by Brian Lumley
On his way from Rome to Dacia he had “accumulated” monies from Roman citizens fleeing the vandalism, and from small parties of the Vandals themselves still scathing in the land around. And on the Danube there’d been a last handful of Roman travellers and traders. Now, since for the time being the dog-Lord had had enough of war, he decided to put his gold to use.
Thus in the year AD 467, he and the pack wintered down in what would be their lair for the next sixty years: a great cave in the mountains of western Moldavia. He employed refugees from the Moldavian plains, which were still suffering under sporadic attacks from Asiatic warriors on horseback, to make his crag or aerie habitable. And he recruited (in his way) the strongest of these workers for his lieutenants.
And because day by day, year by year, fresh refugees were fleeing the warfare, climbing the mountains, reduced to scavenging in the heights, there was a steady turnover of workers and no lack of … provisions. Also, there was never any trickling away of Radu’s gold, which he would steal back from anyone foolish enough to attempt desertion. And while work was in progress to make the cavern liveable, he was not remiss in seeing to its defences; he disguised its appearance externally, until it was simply a part of the crags all around.
It took time, even years, before Wolfscrag was finished to Radu’s satisfaction, following which he had no more use for his workers from the Moldavian steppe. Or at best—or worst—only one more use …
During all of this time the dog-Lord and his men had gone without their “comforts”: good wine and woman-flesh, which even as mercenaries under entirely human commanders they had come to expect as their right. No one ever grumbled, however, for Radu was known to deal with complaints in short order. He did understand the problems, though, for he shared them equally with his lieutenants and thralls.
There were now trappers in the mountains; Radu killed or recruited them, and took their women for his own. And from now on, any who entered that region of the Moldavian heights would suffer the same fate. And now Wolfscrag was more truly a home, or an aerie, for him and his.
Earlier, aware that the Huns had had the run of the steppe for decades and wondering if their supremacy was still holding, Radu had sent scouts east to discover the state of things. Others had been sent west along the twin spurs of the Carpathians, and spies into various makeshift hamlets clinging to the flanks of the mountains not far removed from Wolfscrag.
Eventually these scouts returned; the dog-Lord learned how the ramshackle hamlets of Moldavian refugees and the more distant Carpathian villages were ripe for conquest. The people were pacifists, isolationists who had cut themselves off completely from Dacia’s war-torn regions and the great battlefields under the mountains.
Radu couldn’t say he blamed them, but in any case his intentions didn’t run to conquest—not yet, anyway. Or at best a very subtle conquest. Instead he would offer these people his services as a mercenary warrior, a Voevod against who- or whatever might brave these mountains to attack them. And in fifty more years he did just that.
But as well as hard information, his spies and scouts had brought back rumours, too. One of them had heard it that a Ferenczy was in league with the Vandals! Good luck to him, whoever he was, be it Nonari the Gross—if he yet lived—or an alleged egg-son, one Belos Pheropzis. For if that bastard Gaeseric dealt as badly with all of his mercenaries as he had dealt with Radu … well, that was at least one Ferenczy that the dog-Lord needn’t bother to hunt down … !
Meanwhile, in the twin spurs of the Western Carpathians, the Drakuls had gained apparently impregnable footholds. Throwing caution to the wind—ignoring their own tenet that longevity is synonymous with anonymity—they ruled openly and by terror. People knew of them, and their works. True vampires, they flew—and slew, and converted—by night. Radu had sent spies to seek them out and learn the locations of their aeries; his men never returned. That should have been warning enough of Drakul superiority, but … Radu was safe in Wolfscrag. Or so he reckoned.
But eventually Drakul incursions into territory that Radu considered his own became too much and he determined to strike back. They had many advantages. Masters of metamorphism, they could shape their bodies for flying. Long-established in their places, their aeries were allegedly impregnable. But they had some disadvantages, too. Children of the night, they could not go out in daylight; every morning must find them safe in their beds of soil out of Starside. And they were very well aware of the dog-Lord’s ruthlessness and savagery: that if he did come upon them there would be no bargaining, no quarter, no mercy.
