like a discarded apple rind or wood-shaving lying on its side. And rising over the rush and swirl of numbers, a distant, dismal howling of wolves. And superimposed over all these things a haunted, haunting face, all sad and lonely and… accusing?)
Lardis: This is where the powers of the hell-lands and those of the Wamphyri clashed and cancelled each other out.'
Andrei: 'But they're gone now, reduced to dust and ghosts, and we should let them lie.'
Nestor, in anger: 'What, ghosts? The Wamphyri? Never.' For I am the Lord Nestor!'
The voices came and went in Nestor's head: voices out of the past, the present, the imagination. Voices from child-reality, adult-reality, and unreality alike, all seeking the stability of a central focus, revolving together in the grand free-for-all of his trauma. True memories merged into pseudo-memories as his past life faded away and devolved to a single, self-repeating phrase, I am Nestor of the Wamphyri! Until it seemed certain that the present, surreal and incoherent as a dream, could only be a dream, given substance by the subconscious will of its creator. And Nestor felt relieved to know that he was only dreaming.
In the near-distance, amid smoky, flame-shot ruins close to Settlement's east wall, a last lone flyer flopped up hugely on to a pile of rubble and craned its swaying head towards the sky. Pausing to watch, Nestor was vaguely aware of a rider in the saddle where the creature's neck widened into its back. But in another moment the flyer had thrust itself forward and aloft on powerful coiled-spring launching members, and rising up from the ruins it banked in a wide circle over the town and rapidly gained height. Feeling its shadow on him as it passed overhead, Nestor gaped at its massive diamond shape flowing black against the stars, and wondered at its meaning.
Then, slack-jawed, with his head tilted back at an angle and his half-vacant eyes still fixed on the alien shape in the sky, he continued his shambling walk through the reeking smoke and scattered rubble; until his path was obstructed and he felt something splash wet and warm against his torn trousers.
Sprawled at his feet, he saw the shattered body of a man whose face had been flensed from the bone. A dark red fountain was spurting in bursts from his savaged throat; but even as Nestor considered the meaning of this, so the crimson fountain grew spasmodic, lost height and gurgled out of existence. And with it the man's life.
But it had been only one life, and this was only one body among many. Looking around, Nestor could see plenty of others, almost all of them lying very still.
And so he came to the old meeting place, that great open space which stood off-centre in Settlement, a little closer to the east wall than the west, and there discovered life in the midst of all this death. But not immediately.
First: The East Gate was burning. Yellow and orange flames were leaping high over the stockade wall, where the gate seemed to have been set on fire deliberately. The wide path from the gate to the gathering place was strewn with bodies; Nestor dimly recalled, however, that there had been a crowd here. Well, while the corpses were a great many, still they would not have made a crowd. So some had escaped, anyway. But from what?
Wamphyri! said a voice in the back of his mind.
But another said: Impossible, for they are no more!
And a third, his own, insisted: But I am the Lord Nestor!
The smoke was clearing now and the vampire-spawned mist evaporating, sinking into the earth. People were starting to come out of hiding, stumbling among the dead, crying out and tearing their hair as they discovered dead friends, lovers, relatives. Central in the open space, where tables lay overturned and the ground was strewn with the spoiled makings of a feast, a young man, Nestor's senior by five or six years, stood over the body of his girl and tore his shirt open, beat his breast, screamed his agony. She had been stripped naked, torn, ravaged, brutalized.
Stepping closer, Nestor stared at the man and believed he knew him… from somewhere. And a frown creased his forehead as he wondered how it was he knew so much yet understood so little. Then he saw the rise and fall of the girl's bruised breasts and noticed a slight movement of her hand. And as her head lolled in Nestor's direction, he saw a strange wan smile upon her sleeping or unconscious face.
He moved closer still, touched the sobbing man on the arm and said, 'She isn't dead.'
Wild-eyed, the other turned on him, grabbed him up with a furious strength, shook him like a rag doll. 'Of course she's not dead, you fool — you bloody fool! She's worse than dead!' He thrust Nestor away and fell to his knees beside the girl.
