colleagues lack, or possess to a lesser degree. But this one's mentalism is a power; I felt it!
Shaitan grew thoughtfully quiet, perhaps inviting comment, and the telepathic aether came alive in a moment: Klaus Lankari now speaks, said a wooden, almost mechanical, yet somehow doom-fraught voice. What's to be done? Something must be done, for this newcomer appears to have taken a thrall of mine, which I recruited in Sunside. Klaus was an ex-loner, not much known for quick-thinking. But he was a great and monstrous destroyer of life and drinker of blood.
He has men of ours, too, the Drakuls spoke up, in voices that hissed their telepathic venom. Is he to simply keep them, and get away with it? We say let's take them back, right now, and him, too! So he has a leech -so what?
All the beter, in fact, said the Gust. For there's nothing quite like the juice of another vampire - especialy his leech! And since I'm closest, I lay claim to it!
And finally Radu's turn again. What? Don't the Ferenczys have anything to say? Don't they want their peck at me, too? If so, well fine, for I certainly want my peck at them! There, it was out in the open, his hatred - the blood feud - between him and the Ferenczys. And better to do it this way, bold and swaggering, as befitted the image Radu would convey. For there was that in their voices (and in his own dark heart) that told him it was their way, the way of the Wamphyri.
They seemed to take pleasure in words: perverse, convoluted argument and contradictions. Not so strange, really; why, they were themselves contradictions - of Nature!
But so was Radu, and just as devious as the worst of them. He had flyers now and could ride them in a fashion; if he were attacked in force he could flee to the barrier mountains, find a place to hide and consider his position. And he would take a handful of thralls with him, and so retain at least the nucleus of an aerie. Thus his braggadocio wasn't all it might seem. He wasn't about to stand and fight a veritable horde of Wamphyri Lords and their followers, but he was ready for flight at a moment's notice!
As it happened, the way he'd acted was the best thing he could have done, said, thought. Shaitan the Unborn was fascinated, intrigued; it set his own more than devious mind working overtime. What, some bad blood between this one and the Ferenczys? The brothers were fairly recent among the Wamphyri, true, but already they posed a threat; they were like stormclouds on Shaitan's horizon, roiling and issuing stabs of lightning, and inevitably heading his way.
For one thing there were two of them, and as a team they were closer far than the Drakuls. Shaitan remembered how they had ascended:
Two years ago Lord Petre Stakis had taken a small party of lieutenants, thralls, and an aerial warrior west along the spine of the barrier mountains and down into previously unexplored regions of Sunside. Unexplored, aye . . . Odd, then, that he should receive such a warm welcome! But such appeared to be the case. For it seemed that the Szgany of those western parts had been ready, waiting and prepared for just such an invasion - or for something in the nature of an invasion, at least! The Ferenczy brothers had been members (indeed, they'd been the recently elected leaders) of the same tribe, formerly the Szgany Zirescu. And that night... well, Lord Stakis had been unfortunate, to say the least.
His warrior had developed a temporary fault, which caused it to land badly in the mountain peaks. Leaving two of his lieutenants to see what could be done, Stakis had gone on with his reduced force, homed in on the smoke of a Szgany campfire, and landed in the lower foothills. On foot and engaged by a ferocious fighting force under Rakhi and Lagula, Stakis had been shot once through the eye and twice through the heart. His leech had reckoned he was done for, and made ready to exit his body; the Ferenczys had been on hand and would make perfect hosts.
But even in his death throes, still Stakis was a force to be reckoned with. Grabbing Rakhi when he drew close to inspect his body, Stakis savaged him, transfusing essence of his blood into Rakhi's system. Lagula, seeing his brother grappling for his life with