by David Bishop
By this time Gunther had finished shaving him. Karl ran a weak, quivering hand across his smooth skin. With his dark hair trimmed close to the scalp and beard removed, he appeared decades younger than a few hours before. But the dark circles beneath his eyes and the haunted look within them spoke of the horrors he had witnessed.
Gunther had not seen a single vampyr during the cold, bitter months he'd spent in Stalingrad with Ralf and the other members of the former Panzer crew. He was perplexed by the revelation that the leader of the undead had been stationed within a few miles of him during that time. "Was Constanta with your unit the whole time?"
Karl shook his head. "No. He came and went. We wouldn't see him for days on end and then he'd reappear out of nowhere like a shadow suddenly thrown upon a wall. Always at night, always after dark, and always with some new, suicidal mission for us to perform. One time we had to fight a squad of Russian hunters who were armed with hammers, wooden stakes and silver-edged sickles. They butchered my comrades as if we were vampyr too. I was lucky to escape with my life. Constanta got away without a scratch, of course... His kind always do. He vanished when the Russians launched their major counter-attack. Within days we were encircled and trapped in the city."
"But you got out?" Ralf asked.
"I was injured, nearly blinded by a Russian incendiary that caught me across the eyes. One of my comrades got me on the last plane out of the encirclement. I still don't know how. I was flown back to Berlin and given a medal by the Führer for my bravery. But I never felt brave or courageous. I was terrified the whole time I was in Stalingrad, convinced I'd never get out of there alive." Karl laughed bitterly. "Looking back on it now, I realise I didn't know then what terror was."
Hans came in to see how the survivor was doing, interrupting Karl's reminisces. "Everything's in place," Hans told his brother. "The patrols are back but they didn't have much success finding food or fuel. Berkel's done his best arranging our men round the battlements, but we don't have nearly enough to defend this place from a concerted attack."
"That doesn't matter after tonight," Ralf said. "We'll pull out of here at dawn."
"You're not planning to stay in the castle after dark, are you?" Karl's voice was trembling with fear.
"Why shouldn't we? This place is deserted," Gunther observed.
"Constanta pulled out all his men when they heard about the Rumanians switching sides," Karl replied, "but that doesn't mean they won't come back."
"The castle is still on German-held territory. Now that Constanta's countrymen are fighting for the Bolsheviks, we should be safe here," Ralf said. He paused, biting his bottom lip. "Karl, how did you know the Rumanians were changing sides?"
"Constanta came down to the dungeon and told me personally. I don't know how long ago that was, but the sick bastard said he wanted to apologise for abandoning me down there."
"The Rumanians joined the Allies two or three days ago," Hans said.
"Is that all?" Karl shook his head in bewilderment. "It felt as though I'd been down there on my own for weeks. The only sounds I could hear were the bats talking to each other, and the maggots feasting on the corpses." He shuddered at the memory of what he'd endured.
Ralf folded his arms, studying the survivor's face. "Karl, I know this won't be easy, but can you tell us how you came to be in the dungeon?"
"I... I'm not sure that I... I can't go back there..."
Gunther rested a reassuring hand on the survivor's shoulder. "You don't ever have to go back there, but it might help us to know what happened here."
Karl smiled uncertainly, his brow furrowing. "I'll try. After I recovered from my injuries, I was given a position with the Führer's personal staff, travelling with him wherever he went. When news reached Berlin about the Russians invading Rumania, he decided to send a personal envoy to Sighisoara for a meeting with Constanta. There were rumours for months that representatives of King Michael had been in Cairo negotiating an armistice. The Führer wanted to ensure the people of Transylvania would fulfil their treaty with him, maintaining an aggressive resistance to the Soviet forces even if the rest of Rumania gave way in exchange for a sovereign state of their own once the war was over. I was chosen as escort to the envoy, not realising that the Führer's secret treaty had actually been made with the undead. He promised them a vampyr nation in return for their loyalty. But by the time we arrived at Sighisoara, the Rumanians had already ceased fire."
