Bloodwars Read online

  Nathan! And this was one deadspeak voice which he would never forget, the first such voice which had ever deigned to acknowledge him. Nathan … you were absent, gone away from us, even out of the world. Then, a moment ago, you came back, but far away on Starside. I cannot be mistaken, for I sensed you there. Yet now .. . you are here! Or is it that your telepathy has outstripped you? If so, then your instructors among the Thyre should be congratulated, that you have learned to project your mind with such clarity. For I would swear that you are more than a mere thought.

  It was the philosopher Rogei, a Thyre Ancient; and this was his resting place and that of many another like him. The Cavern of the Ancients, one of the many mausoleums where the Thyre entombed their most revered: a great, glowing cave buried deep in a desert gorge, but a cave unlike any other.

  Overhead, splitting the sandstone ceiling wall to wall like the slit pupil of a cat’s eye, a slash of white quartz seemed

  carved from light. The cave was cracked right across its width, but the slow seep of centuries had filled the gap with crystals which had hardened to stone. Light still found a way in from somewhere overhead, but to get here must pass through the quartz; hence the hazy, softly luminous glow. Stalactites of crystal festooned the ceiling, and glowing dripstone mounds like candles of light reached up from the floor. And all around the cave’s perimeter, in alcoves and niches, on shelves and ledges carved from the stone itself, lay the Ancients of the Thyre in their last resting places, slowly becoming one with the dust of ages.

  While the three cavers got a grip on themselves as best they might, the Necroscope quickly crossed the floor to Rogei in his niche. Finding him among all the others was no problem; the Ancient’s deadspeak led Nathan directly to him. And close up, as Nathan drew near, Rogei knew that indeed this was more than a mere thought.

  You .. . you really are here.’ His deadspeak gasp of astonishment was as real as if Nathan had heard it with his ears.

  ‘Yes, I really am. But I can’t stay, not just now. I will be back, though, if only to collect these friends of mine.’

  You have brought others here? Of your own kind? But now Rogei was frowning.

  There was nothing else for it,’ Nathan told him. ‘I came at a time not of my choosing, and even as we speak - or if not now, then very soon - the Wamphyri will be raiding on Sunside. I’ve got to help my people, but I can’t look after these others at the same time. They’re simply not prepared for Sunside … I can’t take them there … not when the Wamphyri are there. And so I propose to leave them here, for now.’

  You would help your people? But how?

  Nathan showed him a variety of weapons — showed him how they worked, and their effect — but all in his mind. And they were a wonder to Rogei, who could scarcely believe their powers of devastation. And at last he understood something of the places Nathan had been to, and the things he must have seen.

  118

  119

  These weapons are not of Sunside, he said. No, and neither are they of Starside. And so, if they are not of this world .. .? The hell-lands? And he saw in Nathan’s dead-speak mind that he was right.

  ‘That first time I was here —’ Nathan let his thoughts fly back in time - ‘you told me I was a Necroscope. Well, and so was my father before me. I discovered his world, his people, their weapons — the means by which to save my people! Now I’m back, and I’ve brought those weapons with me. For the first time the Szgany can meet the Wamphyri on their own terms - with blood and fire!’

  Rogei drew back from the pictures in Nathan’s head, which were a tumult. For deadspeak often conveys more than is spoken or visualized, which in Nathan’s case meant all of the pent up hatreds of his young manhood. ‘I saw my tribe decimated and my home destroyed,’ he growled. ‘It was a miracle that anyone survived, a miracle called Lardis, our chief. Well, now I have to see if he still survives, and do what I can to even the score.’

  For a moment Rogei was silent, his empty eye-sockets gazing blindly on Nathan where he stood. But then he said: And is this the youth who came wandering into the desert to die, only to find purpose in the Cavern of the Ancients?

  The same youth,’ Nathan answered, ‘and the same purpose. It has always been the same, I suppose, but I lacked the drive and the means. Life seemed hopeless, even pointless; I thought I’d lost everything; I was wrong, much had been saved. And now at last I’ve found the means — all thanks to you, Rogei.’

