Blood Brothers vw-1

by Brian Lumley

  Now, while Zindevar fumed and sputtered, Wratha looked at Devetaki Skullguise, and saw that in her anger she wore no mask but had exposed the damaged half of her face down to the flensed bone. 'And you, Devetaki, who was my good friend,' she said, her voice low now and less spiteful. 'Indeed, I admired you greatly. But you've listened to my enemies, and so become one of them…'

  She threw back her shoulders. 'Well, and you are all fools… but none so great as you, Vormulac! What? Warriors waxing even now in secret caverns? But I tell you — they are waxed!'

  And as for the third time she laughed, so Canker Canison lifted his muzzle and howled like a wolf. It was an eerie ululation, which passed out through the high windows and into the gulf of Turgosheim. And no less than Vormulac's whistle, it was also a call — which in a moment was answered!

  But between times: 'Rush them!' Grigor the Lech shouted. 'What? And are we afraid of a stench? If the bitch uses her weapon, she and her pack are vulnerable no less than the rest of us! Vormulac, use your warrior to crush them!'

  The Lords and Ladies took heart and surged forward again. Vormulac's creature, waiting for his command, sensed the tension and the fact that the six had been alienated; it clattered this way and that, watching them, undecided, with its stabbers and pincers at the ready. Wratha aimed her spray: at the skittering warrior — then at the Lords and Ladies — then back to the warrior. She was no longer in control, and her girl-shape was gradually giving way to monstrous metamorphism.

  Finally…

  … Canker Canison laughed! He threw back his head and shook like a fox shedding fleas, and a weird new sound — in fact a very old sound, out of times immemorial — sounded in Vormspire. The throb and sputter of an aerial warrior's propulsive orifices!

  There came a wind from the great window, which blew the heavy curtains inwards; but in the next moment they were torn from their hangings by a nightmare shape whose armoured bulk barely cleared the gap as it slammed through the parapet wall, tore up the flags of the floor and skidded to a halt within the great hall! A warrior, but what a warrior!

  If the dimensions of Vormulac's poor creature were six times as great, still it would not equal this one. Moreover, since Vormspire's upper levels were all of two thousand feet above Turgosheim's bottoms, this monster was not only equipped for but had already proved itself in flight.

  There!' Wratha howled in savage glee, as masonry and cartilage from the shattered balcony went flying, and dust from the rubble billowed up in a suffocating cloud. And as the monster's acid breath burned through the torn shreds of curtains draping its incredible head, she cried: 'Well, Vormulac, and will you also "commandeer" this one?'

  Like all Wamphyri warriors, the thing was a hybrid atrocity — a blasphemy against all the laws of creation — but in this case more so. In Olden Starside worse, bigger, yet more hideous creatures had been made from men and metamorphic vampire stuff, but this was Turgosheim, where nothing like this was ever seen before.

  Red-mottled in its softer underbelly and silver-scaled on top, with an electric sheen which reflected the glare and splash of the hall's gas jets, the thing was like a flexible machine, an instrument of madness, mayhem, murder. And it was Canker Canison's construct beyond a doubt, for its huge 'face' was that of a monstrously mutated fox! Scarlet eyes were set about the forehead in a semicircle, with others in rows along its armoured sides; but its jaws…

  … The head carried three sets of jaws, one facing front and the others to the flanks, all equipped with the teeth of a primal carnivore. Behind those lethal blades, each throat was a cavern which could swallow a man whole. Shaggy, the thing had Canker's red hair, making its looks foxier yet. Tufts of hair sprouted from between its scales, pushed back by their overlap, and patches of stiff red bristles protected the underbelly.

  Along its lower flanks pectoral to ventral, the warrior's scales were hinged to house its retracted mantle and gas bladders. Angling down from its serrated spine, a ferocious array of claspers, pincers, slabbers, clubs, and saws of chitin plate festooned its sides. A dozen 'launchers', like fleshy springs, were coiled in depressions in the segmented belly. At its rear and flanking the anus, propulsor tubes like the siphons of an octopus vented their hideous vapours. Tip to tail, the thing measured forty feet; through its middle it was nine.

  Now that the dust had settled, its many eyes were staring, taking in the total scene. And its tiny brain was waiting for a command — any command — from its maker and master.

