The Last Aerie (61 page)

“In which case,” he took her hand and helped her up, “if we’ve armies to make, then we’d best be at it.”

They broke camp, mounted up, and launched into the night. And sated for the moment they headed for Star-side and the last aerie …

Four hours later they struck again, this time five miles east of the Great Pass and on the edge of the forest belt. And this time, too, a different tactic. Leaving Nestor in the foothills, Canker and Wratha used their parties to form an arc two miles across and cutting a mile deep into the forest. Dropping down from their flyers but leaving them airborne along with the warriors, they then tightened the arc in the direction of Nestor. The warriors flew to and fro over the catchment area, filling it with their gasses and destroying the will of any Travellers caught in the trap.

And it worked. Driven north as the vampire net closed, the Szgany fled straight into the arms of Nestor and his party. The catch was smaller than before but still considerable: six males, four women, and five children. Two elders crippled with rheumatism were killed out of hand and divided between the warriors; the four youngest were put to death and taken for meat; the remaining get was split three ways to be flown back to the last aerie. And at that Wratha called it a night.

Back in Wrathspire, they met to talk and count coup. And Canker was jubilant:

“Ten! I can’t believe it! In my vats, I’ve a warrior waxing which I intended to terminate for lack of stuff, but now I can bring him along. There are fresh women for my pups, several of whom have gone without. I was even thinning down my manse’s workforce, in order to satisfy the requirements of the kitchens and the provisioning. But now my rosters are filled again, and even muscle to spare. What a night!”

“We’ve done well,” Wratha nodded. She had changed into lounging clothes: a thin sheath that fitted her gorgeous body like a glove, slippers, a jewelled scarp upon her brow. Every inch a beautiful “girl”, it was hard to believe that she had survived a hundred years and more. The blood is the life …

They were in Wrathspire’s great hall, gathered round a blazing fire and sipping wine. It should have been a celebration, but Nestor was frowning. He had something on his mind, which caused him to display his irritation and frustration.

“Out with it,” Wratha said after a while, and he looked up in something of surprise.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Your dissatisfaction?” Canker barked. “Aye, it is.”

“Then I’ll explain,” Nestor nodded. And to Wratha: “You see, Lady, you are not the only one who can think and plot for the future; I also have a mind. Very well, so tonight we were successful—to an extent. We’ve replenished our manses, with blood and meat and good strong working muscle, no doubt about that. But an aerie needs
more
than that. Canker has explained to me that in Turgosheim the Wamphyri were excessive in their requirements, depleting their Sunside prey to the point of decimation. Why, you almost committed the ultimate folly: to wipe out the Szgany, whose blood was your source of life. That was the main reason why you fled here in the first place: to find the makings for expansion, which were lacking in Turgosheim.”

“All true,” Wratha agreed.

“And yet now, here in the west, we pursue the same course as before!”

Canker snorted.
“Hah!
But impossible to deplete this Sunside to that extent! There are thousands of them out there!”

“Not impossible.” Nestor shook a finger at him. “And anyway, that’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point?” Wratha was genuinely curious, for it was quite obvious that this was not just Nestor being argumentative in the manner of the Wamphyri.

He leaned back in his chair, away from the fire, and said: “Now tell me: how many of our western Szgany tribes are supplicant? Oh, in Turgosheim’s Sunside, all of them, I know. But how many here?”

“One,” Canker answered it for him. “They are two hundred and eighty strong and live in a town fifteen miles east of the Great Pass, between the foothills and the forest. They work in metals and are good at making and mending gauntlets. But they are few in number, as stated, and so we take only their goods,
not
their lives. Their fathers and grandfathers were supplicant in the old times, before we came here, and it appears the weakness was bred into them. They supply us with honey, grain, nuts and fruits, beasts and preserved meat, wine and materials for our clothes, and metal tools for our thralls.”

“Exactly,” said Nestor. “One small township, and we Lords and Lady take a regular tithe of them and divide it five ways: between Guilesump, Madmanse, Mange-manse, Suckscar and Wrathspire. Except I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but each time we collect, the takings are that much smaller! Honey grows scarce and the granaries are close to empty; our flyers go hungry. So tonight we fed our warriors … ah, yes! But when was the
last
time they had it red? To simply exist is not enough.”