  Tome?

  ‘You gave me a reason to live, showed me the way. Through you I met Shaeken, and through him sought out Ethloi the Elder, who knew numbers. It was Ethloi who told me that if one day I could find a way to control the numbers vortex and show it ordered in my mind, as pictures upon a tapestry, then that I might discover a key. Well, he was right and I did discover it, not in this world but in the hell-

  lands. But how would I ever have got there in the first place if not for Thikkoul the Astrologer, who read my future in the stars? And so you see, it was you who set my feet upon the path.’

  Should I be proud of it? Rogei sounded gloomy now.

  ‘You were proud of me, upon a time.’

  1 still am. Indeed, 1 love you! But with all of this blood and thunder in your heart, what will be the end of it? You seek to destroy the Wamphyri, you say. But is that possible? Or have I found my lost son only to lose him again in a great and terrible bloodwar?

  ‘Am I a son to you, then?’ It was an incredible honour.

  I wish you could have been. You felt like one, when you were here and working among the Thyre.

  Then … you won’t lose me,’ Nathan promised, and hoped he could keep his word.

  But before anything more could be said:

  ‘Nathan!’ The caver spokesman had stopped worrying about Nathan’s penchant for talking to dead things. ‘Someone is coming …’

  Nathan knew where from. The Cavern of the Ancients had an exit out on to a sheer cliff face, with worn and crumbling sandstone steps descending into a gorge. But there was also a tunnel that connected to a Thyre community called Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs. Out of great respect for their dead, the Thyre kept a discreet watch over their resting places. This would be a guardian, whose duty it was to attend the Ancients in their mausoleum.

  The cavers were hushed now; Nathan, too, as soft, cautious footsteps sounded from an ascending shaft. A moment later and a figure rose up into view. Female, she blinked curious olive eyes with large, lemon-green pupils. But just inside the cavern she paused, froze, poised as if for flight. She leaned forward on her toes, lifted her chin and sniffed at the cavern’s musty air. In her slender hands she carried a bow at the ready, nocked with a long arrow. She saw the three cavers -saw Nathan, too - only a moment after they had seen her.

  120

  121

  She wore a red skirt and sandals, nothing else. Her small breasts were loose, pear-shaped, slightly pendulous. Her ears were large; mouth and chin small; nose wide and flattened, with dark-flaring nostrils. Alert, she held herself trembling erect. Graceful, her demeanour was somehow regal. And she was young.

  Her youth showed in her large eyes, shining there with a brilliant clarity under the horny ridges of her eyebrows; also in the gleam of her limbs, whose sheen was the natural product of Thyre body oils. Brown as a nut, but at the same time smooth, like all her race she was slender to the point of emaciation.

  ‘Atwei!’ Nathan recognized her at once, and stepped forward. Her mouth fell open and she shook her head in disbelief. At the same time he felt her probing his identity, and knowing she was not mistaken. She had known for some little time, but had scarcely dared to believe. Now … she took a trembling step towards him, then paused and looked at the cavers.

  ‘Friends,’ he said.

  At which she dropped her weapon and flew across the floor of the Cavern of the Ancients into his arms … but in the next moment drew back and stood upright, head down, hands clasped in front of her. And: That was unseemly, she said.

&
nbsp; He took her into his arms again anyway, and said, ‘Little sister.’

  ‘Brother,’ she answered. Which was as much a compliment as Rogei calling him son.

  But Nathan had no time, and she saw the turmoil of interests in his mind. His people, however, were uppermost. And she knew why. Outside in the open desert, and in Sunside, and especially in Starside, it was sundown.

  ‘Care for my friends here,’ he told Atwei, releasing her. ‘And don’t worry, I’ll be back for them.’ It seemed very little by way of explanation — little enough to say after almost two years’ absence — but explanations must wait. Meanwhile, there were other matters which could not.

  He chose weapons for himself, conjured a Mobius door … then paused and looked at Atwei again. And: ‘Sister,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been to strange places and learned strange things. Don’t be afraid …’

  Because he willed it, his words were deadspeak - which Rogei heard and to which he answered: Take care, Necroscope!