Then on the eve of Radu’s strike westward, a fresh rumour, but one that he couldn’t possibly ignore. He went down into the steppe, to Bacau where this whisper had origin. And the truth was learned there:
How the Emperor Justinian had commissioned a fleet under Belisarius, to strike at the Vandals even across the Mediterranean, in north Africa and other parts. In short, to take back the Western Empire.
The Vandals! And Radu’s old vow unfulfilled! And a Ferenczy among the treacherous scum at that! Old Gaeseric had gone the way of all or most flesh sixty or more years ago, but the Vandal kingdom remained and at least one Ferenczy! Well, even after all this time any surviving member of the Ferenczy dynasty was far and away Radu’s direst enemy, spawn of the original destroyers of his dearest love in another world, another time, but all of it like yesterday to Radu.
Torn two ways—between attacking the Drakuls, and joining Belisarius as a mercenary and an expert in Vandal tactics—he returned to Wolfscrag in the heights …
… Only to find that the Drakuls had paid a visit in his absence. The place had been destroyed utterly, and most of his men and women, thralls and lieutenants, with it. No choice now but war on the Vandals, for to go against the Drakuls with his remaining handful were madness.
But later … ?
There would always be a later. And Radu, who was ever the opportunist, saw at least one distinct possibility:
Join with Belisarius, distinguish himself in the field of battle, eventually return to these desolate heights as Voevod of all Dacia … all with the Emperor’s approval! Then see to these damned Drakuls, with an entire legion, perhaps, to back him up.
It was a good, even a grand scheme. And irresistible …
Radu’s expert knowledge of the Vandals at war served him well. In Plika on the Black Sea, he broached that very subject to a squat, yellow, scar-faced and slant-eyed Hun condottiere, the son of the son of an Asian invader who had settled the steppe sixty years ago. Commander of a force of two hundred, now Tok Heng had had enough of farming and was returning to his grandfather’s trade. But in fact, and as he admitted to Radu where they swilled wine in a tavern, he had never left it. His land had been stolen for him by warrior ancestors; the Romans had stolen it back from his father, and given it to peasants; Tok had stolen it a third time—with the result that the Romans had put a price on his head. Since he couldn’t beat them he’d decided to join them; there was a pardon in it for him and his men—and a promise of citizenship and of land—if he would join Belisarius’s force and fight the Vandals in the Mediterranean and Africa. Now he was waiting on ocean transport to take them to Constantinople.
But Tok was fifty men short of the contingent he’d promised to Belisarius’s recruiters; perhaps Radu and his lot would care to join forces with him and make up his numbers? Certainly the fact that Radu had knowledge of Vandal battle tactics would be an advantage. The dog-Lord laughed at that. He fought under no man’s colours but his own. Maybe Tok would care to join him? Or perhaps they could agree on a form of shared leadership?
No, Tok Heng wouldn’t have it. But …
It was the time of the full moon; that night Radu converted the Hun and thus became leader of his mercenary band …
As for mixing in with the “Romans”:
In Constantinople it was observed how Belisarius’s army of fifteen thousand—ten thousand foot soldiers and five thousand cavalry—was composed mainly of me
rcenaries under condottiere commanders. Of actual Romans … there were a few. This was the best that Justinian’s general could muster. And so there was no trouble at all mixing with true Romans, only in finding them!
Radu was allotted ten vessels with crews out of a fleet of five hundred, and was obliged to take horses on board, too. But since horses didn’t care for him or his, he made sure that his “command” vessel was kept free of them and that they went with Tok Heng’s people, who understood them. Thus a majority of the dog-Lord’s original party, survivors of the massacre at Wolfscrag, travelled with him.
And Radu looked forward to killing Vandals. Nor was there long to wait …
The best of the Vandal fleet and soldiers were in Sardinia putting down a revolt; thus Belisarius’s army was able to disembark without trouble near Sousse. Gelimer the Vandal King mustered what remained of his forces and met Belisarius head-on at a place called Decimum … well-named, for there Gelimer’s forces were decimated! The survivors fled into Numidia, and Belisarius marched into Carthage mid-September, AD 533.