  There were exits from the great hall other than through the archway, boltholes in its rear wall, behind Vormulac where he stood as if transfixed at the head of the table. Even if he had felt capable of answering Wratha's derisory question with regard to 'commandeering' this monster, he could not have done so; for in the moment that he blinked his astonished eyes and recovered from his paralysis of shock, so the vast invader commenced to roar!

  That was enough for the Lords and Ladies; they fled, all except a pair of lesser lights who had been bowled over by the creature's destructive arrival. Young Lords, as they dragged their broken bodies free of the debris, so they came within range of the warrior.

  Kill! Canker Canison issued a mental command. The warrior fell on the crippled Lords and worried them like a wolf worrying rabbits; it tossed one out screaming through the shattered gash of the window, trampled the other flat, then rose up and fell on the great table, whose pieces flew in all directions.

  And that was enough for Vormulac!

  Making for a bolthole exit in the wake of his fleeing guests, he sent similar instructions stabbing towards the bewildered mind of his own small guardian: Kill them — all six of them!

  The creature at once hurled itself at Wratha and her five. She held out her weapon at arm's length, squeezed the bulb and vaporized its contents directly into the charging beast's face. It breathed every last drop of moisture into its vampire lungs, into its system… reared back, all of its appendages clashing in unison… came on with yet more determination, but gagging and frenziedly shaking its great head.

  And meanwhile, Canker had called to his warrior.

  In a short-lived, stomach-churning sputter of propulsors, with a thrust of powerful launching limbs, the horror skidded and flopped twice its own length down the hall. Overwhelmed by its sheer bulk, Vormulac's beast was made impotent, forced back from Wratha and her group. And without pause Canker's warrior grasped the lesser creature in its left-flank claspers and commenced to dismember it.

  It was the grisly work of moments, seconds, nothing so great as a minute. Stabbers slammed in and out like pistons, damaging and loosening joints; pincers went into the wounds, grasping and tearing; saws were a blur of chitin. Vormulac's creature screamed — high-pitched, throbbing, a piercing agonized whistle — but briefly. There were grunts of satisfaction from the greater warrior, and thuds as various detached appendages and other portions were tossed aside. Fluids splashed: grey, yellow, red, and a reeking pink mist rose up.

  Then the screaming stopped…

  Canker's monster grunted again (in disgust, even disappointment?), thrust aside a shuddering mound of steaming meat, turned its triple-jawed head a little to glare down the ruined hall at pallid faces gawping from the bolthole exits.

  Canker Canison laughed and danced, cavorting in a gleeful frenzy… then stopped abruptly and fell to all fours, saliva dripping from his muzzle. And after the briefest pause: Kill! he commanded a second time, his scarlet eyes ablaze.

  His creature ploughed debris where it went roaring down the hall.

  'No, hold!' cried Wratha, taking Canker's elbow, assisting him to his feet. 'No beast could reach them in there; that wall is solid rock, with a warren of escape tunnels. Best save your creature's energy.'

  The six ran down the hall to where the warrior had come to a halt. And from there Wratha called, 'Vormulac, Maglore, Zindevar, Devetaki and all you others. Remember: it was you who turned on me, not out of fear but jealousy! We posed no great threat, me and my five. Wha
t, against all of Turgosheim in a body? No, not even if we had made a dozen creatures like this one. But all we have is four… for the moment.

  'Four of them, all tested and airworthy, and made of good strong vampire stuff; not to mention other good stuff, even the very best stuff, out of Sunside. Aye, and to hell with your tithe-system! By now they're en route to a peak in the western reaches of the range, where we've hidden away a cache of food to replenish us — flyers, warriors and all — before we leap the Great Red Waste. This was always our plan; not to war with you but to fly west, to the aeries of Olden Starside and make new lives there. Except you were greedy and jealous and would be first, and you envied those of us with spirit enough to try it.

  'Well, Vormulac, I'm sorry to disappoint you and your lieutenants; your men will find nothing in our houses but a handful of thralls and empty vats. Whatever else we're obliged to leave behind, you are welcome to it. Take our spires and manses and keep them. We've no longer any use for them.