"What happened to the envoy?" Hans asked.
"On our first night Constanta took us to a POW camp nearby, ostensibly to review the procedures for dealing with Soviet prisoners. In fact he was more like a proud child, showing off his train set. Constanta strutted around the camp, making sure we got a good look at everything. He told us the facility had processed twenty thousand Russian POWs a week at its height. When we toured the camp there were fewer than a thousand left and most of those were at death's door: exhausted, emaciated and utterly anaemic."
"Processed? What did he mean by processed?"
"He put on a little demonstration for us, using a group of German deserters who'd been captured while trying to flee the Ostfront. They were herded into a long wooden hut and had their wrists bound to a crossbeam. Needles were shoved into both of their arms and they were systematically drained of blood. Orderlies in white coats marched up and down, examining the prisoners, checking to see every last possible drop was being removed. The blood was piped out to a holding tank before being transported away for what Constanta called 'purification'. I tried asking one of the German orderlies where this took place, but he stared straight through me, as if I wasn't there, as if he had no will of his own. I guess he was a thrall of the vampyr; all the staff must have been. I can't believe they would ever take part in such inhuman atrocities otherwise."
A warning cry from outside the room drew Hans away but Ralf was determined to hear about the rest of Karl's encounter with Constanta. "Did you discover where the blood was taken?"
Karl nodded. "There's a lake a few miles from here in a small valley between the hills. But what's in the valley isn't water, it's blood, a lake of blood."
"Did you see it?" Gunther asked, unable to believe what he was hearing.
"The prisoner next to me in the dungeon did, he told me about it. According to local legends, the lake is meant to be home to some vast monster, a creature so terrifying it makes Constanta tremble with fear..."
Hans burst back into the room. "Ralf, Gunther, we've got trouble!"
"In a minute!" Ralf snapped. "Karl, what happened to the Führer's envoy?"
"Constanta butchered him and had him served as a feast for other vampyr while I was made to watch. I was then taken down to the dungeons. I think Constanta was planning to keep me for later, like you keep a spare joint of meat in a larder, but then word came through about the Rumanians changing sides."
Karl turned to look at Hans. "It's them, isn't it? The vampyr have come back for me. I knew they would."
"You're wrong," Hans replied. "It's the Russians. They must have found a quicker way over the mountains than we did. They're outside, moving in to attack the castle!"
FIVE
The battle for Castle Constanta was bloody and brutal, but at least it took place in daylight. All too frequently the deep knife squad had been fighting for its life in the darkness, urged on by our new commander, Sergeant Gorgo. Like all vampyr, daylight was anathema to him and he made no effort to conceal his true nature from us. In the few days since the five of us were brought together under Gorgo's leadership, we had been thrown into battle after battle against the retreating Wehrmacht, driving them up into the Transylvanian Alps before tearing them apart.
After our first night of fighting we were joined by a dozen thralls: Russian infantrymen whose will had been stolen away by Gorgo and his kind. When the sun rose each morning, Gorgo and his two bodyguards retreated to the safety of the shadows, leaving us to fend for ourselves. But the thralls kept watch over us, making sure we could n
either escape nor attack our new master.
Inevitably, it was Eisenstein who questioned this servitude, demanding answers from Gorgo. The Rumanian was only too pleased to oblige, smirking at our outrage, letting us all see the tips of his fangs as he explained the reasoning behind it. "The thralls are good fighters, eager to walk into death itself at my command, but they lack the intelligence and instinct that makes a truly great fighter on the battlefield."
"Because you've stolen away their will and turned them into mindless drones," Mariya growled.
