Bloodwars

by Brian Lumley

  But as the bats made off, Nathan held back a curse of frustration. In all likelihood he probably could have got them all - and all it would have cost was a glance! On the other hand, he didn’t have the measure of his new ‘talent’ yet; it might be as well to use it sparingly lest it grow on him. Another glance (but at the star-strewn sky) told him he’d been asleep for well over an hour. ‘What’s been happening?’

  Chung was first to answer. ‘Flyers have landed, warriors too, in the Sunside foothills, perhaps twenty-odd miles east of here.’ (Twin Fords, Nathan thought.) ‘Also due north,’ (Settlement and/or Sanctuary Rock) ‘and other parties in the west.’ (Tireni Scarp and Mirlu Township, or what burned and shattered ruins were left of those locations.) ‘And there’ve been plenty more landings, too, all regularly spaced out along the barrier range.’

  ‘Only in the foothills?’

  ‘No.’ Chung shook his head. ‘Small packets have been putting down every few miles or so into the woods, forming a sort of grid system. Getting closer all the time.’

  Nathan nodded. ‘Like the squares of a large silk net settling gently to earth right across Sunside. Only it’s not silk, and it won’t be gentle, not for long . ..’

  They’re still mainly silent,’ Zek told him. ‘With no apparent or specific interest in our group.’

  Nathan looked at Goodly, who gave a shrug. Time is -‘

  ‘— I know!’ Nathan cut him short. ‘It’s narrowing down.’

  And Grinner took the opportunity to put in, My grey brothers are scattered throughout the heights. The vampire army has mostly passed over them .. .

  Chung was alert as never before. ‘North of here, but

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  approaching fast in a direct line .. . something .. . coming at us straight as an arrow!’

  There came a distant throb of propulsors and, carried on a soughing breeze out of the north-east, the crack1 crack’ crack’ of automatic fire to disturb the night’s comparative silence.

  ‘It’s beginning,’ Nathan said. ‘But this time, at least my people have the means to fight back.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Chung. This oncoming party is just another thread in the net that’s being laid down. I don’t get the feeling that we’re a specific target. Why are we being … what, ignored?’

  ‘It’s like they’re waiting for us to show our hand,’ Trask said. And Nathan agreed:

  ‘They’re trying to draw me into it. And meanwhile the net

  — or web — spins itself ever wider over Sunside.’

  ‘Very close now!’ Chung’s voice showed his alarm. ‘Are we just going to sit here?’

  In the north, spied over a horizon of tall trees, several menacing manta shapes scudded with the last handful of clouds. And: Time we were on our way,’ said the Necro-scope. But even as he spoke, he felt an unaccustomed anger

  — even rage - deep inside, and his eyes felt hot where cold sweat stood out suddenly upon his brow. Briefly he fought with emotions that were his, yet alien to him. The urge to stay and fight, and try out his dreadful eyes? But before the urge could win, he conjured a Mobius door and guided his companions through it -

  — And took them out five miles into the night-dark desert

  — where, as they exited from the Continuum into sand and brittle scrub, Zek clapped a hand to her forehead and gasped:

  They weren’t ignoring us after all! Or they’re not now, anyway! Their minds are open; messages pass between them; they recognized your signature - the numbers vortex, Nathan -and they know we’ve moved!’

  ‘But are they still advancing?’ He looked at Chung.

  ‘Yes,’ said the locator in a moment. Their net is being dragged out into the desert, but it’s staggered now. And this is their main spearhead. They’re pushing on us!’

  ‘Or on the Thyre harbours,’ Nathan groaned. ‘Place-Under-The-Yellow-Cliffs…the new oasis.. .Atwei.. .Misha.”

  ‘You can move Misha and the Lidescis,’ Trask told him.

  ‘And pinpoint their hideout!’ Chung warned.

  ‘Another five minutes maximum and we’ll have to move on anyway,’ said Zek.

  ‘How big is this spearhead?’ Nathan felt his anger growing again, a burning behind his eyes, despite him trying to keep them cool.

  ‘Not big,’ Chung said after a moment. This net of theirs is really stretching them. The bloodwar cost them heavily.’