  'And so we fly west — let him follow who dares! For you have set yourselves against me and mine, and so are become our enemies. We shall know how to deal with you, when at last you have the nerve for it. So be it…'

  She and her five headed for the stairwell to the landing bays. But before passing under the archway, she paused, looked back and shouted.

  'Vormulac, Maglore: send no mind-message ahead of us. For if in leaving gloomy Vormspire we should suffer any hindrance, then Canker's warrior will fire its propulsors directly into your hidey-holes. And if in the past you've found kneblasch a trifle bothersome, why, you don't know the half of it!'

  With which she and her renegades were gone.

  In the tunnel escape routes, Vormulac and the others were torn two ways. These man-made passages led down into the rock, eventually emerging onto exterior walkways which descended to the lower levels. But to go that way would take time and in the end expose them to whatever other dangers waited in the gloom of Turgosheim's canyon. For shortly, Wratha and her gang would mount and launch their flyers; likewise their lieutenants out of Wrathspire and Madmanse, and the other houses of treachery. Indeed, the latter would be out there even now, spiralling on thermals out of Turgosheim, waiting in the night for Wratha and the others, ready to join with them like a swarm and thrust westwards.

  Ah! But what if they'd left a rearguard to watch their backs? Only Wratha's word for it that all their warriors except this one were already fled. An unthinkable fate: to be caught on a flimsy exterior staircase of cartilage and bone, by some cousin of the monster which snarled and sputtered in the great hall!

  Crowding there in the low, narrow tunnels, these were some of the more mentionable thoughts of the Wamphyri Lords and Ladies where they huddled and cursed. Until Maglore clapped a hand to his forehead and cried: 'Canker has called for his monster to attend him! Our siege is ended!'

  The mentalist was right. Sputtering and snarling, Canker's warrior spat acid towards the bolthole tunnels, then propelled itself in its ungainly fashion to the shattered window. For a moment it perched there, its hideous head projecting outwards, before launching itself into the night. The rest of the balcony went with it, while a cloud of noxious fumes from its propulsive vents remained behind.

  Braving these loathsome vapours, Vormulac, Maglore, and half-a-dozen others left their refuge and rushed to the window. Outside, Wratha and her renegades, and their lieutenants, rode the night in a spiral round Vormspire's ramparts. Behind them, climbing — with its gas-bladders bulging, mantle extended and propulsors blasting — Canker's creature headed west. The Lady was off and running, and nothing anyone could do to stop her.

  Her laughter came back to them, and a simple warning:

  'Vormulac… send flyers and lieutenants after us if you will, to our refuelling station in the western heights. We can spare a warrior, I think, to swat them from the skies. And so for now, farewell!'

  'Whatever awaits you in Olden Starside, Lady,' he shouted after her, 'be sure not to return! You know the penalty if you do!'

  Her fading laughter was the only answer…

  Later: there was unaccustomed, even hurried activity in all of the great spires and manses of Turgosheim; new workshops with extensive vats were designed, and others long fallen into disrepair put back to rights. Before sunup the word was out: the ban on the making of warriors was lifted!

  Wrathspire, Madmanse, Gorvistack, Suckspire, Mangemanse: all of these were put to the sack and their spoils, both human and material, were divided as fairly as possible; likewise the possessions of the two Lords murdered by Canker's creature in Vormspire's great hall. And so a rapid re-shuffling commenced, which saw lesser Lords arguing their individual merits as they vied for ascension to these redesignated, soon to be renamed, cavern mansions and crag aeries.

  While in Runemanse:

  … In the hour before sunup, the Seer Lord Maglore called for his thrall Karz Biteri to attend him in the topmost apartment, a cavelet with a dual purpose: on the one hand to act as a lookout, and on the other to house the manse's siphoneer. It was a place Karz avoided, except to feed its grotesque inhabitant which reclined flaccid, mindless and motionless behind drawn curtains. For even the Wamphyri held certain things as unseemly, and knew when to hide them away.

  There Karz found his master, lost in weird reverie, gazing gravely out through the horizontal slit of a window, across the gulf of Turgosheim towards melancholy Vormspire in the canyon's south-eastern bight. And after he had stood before him for some little while, finally Maglore blinked his strange eyes and focused them, and turned them on Karz.