"Precisely," Gorgo agreed. "The five of you were all skilled vampyr-hunters, each having claimed the lives of dozens of my kin in your time. You have the killer instinct needed to help us win this war, to succeed on missions for which my thralls are ill-suited. But your backgrounds also make you impossible to trust. Any of you five would murder me without a moment's hesitation, but for the presence of my bodyguards at night and my thralls during the day. Consider them an insurance policy, as well as useful cannon fodder for what lays ahead. We shall be fighting our way to Berlin together, so the sooner you learn to relax and make the best of this arrangement, the better. In the meantime, we have a particular target that needs to be secured immediately."
That target was Castle Constanta, on the outskirts of Sighisoara. Gorgo led us up and over a narrow mountain pass before racing down to his homeland of Transylvania below. At night he led from the front, picking out the path when our human eyes could see nothing in the darkness. By day he travelled beneath a shroud on a stretcher borne by four of his thralls. Gorgo's vampyr bodyguards were required to run alongside the stretcher, using cloaks, gloves and broad-brimmed hats to keep the sun's rays from incinerating their sensitive skin. We marched and climbed and ran all the way to Sighisoara, scarcely stopping for more than an hour at a spell.
When at last we reached the castle, Mariya and I were close to collapse from exhaustion. The Borjigin brothers proved to have remarkable stamina, supporting Mariya and me during the final stages of our journey. But it was on Eisenstein that the trek had the most profound and disturbing effect. The closer we got to Sighisoara, the stronger my comrade became. He appeared to be drawing sustenance from the land around him, as if he was a traveller coming home. But as his body grew stronger, so his resistance to sunlight grew weaker. Eisenstein took to hiding his skin from daylight and rarely opened his mouth to speak. When he did, I was shocked to see a fully formed pair of fangs protruding from his upper jaw. The closer we got to the birthplace of the vampyr, the more Eisenstein became like one of the undead, the very thing he had fought so valiantly to avoid since first being attacked by Constanta two years before.
If I still had any doubts about his precarious state, they were swept away in the hour before dawn on the day we attacked the castle. Gorgo had permitted us a brief respite from our sprint across the lowlands of Transylvania, no doubt wanting us to be that little bit fresher for the battle to come. I slumped to the ground, my lips parched, my arms so leaden they lacked the strength to open my drinking flask. Mariya had also collapsed amid the gravel and grass, her head tipped forward, nodding slightly in time with her breathing.
Eisenstein glowered at me before moving over to Mariya and dropping into a crouch beside her. He whispered something into her ear but I couldn't hear the words. Gorgo was barking orders at the thralls nearby, distracting me for a moment. When I turned back, I could see Eisenstein drawing back his lips and exposing his fangs as he leaned nearer to Mariya's supple neck.
"Get away from her, Grigori!" I snarled, scrambling across the stony surface towards them.
Eisenstein lurched backwards, his face tormented by guilt and shame. Mariya opened her eyes, awakened by the anger in my voice. She saw Eisenstein skulk away and instinctively grasped at her neck, checking she had no puncture wounds or bite marks.
"Bojemoi, did he...?"
I nodded, unable to look Mariya in the eyes. Grigori was my longest-surviving friend in this bloody war. That he should try to sate his hunger with Mariya's blood... It left me sickened. I strode after Eisenstein, who had scuttled away into the shelter provided by an outcrop of rocks. I was ready to accuse him of treachery but found him weeping in the shadows, his fingers clawing in frustration at the bandage round his neck.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I demanded.
"It burns, it burns," he mourned. His once proud voice was now a guttural sneer.
"I meant what you nearly did to Mariya. You would have ripped open her neck if I hadn't intervened. Is that what you want? To become like Gorgo and Constanta and the other vampyr?"
"I can't help it," Eisenstein whimpered pathetically. "The hunger, it gets stronger every day, more rabid with each step we get closer to the castle."
"We've noticed."
"I don't know how much longer I can fight it off."
"Try. You've held this infection back for two years, don't give in to it now!"
"You don't understand..."
"Back in Leningrad, you made me promise to kill you if I ever thought the vampyr taint was becoming too strong," I said, pressing my bayonet against his neck so its edge dug into the skin, drawing blood. "I think it's time I made good on that promise."