  The Necroscope made up his mind. Til move Misha, Lardis and the Lidescis. Then … we’ll defend Place-Under-The-Yellow-Cliffs. We have to. I won’t have vampires in the Cavern of the Ancients. The Thyre would never forgive me. And to me, their culture is at least as important as any of this . ..’

  He conjured another door, and they were on their way .. .

  The Thyre were expecting them; therefore so were Lardis, Misha and the Szgany Lidesci. The best of the Thyre mental-ists, Atwei included, had been keeping surreptitious, sporadic watch on the Necroscope and his friends - and on the Wamphyri, of course.

  Lardis and his people were waiting in the new oasis, ready to play Nathan’s game of ‘hide and seek’. And Nathan told them, This time I’m taking you far enough away that the vampire army can’t possibly get to you. Not tonight, anyway.’

  But as they took up their rope in preparation, Lardis and Kirk Lisescu spoke up almost as one man. ‘We’re not going.’

  ‘What?’ Nathan looked at them.

  ‘We’re fighters and we have weapons,’ Lardis growled. And Kirk added:

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  ‘We’re sick of hiding and not knowing what’s going on. Out there in the forests there are Szgany who could use our skills. We’ve been idle too long. Take the rest of our people where you will, but take Lardis and me where the fighting is!’

  Nathan looked around and Lardis knew what he was looking for. ‘Andrei will stay here, help protect the Thyre. Since you and your friends are going to be here a while, I know he’ll be safe enough. Also, he has this woman - this Anna? - who will stay with him.’

  So, Andrei Romani had been hooked at last, and Anna Marie English had found a new cause: the Thyre. Nathan was glad both ways. Anyway, he had no time to argue; he supposed he must consider himself fortunate that Misha wasn’t giving him problems, too! Except, she was! ‘I’m staying here with you,’ she said. And her tone told him she’d brook no denial, that nothing would shift her. He could only shrug his shoulders helplessly.

  And so, leaving Trask and his colleagues in the oasis with Lardis and Misha, and telling the Old Lidesci, Til be back for you and Kirk … be ready,’ he led the rest of the Travellers into and through the Mobius Continuum —

  - To Crater Lake far in the east, and sixty miles out in the supposed desert ‘wasteland’! Devetaki couldn’t possibly get here before dawn; should she be so foolish as to try it, she’d never make the return journey home again to the last aerie!

  Word of the Necroscope’s coming had gone out in advance of him (barely), passed telepathically down the line of Thyre colonies by Atwei and other powerful Thyre men-talists, so that his arrival was anticipated. No time was wasted in handing over his charges into Thyre care, and he returned immediately to Place-Under-The-Yellow-Cliffs.

  Armed to the teeth with hell-land weapons, Lardis and Kirk were waiting. ‘Where do you want to go?’ Nathan asked them.

  ‘East of the great pass,’ said Lardis, without hesitation.

  There are people scattered there, afraid, inexperienced. It’s likely they’re in trouble and could use our help.’

  Nathan frowned. ‘Supplicant territory? Vormulac wiped most of them out - and I thought you were glad to see them go!’

  They’re Szgany!’ Lardis snapped. This could be our opportunity to win them back from the Wamphyri forever.’

  ‘You’re sure you’ll be all right?’

  ‘No, but there again, I’ve never been sure of that in fifty years! Enough talk. Take us there.’ So Nathan took them -

&nbs
p; - To a place due south of the lava falls on Starside, but on this side of the barrier mountains, the foothills, where they sloped down into the forest in supplicant territory. From perhaps a mile away there came shouts, crashing sounds, a veritable uproar. The Old Lidesci nodded his grim approval. ‘Supplicants they might have been in their time, but it seems they’re fighting well enough now!’ And to the Necroscope, ‘You’ll know where to find us come morning.’ He clasped forearms with Nathan. Take care, lad.’ ‘Go to it, Lardis,’ Nathan told him in the terminology of an alien world. Then, as if realizing his error: Tear down the mountains, old friend!’ He watched the pair slip silently into the woods, then returned to the starlit oasis —

  - And arrived with only a minute or two to spare.

  Of all the Thyre, Atwei was the one who had chosen to wait with Trask and the others. They’re coming,’ she told him.

