Blood Brothers vw-1

by Brian Lumley

  Later, hearing about the place, other lepers had made their way here from the wilderness and from various tribes, and so the colony was established. And seven years later as Settlement had grown up and prospered, it had been a younger Lidesci, Lardis himself, who had continued to send supplies to the colony on a regular basis, so helping those who were mainly incapable of helping themselves. And even though in those early years the Szgany Lidesci rarely had a surplus of anything, still there was always enough to give a little to the lepers.

  Now it was the turn of the lepers to give in return…

  These were Nana Kiklu's thoughts where she stood in the shade of a tree at the forest's very edge, and thought back on the events of last night. Not on the painful scenes — such as the destruction of her house, and the fact that she'd not been able to return and search for Nathan and Nestor, which had left such an ache in her heart that it would not be driven out until she and her boys were reunited — but on her exhausted arrival here at the colony. Exhausted, yes, for she and Misha Zanesti between them had been mainly responsible for getting Lissa Lidesci here safe and sound. Poor Lissa, cut by thorn and thicket, and very nearly insane from what she'd seen and been through.

  And yet while Nana had the strength both physical and mental, it had been Lissa who was wise enough to advise their coming here, and Misha who was artful enough to lead the way. Misha Zanesti, to whom as a child the forest had been a vast and glorious playground. So all three had played their parts, until at last the woods were behind them and they came upon the savannah by moonlight.

  Then, too, Misha had known or divined the way; studying the stars and stating her belief that they had strayed too far west, she had led her companions in the other direction, along the edge of the rolling grassland. Until finally, in the lee of great trees which stood like sentinels looking out towards the inhospitable deserts, they'd seen the soft glow of lamplight and knew that this must be the colony.

  Then there had been a low wooden fence, a robed and hooded watcher at the gate, holding up his lamp, and the hoarsely whispered, mumbled query: 'Who comes? Are you lepers?'

  'No, not lepers,' Nana had answered, turning her eyes from the lamp's bright glare, 'but friends of those that live here.'

  'Not lepers?' the other shrank back. Then go away — and go quickly! For we lepers have no friends. And it's not so much that we live here, as that this is where we come to die…'

  'No friends?' Now Lissa had found voice to speak up. 'Not even Lardis Lidesci whose land this is, whose father built this place, and whose wife I am?'

  'Ah!' the other hissed, and they caught a brief glimpse of his face where he held his lantern higher yet: the grey bone showing through his cheek, and the fretted gape of his nostrils. The Lidesci? His wife? But in the dead of night? And you — ' he swung his light towards Misha, '- only a girl, yet dishevelled, full of bruises, and your clothes all in tatters? And… and… the Lidesci's wife, you say?' He turned back to Lissa. 'But likewise wild and torn? Now say, what is this thing?'

  'Old man,' it was Misha's turn to speak, 'hard times have come, and we must spend the night here and wait for sunup.' And innocent, she reached out a hand to touch his sleeve.

  'Ah!' he said again, a gasp this time, and swiftly drew back out of reach. And: 'I am not… not old,' he shook his head, however slowly..

  But in the next moment, 'What hard times?'

  The Wamphyri are back in Starside,' Nana told him then, breathlessly. 'And tonight they raided on Settlement!'

  Finally they had made an impression. The Wamphyri!' the leper croaked, bobbing about in sudden agitation. 'What? They are back, did you say?' Abruptly he turned, hobbling off down a path towards the wooden buildings under the trees.

  'Wait!' Misha called after him. 'We can't spend the night in the open!'

  He glanced back. 'I only keep watch,' he husked. 'But we have a leader, too. Now wait here, and I'll bring him.'

  In a little while he returned; several more lepers, all dressed alike, came with him. One of them was tall, shuffling, obviously in great pain. The sleeves of his robe seemed empty from the elbows down… but his cowl was thrown back so that his face at least was visible and clean. He was pale, hollow-cheeked, with dark expressive eyes.

  'I'm Uruk Piatra,' he told the women, looking at them. The others call me Uruk Long-life. And you…" He looked long and hard at Lissa — her oval face with its gentle almond eyes; her slim, long-limbed figure — and said, 'Yes, you are Lardis Lidesci's wife. You've been here before, am I right?'