  'Being an intelligent man and curious,' he said, his voice rustling as ever, 'by now you will know what has happened.'

  Karz could only nod. 'Something of it, Lord.'

  'Well, and we shall discuss it at length,' Maglore took him by the shoulder and turned him about face. 'And you shall write it down in the glyphs of Mendula Farscry, as part of the modern history of Turgosheim. But before that…' (he guided the Historian toward the room's curtained area), 'I would remind you of my warning about Wratha, and the pleasures and pains of knowing her too well. Indeed, of the perils in knowing any of my contemporaries.'

  'But… I have not forgotten, Lord!' Karz protested.

  'Be still and listen,' Maglore told him as they arrived before the curtains, where he turned Karz so that they stood face to face. 'For you see, despite all of her crimes, no harm has befallen the Lady Wratha; the witch and her coven are fled into Olden Starside. But what of their thralls, their manses, and spires, their dupes? I will tell you: all tossed aside to fend for themselves, disassembled, apportioned and scattered. They are left to count the cost, not Wratha. But I also mentioned her dupes…'

  'Dupes, master?'

  'Indeed,' Maglore nodded. 'Indeed.' And in a moment:

  'How long since you opened these curtains, Karz?' His hand was on the rope.

  'A while,' the other gulped a little, his throat suddenly dry as he wondered what Maglore was about. 'Not long. I wash the creature and turn him thus and so, and fill his trough. I search his flesh for sores, and if and when I find them apply your ointments. I know that he is old, and so look for signs of decay. And — '

  'I know,' Maglore stopped him. 'All of these tasks which you perform. I know. For you are faithful, Karz, and observe your duties well. But I know of a one — we both know of him — who was unfaithful, who did not fulfil his trust, who was suborned and bought… by Wratha!' Suddenly Maglore's voice was hard, cruel. 'Well, and he also counts the cost.'

  'Huh — huh — he?' And now Karz was terrified, without as yet knowing why.

  'My siphoneer is old, Karz,' Maglore cried at last, yanking on the rope. 'And despite that you tend him so well, soon he will die. Where there is no will, there is precious little will to live, eh? For which reason, among others, I have got myself a new siphoneer. Behold!'

  The curtains swished open, and behind them -

  — Two siphoneers: one wrinkled, mottled, o
ld but still functional, for the moment at least; the other pink and new, and not yet fully….ormed. The Historian saw the bulk of them, in this topmost room of Runemanse, but not all of them. What he did see lay on a platform over the vast bowl of water whose outlets supplied the manse's needs; the mouth of the older one dribbling water into the bowl, like the drool of an infant or an idiot, except the falling droplets were sweet and clear. Their bodies were trembling like jelly from the pounding of hugely enlarged hearts; their limbs, cleverly boned and amputated at knees and elbows, were filmed in vampire slime; their living veins, similarly sheathed and elongated by metamorphism, extended from the butchered nubs and disappeared into conduits of dead bone which descended through the floor.

  What Karz Biteri could not see (and what he had trained himself not to think about) were the many hundreds of feet of these living capillaries, all dangling down inside their bone pipes through Runemanse above and Madmanse below, to the wells in the floor of Turgosheim from which they drew up the water! But for all his training, Karz could imagine them well enough.

  He looked at the new siphoneer — at its head, all shaven, with dark sutures and blue bruises betraying some recent surgery: an extraction of brain, of most of the brain, he knew — and at its vacant, grin-grimacing face, which Karz recognized only too well. For this was the face, and what was left of the form, of Giorge Nanosi, called Fatesayer, whose veins were even now extruding from his stumps, and inching down the pipes to the wells!

  Unable to restrain himself, the Historian reeled away from the curtained area to the window, and there stuck his head out to draw long and hard on the dark air.

  Maglore, reading his mind, came to stand beside him. 'And so you see what is become of the Fatesayer,' he said, 'who was less impartial than we thought. Aye, for when Wratha stuck her hooks in him, she said his fate loud and clear. So be it!'

  Karz's shoulders jerked. Maglore pulled him away from the window, saying: 'What? And would you foul Runemanse with your vomit? I'll not have it, neither within nor without! Go tend your duties, make clean my workshops. For soon I'll be practising my arts.'