Gelimer had not fallen at Decimum. He recalled his troops out of Sardinia, mustered what remained of the Vandals locally, bought the services of Moors, and finally, in mid-December, offered battle on the approach route to Carthage. But weakened by recent losses, and in any case enervated by a century of “civilization,” the Vandals were no match for Belisarius.
The Byzantine cavalry charged … and swept them away!
The weather was warm even for mid-December. The dog-Lord’s moon-children played the same part in the final battle as they had played at Decimum: leaving Tok’s Huns in support of Belisarius’s cavalry, they went forward as advance scouts on the eve of battle (during the night, of course), and in the following night ranged far and wide to seek out any survivors who might try to form pockets of resistance—
—While Radu himself sought someone, or something, else. A Ferenczy was here! He could smell him! Disguised as a Vandal, or a Moor, or whatever, a Ferenczy was or had been here!
Who, why, how? Radu couldn’t say. He could have been here for fifty years, or a hundred; he might even have stood off and witnessed the conquest of these parts by the Vandals. But hearing of the battle at Decimum—and perhaps fearing a Roman re-conquest—he had come down from his high place to join in the fighting, or simply to observe and so know the result at first hand. But which high place? For Radu knew that a Ferenczy—no less than a Drakul, and far more than any dog-Lord—must have his aerie.
Radu had checked charts of the land around. Sure enough, there was a peak mightier than any Starside stack near Zaghounan. Why, from up there, at night—looking east through his vampire’s eyes, and employing Wamphyri “intelligence,” senses more than the usual five—this Ferenczy would have known or even “seen” the approach and landing of Belisarius’s fleet! Be sure he would have known that Radu was part of that fleet!
And cowled against the last rays of sunlight, in the evening after the battle while his men ranged abroad, so Radu had scoured the smoking field of combat like some strange, carrion dog. He found some that might have been the Ferenczy’s—some that seemed dead but yet moaned, or were full of weird, creeping motion—and showed the men he had taken with him how to deal with them. Hun scavengers were also in the field; perhaps they thought it odd that Radu’s escort were beheading and burning dead men, but they said nothing …
Later, Radu went up with a lieutenant and some thralls into the peak near Zaghounnan. This rearing knoll was or had been on the very border of Vandal territory, with Berber lands to the west. In short, it was neutral territory, no-man’s -land.
Near the top, they found earthworks and ancient fortifications; and within the mounds and ramps, an aerie. The place was only recently deserted; there was evidence of an urgent departure. The aerie itself … took the dog-Lord back more than four hundred years, to Starside in a now alien world. It was unmistakable: that ultimate spire of the mountain, like a great fang thrusting for the sky. No windows faced east, just sun-bleached rock; all hollow within and tunnelled beneath, with roots going down into darkness. Radu and his men descended spiralling stone steps. There were vast, echoing chambers down there, and mighty stone vats, all unfinished. This Ferenczy would have bred monsters here—which gave the dog-Lord pause. The time might come when he must breed them, too …
A thrall lookout called down: a cloud of dust was approaching out of the west. It was a party of camel-riders, Berbers, heading this way. Radu let them come, and as dusk fell emerged from ajumble of rocks behind them where they climbed a frequently used track. The Berbers had three beautiful black girls trussed like chickens, doubtless for trading with this unknown, fled Ferenczy. Radu traded death for them, but not until he had tortured the Berbers to find out more about the Ferenczy. Waldemar Ferrenzig was his name—a German! Well, and so were the Vandals; but they had been here ten or more years before Waldemar. This the Berbers knew from their fathers before them.
So, it seemed that Radu’s earlier information (with regard to a Ferenczy having sided “with” the Vandals) was only partly right. Sixty-five years ago—perhaps only a few years before Radu himself had arrived in the Moldavian heights—Hun invaders had driven this Waldemar, this son of Belos Pheropzis (himself the son of Nonari “the Gross” Ferenczy), out of his Moldavian keep. Under the assumed Germanic name of Ferrenzig, he had been accepted by the Vandals and allowed to settle here. Presumably he was rich, for he’d been able to trade with the Berbers and buy their friendship. But now that the Romans were back he had fled again.