  'With my husband,' she nodded. 'When he was beating the bounds. Twice, I think, but long ago.'

  'Aye, long ago,' the other agreed, 'when I had hands.' He looked at all of them again, blinking in the yellow light of the lanterns. 'But I've been told a terrible thing: that the Wamphyri have returned to raid in Sunside!'

  By then Lissa had taken a firm grip on her nerves. 'It's true,' she told him, 'all horribly true! We've come here from Settlement, which was burning when last we saw it. There were vampires in the streets, killing, raping, making thralls. But I remember that long ago, my husband told me that this was a place safe from all vampires. That's why we've come here: to hide through the night from the Wamphyri, and to shelter from the forest and its beasts — till sunup at least, when we'll think what to do.'

  The leper leader shook his head and his expression grew more haunted yet. 'A monstrous thing!' he said. 'But there are terrible things and terrible things. For a woman to fall into the hands of the Wamphyri would be a nightmare, I know, and to live with them even worse than dying. But to live here… is a slow, lingering death in itself — which you risk just by being here.'

  Nana Kiklu had had enough of this. 'So, we are turned away by lepers!' Her words were bitter. Then we'll sleep here, outside your gate. Only bring us clean blankets and a lantern, and we'll look after ourselves.'

  Uruk Piatra looked at her and nodded slowly. 'Being what I am,' he said, 'does not make me any less the man. Upon a time I was Szgany, like you. Not a Lidesci, no, but I was a man. And even now I know my duty. I meant simply this: that I could not invite you in, for your own sakes. But certainly we can do better than blankets and a lamp! When lepers come here, we build them homes. Until they are built, however, a tent of skins must suffice. I suggest you pitch it under the trees, over there.'

  Nana went to speak again, then hung her head.

  And again he nodded. 'It's all right. I understand. Only looking at you I can see how much you've suffered.'

  He gave orders and the other lepers went back to their sprawl of dwellings, returning in a while with a tent, blankets, vegetables, an iron pot and tripod. And: 'Stay here,' their leader told Nana, Lissa, and Misha,

  'while they build your tent under the trees and light a small fire. Then you must make your own soup, with water from the stream there.'

  And while their refuge from the night was put in order for them, so the three had told Uruk their entire story…

  That was how it had been for them at the leper colony, in the early hours of the previous night. But as they had settled in to wait out the long hours of darkness, their worries were not so much for themselves as for their loved ones.

  Not unnaturally, Nana's thoughts had been for Nathan and Nestor: How had they fared through Settlement's devastation, she wondered? — wondered it in her sleep, and through all of her waking hours — till at last, still wondering, she'd shivered awake with the dawn. Had it been just as bad for them? Surely it must have been even worse! And how were they faring now?

  Now in the light of early morning, in the foothills over Twin Fords, Nestor finished his rabbit and stretched out his limbs in the long grass to digest it. While behind him and somewhat higher, at the sheer, rearing rim of an outcrop, vile evaporation continued to spill out of the trees and tumble down the cliff like a frothing waterfall — but less vigorously now — from the three-quarters liquefied flyer destroyed by sunlight.

  As for Nathan…

  Fol
lowing old Traveller trails between the forest and the foothills, striding east towards Twin Fords, Nathan was tempted to seek out his brother in a way neither of them had used since childhood. It would mean breaking his easy, long-legged, mile-eating lope for a few minutes, which he was scarcely willing to do, but if it proved successful at least his mind would be at rest.

  For there had never been a time in Nathan's life when he was more aware that he was only one half of twins; when, as if to accentuate his and Nestor's physical differences, he could feel this new rift between them like a great canyon, yawning ever wider the closer he came to its rim. And he knew that Misha Zanesti had been only a part of it, that it had been coming anyway and she had been merely the catalyst.

