The lost years vol 1, p.32
The Lost Years Vol 1, page 32
part #9 of Necroscope Series
In some worlds it would be thought of as witchcraft, magic, the supernatural. And perhaps in Radu’s world, too. Yet in the Himalayas of Earth, Tibetan priests are known to test themselves by falling asleep in water turning to ice, and upon waking generate sufficient bodily heat to melt it! And the firefly turns on the lamp in his own body without burning himself, and by its light finds a mate. And certain creatures winter through in a state of hibernation where others would surely die a freezing death. But here in this world… despite that Radu knew little or nothing of such things, suddenly he sensed a measure of his power -of a new power, in Sunside/Starside.
Radu was like - no, he was, or would be if he willed it - a catalyst! His presence in these woods was alien, even as he himself was alien to mundane mankind; the very chemistry of his body, no longer a human or entirely natural chemistry, had the power to bring about changes in natural things. He felt it burgeoning within him; he had desired something and now would will it. He would breathe a mist, and cause the forest itself to reciprocate!
And with the metamorphic assistance of his leech, he did exactly that. The pores of his body opened and seemed to steam; the mist poured off him as if he were dry ice; his heavy breath issued from his lips as an expanding evil essence that billowed out from him and appeared to call lesser mists out of the woods and up from the very earth itself. And on the outer rim of the Zirescu encampment, Radu flowed within his mist to reach up and tap lightly on the wicker door of Giorga’s caravan.
‘Eh? Who?’ (Radu would know that bass, grumbly, rumbling voice anywhere; the Old Zirescu was still alive.) ‘What is it? Can’t a man catch up on a little sleep around here?’ There came the sound of movement from within, a small barred window opened inwards, and a puffy, bearded, squinting and red-eyed face appeared behind the bars. Radu stood at the foot of the caravan’s steps and kept his face averted. His vampire mist obscured him a little where it swelled, rolled, and sent up wispy tendrils, serving to hide his actual identity, but the sparse and ragged clothing of a mountains loner gave him away as a stranger. And:
‘Eh?’ Giorga mumbled again, but sharper now. ‘What, a wanderer, come at night to try the hospitality of the Zirescus? So why bother me? There are men at the campfire, I’m sure. Go sing for your supper there.’ Giorga was probably drunk; certainly his brandy breath was strong in Radu’s nostrils. But before the old man could close his window:
‘I haven’t come to take anything but to give something,’ Radu told him, disguising his voice as best possible - which wasn’t in fact difficult, except now he must also disguise it from a growl! And continuing: ‘Giorga Zirescu, I bring a warning. But I can’t talk out here—’ And he glanced quickly this way and that, as if worried that he might be overheard. ‘—So let me in, and I’ll tell you of the doom that hangs over you and yours even now!’
‘A warning?’ the other gasped. ‘A doom? Whatever can you mean?’ And more harshly, commandingly: ‘Speak up, man, and perhaps I’ll hear you out!’
Radu straightened up but kept his face averted. ‘I’m not one of yours, Giorga, that you can speak to me like an underling. I’m a loner, yes, a wanderer… ah, but the places I’ve wandered, and the things I’ve heard! They say that Giorga Zirescu grows old and fat and sodden, and his sons no better than young shads in the rut, and the Zirescu women all slatterns who would open their legs to dogs rather than take the pigs his men have become!’
‘What!’ Giorga’s eyes bulged at the window. ‘Who says these things? Who dares issue these lies? I have no truck with neighbours, so who’s to know that… that I…’
And Radu looked at him sideways, just a glance, but a look that said it all. ‘Yes, go on. Who’s to know, that you…”
The other calmed down a little, snarled, ‘I’ve no time for gossip. Sticks and stones may hurt me, but catcalling…’
‘Sticks and stones, aye,’ Radu repeated him. ‘And crossbow bolts -and men who lust after your land, because they believe you’re not fit to hold it?’ And when that sank in:
‘Eh?!’ Again Giorga’s gasp. ‘Is that it? Land thieves? But this is my land, as it was my father’s before me! So someone’s after me for my territory, is that it? A land feud? But no one has the right! Tell me more.’
‘I would, gladly,’ Radu answered with a shrug, beginning to turn away. ‘Except it would seem that the one they call the Old Zirescu is much too proud to talk face to face with a loner and wanderer. It seems he’s too high and mighty! And should I stand out here in this damp and clinging mist, without even a sip of your good plum brandy to warm my throat? No, I reckon not. So now you’ll just have to guess where they’ll strike… and how many… and when. Well, and good luck to you…’
Turning his back on the caravan, Radu made as if to stride away. But:
‘Wanderer, whoever you are, wait!’ Giorga’s voice was anxious now, all of the bluster driven out of it. ‘And yes, you’re right: I’m an ungrateful old wretch at times! But come in, come in and warm yourself. Brandy, did I hear you say? Why, I could use a drop myself! And look, I’ve a jug of the very stuff right here!’ The bolt was drawn back, and Radu heard the creak of the caravan’s wicker door.
In another moment, soundlessly, he turned and was up the wooden steps, and something of his mist flowed inside with him. What’s more, Giorga Zirescu had invited him in of his own free will!
Well, with a little help from Radu’s lying leech…
III
RED REVENGE!
‘Land?’ Giorga asked again, after handing Radu a leather jack. ‘Is that what this is all about?’
Radu took a sip of the sharp-tasting brandy - the merest sip - then put the jack down. It had been a long time and he needed a clear head. ‘It’s about land, and life, and death,’ he said, and his voice was very deep, very gruff, as for the first time he turned his face fully in Giorga’s direction. And in the light from the Old Zirescu’s lamp, he searched for some sign of recognition, but found nothing in the red-flecked, boozy, bulging eyes of the other. If he had - if Giorga had shown even a glimmer of recognition - then his time had come, be sure. His night visitor had already determined that it had come anyway, but all in good time, when Giorga had been given to know why.
‘Well, we’re face to face,’ the old man told him. And that was true enough; in the close confines of Giorga’s caravan they couldn’t be anything else. ‘So now let’s have it: explain yourself. As for land and life and death, they’re all one. If a man must fight to keep his territory, then he fights. His land is his life, and it’s where he’s buried when he dies!’
‘And will his people fight with him, or will they run away because they hate him?’ Radu’s voice was deeper yet, a rumbling growl issuing from his throat, his suddenly chaotic emotions.
‘No,’ the Old Zirescu pushed his face closer yet. ‘They’ll fight -because they fear him! Here in these western forests, since time immemorial, the Zirescus have always been strong. In my time, I, Giorga, have been strongest of all! I had to be.’
‘In your time, aye,’ Radu nodded. ‘But do you mean strongest, or hardest? Were you strong with your people, or hard on them?’
By now the old man had sobered a little. His gaze was curious as he sat down on the wooden frame of his bed and looked Radu up and down. If he’d seen this man before he was sure he would remember him. What, a man as tall as this; why, he must be all of six foot three! And his strange looks… those eyes of his: yellow in the lamplight. And his grey hair, swept back like a mane to fall over his collar. His slightly pointed ears and long, hairy hands… Then again, the loners were all weird in their ways and looks - this one especially! Why, his words were almost… what, accusing?
And suddenly Giorga suspected that this wasn’t about land, and likewise that he wasn’t much interested what it was about. Simultaneously, he suspected it had been a mistake to invite this man into his tiny cramped caravan in the first place.
‘Whatever I’ve been - and whatever I’ve done - it was my way,’ he answered at last, and placed his pillow as a rest for his back. But beneath that pillow he kept a long ironwood knife with a bone handle. Its edge wasn’t so keen, but its point was sharp as a splinter.
‘It was your way, aye,’ Radu growled, ‘and always for your own good: yours and your sons’. But never for the good of your people. They do hate you, Giorga! - even as I hated you, upon a time…’
‘Eh?’ Giorga sat up straighter, pulled the pillow round in front of himself, clasped the handle of his knife. There was a good crossbow hanging on the wall, but it wasn’t loaded. Supposing it had been, so what? This man looked as fast as he now looked dangerous! This isn’t… it isn’t about land?’
‘Oh, but it is!’ Radu answered, sitting down carefully at the other end of Giorga’s bed and moving fractionally, inch by inch closer. And now his voice was a hoarse throb… of anticipation? ‘Indeed, for it’s about a man who worked that land for you, who hunted it for you, and beat the bounds with you, year in, year out, and for payment suffered the jibes and insults of a fat, greedy old man and his loathsome sons. It’s about how he was murdered because he stood in the way of his daughter going to one of your sons; and it’s about the girl, too, who was as good as you and your lot were bad! She was held down, Giorga, raped time and time again, then murdered because her father - by no means a brave man -had not obliged the Zirescus by letting her go as wife to Ion or Lexandru!’
‘I… I… I know you now!’ Giorga pointed with his left hand. But Radu knew that the old pig was right-handed, and saw that treacherous right hand trembling behind the pillow in Giorga’s lap. And indeed all of Giorga trembling: his fat belly, his chins, the very jowls of his face. And: ‘You’re Radu, son of Freji L-L-Lykan!’ he stuttered.
‘Aye, Freji’s son, and Magda’s brother. That same brother who was outlawed - or who outlawed himself - when he avenged his father’s death and his sister’s rape and murder. Except he was stopped in the hour of his vengeance… by you, Giorga, I fancy! And was it Ion and Lexandru who also tried to drown me? And the Ferenczy brothers, likewise on your orders? Ah, I know it was! But as you see, I am not drowned, and not nearly dead! And it is about land, or soil, after all - this soil, Zirescu soil, where you’ve rooted like a pig all your days, and where you’re now destined to die a swinish death. This earth, which the poisons of your loathsome gases shall turn putrid even as you’re lowered into it! And no one to mourn over you, Giorga, even if they would. No, for your sons will be down there with you!’
Giorga lunged; his black ironwood knife was in his hand, upraised; Radu grinned as he caught the other’s fat wrist in his own taloned hand, and held it effortlessly. And his grin was the grin of a wolf as his leech poured metamorphic juices through his system, causing his teeth to scythe upwards from his raw red gums as his mouth yawned wider yet!
In the space of five heartbeats Radu Lykan had changed - changed before the Old Zirescu’s bulging, disbelieving eyes - into something radically different from… from anything he’d ever seen before! The man was gone, and a monster crouched in his place. And the face on that creature: the flame-eyed, salivating, grinning, panting visage of hell itself! That monstrous, gaping mouth…!
Giorga sucked at the suffocating air, and opened his own mouth - to cry out! But too late. Pain snatched the cry from the circle of his rubbery lips, turned it to a yelp, a gurgle, a great whoosh! of expelled air, as Radu twisted his arm until it snapped at the elbow, closed a hand over Giorga’s hand, and slid the knife home through unprotesting layers of fat and up under bulging ribs. Oh… it hurt, and it did great - even fatal - damage! But not immediately. Giorga’s fat protected him; the knife’s tip couldn’t reach his heart, not angling up from his belly like that; his left hand ceased its fluttering and reached for the knife, clasping its handle where it protruded from his gut. And he panted, ‘Oh! - ah! - oh!’ as he tried to draw it out, but couldn’t because of the pain.
Then, still grinning, Radu towered over him, cocked his head on one side in the inquiring manner of a great dog, and looked him right in his cringing eyes, as if he were looking into his soul. And he said, ‘Farewell, Giorga!’ - then caught his beard and yanked it up, and without pause drove his fangs into and slicing through the old man’s windpipe!
Giorga flopped and vibrated in Radu’s grasp, until the werewolf released him and let him topple from his bed to the floor, where he got jammed in the narrow space. It was over, this part of it at least. And the Old Zirescu bled and tried to scream (but had neither the air nor the strength for it), and flopped about in his own blood, and bled some more; great steaming jets of crimson, pulsing from his gaping throat and punctured gut. Air whistling in and out of his severed windpipe, where bright red bubbles formed a livid froth, but all slowing down now as life quickly ebbed.
Until finally it really was over…
Outside the caravan in a mist of his own making, Radu paused for the merest moment to spit Giorga’s taste from his mouth. His taste and the last trace of his blood. For despite that Radu was hungry, and his leech ever hungry, Giorga Zirescu’s blood tasted vile to him. Yet the memory of what he had done would always remain sweet - and sweeter still when the rest of it was over and done with.
Radu had taken down Giorga’s crossbow. Now he loaded it and his own weapon both, hooked the one to his belt and took the other firmly in a paw-like hand. And as the woods and the earth continued to issue his wreathing mist, he headed direct for the communal fire’s dull orange glow in the centre of the encampment. For he had realized his strength at last; he knew his awesome power, and that he need not fear anything in man or nature - not yet at least.
And loping low through the mist, his senses were alive with all the sounds, scents, and sensations of the night. He was a child of the night! He heard the rustling in the undergrowth that tracked the hunting shrew; sensed the hooded eyes of an owl upon him; detected an almost inaudible shrilling of tiny bats, sounding clearer than ever before in his vampire-enhanced ears. And he smelled blood, of course - the blood of the Zirescus and the Ferenczys! For Giorga’s blood had not been enough. But that of his sons and their friends might yet quell the fire raging in Radu’s veins…
The moon was up again, a full and brilliant disc shining like silver in the sky! Its beam fell in a swath, undulating on Radu’s ground mist and lighting his way to the fire. Passing like a wraith between the innermost caravans and carts, he was almost there. Now he could see the ruddy faces of men in a huddle about the fire, and saw that they were frowning. Their conversation reached him; they talked about - the watchdogs, the camp’s wolves!
For the wolves were there, those tame dogs of creatures; their tails were down and their ears flat, and they whimpered around the feet of their human masters. Aye, and if they could talk they’d be telling of Radu’s presence, too! They probably were, in their way, but the men were too stupid to know it.
Except if the blood of men had a scent, so did the blood of the Wamphyri - Radu’s blood! And now the wolves around the fire smelled it. Moreover, they smelled the death which he had so recently wrought. There were three of them; they quit their slinking about the feet of the seated men and as one creature turned in Radu’s direction. Their ears pointed him out in the shadow of a caravan, and now that they stood in the company of men, they felt safe to issue a series of growls and yips.
‘Eh?’ someone said. ‘Is there something there?’ And indeed there was something there. Radu loped forward more surely into the fire’s glow, came to a halt and straightened up. Without pause he scanned the faces in the firelight - and saw that Ion and Lexandru were there! Also the Ferenczys, and three colleagues. As scurvy a handful as he could imagine, but he hated the first four above all other men.
All jaws dropped, all eyes were on Radu, who now grinned in his fashion and growled, This is between me and the Zirescus - those two, Ion and Lexandru, rapists and murderers!’ He pointed with his crossbow. ‘And also the Ferenczys,’ he pointed again. ‘I’ve killed Giorga and now I’ll kill his sons and their friends. As for the rest of you: you don’t have to die if you don’t want to. Enough of talk; too much, even.’ No longer just pointing his weapon but aiming it, at Lexandru, Radu squeezed the trigger.
It started as quickly as that, without any warning other than that
furnished by the watchdogs. Lexandru had come to his feet as Radu spoke, and as the bolt flew to its target he held up his hands in denial.
The bolt passed between them and struck him in the left breast, burying itself to the ironwood flights. ‘Oh?’ he said in a loud voice, as if he queried the thing. ‘And is it - what, Radu? Not dead? Well, there’s a th-thing!’ Then he coughed blood, crumpled to his knees and fell on his face.
But one of the men at the fire had sufficient wits about him to shout, ‘Attack!’ to the wolves. And as Radu hooked the empty crossbow to his belt and levelled the other, the wolves at once sprang towards him. The leader fastened to his weapon forearm; snarling fangs bit deep; Radu grasped the wolfs mane with his free hand, whirled in a circle, and released the disorientated animal into the sprawling fire! Twin strips of his flesh and skin went with it, torn from his forearm by its eye-teeth, but Radu scarcely felt it. For he was in action, doing what he’d dreamed of doing for so long. Except for now Ion and the Ferenczys must wait, for the other wolves were here.
One of them was in mid-air, coming head-on, forepaws outstretched and muzzle slavering. Radu couldn’t miss; he shot his bolt and ducked, and the skewered wolf yelped, passed overhead, bounced once and struggled to its forelegs, then collapsed and lay still. The third skidded to a halt as Radu fixed it with a feral-eyed glare and said growlingly, ‘Oh? And would you die, too? Come on, then, let’s get done with it. For there’s room in the fire yet.’ But the grey one had seen more than enough of Radu and backed off whimpering.