  Atwei knew nothing of that, but in Nathan’s mind she felt the rush and roar of the numbers vortex and was afraid despite his warning … especially when he turned to one side, stepped forward a pace -

  - And disappeared …

  .. . And re-emerged on the boulder plains, in the vicinity of the hell-lands Gate. And indeed it was as if all hell had been let loose!

  The scene was fantastic. A few minutes earlier there had been only the glaring hemisphere of white light, the boulders ranging outwards across the gaunt wastelands, and in a misted distance the toppled aeries of the Wamphyri, where Karenstack, or what had been Karenstack, stood tall and central among the stumps of the fallen stacks. But now:

  Ben Trask and David Chung were each down on one knee, aiming into the sky and hosing fire and steel at a circling Wamphyri flyer. And skimming towards the pair, weaving from side to side as it avoided the jagged crests of rock jumbles and the jutting fangs of lone boulders, a second manta flyer reached out its prehistoric neck and spatulate head, and the pouch in its underside yawned open where the neck joined the body.

  Seated in ornate saddles at the bases of the flyers’ necks, Wamphyri lieutenants leaned forward and urged their mounts on. Having no knowledge of guns, they heard the hellish chattering of the weapons but had no idea of their firepower. So far they had been lucky; despite the awesome size of their mounts, neither the flyers nor their riders had yet taken a hit. Or it could be that the shooting had only

  123

  122

  just begun - or that the aim of the gunmen was off - or perhaps that the flyers had been hit but it hadn’t registered.

  Nathan looked for Anna Marie; she stepped out from behind a boulder and started firing; the recoil of her weapon was such that it threw her backwards, so that she stumbled and fell. And the flyer swooping low over the boulder plains veered a little and headed straight for her!

  In the moment after stepping out of his Mobius door, Nathan had loaded his weapon. Now he called out: ‘Anna Marie - to me!’ She saw him and came stumbling in his direction. And again the flyer veered from its course, arching its wings and settling towards them where she tripped and fell against him. Forward of the corrugated belly, its under-slung pouch opened wider yet.

  Chung was still firing at the other creature, where now it had stopped circling and was side-slipping this way and that, like a flat stone sinking in water, bearing its rider gently to earth. But Trask had seen Anna Marie and Nathan’s danger and had turned his machine-pistol on the beast and rider threatening them. The flyer was hit in the leading edge of a wing, and its tapering neck reared up and back as a neat line of holes stitched themselves into its rubbery grey flesh. But still it came swerving between the last pair of boulders, its air-trap wings actually brushing their domes as the beast closed with its would-be targets.

  By now the rider knew there was something wrong; he had heard the spattering impact of bullets, felt the shuddering of his mount as it skewed this way and that. And in his mind he’d felt something of the brute’s dull pain, the damage to its vampire flesh. But he wasn’t Wamphyri, just a lieutenant, with no real rapport with his mount. If necessary, he would drive the flyer to the limits of its endurance. Indeed he must, for his Lord and master Gorvi the Guile would require an accounting.

  Dripping fluids from its wounds, the beast fell towards Nathan and Anna Marie. The saucer eyes in its hideously human head glared at them; its pink-lipped pouch was a

  yawning mantrap lined with cartilage hooks, whose fetor they could smell and almost taste, it was that close! Trask shouted something incoherent and blazed away until his magazine was empty, and still the thing bore down on them.

  Nathan could see its rider’s eyes: feral yellow and red in their cores - with bloodlust! The man knew he was going to drink red tonight, take thralls for his master or meat for the manse’s provisioning. And he laughed as he commanded his mount: Take them! Or knock them down, at least!

  Nathan heard him, his unsubtle telepathic command, and so knew to counter the flyer’s reaction to it. ‘Get down!’ he shouted, pushing Anna Marie aside and hurling himself in the other direction, rolling in the dust. The gaping pouch passed between them, literally scooping at the dirt as the arches of manta wings passed over them with feet to spare. Then .. . the great beast turned its head to look back as its diamond shape cleared them.

