Destiny of the Vampire (Adventures of the Vampire Book 1)
Page 23
Shy shot him a sour look. “You took the easy way out,” she growled.
Max grinned. “You’re just mad that you didn’t think of it first. Anyway, you always have your cousin Seiveril Yinwynn to stick with the job.”
“Seiveril?” Shyilia looked surprised then shocked. “He’s only a child.”
Max gave her an askance look. “Have you looked at him or spoken with him? He’s grown up a lot on our adventures. The last I saw of him, he was helping Oewaelle with wounded and rebuilding Sloobork, although he had the opportunity to come with us.”
“Seiveril? I can’t believe it.”
“He’s a good lad and steady in a pinch. If you don’t want him, I’d be more than happy to take him with us, although I can’t guarantee his safety.”
Shy sighed, looking at the battered castle behind her. “Can anyone ever be totally safe? We rested on our laurels behind our thick walls, looked down our noses at the rest of Aeyaqar because of the color of their skin, and ignored the world around us. If it hadn’t been for outside help”—she shot Max and Xia a glance—“our country would have been overthrown.” She bit her lip, visibly pulling her emotions up short. “I must stay here. I’ve learned better, although the rest of my people haven’t as yet.”
Max studied a group of a dozen elfin soldiers standing by the open front gate. A red-faced General Throngbottom seemed to be introducing them to the reality of the world around them as he waved his arms, stopping at intervals to point back to Max and his team. The shoulders of the soldiers were slumped, their pale, ashamed faces turned to the ground.
“I’d say that your people are learning very quickly,” Max said softly. “Since this may be the last chance for a while…” He stepped forward and gave Shyilia a warm kiss. “Goodbye, Shyilia. The next time I see you, you will probably be in state robes, and things will be much more formal.” He waved to Sergeant Purohit, who jogged over and snapped to rigid attention. “Sergeant, you might as well set up camp here and post guards.” He looked at Shy. “For the time being, you will be under this woman’s command—do you understand?”
“Yes, sir!” the sergeant snapped.
“Later, you will be relocated to more permanent quarters. I seem to remember a suitable barracks in Peapend that would probably work well.”
The sergeant brightened. “I know the place, sir. There’s also a nice little inn where…”
Max glared at the man. “If I have reports of drunkenness by the troops, I will take it out of your hide. Do you understand?”
The sergeant regarded the sliced-off castle tower and swallowed. It didn’t take a leap of imagination for Max to see the sergeant visualizing being skinned alive. “Yes, sir. I’ll speak with the innkeeper, and set a limit of—” He sighed. “Two mugs of mead or ale per night, per trooper.”
Max smiled. “Very good. You may go about your duties, Sergeant.”
The soldier saluted and turned away.
“That’s a good man there,” Xia murmured sotto voce.
“I know,” Max replied in the same way. “If things work out, I’ll make him a sergeant major in charge of all the military forces.” Stretching, he heard his back crack. “We should go now. Have Casey and Mérilla grab the tug, and we’ll head off for Sloobork to drop off our equipment and then the Sleeping Cat for dinner and a mug of ale. Tomorrow, we can all sit down in Sloobork to discuss what to do with the supreme governor’s troops, what remain of them.”
“And a bath tonight!” Xia added with some feeling. “Definitely a bath.” She turned a thoughtful look to Max. “You will need to bathe also.” She gave him a pointed look, and it was Max’s turn to blush.
They arrived ten days later, to find that the city of Fashenor had become a ghost town. The doors on the empty shacks of the camp followers banged in the dusty wind. A half-starved dog darted across the dirt street, its rat-like tail curled back under its body. Max considered setting fire to the wretched city but discarded the idea quickly. As poor as the city was, someone could use the materials, if only for a fire to keep themselves warm. The six armored and helmeted figures stood silently in front of the gateway as Max wove the runespell, murmuring the appropriate words under his breath. The gateway between worlds shimmered to life, and with only a slight hesitation, the six stepped through. Wynn, at the rear, was wearing Shy’s old suit.
Max absently waved the gateway shut as he stared at the barren frozen land before him. The midmorning sky was a pale washed-out blue, and suit sensors told him that the temperature was a balmy minus-five degrees Celsius. On the flat field directly before the gateway, five score bodies lay spread-eagle… nailed to the icy ground with sharpened wooden stakes through hands and feet. The first body closest to the gate was recognizable from his burnished armor, if not the gray face contorted in its final agonies. The Supreme Governor Caius Cincius Livianus, along with all his vaunted battle mages, lay frozen in the dirt. Perhaps four hundred meters away and tucked back into the trees, Max’s HUD sensors displayed the thermal images of several thousand people. To the right of the trees was a tall, nearly snow-covered pile that magnification revealed to be corpses. As Max watched, two men staggered out from beneath the evergreens to dump another body onto the pile.
Moses spoke to him on a private channel. “It appears that the governor’s troops were displeased with the lodging arrangements.”
Max chuckled. “My friend, you seem to be dropping your Southern accent.”
“I get that way sometimes, when I’m upset.”
“Funny, you don’t sound upset.” Max stared at the tree line.
Moses’s voice was as cold as the frozen landscape. “Trust me, I’m upset.”
Max sighed. “I know what you mean.” More than a little sickened by the sight, Max stepped forward, turning up the volume on his external suit speakers. Halfway to the woods, he stopped, the rest of the team fanning to the right and left. “Attention!” His voice echoed against the woods. “Unless you would like to stay in this wonderful garden spot for the rest of your short lives, get your asses in front of me now!”
Some ran, some stumbled, and some crawled out of the trees on hands and knees. Max watched with little sympathy. These were the people who had looted and burned the guildhalls and slaughtered the innocents of Sloobork. These were the people tasked with defending the weak against goblins and trolls, and instead, they had led goblins and trolls against said innocents.
A mountain-sized soldier, easily as big as Moses, stepped out of the woods, a brown blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders. “Who are you?” the soldier demanded, trying to see into the blank faceplate of Max’s armor.
Beside the man rose a smoking chest-high pile of ash and pieces of twisted metal, all that remained of the wagons. Scattered white bones, almost invisible in the light dusting of snow, spoke of the fate of the horses.
“Boss,” Xia whispered so as to not startle him. “It looks like there are archers moving into position among the trees.”
“Not a surprise, Xia. Coordinate your fire with the others and introduce our interlopers to modern warfare.”
“Roger,” she replied.
Max reactivated the external speaker. “Buddy, I am your worst nightmare.” A fusillade of shots ripped from the armored figures, and from the woods, there were screams of agony and despair. Max retracted his helmet just as the big man dropped his blanket, drew a concealed dagger, and charged with an enraged bellow. Max stood quietly, well aware of his own vampiric speed and strength, and as the man thrust with his dagger, Max caught the soldier’s arm and twisted. The snap of the bone breaking was audible to all the watching soldiers. Before the man could even begin to scream in pain, Max pulled him close, sinking his distended fangs into the man’s neck, this time deliberately aiming for the carotid artery, and slammed him to the icy ground. The man’s heels drummed on the frozen dir
t as Max easily held him down with a single hand and drank, hot blood pumping into his mouth and down his throat.
Finished at last, Max stood, leaving a gray desiccated corpse at his feet. He wiped the blood off his mouth with a casual swipe of his hand and looked around. “If you would like to avoid this man’s fate, you will do as I say, and tonight, you will sleep in a real bed in a warm climate.”
A second man approached from the trees. Older than the first, he looked down at his fallen comrade and shook his head in disgust. “He was an idiot, sir. What d-d-do you w-want us to d-d-do?” The man’s teeth were chattering.
Max raised an eyebrow. “I’m going to open a gateway, but not back to Fashenor, for the lot of you. I want your healthiest people to carry the bodies of the dead through the gateway and stack them up. After that, I want those same people to police the area. Pick up all the garbage and refuse. As much as you are able, leave this place the way you found it. Lastly, pick up your wounded, sick, and infirm, and bring them through. When that is done, the able-bodied may cross through and call it quits, and then I will close the gateway. You will be the last man through. Have I made myself clear?”
“Yes, sir.” The man frowned, swallowed, and looked nervous. “Ah, sir… where will we be going, if not to Fashenor?”
