by David Bishop
I stayed close to Eisenstein, whose vampiric strength and savagery ripped through the defenders, scything past our thralls as they slowly advanced deeper into the castle. I used my bayonet as a dagger, stabbing and slicing at the Germans. When their numbers threatened to overwhelm us, a few shots from my pistol helped drive them back.
Eisenstein was stabbed and wounded repeatedly but kept going, his uniform spattered with blood and viscera. We got so far ahead of the thralls that the line of defenders closed in between us and Gorgo's slaves, leaving us surrounded by German soldiers. My pistol clicked empty and there was no time for reloading, so I tossed the weapon aside.
"We've come too far!" I shouted to Eisenstein.
He glanced over his shoulder at me, taking in our situation. "Stand back to back!" he urged. "Together we can hold them off until reinforcements get here!"
I did as he suggested, pressing my shoulder blades against his, both my hands clenched around my bayonet. Eisenstein hissed and spat at the enemy, flashing his fangs at them. I knew he would not use his teeth on the Germans but they didn't, giving us a psychological advantage. For a moment the enemy held back, unsure how to deal with us. They had been on the back foot since this battle began, and now they had the advantage but seemed uncertain how to use it.
"Come on, you bastards!" Eisenstein screamed at them, goading the Germans into action.
Seven of them lunged at us from all sides, stabbing and flailing with daggers, bayonets and rifle butts. I deflected two of the attackers' blows, but felt a wooden stock crash into the side of my skull, spots dancing in front of my eyes. Blinded and close to collapse, I stabbed sideways with my bayonet and the man who'd hit me went down screaming. Emboldened, I swiped my blade through the air and was rewarded with two more cries of pain. Then something sharp and cold invaded my right thigh and I was down on one knee. The Germans closed in around me, blocking out what little light there still was in the castle corridor.
"Urraaaiiii!" a Mongolian bellowed nearby, his cry echoed by another gruff voice with the same accent.
Fearful German faces twisted away from me in time to see the Borjigin brothers appear. A pair of curved swords sliced and severed and skewered. Within moments half the enemy were dead or dying, while the others were too busy fighting for their lives to worry about finishing me off. I saw my pistol trapped beneath the body of a German, the end of the barrel caught up in the chain of his identity disc. I ripped the weapon free, my eyes dimly registering the name on the metal oval: BERKEL, A. He was dead and that was all I cared to know about him.
I reached into a pouch on my waist belt and extracted a handful of bullets, quickly slotting them into my pistol. Behind me Eisenstein had dealt with most of the other Germans, putting the rest to flight. He ran after them, howling like an enraged animal, bellowing and screaming for more. The sound of men dying hung in the air like a fog, while my nostrils were filled with the stench of blood and cordite and fear.
Mariya crouched beside me, blood trickling from a scratch across her left cheek. "Are you all right?" she asked, concern in her voice. "I thought we'd lost you both for a second."
"I'm fine," I insisted. "My leg must have cramped."
Mariya looked at my thigh and gasped. "Not exactly." She reached into her knapsack and produced a roll of bandage.
I realised blood was running from a narrow slice in my trousers, soaking the material with a crimson stain. I had been stabbed in the melee and hardly noticed, so intense was the ferocity of the fighting. My hands started to shake, having been perfectly calm and steady until then.
"I don't understand," I mumbled, trying to stop my hands from trembling without success.
"It's delayed shock, from the wound," Mariya said. "Stand up and I'll bandage it."
Behind her the Borjigin brothers were counting on their fingers and muttering to each other in Mongolian, their brows furrowed by thought.
"What are they doing?" I asked Mariya.
"Keeping score," she said, smiling. "They've got some sort of contest to see who can kill the most enemy soldiers before the end of the war."
"I just want to get home alive."
"Where is home?"
"Moscow. At least, it was before the war."
I studied the corpses of the dead Germans around us, the sprays of blood on the peeling plaster walls, trying not to wince as Mariya pulled the bandage taut around my thigh.
"After this madness, who knows?" I said.
She straightened up and wiped her bloody hands clean on her tunic. "True. I was born and raised in Stalingrad, but there wasn't much left of the city last time I saw it. Nothing to call home."
Eisenstein reappeared, his uniform awash with blood, his eyes ablaze with excitement. "There's a handful of the enemy spread throughout the castle, but we've broken the back of their resistance. I'll go tell Gorgo his lordship's precious home is secured."
"I'll do it," Mariya volunteered. "You and Victor search the remaining areas down here, and make sure the Germans don't have any nasty surprises waiting for us. The Borjigin brothers can sweep the upper floors and search for any more survivors."
"Fine by me," he replied, shrugging. "Come on, Zunetov. Let's finish this."
"Thanks for the bandage," I whispered to Mariya before hurrying after Eisenstein. When I caught up with him he was smirking to himself.
"What's so amusing?" I asked him.
"I notice you and Charnosova are on first name terms now," he commented.
"She called me Victor, so what?"
"Nothing, nothing."
"Good."
Eisenstein paused outside a small, empty chamber, peering inside to make certain it was deserted. Once satisfied, he continued along the corridor with me at his heels.
"But you two do seem to be getting along well, especially considering you've just met."
"What are you, my mother?"
He stopped, his face suddenly serious. "A war is no place to fall in love, Zunetov. That's doubly true of this war. Trust me, I know."
"So do I." We glared at each other, neither one of us willing to mention Sofia, the woman who'd died at Constanta's hand outside Leningrad, the woman Eisenstein had loved.
I was about to move on when somebody coughed nearby. Ahead of us in the corridor was a doorway leading into what looked like the largest room on the castle's ground floor. The sound had come from that direction, but it was muffled and faint, with a curious echo. I arched an eyebrow at Eisenstein, who nodded gently in response. We'd both heard the same thing and believed it came from the same place.
Slowly we crept along the corridor towards the open doorway, Eisenstein unslinging the submachine gun from across his back while I made certain my pistol was ready to fire. Our approach was masked by the sound of gunfire and men screaming on the upper levels as the Mongolians eagerly added to their tallies of dead Germans.
Eisenstein paused outside the doorway before stepping boldly inside and sweeping his weapon sideways round the room, a finger poised on the trigger. Satisfied there was nobody else inside, he nodded and I followed him inside. The chamber was massive but quite empty: no furniture behind which the enemy could wait, no other doors leading off the space. Tall windows on the far side of the room looked out at the barren fields beyond where the last rays of sunlight were dying on the stony ground. Where the hell had that sound come from?
Someone, somewhere, moved, quietly shifting their weight from one foot to the other. The sound was definitely not originating above us but its source remained elusive. I studied the walls of this vast chamber, trying to deduce what it was once used for. Long and broad, the wooden block flooring in the central area was all but unmarked, bound by a rectangle of indentations and scuffs. The outer edges of the floor were well-trodden, the patina of the wooden floor wore thin. There must have been a massive table in here once at least eight metres in length, protecting the central area from use.
Yes, this must have been the castle's main dining hall. I shuddered to th
ink what sort of meals the likes of Constanta had feasted upon in here. Now that we had regained the castle for Gorgo, his kind would soon be using this as their headquarters once more. It sickened me to realise every victory we achieved was simply serving the will of the vampyr, the very creatures we had vowed to hunt down and destroy.
Eisenstein sniffed at the air, his sense of smell somehow made keener than mine by the undead taint coursing through his veins. I followed his example and became aware of rotting flesh, the rancorous odour of decomposition drifting into the chamber from nearby. Eisenstein followed the smell to one of the side walls, his nostrils flaring in search of the entry point. His hands caressed the wall, passing over an elaborate crest sculpted into the dark wooden panelling. A mechanism clicked within the crest and the panel slid aside, revealing a stone stairwell that curved down into darkness.
Someone beneath us caught their breath, startled by the sudden movement of the panel. They knew their hiding place had been discovered. A final confrontation was moments away. Eisenstein loosed a volley of bullets down the staircase before hurriedly stepping aside to escape any return fire.