"No, Victor, don't." It was Mariya who stopped me, her hand closing around mine to remove the bayonet from Eisenstein's throat. "We need him."
"Not if he's going to feed on us," I protested.
But she laid a finger across my lips, silencing me. "Grigori is partway between us and them. He thirsts for blood like they do, but he also thinks and feels like a vampyr too. When the time comes for our war of blood with the vampyr, he can give us an edge against them."
"Are you sure about this?"
Mariya nodded, her face close to mine, her eyes pleading with me. "Yes. It's this place that's turning him, pushing him over the edge. If we can get through the next few days and move on from here, I believe he'll recover some of his humanity."
"But how much? Enough that we can trust him again?"
"Give me the chance to prove her right," Eisenstein muttered. "Please, I need your help."
I was still agonising over the decision when Gorgo called us back together. It would be dawn at any minute and he wanted to ensure we knew our orders for the rest of the day. We were to march on the castle, surround the perimeter, and then attack. Any Germans found inside were to be executed immediately since deep knife units did not have any way of looking after POWs. Gorgo wanted Castle Constanta reclaimed for its native people by nightfall. If we failed, he would make all of us suffer the consequences. His tone left little to the imagination.
As our commander retreated to the safety of his shroud, Eisenstein approached me hesitantly.
"Well?" he asked.
I could see Mariya nearby with the Borjigin brothers, watching us. Her skills as a translator were far superior to mine and she was already conducting rudimentary conversations with the two Mongolians. I had little doubt she was telling them what had taken place earlier, judging by their expressions. But the final decision about my friend's fate had been left to me.
I searched Eisenstein's eyes, grateful to see my comrade and not some blood-crazed creature looking back at me. He had been like a father to me during the Siege of Leningrad, keeping me alive when others told him to abandon the hapless ex-kommisar. We had come a long way together since then, but I still thought of Eisenstein as a mentor. Now I found myself standing in judgement over him. Against the urging of my head, I let the feelings of my heart take charge.
"We'll give you another chance," I said finally. "But one lapse, one more attack upon any of us four and you'll be a cloud of dust and ash, understand?"
Eisenstein nodded gratefully before smiling at Mariya and the brothers.
"I only hope I've done the right thing," I muttered under my breath.
We stormed the castle as afternoon slowly degraded towards dusk. The Germans defending the forbidding structure had put up a steadfast resistance for hours, kee
ping us back from its walls by the skill of their marksmen. Enemy snipers claimed more than half our thralls as we tried and failed to get inside.
Gorgo urged us forward from the shelter of his shroud. Eventually he allowed us to remain on the edge of the Germans' range, drawing their fire while minimising the risk to us. Slowly, gradually, the enemy marksmen ran out of ammunition, until their weapons clicked uselessly atop the battlements.
We crept closer to the castle, sending the thralls ahead of us to ensure the castle's defenders were not attempting to lure us into an ambush. It was Eisenstein who suggested using the thralls as a human shield for our advance.
"They're already under Gorgo's control, and we cannot save them from that fate," he reasoned. "But the fewer minions he has at his disposal, the greater our chances of assassinating him."
"We showed you mercy," Mariya said. "Don't the thralls deserve it too?"
"No, Grigori's right," I said. "They've already surrendered their souls to the vampyr."
"Not willingly," she replied.
"Probably not, but if they die capturing this castle, at least they're out of their misery."
Mariya turned away, repelled by the coldness of my reasoning. She joined the Borjigin brothers for the assault, preferring their company during the battle. Once the enemy's ammunition was exhausted, the remaining thralls burst into Castle Constanta via the main gates. At least a dozen German soldiers were waiting within, ready to fight for their lives. They retreated backwards into the castle's narrow corridors, taking advantage of the ancient architecture. The spaces inside were too congested for us to fire without wounding our own comrades, forcing us to engage in vicious, close-quarters combat.
