

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  a trick of fate: the intervention of a callow Szgany youth, who seriously disturbed the balance of events. So much so that the noble Vasagi was defeated. And not only defeated but … disfigured, defaced! That were a shameful thing: to be deprived of one’s very face, and by refuse such as Wran.

  Well, one would think that the maiming of Vasagi, and his grotesque disfigurement, would be enough. Oh, he must also die, of course .. . but surely in a manner worthy of his status, his place in the scheme of things. Put him down by all means, but let him keep what little was left of his dignity. The Wamphyri are, after all, regal creatures. Some of us, anyway …

  But Wran, was not - is not - one of them. Nor will he be, until relieved of the monstrous burden of his flesh. Soon, ah, soon! However:

  So Vasagi was raped of his leech, and the leech milked of its egg, and with a grand sense of the ‘comical’, Wran the Rage bequeathed this noble seed to that same callow youth who, however inadvertently, had saved his miserable life. ‘Enough!’ (you will say.) ‘Now Vasagi can be allowed to die in whatever is left to him of peace. Wran will take his head in one clean stroke, and that will be that. ..’

  Oh, really?

  But no, Wran pegged him down on a hillside to await the rising sun, to melt there in its poison ray, and fled back to Starside before the dawn. Except - what Fate gives, Fate ofttimes takes away! And that same Szgany youth (him again, aye) tore out Vasagi’s pegs from the earth, and set him free. So now you know how it came to pass that Vasagi survived, and I can be sharp about the rest of my tale.

  Vasagi crawled into a deep cave and stayed there all the hours of day. With night he killed a small creature (and, ah! the agony of eating — and through that loathsome hole in his face — after so many years of drinking}; but at least he was strengthened. And all through the night he climbed the mountains, only sleeping when exhaustion overcame him, and eating what and when he could. But .. . the Starside

  night is a long one, and Vasagi was determined. And one thought and only one kept him going - as it has done ever since - that Wran the Rage still lived!

  Before the dawn he came through a high pass, discovered a deep crevice in the rocks, crawled inside to sleep. Except his sleep was disturbed! Even as the sun crept higher, a flyer landed and a thrall (some Lord’s lieutenant) pegged out a woman much as Vasagi had been pegged out. But when the lieutenant departed, then Vasagi cut her free — and found her to be one of his own, Carmen out of Suckscar! It was as if Wran and the others would eradicate every trace of him and his!

  He rescued the woman to be his companion, saw that she would be a Lady, and in the next sundown commenced the long trek west. For the noble Vasagi knew what he was about, and that all was not yet lost. Far from it.

  The trek took long and long; the way was hard; only the flesh of trogs sustained them. Vasagi was without his metamorphism, which had been fabled, retaining only his tenacity. But his tenacity was enough.

  Finally, they came to the vampire swamps far to the west of the barrier mountains, and Vasagi cultivated black and especially ugly mushrooms until they were ripe and released their spores - which he breathed! He already had vampire flesh, of course, which would resist the spores if it could. And it did for long and long. But finally a spore took; it must be strong indeed; Vasagi felt its strength and rejoiced!

  He fed it the blood of beasts, and of his consort Carmen (given of her own free will), until finally he felt his metamorphism flow back into him! Ah, but it was a long time in the coming, and hardships all the way. Aye, and more to come, during the long trek home.

  Then, in the western foothills of Starside, a rare thing! Vasagi came across a starving flyer. A vampire creature, loose in the wild and left to its own devices. And intelligent, aye! Vasagi fed the beast, returned it to full health; why, he even learned its name! Oh, yes, for it had a name, which it

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  remembered from when it was a man. Karz Biteri, fled from Runemanse in Turgosheim, and from his master, Maglore the Mage. So much the noble Vasagi learned, and no more. But from now on he had a beast to share his and Carmen’s burden, albeit a very weird beast, which refused the blood of men and trogs and only ate the flesh of animals, gorse-flowers, and wild honey.

  Well, their relationship was a strange thing; scarcely that of beast and master at all! For this creature had a mind of his own. But companionship and need drew him to Vasagi, and the ex-Suck’s need drew him to the flyer. But their understanding was simple: they were their own ‘men’, and whatever came of their partnership, when it was done, it was done.