  In so doing, it presented Nathan with a shot he couldn’t resist. He brought his crossbow to bear, squeezed the trigger. The rider lieutenant was also looking back. He threw back his head and laughed as Nathan’s bolt zipped under the arched wing and entered the flyer’s neck fifteen inches back from its head. What, a mere crossbow bolt? And buried in all that muscle? The sting of a stink-gnat to a creature huge and insensitive as a flyer! And he at once yanked on the reins and turned his attention to Trask and Chung where they frantically reloaded.

  None of this taking more than a second.

  Then-

  - There sounded a muffled explosion, not a gunshot, as Nathan’s bolt exploded with force enough to fell a large pine. The flyer’s neck blew apart in gristle, cartilage, grey flesh and red ruin, and sent a spray of blood flying on the boulder plains. Completely severed from the neck, the head commenced a crimson-spraying cartwheel to earth, and as the neck collapsed downward and struck the stony ground, so the blanket-like body jackknifed and rose up, hurling

  124

  125

  the rider free. Behind him, even as he flew, almost three and a half tons of rubbery meat, membrane and alveolate bone crashed down shuddering and raised a cloud of dust. The beast had been a small one of its kind. Meanwhile:

  The other flyer had settled to earth and its rider had dismounted. He came at a run, but ducking, weaving, aware now that the group of people on the boulder plains weren’t typical Sunsiders. Behind a rocky outcrop, he helped his fellow lieutenant to his feet. The man was shaken but not seriously hurt; metamorphic vampire flesh shrugged off minor cuts and bruises without regard.

  But on high - almost as high as an aerie itself and disguised amidst the clouds - a third manta shape rode the night thermals, and its rider was different again. Nor was he alone. Behind him, mantle fluttering and propulsive orifices sputtering, an aerial nightmare pulsed like a monster octopus against the stars: a warrior, accompanying Gorvi the Guile and his men on their way to Sunside. But Gorvi was Gorvi, and having detected strangers on the boulder plains, he’d sent his lieutenants to investigate while he stood off. Now … he heard the chatter of gunfire, saw the flickering fire of the guns and sensed the shock and astonishment in the minds of his lieutenants.

  Gorvi knew something was very much amiss, but the height was too great even for his vampire eyes to make out anything in detail. So now he sent: Destroy all opposition. Take prisoners. See to it! Then, having made contact, he at once received news from one of his men on the ground: a series of frantic, chaotic mind-pictures which brought the entire thing into something of perspective:

  A flyer had bee
n downed, crippled or dead … His lieutenants faced human beings, but not Szgany! . .. There were men and one woman on the ground, pale creatures who appeared weak, but they were armed with incredible weapons … Even now Gorvi’s men were under fire!

  All sorts of ideas ranged through the Guile’s mind:

  Despite what his man had said, Gorvi suspected that this

  could only be a party of Travellers (Szgany Lidesci, probably, if their weapons were anything to judge by) on their way over the boulder plains to make a surprise attack on the last aerie. They would know that at sundown Wrathstack was empty of all but thralls and mindless guardian creatures. With their new weapons they would attempt to destroy Gorvi’s earthbound guardian warriors in the scree and rubble at the foot of the stack, enter Guilesump and poison his wells, and so forth. Maybe they could break into Mad-manse and destroy the Killglance twins’ gaslings in their chambers, and so bring down the entire stack with a mighty explosion! It had been done before, as witness all the toppled aeries of the Old Wamphyri. Indeed, in an age immemorial, it had even been tried in Turgosheim.

  And yet … only a handful of them? No, even with their superior weapons their task was impossible; unless they were a suicide squad - and Gorvi wouldn’t put that past the Lidescis, either!

  Or perhaps they had simply come to discover the lie of the land for some future invasion. With the rest of the Lords (and the bitch Wratha, of course) already raiding on Sunside, the way had been clear for a covert expeditionary force to make its way unseen over the boulder plains, and so discover a safe route for later use. It had long been a matter of some concern to Gorvi that Guilesump was open to attack from the bottoms …