A choked cry — half-gasp, half-shout — rang out from the flickering shadows a little beyond the range of the fires, and Nathan Kiklu stumbled into view, his eyes fixed on the terrifying yet tragic figure on the cross.
Standing in the shadows of an upended cart opposite the dull-glowing fire-pit, listening to all that Lardis had asked and every answer that Vratza Wransthrall had given him, Nathan had been witness to everything. Until a moment ago his eyes had been like misty mirrors: full of starlight, firelight, strangeness. But now, suddenly, he was alert as never before. Coming forward to stand beside Lardis, he gazed up hard-eyed at the wretched creature on the cross. And:
'What was that?' he said, his clear youth's voice contrasting with the coarseness of the night, cutting it like a knife. 'About a dog or a fox, a loping thing? Canker Canison, did you call him?'
The vampire angled his huge head to look down on Nathan. He recognized him: this was one of the first faces he had seen when he regained consciousness, before the questioning commenced. Then… the youth had seemed terrified; he'd backed off a pace and stumbled, moved away to where Vratza's scarlet gaze couldn't follow. Even now he was unsteady on his feet, but no longer awed.
And so Vratza was brought to this: even children dared to gaze upon him now, without cringing!
Curling his fleshy upper lip, the vampire snarled and showed Nathan his twin-tipped tongue and dagger teeth. But still the youth stood there. Until finally Vratza smiled — if what he did with his face could be called smiling — and said: 'I was your age, when I was taken in the tithe. Since when… I've come a very long way.' He glanced at Lardis. 'Aye, even to the end.'
Lardis put an arm across Nathan's shoulder. The lad has… he has an interest in all of this,' he said. But looking at Nathan, he knew it wasn't a healthy one.
'Oh?' Vratza cocked his head a little on one side, questioningly.
Nathan's mouth twitched in the left-hand corner. 'It… it's my girl. This dog-thing, Canker, knocked me down and took her from me. Since when… she hasn't been found.'
'Ah!' said Vratza, matter-of-factly. And as if Nathan no longer existed, his red eyes swivelled to look at Lardis. 'Is it done? Am I finished?'
Lardis nodded; Kirk Lisescu and the others took up their weapons, came from behind the cross into view.
Vratza saw them, and fire and blood sprang into his eyes together. He opened his nightmare jaws and hissed, vibrating his forked tongue in the red-ribbed cavern of his throat.
'No, wait!' Nathan shrugged free of Lardis's arm, pointed a steady hand and finger at the monster on the cross. 'I want you to tell me: about Canker Canison, and about Misha. How will it be for her?'
'No!' Lardis got in front of Nathan, throwing up his arms as if to ward off some horror; indeed, to ward off a very real horror. 'Vratza, don't tell him anything! Your time has come.' He glanced at his men where they took up their positions, and nodded. But the vampire was already speaking — to Nathan.
'My last act,' he said, in a voice which bubbled like tar in a volcanic pit, 'to curdle your dreams now and forever. You ask about Canker? And your girl?'
'Yes,' Nathan had to know. But behind him the men were lifting their weapons, aiming them.
'Canker takes women for one thing only,' Vratza gurgled. 'To use them. And when he has used them — in whichever of the many ways he favours — then he worries them, as a wolf among goats!'
'Be quiet!' Lardis roared.
A crossbow thrummed and its bolt took Vratza close to the heart, burying itself in his torn and bloody chest until only the flight protruded. He jerked massively and coughed up blood, then sucked at the air — and continued to speak! And with his voice rising to a shriek, and finally a gale of mad laughter, he said:
'Boy, do you see this shaft in me, how it tears me? So she is torn, even now. And Canker's shaft is just as vicious. Be sure he'll fuck her heart out! Oh — ha, ha, haaaaa!'
Nathan staggered to and fro, his face pale as a papery wasp's nest, with dark punched holes for eyes and mouth. And as a second bolt joined the first (though still not on target, for the men were shooting in haste to shut Vratza up, and so missing their aim), the youth whispered:
'And now… now I want you to die.'
Kirk Lisescu granted Nathan's wish. Twin blasts, coming in quick succession, turned the vampire's head to pulp as silver shot removed any last trace of a face.
Blood flew in gouts and splashes; booming echoes came back thunderously, first from the stockade's walls, then from the hills; Lardis dragged Nathan roughly aside, out of the red rain. 'You don't want that on you,' he gasped. 'What? Even the air that bastard breathed is tainted!'
Again Nathan shook him off, then staggered away into the night to be sick. Once, hearing shouting, he looked back and saw the cross and the thing upon it as a black silhouette against the glow of the fires — but the silhouette was hideously mobile!
Vratza Wransthrall had told how he was close to becoming Wamphyri, and he'd been right. Undead meta-morphic flesh formed nests of writhing tentacles which sprang from his guts, chest, and all the massive parts of his body. Whipping and vibrating, they lashed themselves — lashed him — to the cross's upright and horizontal bar. But the men had lassoed both arms of the cross and were hauling on it furiously, until it leaned over and toppled into the fire-pit.
Nathan heard the hiss, saw white smoke or steam rising, which he knew would soon turn black. Lardis had it right: in an hour, Vratza would be reduced to a stench and a final puff of smoke. Nothing more would remain of him -
— Except, of course, that monstrous picture which he'd painted in Nathan's head. And that might very well last for a lifetime.
Meanwhile, Nathan's stomach in its entirety desired to be out of him…
Afterwards: Nathan went back to his mother's house and dug in the ruins. He wasn't satisfied that the searchers had done everything in their power. And in order to be absolutely certain, when he was finished with the house he laid bare the floor of the barn. And found nothing, not even a bloodstain.
He stood on the spot where he'd last seen Misha in the embrace of a snarling red-eyed fiend, hung his head, gritted his teeth, clenched his fists. But he didn't cry. No, he told himself, I'll shed no tears until I've shed his blood, taken his shaggy head, smeJJed the stench of his burning hide and seen his last black trace go drifting on the wind!
It was his Szgany vow.
He slept again, and before the dawn went to the Zanesti house where it stood undamaged. Misha's father and surviving brother were there, pale as ghosts, sitting in silence. Before, they hadn't much cared for Nathan; now, her father cradled his head and cried on it. But Nathan wouldn't. And Misha's brother (perhaps thoughtlessly, but surely he could be forgiven) said, 'She never knew a man; she'd been with no one; she wasn't even whole. Once, I would have killed the man who looked at her like that! And now I would kiss him — because Misha had loved him.' And he'd looked at Nathan, perhaps hopefully.
But the youth could only shake his head and say, 'Always remember, you have each other." Which, while he'd not intended it that way, caused them to see that Nathan had no one. Before they could say anything he left them and went looking for Lardis, only to discover that the old Lidesci had experienced the selfsame doubts and returned to his ruined cabin on the knoll.
Nathan joined him there, where Lardis had been at work again in the wreckage. He came across him sitting in what had been his garden, with eyes as vacant as his soul, staring south, waiting for the first glimmer of light to make a silver stain on the far faint curve which was the rim of the world. And when at last Lardis sensed him there, blinked life back into his eyes and looked at him, then Nathan said: