Side by side, Wran and Nestor rose up and flew across the mighty stump from side to side, and looked down into its yawning, hollowed maw. There were rooms down there, vast pits, and stairwells of bone and stone, and polished vats like the molds for making monsters. 'Exactly so!' cried Wran, picking up Nestor's thoughts again. 'For this was an aerie, upon a time! Why, it must have rivalled Wrathstack itself! In Turgosheim in the east, men and warriors have clashed, and blood been spilled, over many a lesser manse than this!'
Nestor looked across at him. 'And yet now ... why do you live lumped together in Wrathstack?'
'Ah-hah!' Wran cried. 'It must be the recluse in you, as it was in Vasagi. He, too, would have stayed on his own, if he could. It was because the Suck felt crowded in Turgosheim, that he came here with the rest of us to olden Starside. Or perhaps it's simply your longing for an aerie and territories of your own, which is an urge common among the Wamphyri. But you know what, Nestor? Why, I find myself half-willing to believe that the spirit of some olden creature - some vampire out of time - has indeed returned to inhabit you! In other words, you're a natural, lad, a natural!'
They sped on, gaining height over a wilderness of twisted bone and fretted rock ruins, over tortured cartilage relics and fire-blackened mounds, where other grand aeries had exploded in their bases and slumped down into themselves, forming pyramids of scree and rubble. And Wrathstack drawing ever closer, rearing on high, its uppermost towers, battlements, launching-bays and windows most of a kilometre high and more than an acre in cross-section.
II
The Last Aerie
And: 'Up now, up!' Wran shouted. 'Let the winds take you, where they spiral round this last great spire.'
Climb, Nestor commanded his flyer. Follow on behind. Gain height. Form scoops with your wings, trap the air, and rise on the rising thermals. It was all sound advice, but wasted; good practice but nothing more. His creature was experienced in all such matters.
And Wrathstack loomed closer still...
Less than a hundred metres from the wall of the colossal stack, both flyers discovered sighing currents of air and commenced a mighty rising spiral. And as they climbed, so Nestor benefited from Wran's knowledge of the place.
Down below, the Rage sent, in the nethermost levels, the very bowels of the place, that's Gorvi's domain. The dark and devious Gorvi the Guile. He keeps the wells, and has flightless warriors on the ground, to repel any would-be incursions. Hah! A pointless exercise! If ever we're attacked, it won't be from the ground. It's just a measure of the way he watches his back. We don't call him the Guile for nothing. Ah, see? Here he comes now, eager to know who won the duel and now returns victorious out of Sunside. But myself or Vasagi, what odds? It will make no difference to Gorvi. He'll be sour - he always is!
A flyer launched from a cavern mouth beneath an overhang of rock and came spiralling up behind. Fresh from resting, the creature fanned its manta wings and rapidly gained on Wran and Nestor's weary beasts. Nestor twisted in his saddle and looked back and down; his wide, curious eyes met Gorvi's only a wing-span to the left and a metre or two below, and he saw immediately how well the other's nickname suited him.
The Guile sat hunched, by no means cadaverous yet
remarkably corpse-like, scowling in his saddle. The dome of his head was shaven save for a single central lock, with a knot hanging to the rear. Dressed in black, with his cloak belling out like tattered wings, the contrast of his sallow features turned him to a leprous vulture settling to its prey. With eyes so deeply sunken they were little more than a crimson glimmer, yet shifty for all that, and hands clutching the reins like skinny claws, this was Gorvi. He seemed a sinister creature: but of course, for he was Wamphyri! And he didn't like the way Nestor stared back at him.
'What's this?' Gorvi finally called out to Wran. 'Some captive you've brought back out of Sunside? A new lieutenant, perhaps? Was he your second in the duel, Wran? And if so, did Vasagi have one also? If not ... be sure there'll be some who say you cheated.'