Wratha said nothing. She was beginning to see his point.

He looked at her again. “Now, Wratha: you’ve said we must build an army. Good! I agree. But of what? Why, we barely have the means to satisfy our individual needs as they are, without that we feed entire armies! What we need are more supplicant Szgany tribes. If all of Sunside were in our grasp, to use as we desire, then we would be unconquerable! As for Vormulac and the rest of your ‘friends’ in the east: let ‘em come!”

She stood up, put her hands behind her back, walked this way and that before the fire. “You are right. And we could do it, too—bring all of the Szgany tribes to heel, as in Turgosheim—but for one thing.”

“Oh?”

“Lardis Lidesci!” The name fell from her lips like acid.

“I know what you mean,” said Nestor. “And did you know, I was a Lidesci, upon a time—not related by blood, no, but of that tribe? And I dwelled in Settlement.”

“Huh!”
She snarled. “Settlement! And how may we quell the Szgany—herd them, pen them, put them to work,
milk
them!—when this Lardis sets such an example? He’s clever as a fox; he controls superior killing weapons; and his territory—yes,
his
territory, damn his rancid Gypsy heart!—is one enormous trap …
for the Wamphyri!
Indeed, the only difference between him and us is this: we must fly out from Starside into Sunside to kill, while he stays home and does it! Kills us, or would if he got the chance! And certainly he has killed our lieutenants, warriors, flyers and what all. Moreover, the rest of the Szgany are following suit. Lardis has given them heart; he shows them the way; why, it’s even dangerous to go anywhere near him!” Too furious to go on, she fell silent.

Canker scratched his long bottom jaw and said: “Then all seems simple to me … well, the solution, if not the means of execution. We have to raid on Settlement, find this man and do away with him. We have to crush his people, their will, and of all the Szgany bring
them
to heel first. Following which, any other resistance will soon collapse.”

“Agreed,” said Wratha. “But how?”

“Wait!” Nestor got to his feet, and faced her across the hearth. “Are you now considering a raid on Settlement, the Lidescis?” He had to turn her from it. If Misha was there, among the Szgany Lidesci, then he must wait until his olden enemy—his Great Enemy, his brother—returned to claim her. But these were thoughts which he guarded closely and kept to himself.

“I’ve
always
considered it,” Wratha answered, her girlish face twisting into something else entirely. “And I’ve tried it, with disastrous results! Now I want revenge, for all they have destroyed which was mine, and for all of my frustration!”

“And you’ll have it,” he said, “but not now. Shortly, but not now.”

“When, then?”

“When we’re strong enough. When we’re so strong that all the traps and lures, shotguns and giant crossbows, silver and kneblasch and everything else they can throw at us just won’t be enough! That’s when.”
And when Nathan returns, to be with the one he stole from me.

Canker’s turn to be curious. “Shotguns?”

Nestor blinked, frowned, shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment. “A … a memory, I think, from my past, my time among them. Shotguns, aye. Their weapons which fire pellets of silver. Weapons out of … another world? But I … I can’t remember more than that. Let it be.” His furrowed forehead cleared.

Wratha waited until she was sure he was himself again, then asked: “And how do
you
suggest we go about making more supplicant tribes? These people were settled when first we came here, town dwellers in the main. But now they’re Travellers as in the old days. Or, like this Lardis Lidesci and his lot, they inhabit crumbling old towns by day, and sneak into their hidey-holes at night.”

Nestor nodded. “This is how I see it,” he said. “We send our metal-working friends as messengers out into the woods and along the old Szgany trails, to carry our promise abroad: good will and long life to any Szgany tribe or group who will work for us on Sunside. They will be required to pay us a tithe in all of their good things, in return for which we’ll spare them, even as we spare the metal-workers. In their new security, they can then settle down again in permanent camps and towns. They shall hunt, gather, farm for us, as in Turgosheim. Except we shall stick to our promise and not take flesh and blood. But any who don’t see fit to work for us —” he shrugged,”—they are fair game.”