  ‘I know.’ He nodded. ‘We make a stand here, in the oasis. Upon a time my father defended a garden such as this, with just such weapons and friends as I have. But especially friends: men and a woman - even the same woman - out of an alien world. It seems … seemly?’

  Atwei was reluctant to leave. Nathan asked her, ‘How many routes go down under the earth, to your colony?’

  ‘Several. The one you know lies through the Cavern of the Ancients high in the cliffs there, at the back of the oasis. I won’t tell you the others. What you don’t know -‘

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  ‘— Can’t hurt the Thyre?’

  ‘Or you,’ she answered. ‘My people have turned the secret ways into traps! If the vampires attempt to descend …’

  Nathan understood. The routes were booby-trapped. ‘And the Cavern of the Ancients?’

  ‘The way stands clear for you and yours.’

  Nathan shook his head. ‘It won’t come to that. I’ll take my friends … oh, somewhere else. But the Wamphyri -‘

  ‘- We’ll be ready for them, if they dare descend.’

  He took her — and Zek and Misha, too, despite all their protests - up into the Cavern of the Ancients, and returned to the oasis. A moment later, spied as silhouettes against a starry horizon, the vampires came!

  ‘It would seem … just two flyers!’ Trask husked.

  ‘And their thrall riders,’ Chung noted. ‘But up there …” A dark blot circling in the blue-tinged sky, its booming thunder reaching down to them in the moment of Chung’s warning: a warrior, small of its sort, but deadly.

  They’ll see the oasis.’ Goodly knew it, of course. Knew what was coming, too. He could hear the uproar, see the fire, smell the blood!

  They have back-up!’ Chung shouted, as the warrior’s main propulsors fired and it began a spiralling descent towards the oasis. ‘A mile or two back … more of them!’

  ‘Ben,’ Goodly gasped, his Adam’s-apple wobbling, ‘we’re to take the flyers and riders. You, me and David. But the warrior is Nathan’s!’

  Chung was carrying his flame-thrower. Nathan asked him, ‘Do you have fuel for that thing?’

  ‘A little, and then there’s this!’ A machine-pistol. They all had machine-pistols, compact and easy to handle. But Nathan had only a conventional Szgany crossbow … plus a weapon he’d not yet put to the trial.

  ‘Grenades?’ (The flyers were diving on the oasis, and the warrior circled the gorge just above the rim of the cliffs, its many evil eyes swivelling this way and that.) The three

  nodded in unison; they all had grenades. ‘Good luck!’ said Nathan.

  He needed elevation, room to focus his eyes - his anger, hatred - on the warrior. It seemed like madness, but there was nothing else he could try. He transferred himself to the narrow ledge in front of the tunnel to the Cavern of the Ancients, and from there sent a stream of mental abuse directly into the warrior’s tiny brain. And:

  I’m here, he told the thing. Right here on the cliff, you ugly son of all that’s filthy! You steaming issue of a cesspit!

  The nightmare thing circled to the far side of the canyon, but its eyes swivelled to focus on Nathan. It slipped below the rim of the cliffs, turned inwards, commenced a run on him! This was how he would take the warrior out of the fight. Behind him, the tunnel wouldn’t take its bulk; below him, the others were free to engage the flyers and riders.

  And they were engaging them! Gunfire and the shattering blast of a grenade; a flyer shrilling like a baby, lifting up on shredded, blazing wings, then crumpling back out of sight; a grounded lieutenant or thrall yelling, ‘Wamphyri, Wamph -!’ Drowned out and changed by the obscene chatter of a machine-pistol to a scream that jarred like syrup on a bad tooth.

  The warrior came on, and Nathan took a long shot with his crossbow. If he found his target, it made no difference; it was less than a pinprick to this thing. How he hated the bastard! His lips drew back from his teeth and his brain seemed to burn as he fell into a crouch; his loathing was poison that must be out of him! Almost without knowing it, he fired his mind-bolt!