  But it had all culminated so swiftly. First Misha: Because of her love for Nathan (rather, because of Nestor's jealousy), the brothers had drifted apart; that rivalry which had seeded itself in childhood had finally bloated into life, separating them. But they weren't the first brothers to come up against such a problem; it was something which might well have righted itself, eventually. Especially now that… now that Misha…

  But no, Nathan couldn't bring himself to dwell upon that — Misha with the dog-thing, Canker Canison — not in the way Vratza Wransthrall had so gleefully described it. And yet he must, for back in Settlement he'd vowed against the Wamphyri, especially Canker. And though he felt choked inside, still a low growl escaped his throat as he pictured that one! Aye, and his vow was a double, even a triple vow, surely; for the Wamphyri were also responsible for whatever fate had befallen his mother, and for tearing him physically apart from his brother. As for the latter… he could only hope that it wasn't permanent.

  A terrible, terrible thing to have lost all of them: his mother, Misha, and Nestor. He neither knew nor wanted to know what effect the death of his brother would have on him, but he supposed it would be like losing an even bigger part of himself — perhaps the last part.

  For he and Nestor: they'd shared their mother's womb, her milk, the love of the same Gypsy girl — though she'd loved one as a brother and the other for himself. But their blood was one blood, and even their minds had seemed fashioned of like stuff; at least, they were similar enough that sometimes they touched upon each other.

  Which was what Nathan intended now: to touch Nestor's mind, and in so doing prove that he still lived. And if there was nothing there, a vacuum? That was the chance he must take: to be part of something which once was whole, at least, or to be even emptier than the husk he inhabited now.

  With all of these thoughts and others swirling in his head and clouding the psychic ether, it was hardly the best moment for such an experiment, but Nathan drew off from the trail anyway, sat down with his back to a boulder and closed out the day, his furious loathing of last night's raiders, all other emotions, everything, and let his mind drift…

  The dead drew back from him!

  He felt that at once; their shock, even their horror. But this time Nathan's interest Jay with the Jiving… he hoped. And up in the high hiJJs, in deep caves, grey-furred ears sprang erect, grey heads were lifted, and triangle eyes blinked in gJoomy lairs. There were three of them, three together, who knew his mind as if it were one of theirs: Blaze, whose brow was marked with his mother's white; Grinner, whose damp bJack lips forever twitched, as if on the verge of smiling; Dock, whose tail had been shortened when he was a cub and wanted to play with some brave vixen's brood.

  They divined Nathan's purpose at once but couldn't help him, not this time. For none of theirs was abroad in the daylight, and no further reports of Nestor had reached them. If it were night, that might be different. But not now.

  Nathan acknowledged them anyway, where they whined a little, curJed up and resumed their contemplations. And moving on, he let his thoughts drift, drift..

  .. Until they struck upon a mind he knew, yet at one and the same time did not know! For it seemed different, changed, wiped clean. Or perhaps wiped unclean, with a dirty, bloodstained rag? For this was Nestor, and yet it was not him.

  Nathan couldn't understand. It was as if Nestor's mind itself was undecided about his identity! And a great rage of pain and frustration, of need and ambition, and of loss and discovery seethed in the core of him!

  Such was Nathan's shock that he snatched himself back from the stranger which was his brother — and jerked erect where he sat with his back against the rock!

  And all of his thoughts fled back to him like whipped dogs, and his quandary was deeper than before where he took up the trail again and headed east…

  Nestor was asleep, digesting his meal, converting the strong food into energy. He was asleep and wandering in the most fragile of dreams — which were scattered on the instant that the alien Thing entered his mind!

  Alien, yes, and a hated enemy! He knew it from the whirlpool of numbers, symbols, meaningless equations and other mathematical devices behind which the Thing concealed its identity and purpose. That same enemy which had plagued him all the days of his life! Shivering despite that the sun blazed down on him, Nestor opened his eyes…

  .. and looked up at two men, one about his own age and the other much older, who had come across him where he lay!