  So, by stages, Vasagi and the Lady Carmen, and Karz the flyer, came back to this central region of Sunside/Starside. And when they were here they found a place to live - just a cave, but it was enough - and Vasagi waited and watched, to see what would be. For olden enemies were on their way from Turgosheim in the east, and the outcome would be interesting. But meanwhile, Vasagi reached out with his restored mentalism to the last great aerie of the Wamphyri, to Suckscar and certain of its creatures. Among them a flyer, but just a flyer, and not like Karz at all. Upon a time, however, this had been an exceptional beast in its own right, and faithful. The very mount that Vasagi had flown to Sunside the night of his duel with Wran! And it was still faithful! When Vasagi called, it broke out of its pen and hurried to be with him. So that now both Vasagi and his
Lady had mounts to ride into Sunside and prey upon the Szgany, as of old.

  Which brings us to the present. ..

  Meanwhile, Vasagi’s Lady had done with feeding the flyers and came to where her Lord sat with the broken, ravaged Wran. She carried lengths of thin, cutting, near-unbreakable Szgany twine, spun from Kursgrass, one of which had a noose that she placed over Wran’s head,

  winding the rest of its length about the outcrop until it was firmly anchored. Sick from pain, and made impotent by weakness, Wran could only watch as she wrapped his feet with another length, which she made fast … to the saddle of Vasagi’s flyer?

  And in a little while Vasagi continued:

  Upon a time, the Lords - and the Lady, too - of Wrath-stack had poked fun at Vasagi, naming him a freak because his face and ‘voice’, his elegant and dexterous mode of communication, were so radically different from theirs. But none of them had laughed louder than Wran. And, as stated, Wran was responsible for reducing Vasagi to a genuine freak, with only a hole for a face! Well, since Vasagi had been named for a freak, and also since he’d never much cared for physical looks one way or the other, deeming it a vanity in creatures who have the power to change their looks so easily, he now determined to become a freak! And none had been more gifted in the metamorphic arts than Vasagi.

  He stood up, stood tall, and gazed down on Wran. My tale is told, and it’s a true one, of which 1 am the living proof. The Wamphyri have long made creatures in their own image, but 1, Vasagi, have gone one better, and made myself in the image of one of my creatures. Behold, and know that I am Vasagi of the Wamphyri - now Lord Vasagi the Gape!

  He opened his cloak .. . then opened his body!

  Wran’s agony was all but forgotten in those astonishing moments of revelation. Not the revealing of Vasagi’s identity, for of course that was already known, but the limitlessness of Wamphyri metamorphism, now taken to the limits. And when Wran saw Vasagi, he knew that he was not merely the very master of metamorphism, but also that he had passed beyond the limits of sanity itself. And because Wran knew there can be no reasoning with madness, he didn’t even try, but merely lay there, staring with eyes that scarcely believed, and his jaws distended in a rictus of awe.

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  Vasagi had said that he had made himself in the image of one of his own creatures. Now Wran knew what he meant. Upon a time (it seemed an age ago), he’d gone down into Suckscar with Spiro, the dog-Lord Canker Canison and Nestor Lichloathe, and had seen one of Vasagi’s guardians of the stairwells. And Vasagi was … similar.

  Under the hood of his cloak, thrown back now, Vasagi had eyes but nothing else of a face. For beneath the shiny-black, utterly flat, nostril-slitted flange of a nose, a fat-muscled neck flowed like a column directly into the chest. But central between the nipples, and from there down to the crotch, which was merely a junction for the legs and no longer housed genitalia, great rubbery vertical lips opened like a door, displaying Vasagi’s pulsing innards! At the back, sheathed in muscle, his ribs must be hinged to the spine - but at the front they formed meshing teeth that drooled and snapped at Wran!

  And: Ahhh! said the monster. I could eat your face -eat all of you - but I won’t. What? When there’s the sweet fresh dung of a beast going stale under my flyer’s tail? Or, I might peg you out to await the dawn, except it is too far off. Also, I was pegged out upon a time - Carmen, too — so that we know it’s not necessarily fatal. But that rope around your neck …

  … Is!

  Without another word, Vasagi closed his cloak, put up the hood, turned and took Carmen on his arm, and walked her to the waiting flyers. Wran thought to struggle against his bonds, and was at once stilled by a thousand small knives in his back: the severed nerve-endings where Vasagi had cut out his leech. The pair mounted up … and launched!

  Something bounded and spurted red against the rocks, then lay still. And in a while Vasagi used a knife to cut the line, and sent Wran’s headless body spinning. And:

  Done! he said, his voice a sigh in Carmen’s mind.

  You, but not me, she answered. No, for a certain ‘callow

  Szgany youth’ made me a Lady, and then would deny and destroy me. Well, and you’ve had your revenge, my Lord.

  Aye, he nodded in her mind, and ah … it was sweet! But I take your point. So let’s seek out this Nestor, shall we?