Hah! But it pleased the dog-Lord to believe that the Ferenczy had fled from him, and perhaps on both occasions! And so he was a cowardly, scummy Ferenczy, like his ancestors in Starside before him, and more recent forebears in this world. Well, it wasn’t over yet; their tracks might cross again, except the next time Radu would have better luck …
He questioned the terrified girls. They were “princesses,” they said. Daughters of a nomad Sheik, they had been stolen by the Berbers for ransom or trading. That last, at least, was as Radu had suspected. He kissed all three (merely kissed them), gave them the Berber camels and sent them on their way. Waldemar Ferrenzig would have dealt ill with them; wherefore, contrary to his nature, Radu dealt well with them! Any other time he would have used them, and fed them to his pups …
The dog-Lord would have gone back with Belisarius to Constantinople, to witness the general’s triumph. But already rumours were circulating as to his nature. It was AD 534, and the Mediterranean was broad and deep. Radu determined to be a pirate for a while.
But in Carthage, where the Roman fleet mustered and provisioned prior to setting sail for Byzantium, he learned more of this Waldemar Ferrenzig:
A fisherman told him how a ship had sailed by night from Tunis only weeks after the destruction of the Vandal army, and how a “great dark lord”—the commander of this Numidian vessel—had tried to recruit him as a crew-member. The fisherman had seen charts; he knew his sea lanes; the ship would be heading north for Sardinia, past Corsica and so to the mainland.
So, by now a Ferenczy was back on the Mediterranean’s northern seaboard, perhaps heading for those same Moldavian mountains “beloved” of his father, Belos, and his grandfather, Nonari the Gross, before him. Or maybe Waldemar had determined to become a pirate, too, in which case Radu might yet come across him during his own voyaging.
And maybe not …
The first night out from Carthage Radu called a mist up out of the sea, a vampire mist like slime against the skins of Belisarius’s crews. By the time his mist dispersed the dog-Lord had sailed away, and now he commanded a fleet of ten ships …
In Radu’s memory the past speeded up as if a wind were turning the pages of history; sequences of events became blurred; they began to overlap. He was like a dying man, recounting his life in the moments before true death. That was a thought that disturbed him even in his sleep. For indeed he might well be dying, if the seeds of the plague were sti
ll alive in him and working on his vampire flesh. But the pages of history were still turning, and he couldn’t ignore them.
… The Vandals were no more, their kingdom destroyed forever. Thus one of the dog-Lord’s blood-oaths had been fulfilled at least. But again he had had enough of human commanders, and it was time he moved on to other things.
For a hundred and twenty years Radu was a corsair, a seawolf; his standard was a wolfs head against a full moon. Time and time again he replaced his aging ships with the vessels of traders and their escorts, or vanquished ships of war sent out to hunt him down. But he lost ships, too, till finally his ten were down to three.
Then in AD 654, near the island of Rhodes, he was engaged by a fleet of Arab warships out of Alexandria. Two of his vessels went up in smoke and flames; they sank just before nightfall; Radu was left to limp off to Crete to make repairs, and finally on to Sicily. By which time he had known that the Mediterranean was no longer a safe hunting ground. Islam was now a power, and the dog-Lord would do well to look to his future. But in any case, he had had enough of sea battles. On land it was one thing to engage in hand-to-hand combat—when with a shield and sword, or tooth and claw, he’d be the equal of any ten normal adversaries—but on the sea it was an entirely different thing. To have your enemy stand off and use his hurling-engines to lob sizzling balls of fire at you … to stand on a burning deck in the heat and the reek, and feel your ship sinking under you! … What was that for a fair fight? Not that he had ever cared much for fairness …
For a hundred and sixty years Radu was a bandit chief in the mountains of Corsica, from which he raided on the coastal towns and villages. A wolf, he was impossible to track over the rugged terrain—and who would want to track him? None who set out after him ever returned! And so he was first in a long line of Corsican outlaws. But the Saracens were still coming; Muslim pirates out of Sicily quickly became a far greater scourge than the dog-Lord; eventually he must move on.