  The enemy of his dreams was at once forgotten; he saw the men — saw that just for the moment they were looking at each other, not at him — and closed his eyes again, feigning sleep. But what he'd seen stayed etched on his mind's eye: One of them, the young one, was kneeling beside him with his fist knotted round the handle of a knife whose sharp blade gleamed like liquid silver in the sunlight. Slender, wide-eyed, nervous, he looked more than a little frightened. The other, a weathered, surly-looking man in his middle years, stood erect with a loaded crossbow held in his strong brown hands. He had been scowling and was now quietly muttering to himself:

  'Steal a rabbit right out of my trap, would you, boy? And what are you doing up here anyway, eh? Especially this morning, after last night…'

  'No vampire,' the one on his knees whispered, still glancing over his shoulder at the first speaker, 'else he wouldn't be out in the sun. And look at the state of him, all bruised and banged about! Was he a lone hunter, perhaps, scared down out of the mountains? What do you think, father?'

  'What do I think?' the first one's answer was a low rumble of unreasoning hatred and suspicion. 'Oh, I'll tell you what I think: that the bloodsucking bastards have thought up some new tricks, and that this one's some weird Wamphyri changeling! So he's not changed far enough yet that the sun will hurt him… so what? You saw his flyer up there, all melting away, and its black bones poking through the rot. Too much of a coincidence to find a thing like that up there, and then to find this one down here. That's what I think!'

  Nestor's flyer? He remembered it. Indeed, it was one of the very few things which he did remember. But what was that the older man had called him, a changeling? Hah! Little he knew. For Nestor was no mere thrall but a Lord! He was the Lord Nestor — of the Wamphyri!

  The word was like a fire in his blood — Wamphyri.'

  And now he tensed himself — but carefully, guardedly — for action. His arms were folded comfortably on his chest, and one knee was bent a little. All to the good.

  'So what do we do about him?' the one who kneeled wanted to know.

  'First we wake him,' the other growled. And reluctantly: Then… I suppose we'd better drag him down into Twin Fords, and find out about him there. For I'd hate to make a mistake.'

  Too late! thought Nestor. You've made too many already.

  He felt the younger one's hand grip his arm above the elbow, shaking him, and heard him bark: 'You, wake up!' Following which, all was a blur of motion.

  Nestor's eyes blazed open! Stiffening his hands and shooting them wide in a slicing motion, he knocked aside the young one's knife arm, simultaneously wrenching his hand from its hold on his right arm. Suddenly unbalanced, with his hands sliced out from under him, the youth could only topple forward. Grasping his advantage, Nestor slammed his
bent knee into the other's groin, and jerked his head up off the ground to butt him full in the face.

  Lips which were already snarling their shock and terror split open bloodily; teeth and bone crunched sick-eningly; the youth's yelp of astonishment turned to a red gurgle as Nestor grabbed for the knife. He found it in the other's slackening fingers and gashed himself wrenching it free. But the slicing pain served only to galvanize him further.

  The older man was hopping left and right, trying to line up his weapon, shouting, 'Stab him! Kill the bastard!' He would get off a shot but his son was in the way, and what he couldn't see was that Nestor had the knife. And suddenly it seemed that the sprawling, jerking body of his son lifted itself up a foot from the one he was pinning down, and in mid-air shuddered convulsively. Then the youth was thrust aside, turned by Nestor's arm and knee, and his awful face was a bloody mask with a gasping hole for a mouth. Also bloody was the slit in his jacket, from which Nestor drew out the knife.

  'Son!' With a cry of anguish, eyes popping, the father watched his son's brief death struggles, saw him flop motionless on the bloodstained grass. Then:

  'You!' he snarled, swinging his weapon towards Nestor and pulling the trigger. But Nestor was on his feet, his arm already fully extended forward, and the red-blotched knife in flight! Nestor was good with a knife, but on this occasion he was lucky, too. It took the man in the throat, in the 'V of bone directly under his Adam's-apple, punching a hole there which penetrated to the spine.

  Even crumpling to the earth he was as good as dead, and so didn't see his bolt take Nestor in the side, skewering his flesh like a needle through a blister. He didn't see it, but there were others higher up the hillside who did.

  Nestor heard them cry out, looked up from where shock had knocked him off his feet, and saw them through the wash of scarlet agony flooding over him. A group of four or five men, something less than two hundred yards away, descending the hillside towards him in a series of breakneck leaps and bounds — vampire hunters!