  And climbing on the night wind, they made for Sunside …

  Meanwhile, Gorvi the Guile rejoiced that he was off and running! Nothing behind him but a great many empty miles, and nothing ahead but a last crumbling knuckle in the kinked spine of the barrier mountains, the Great Red Waste, and eventually a mainly vacated Gulf of Turgosheim. Back in the last aerie, Wratha and the others would probably believe he was dead and devoured, and his bones littering the boulder plains. If so, good! But he was fairly sure that none had seen him make his escape, and he was certain no one else knew of his bolthole escape route. And anyway, it seemed unlikely they’d send a posse all the way back to Turgosheim just for one man.

  Therefore, as the last crags fell away and the mountains flattened to earth - when all that should lie ahead was emptiness, the seething red wastelands and their reek - it came as no small surprise when Gorvi saw in the sky another flyer, and heard the gleeful mental chuckle of its rider:

  Ho, Gorvi! Well, and wouldn’t we know it! Gorvi the Guile, fugitive! All on his ownsome, and on the run, his head full of thoughts of dear old Turgosheim! What, homesick, are you? Our bloodwar was a bit too much for you, eh? All that nasty fighting and such?

  Gorvi did some very quick thinking (but this time kept it to himself). And in another moment: The bloodwar’s over, Boris, he answered. And I’m the only survivor of any importance. There may be others come straggling eventually -thralls and a lieutenant or two - but that’s all. The two sides were too evenly matched, you see, and wiped each other out.

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  ‘Really?’ said Boris, assuming the gawp of an idiot. (He was closer now, and didn’t require to use his mentalism.) Then the gawp slipped from his face. ‘Yet a moment ago … why, I’d have sworn you were wondering if they’d send anyone after you, to settle the score in Turgosheim.’

  Gorvi knew the game was up; he whirled a bolas of vicious hooks, and released them towards Boris. His target hunched down in the saddle, caused his mount to swerve, gave way. And with a snarled obscenity, the Guile shot through the breach and headed directly out across the Great Red Waste. Glancing back over his shoulder, he was surprised to see Black Boris smiling a knowing smile .. . until he sensed a mental command shoot skywards:

  He’s all yours. Bring him down!

  Gorvi didn’t look but leaned far forward along his mount’s straining neck and commanded it, Fly! Fly as never before!

  But a mile or two out over the Great Red Waste, when at last he heard the rumble of propulsors growing louder, then he had to look. There were two of them, two small, highly manoeuvrable aerial warriors. One fell like a stone directly towards him, the other in a steep spiral, holding back a little to see which way he’d jump. It would make little or no difference anyway; however he jumped they’d be too fast for him. Indeed, and by the time he’d thought it, they were already on him!

  The torpedo went straight through his mount’s left wing, leaving it singed and fraying. The other flattened its spiral, got beneath Gorvi, raised erectile spines along its back, and sliced his flyer open the full length of its belly. That was more than enough, and down they went. And Gorvi’s staggering, stumbling mind wondering how this could possibly be happening to him.

  He was still wondering when they splashed down in a smoking, searing acid pool. But even if he’d had the time to form an airfoil and leap free, there’d be nowhere to fly. He stood on his flyer’s back as it boiled, bubbled and sank, and tried to figure it out. But with all the guile in the world,

  there’d be no getting out of this. He knew it, and at the end, as his mount slipped under, he rea
ched down to grasp the saddle and went down with it.

  In a little while his parasite rebelled (the tenacity of the vampire?), causing Gorvi to relax his grip. Or perhaps it wasn’t so much his leech’s tenacity as the powerful corrosive action of the acid: the fact that his fingers were dissolving to slime, knuckle by knuckle, and detaching themselves from his hands. Whichever, very little of him made it back to the surface.

  And what little there was didn’t last too long …

  Resupplied from Suckscar, Devetaki’s forces attempted an invasion downwards into Mangemanse, only to find the way blocked, and, like the rest of the manse, impregnable in the short-term. All of Canker’s defenders, in whichever quarter, fought as mad dogs; for the time being, the dog-Lord was safe. Not so Wratha. Routes from Suckscar up into the ultimate manse were plentiful, as were landing-bays and windows for access, and stairwells and passages within. Under attack from both Suckscar and the roof, Wrathspire was eminently accessible to the invaders. Wratha’s forces were confined, compressed within, while she herself was slowly but surely floated up towards the roof on the froth of battle.

  Down below, Madmanse fell! The desertion of both of the Lords Killglance had utterly demoralized their thralls; they had continued to fight, however half-heartedly, because there was no alternative. Probably doomed to end their days as warrior meal, it would be as well to die gutted in hand-to-hand combat, as in some creature’s guts, or soup in a vat of metamorphism!