Nestor stood there — still frowning, still mazed — and repeated the other's words: 'Worse than dead?'
The man looked up, peered at him through red-rimmed eyes, and finally nodded. 'Ah, I know you now, Nestor Kiklu, covered in dirt. But you're one of the lucky ones, born at the end of it. You're too young to know; you don't remember how it was, and so can't see how it must be again. But I do remember, and only too well! I was only six years old when the Wamphyri raided on Sanctuary Rock. Afterwards, I saw my father drive a stake through my mother's heart, watched him cut off her head, and burn her on a fire. That's how it was then and… and how it must be now.' He hung his head and fell sobbing on the girl, covering her nakedness.
There were more men in the open space now, a handful, but these were different, older, harder men. They had grown hard in their young days, spent in the shadow of the Wamphyri, and were now filled with some grim purpose. Nestor seemed instinctively to know these things, and felt he should know the men, too, but their names wouldn't come. They were hurrying towards the east wall, where colleagues on the high wooden catwalk beckoned to them, urging them on.
Nestor followed in their wake, but more slowly, and tried to understand what one of the men on the catwalk was shouting to them. In the still night air — with only the dazed, bewildered, trembling voices of other survivors, and the whoosh and crackle of the fires to compete with — his words carried over the open area loud and clear. And for all that they were hard words, still there was a catch and even a sob in his familiar voice:
'Too late now, you dullards!' he cried. 'Didn't I try to warn you? You know I did. What? And you took me for a madman! And now… now I think I am a madman! But all those years of building, of being prepared, gone up in smoke, gone for nothing. And all this good Szgany blood, spilled and wasted, and unavenged…'
And at last Nestor remembered him: Lardis Lidesci, whom even the Wamphyri had respected, upon a time. And beside him on the catwalk, Andrei Romani; between them they'd wound back the loading gear of a giant crossbow, and manhandled a great ironwood bolt with a barbed, silver-tipped harpoon into its groove on the massive tiller. Men's work for sure, but they were men.
So were the others on the ground, whose names now sprang into Nestor's mind: They were Andrei Romani's brothers, Ion and Franci, and the small wiry one was the hunter of wild boars, called Kirk Lisescu. Together with Lardis, these men had been legendary fighters in the days when the Wamphyri came a-hunting on Sunside and the Szgany dwelled in terror; even now Kirk Lisescu carried a weapon from those times, a 'shotgun' out of another world. But Nestor knew that except in dreams all such things were over and done with long ago.
Weren't they?
While he puzzled at it, the men had moved on towards the east wall. But up on the catwalk Lardis was shouting again and pointing at the sky — over Nestor! And now, shutting out the stars, a shadow fell on him.
He looked up, at the lone flyer where it sideslipped to and fro, deliberately stalling itself and losing height. For a moment it seemed poised there, like a hawk on the wing, before lowering its head, arching its membrane wings and sliding into a swooping dive. It was heading directly for the bereft young man where he sobbed over his ravaged love. And its rider was lying far forward in his saddle, reaching out along the creature's neck, directing its actions with voice and mind both.
Suddenly something snapped into place in Nestor's befuddled mind. For if this was a dream it had gone badly wrong. And if it was his dream, then he should have at least a measure of control over it. He started lurchingly back towards the ragged figure crouching over the girl in the centre of the open area, and as he ran he shouted a warning: 'Look out! You there, look out!'
The man looked up, saw Nestor running towards him, and beyond him the others bringing their weapons to bear, apparently on him! Then he glanced over his shoulder at the thing swooping out of the sky, gasped some inarticulate denial, and made a dive for the shallow gouge of an empty fire-pit. As he disappeared from view the flyer veered left and right indecisively, then stretched out its neck and came straight on — for Nestor!
Coming to a skidding halt, suddenly Nestor sensed that this was more than a nightmare. It was real, and the reality gathering impetus, rushing closer with every thudding heartbeat. He glanced all about, saw open space on every side and nowhere to take cover. From behind him someone yelled, 'Get down!' And a crossbow bolt zipped overhead. Then…