A man cried out in pain, the urgency of his voice telling me the wound was probably fatal. After so long fighting on the front, I'd learnt to distinguish between the sound of death and less life-threatening pain. The man sobbed, begging his comrades for help. They tried to hush his voice but it was too late. In a few words he had given the others away.
"Hans, Ralf, help me!"
I held up three fingers to Eisenstein. He sniffed the air again, frowning before holding up four fingers and a thumb. I had learned to trust his instincts in such matters since they were invariably better than mine. I moved closer to the opening and called down to the Germans in their own tongue.
"You might as well come out. We knew you're down there... All five of you."
"How does he-" one of the Germans hissed before being silenced by the others.
"You're out of ammunition, otherwise you'd have fired back at us by now. Surrender."
After a long silence, a gruff voice replied from the darkness of the stairwell. "We know what you Bolsheviks do to prisoners of war: torture them, then send them to the gulags. If we're lucky you'll simply shoot us here, so get it over with!"
In the distance I could hear Gorgo bellowing orders at his thralls. The Rumanian had entered the castle and was taking charge of the situation once more. It would not be long before he stormed in here looking for us.
"You hear that voice? His name's Sergeant Gorgo and he's-"
"A vampyr," the gruff German replied. "We know him and his kind. This is their lair. Better we die down here by our own hands than become prey for that monster."
I felt helpless, caught up in events beyond my control. Was this how the war would be from now on? Doing the dirty work of a vampyr master, and murdering men who abhorred the undead as much as we did? I was never naive enough to believe there was any such thing as a just war, but I also knew that I was fighting on the wrong side of this bloody conflict. Beside me Eisenstein was becoming restless, his attention caught by tiny movements in the stairwell.
"Something is happening below us. There must be a basement or dungeon down these steps, perhaps even a concealed tunnel. The Germans could be trying to escape," he said.
"Perhaps we should let them," I said, uncertain about what to do next. Gorgo's roaring was getting closer and soon any decision would be taken out of our hands.
"Vollmer, the door's jammed," a terrified voice whispered down in the darkness. "I can't get it open. We're trapped in here."
Vollmer? Where had I heard that name before? I shut my eyes to concentrate, straining to block out the sounds of the Mongolians rampaging in the room above me and of Gorgo shouting at his minions in frustration. Think, Zunetov, think!
The answer came to me in flash as a picture came into focus before my mind's eye: a wounded gefreiter called Reiner Haustein, leaning against a mound of dirt, telling Eisenstein and I how he first heard about the presence of vampyr on the Ostfront from another German soldier called Hans Vollmer.
Vollmer had discovered the true nature of the Rumanians while fighting alongside them in the early days of Operation Barbarossa. He organised an ambush to wipe them out but the conspirators were betrayed by one of their own. Vollmer survived but was demoted and sent to the Siege of Leningrad. He tried to warn others about the vampyr but most of the Germans thought him insane.
Surely the same Hans Vollmer couldn't be among the enemy soldiers concealed in the darkness below us? It seemed too much of a coincidence at first. But if he was on a personal crusade to destroy all vampyr, then what better place to come than Castle Constanta? Still my mind rebelled at the notion. I knew from my few years as a student in Berlin before the war that Vollmer was not an uncommon name. It couldn't be the same man, could it? There was only one way to find out.
"Vollmer?" I asked into stairwell. "Hans Vollmer?"
There was no reply from below for what felt like an eternity. Finally, a new voice replied from the dark depths, younger and less abrasive than its predecessor. "Who wants to know?"
"Were you stationed south of Leningrad in 1941?"
Again, another long silence followed before the German replied. "Yes, I was. How the hell did you know that? Who are you?"
"We have a mutual acquaintance, a gefreiter called Haustein. You told him about the vampyr and warned him what signs to watch out for."
"Reiner Haustein, that's right. I haven't seen him in years. How is he?"
"Dead."
"Well, better that than undead."