Max gave the man a long look. “To the supreme governor’s castle on the Ehah Archipelago. We had a pitched battle there, and the dragon we killed fell on the ferry, so don’t get any bright ideas of sailing to the mainland or swimming the distance through shark-infested waters. The governor left a small staff behind in the castle, and I’m sure there are stores of food available, at least soldier’s rations. You won’t starve.” Max frowned and keyed a private channel to Moses. “Whatever happened to that nice little fishing boat we borrowed?” He’d forgotten all about the boat until that very moment.
Moses laughed. “I sailed it back to da mainland. It be a sweet boat, and I hated to leave it.”
Max shook his head. “I’m sure you did. Thank you, my friend.”
“Ahhh, I’m not so altruistic, and you know it. Da people of the Bexley Landing gifted me the boat for saving them, but I rented it back to them for a single brass sestertius a month.”
“Fine,” Max returned in mock severity, “and you can drop the folksy, good-ole-boy speech, Moses. I happen to know that you were a professor of applied physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology.” He turned back to the gateway before Moses could frame a reply. It took only a moment’s thought before he opened the double jump from the Canada gateway to Fashenor and immediately through a traveling gateway to the Ehah Archipelago. There, it exited into the central courtyard of the castle. Finished, he wiped the sweat that had covered his forehead, despite the chill wind. He was suddenly very glad for the extra infusion of fresh blood he’d consumed earlier.
The grim-faced armored team stood like automatons, watching the transfer of the living and dead back to Aeyaqar. Max guessed that nearly half of the soldiers had perished in the days they were in Canada. Bienvenue au Canada, indeed.
Finally, the soldier who had taken command of the freezing troopers stood alone in front of the shimmering gateway, and gave Max a brief nod before the man stepped through and vanished. Max waved a hand and muttered a word, and the double gateway closed. It was done.
Epilogue
CODA
Azzaam el-Ammar, owner of Ye Olde Gun Shoppe in Buffalo, New York, looked up from the front counter where he was checking the receipts from the previous day’s sales and stared at the oddly assorted group that had just walked into his shop. His mouth hung open for several long moments before he shut it with an audible clop.
“Maximilian, my old friend.” He reached Max in three steps and raised him from the floor in a massive bear hug.
“Watch the ribs!” Max wheezed, laughing.
Azzaam went from one to the other, greeting them all the same way until he reached Wynn. “I’m afraid I might break this one, Max.”
“He’s tougher than he looks.” Max chuckled as Wynn came off the floor with a startled look on his elfin face.
“And how did your little operation go? Did the equipment work as advertised? I like to know if I have satisfied customers… the survivors, that is.” He chuckled grimly.
“The equipment was just fine, Azzaam. We only used about half the loadout, but what we used we really needed.”
“Ahhh, it is better that way.” Azzaam studied Max. “But I assume that this is not purely a social call, although I enjoy your company.” He turned to wink at Xia then stopped to stare at the Asian woman, who appeared paler, leaner, and even more deadly than before. When she smiled, her fangs were clearly visible. He shook his head and turned back to face Max. “What can I do for you?”
Max gave him a wide grin, pointing to the loaded tug that sat squarely in the middle of Azzaam’s video screen that showed the view of his rear door. “I am returning the field-tested second-generation combat suits, along with the rest of the unused equipment for credit.” He smiled. “I need seven of the third-generation powered combat suits and the latest star charts you have, along with any articles and star maps you can dig up about recently discovered exo-planets. In addition, I’ve read that there is a variant of the mag-lev pistol, but in rifle format designed specifically for the new suit. I recently read something about a computer interface in the grip. The article was filled with incomprehensible techno-babble about a human-computer interface that left me out in the dark, so we will all need a refresher course on the new technology, along with the capabilities of the suits, and weapons.”
Azzaam was staring at him. “Star charts?”
“Oh, and one other thing… you had better make arrangements with your son to take over your little business here. You’re coming with us, you see. I have the feeling we will need somebody with your technical expertise to help us. The servo assist in the suit will more than make up for your lost leg.” Finally noting the silence from the other man, Max stopped and gave Azzaam a long appraising glance.
The Iraqi man looked stunned. “Star charts?”
THE END OF THE STORY BUT CERTAINLY NOT THE ADVENTURE