I have no complaints, he answered as 'simply' as that, with a complicated shrug that said it for him. Except Wratha could swear that she also 'heard' him say: However, and if or when I do have complaints, then you shall hear of them first, Lady.
If there was a threat in it, she ignored it for the moment. But she would not forget it. Meanwhile, there was enough to keep everyone occupied.
'Mount up!' Wratha cried. 'Up, all, and into the air — warriors, too! The sun is off the peaks and it's twilight on Sunside. And now, if Maglore has it right, we shall see what no one else has seen for all of fourteen years.'
With which they had headed west over the boulder plains, then south across the mouth of the great pass and the glowing hemisphere of the legendary hell-lands Gate, finally to this very plateau where now -
— Where now Wratha's renegades landed and joined her on the rim. And as they returned to earth and the present, so did the Lady's thoughts…
There!' she said, pointing. 'Look there!'
Below them, maybe three miles distant in the lee of the twilight mountains, a Szgany town or more properly a village stood on slightly elevated ground between twin streams which tumbled down from the heights. Southwards, the streams joined up and formed a river through the forest; to east and west, at ancient fording places, stout wooden bridges spanned the cascading waters. The lands thus enclosed, between mountains on the one hand, streams on the other, were sufficient to support the township.
Szgany! Vasagi's facial anomaly quivered his anticipation.
'Women!' Canker fell to his knees and might have offered up thanks to the moon in his fashion, but Wratha stopped him with a glance.
Thralls galore!' Gorvi's whisper oozed his delight. 'And fresh lieutenants to oversee them in their duties.'
'Flesh for the shaping,' Spiro scowled. The first small nucleus of our army. But a town as big as this? Why, Turgosheim never saw the like!'
'And all ours,' Wratha nodded. 'But I think you'll find this a small place, compared with what's waiting out there!' She threw her arms wide as if to enclose all of Sunside, and their greedy scarlet eyes took in something of its span: The curved horizons to east and west, and between them a dozen and more campfires clearly visible, dotting the darkening land like glowworms as far as the eye could see. Broad forests lying dark to the south, and beyond them furnace deserts, cooling now under banded amethyst skies. In all, a vast expanse.
'How many of them?' Wran, who was normally silent except in a passion, spoke up. The Szgany, I mean. Ten thousand, do you think?'
'What?' Wratha smiled at him. 'Why, even in Turgosheim's Sunside there are that many! No… fifty thousand, and more!'
Spiro gripped his brother's arm. 'Just think, Wran! Fifty thou…!' But the words were choked off as his emotions overcame him. He cleared his throat. 'Our tithe will be massive!'
Tithe?' Wratha laughed, a young girl's laugh, which in the next moment became a woman's voice again, indeed a Lady's. 'No tithe-system here, Spiro. We take what we want!'
'Oh?' said Gorvi. 'But if they're so many, surely they can fight us? We only talk of building an army; they are already an army!'
Wratha shook her head. They are Szgany, yes, but it seems that in fourteen years they've become as territorial as we ourselves. See how they've settled, divided their lands, built their towns. Fight, did you say? With what and against whom? Against each other, perhaps, but not against us. Have you forgotten the trogs we fell upon in their devotions? The Wamphyri are no more, Gorvi! We are the stuff of legends!'
Gorvi was astonished; for this time his natural duplicity — his devious mind, which usually examined every angle, expecting trouble from whichever quarter — had worked against him to obscure the simple facts, which Wratha had made clear. 'But of course.'' he said, his face agog. They are unprepared. They don't know we're here, or even that we exist!'
'But they will,' Wratha told him, 'eventually. And then it will be as it was in Turgosheim, too late — for them! Then they might choose to fight, by which time we shall be too many. Which is why we start by increasing our numbers… start now, tonight!'
Then why do you keep us waiting? Vasagi might look alien, but his eager thoughts were all Wamphyri.