Eisenstein stepped closer to me and whispered in my ear. "What are doing, Zunetov? You heard Gorgo's orders - no prisoners. If he finds you conversing with the enemy, he'll have us all lined up against the wall and executed."
"Vollmer is one of the Germans who tried to destroy the vampyr back in 1941. We need men like him on our side," I insisted.
"But he's not on our side, is he? We're at war with the Germans."
"When this war is over, there's another war coming, Grigori, and people like Hans Vollmer will be the difference between us winning and losing the next war. We have to find a way of getting him out of here."
"That's impossible and you know it!"
"We've got to try."
Eisenstein shook his head, blowing out breath between his teeth. We could both hear Gorgo's riding boots stamping along the corridor outside, marching towards the dining hall.
"All right," Eisenstein snarled, "but if this goes wrong, we'll all suffer the consequences." He shoved me into the darkness of the stairwell and activated the mechanism on the crest. The panel slid shut behind me, blocking out the light. I listened intently as Gorgo stormed into the dining hall followed by two others, no doubt his vampyr bodyguards.
"You! Where is your comrade, Zunetov?"
"He went to the upper levels with the Mongolians." Another burst of gunfire echoed above us, accompanied by screams and the sound of glass breaking. "That'll be them."
Gorgo cursed in Rumanian. I heard a fist smashing into flesh followed by someone falling heavily to the floor on the other side of the panel. "My Lord Constanta is coming here soon. He will not be happy to find his home shot to pieces by your trigger-happy colleagues. Get up!"
It must have been Gorgo striking Eisenstein. I heard my friend rise to his feet and follow Gorgo out of the dining hall. Their footfalls faded into the distance along with those of the Rumanian's bodyguards. I waited until it was completely quiet on the other side of the concealed door before venturing down the stone steps.
My eyes had gotten accustomed to the near darkness of the stairwell and I could discern a cluster of shapes below me, huddled together. There was a scraping noise among them and a flame burst into life as one of the Germans struck a match, throwing some much-needed illumination on us all. Four of the enemy appeared unhurt, but the fifth was crouched on the steps, bleeding profusely from a wound to his stomach. It needed
no great medical expertise to see he would not last much longer.
"My name's Zunetov," I said as I neared them. "Victor Zunetov. I was part of a smert krofpeet unit until a week ago. We hunted and killed vampyr."
The soldier holding the match arched an eyebrow at me suspiciously. "And now you're killing for the vampyr? Quite a change of allegiance." His was the gruff voice I had heard earlier. He was balding and bitter-faced, what little hair he had left cropped close to his skull and speckled with silver. A beard clung to his jawline, making him appear even more grizzled. I thought he must be in his late thirties, but wars like this one aged men before their time.
Next to him stood a younger man, fresh-faced and smooth of skin. His blond hair, blue eyes and chiselled jaw made him resemble every image of Aryan manhood I'd seen on Hitler Youth recruiting posters while I was in Berlin. What surprised me was the similarity of his features to the older man on his left. The two were so alike they could almost have been brothers.
On either side of them were two more Germans: a shorter, round-faced man who looked surprisingly cheerful in the circumstances, and a terrified figure with prominent ears and bulging eyes. By the time I'd surveyed them all, the match had burnt out. My grizzled accuser lit another, regarding me sourly. No doubt he and the others were studying me as I had looked over them. I couldn't help but wonder what they made of me, how I looked to their eyes. But there was no time for that now.
"I told you, my name is Victor," I persisted. "Which one of you is Hans Vollmer?"
"I am," the Aryan poster boy replied, smiling at me weakly. "We overheard what you were saying to your colleague at the top of the stairs. You believe the vampyr are planning another war after this one is over, yes? That's why you protected us from Gorgo?"
"Yes," I agreed. "Eisenstein can keep the vampyr busy for a while, but we need to get you out of here, one way or another."
"That's what we were trying to do," the veteran soldier snarled, glaring at his frightened colleague, "until Karl here almost got the lot of us killed."