  The warrior gurgled - made a weird, somehow questioning sound - but kept coming, except now it had a visible list to the left. From below came the flash of a grenade, which lit up the warrior’s prow. Nathan saw its forward-facing eyes - raw craters streaming bJood and brains! - and its jaws gaping open in a rictus of agony! He could scarcely take it in as the thing tilted more yet, swerved off-course,

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  and instead of climbing to clear the rim, dipped towards the floor of the ravine. A moment later, at seventy or eighty miles an hour, it slammed into the sheer cliff and burst into a welter of flying chitin scales and crimson scrambled guts. But Nathan knew it had been dead before it hit, from the moment he’d lashed out with his killing eye.

  As Atwei, Zek and Misha came running along the passage from the Cavern of the Ancients, he went down to the oasis. A riderless flyer limped off over the desert towards the distantly leering Northstar, and David Chung was using up the last of his fuel on things that crackled and sent up black smoke as they burned.

  ‘But more flyers are on their way,’ the locator said, his fire dying even as he spoke.

  And lan Goodly gasped, ‘Nathan, you have work elsewhere!’

  ‘Will you be all right here?’ Nathan looked at the three.

  ‘Yes,’ Trask answered. ‘Especially if you take us up into that tunnel mouth before you go. It looks easy to defend: flyers can’t land there, and it’s more or less safe from warriors.’ Trask was wearing that curious speculative frown of his again. ‘And while we’re talking about warriors, I —’

  ‘- No time for that now.’ Nathan shook his head. ‘Later, when I understand it better myself.’

  He took them up into the mouth of the tunnel and, looking out anxiously over the ravine and oasis, asked Chung, ‘I don’t suppose you can tell me where the next spearhead is?’

  Atwei stepped forward. ‘I can. The elders are passing messages up and down the line. The psychic aether is full of them! But of course the Wamphyri hear them, too, and so our secret is out. Unless the vampires are stopped, their bloodwars must now carry to us.’

  Nathan took her arm, but gently. ‘Where will they strike?’

  ‘Strike? I can’t say. They seem too few for a task-force. But they’re advancing on Crack-in-the-Rocks, forty miles east.’

  ‘When will they get there - and how few?’

  ‘Any time now!’ Atwei told him, her eyes huge and unblinking. ‘No more of them than were here.’

  There were a handful of Szgany, Karl Zestos’s people, at Crack-in-the-Rocks. Nathan knew he could move them out in one packet. He might even leave them there if the Thyre had booby-trapped the several narrow entrances. Crack-in-the-Rocks would not need much defending. He began to conjure a door, paused to crush Misha to him as she flew into his arms.

  Take care,’ she told him breathlessly. ‘If anything happens to you, I’ll never forgive you!’ And then, looking at him more closely: ‘Did you get smoke in your eyes? Your right eye is bloodshot.’ />
  ‘Probably, yes. Or a little dirt, maybe …” He kissed her, and over her shoulder looked at Trask in time to see him begin frowning again. But saving the moment, Goodly said:

  ‘Nathan, I’m coming with you.’

  Another kiss for Misha - rough, almost hurtful, something to remember - and then they were on their way . ..

  In the Mobius Continuum, Nathan asked, Why did you come? Is it that close?

  Just that I saw that I would come, Goodly’s mental shrug. Also, if I’m with you, you’ll be the first to know it if something extraordinary happens. Everything hinges on you, Nathan.

  Or on Devetaki, Nathan answered. I get the feeling she’s setting me up.

  Almost certainly! Now that Wrathstack’s gone, you’re her biggest threat.

  But how can she hope to trap me? She can’t fix me in one place long enough to do anything!

  Then logically she has to cover all places. If I were her, I’d station troops at all of your co-ordinates.

  She doesn’t know them all!

  But if she makes you move often enough, she’ll soon

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  know an awful lot of them. Maybe she doesn’t know your choices are - well, almost infinite …

  They emerged from the Mobius Continuum at the geological fault which the Thyre called Crack-in-the-Rocks. In ages past, great plates of bedrock had folded, pushing up through lesser strata and deep desert sand to form granite outcrops. Beneath the earth in this place, far underground, the principal Thyre watercourse, called the Great Dark River, flowed east through countless canals over eel-infested shallows of shattered bedrock, under mighty arching ceilings of impervious stone. That was where the Thyre had their colony, in caverns on the banks of the winding river. Nathan could have transferred directly into caves he remembered from his travels with the Thyre, but he’d wanted to see the nature of the attackers and their numbers first.