'Simply to remind you why we are here,' Wratha answered. 'I know you have certain needs, all of you; also that you must put them aside, for the moment. Now is no time for wasteful self-indulgence, but for structuring our future. Tonight we kill, but only to rekindle! Tonight we destroy, in order to create! Canker — ' she turned to him, '- take as many women and make as many vampire babies as you will, until you are exhausted. But remember this: the rest of us will be making thralls! Bring a Szgany slut back to your manse, by all means, but your flyer has room for just two passengers. And we shall be taking back fine young Szgany flesh, for the making of lieutenants. Enough. I hope you take my meaning…' She turned to Wran.
'Wran, you are handsome tonight, as ever. A fine cloak and boots, and your good gauntlet at your belt. Ah, but should you rage, your cloak and boots will be ruined with blood! Aye, and your every effort wasted. So kill by all means, slay with your gauntlet all you will, but remember this: a dead man is only a dead man. Not until he has something of you in him will he rise up again, trek for Starside before the rising sun, and be your thrall in the bowels of the stack. Now, your rages are legendary, I know, but not tonight, Wran, not tonight. Instead, let it be like this: don't maim but make each kill a clean one, for we've no use for thralls who are cripples. And every time you slay, take a little something, a sip, from your victim — but at the same time give a little something back! That way you'll make useful vampires, Wran, not useless corpses.'
She looked at the rest of them. The same applies to all, of course..
'Now: these are the instructions you should give to those who become your thralls: that when they rise up undead and flee from the rising sun, they should bring with them into Starside grain from their storehouses, nuts and fruits, tools and other metal things — but never silver! — and any woven items which they can carry. They can bring them on their travois or carts, through the great pass; which is why this place makes a good choice, because it is close to the pass…' She paused for a moment's thought. And eventually: 'Well, I think that covers it.'
They began to turn away, head for their flyers, but she stopped them. 'No, wait: two more things.
'I remember a time — oh, long ago — on Turgosheim's Sunside, when I was a Szgany titheling. A captive of the Wamphyri, I was given into the charge of a young lieutenant and taken up on to his flyer's back. Then… I killed him! Any live prisoners you take, make sure they're either tightly bound or unconscious, or both!
'Finally, don't let the warriors glut themselves. A morsel here, a tidbit there, sufficient only to fuel themselves and no more.' She nodded sharply. There! Is all understood?'
All was understood. Again Wratha's nod. 'Good! Now let their fires guide you down to what will be glory for you, hell for them. And if all goes well, later there's maybe a treat for you…'
The Szgany of Twin Fords scarcely knew what had hit them. Two of the warriors landed at the bridges, destroying them in seconds, and the third towards the junction of the rivers, from where it herded fleeing villagers back towards the town. The flyers were guided down closer to Twin Fords itself, to encircle it in a ring of lolling grey primordial shapes. Largely harmless when grounded, still these manta-shaped beasts were fearsome to look at, and they had orders from their riders to roll upon and crush anyone who came too close. They could eat flesh, of course, but were instructed not to; their food consisted of a special preparation, which Wratha hoped soon to manufacture on Starside.
But in Twin Fords their arrival had not gone unnoticed: the rumble of warrior propulsors was unmistakable to certain of the older inhabitants, also the amorphous, squid-like silhouettes which blotted out the stars as they passed overhead, and the stench of exhaust gases which fell on the town like the smoke of a hundred corpse-fires. And a concerted sigh of horror went up and was passed on, swelling to a choking cry in the suddenly reeking twilight: Wamphyri! Wamphyri.'
Issuing a clinging vampire mist as they advanced into the village, the raiders heard that massed cry — indeed, they felt the terror which their presence engendered — and laughed. They fed upon it, and with Wamphyri passions inflamed met the fleeing inhabitants head-on. The result was carnage.
Wratha and her five were in the streets, blocking every exit as best they could. Human yet inhuman, they were simply figures in the stinking, slimy mist… until the people who fled into their arms saw their eyes, their melting, changing faces, and the metamorphic poisons which dripped from their fangs!
Wran raged, of course, but he also remembered Wratha's words and his fury was controlled. Having left his gauntlet tied to his saddle, instead he drove fingers like talons into the chests of his victims, nipping their hearts a