“Fine,” Canker growled. “And just suppose we do manage to set up a system of tithe-paying Szgany camps. How do we protect them from Wran and the others?”

“They’ll set up their own,” Nestor answered. “If they hit our supplicants, we hit theirs. It’s as simple as that. As for following Lardis’s example: he is in the west while our metal-workers dwell in the east. It seems unlikely that the methods of the Lidescis have spread so far abroad.”

“It might work at that,” Wratha mused. “And in any case, anything is better than inactivity. Very well, we’ll try it. The night is still young. What say we attend to our new recruits, get a little rest, then fly out to see our supplicant gantlet-makers and give them our instructions?”

Canker didn’t seem too happy with this arrangement, but: “Very well,” he growled. “But will it take all of us? I’ve not yet had the chance to properly …
explore
the night’s get. My new females interest me. I have my needs, as well you know.”

“We’re all in the same position,” Nestor told him. “All of our new people require proper indoctrination. And you … how much time do you need for the rutting anyway?”

Canker grinned. And: “Damn you, Nestor!” he said, but without malice. “You read me as well as you read one of your dead people!”

“We’re in this together,” Wratha said, “and so we must see it through together. Six hours before dawn we set out, just we three and a couple of lads apiece, and a warrior each to act as guard dogs.”

As they prepared to go their separate ways, Canker said: “I can’t wait to see Wran’s face when he hears of our success this night!”

And Wratha told him, “He has already heard it.” She smiled a wicked smile, then tilted her chin and looked demure. “Surely you know I have spies in all the manses … well, no longer in Suckscar and Mangemanse, not now that we’re colleagues. But in Guilesump and Mad-manse, certainly. I instructed certain persons in my employ to watch our movements very closely, and to report them to their supposed masters. Spies are not only useful for picking up information, but also for spreading it abroad. Wran and Spiro know what we’ve done tonight, aye, and so does Gorvi the Guile. And it’s my guess they’re together even now, making plans of their own to bring them up to par. Except we have the lead, and so they must work hard at it.”

Canker and Nestor grinned and made for an exit, and Wratha called after them, “Until later.” But in Nestor’s mind
: not too much later. See to your new thralls and return.
I’ll have a hot bath waiting, and something even hotter!

She knew it was a promise he couldn’t resist…

For the next four months all went as planned, or as nearly as possible. Supplicant camps proved hard to get started, and at first were made up of very small Szgany groups. But once they were established and uneasy contact with the vampire Lords and Lady had been made—when the first tithes were taken, and no blood spilled—the idea caught on. For the Szgany east of the pass were tired of running. They knew that the cowardly metal-working Wamphyri supplicants lived comparatively easy lives (at least that they were safe and settled, not wandering in the wilderness or starving in foothill caverns), and like them they were now prepared to pay for protection—so long as the tithe was of goods, not flesh and blood. It was hardly a satisfactory existence, but at least it was bearable and a life of sorts. It had to be better than living in constant fear of vampire raids, of being eaten or enslaved and dragged into Sunside as meat on the hoof.

Gorvi and the Killglance brothers had been quick to take up the challenge. That was how they saw Wratha’s new alliance with Nestor and Canker: as a challenge, of course. Despite that the Lady claimed her group’s activities were purely defensive—which well they might be, for the possibility of an invasion out of Turgosheim was by no means negligible—still this full-speed buildup of muscle was very worrying to them. What if no outside threat materialized? How then would Wratha and her allies use their warriors and men at arms? To annex the rest of the stack? Possibly.

But while Gorvi, Wran and Spiro joined forces, they drew the line at setting up tithe-camps of their own. It was easier and faster to concentrate their existing forces in mass attacks on Sunside, as Wratha had done at first, to fill their manses with lieutenants, thralls, warriors and flyers, and generally bring themselves to battle-worthiness. And because the Lady’s forces were for the moment superior, the ulterior triad must grit its teeth and hold off from raiding on her new supplicant camps. But the toll they took on the rest of the Travellers, especially in the regions west of the pass, was massive.