remembered how he'd dreamed dreams of treachery, and saw when he rushed back to his lair under the mountains how his dreams were true: smoke and fire issuing from the great cavern's outlets, and the ravished bodies of the pack's women strewn among the coarse grasses at the mouth of the cave! Even Ulutu, with blood under her nails from the fight she'd put up.
At which it was as much as Radu could do to keep himself from screaming aloud. It was not that she was dead - he might even have kiled her himself, had circumstances required it - but more the way of her death. For it brought back to him memories of his own sister's rape and murder at the hands of Zirescu and Ferenczy scum, in Sunside in a different world.
And finaly he did scream, except it was a howl that went vibrating up to the sinking moon. And a ful moon, at that...
There were Vandals in the heights around the cavern and in the defile that led to it. They had thought that Radu would not be back until ful daylight, which would be to their advantage for he was a night fighter. Yet here he was, albeit weary from his abortive journey to the coast and back. By comparison Radu's hundred was a handful, while Gaeseric's ambush party, a formidable assault unit, outnumbered them four to one.
But despite that the two sides were unequal, and that the Vandals held the high ground, still their advantage was not so great as might be reckoned. Not against furious, vengeful men, and men who were werewolves at that! So the batle was joined, as bloody as might be imagined.
It was the twilight before the dawn, when the eyes of men may not be trusted. But the eyes of wolves are feral; they see in the twilight just as wel as in the night.
Also, a mist was rising ... a vampire mist, conjured out of Radu's pores and up from the bone-dry earth! But al in vain; the pack was beaten from the start, almost before it began. For they must strike up at the ambushers, while the Vandals need only strike down. And Radu's wolflings fought in ragged clothes, with staves, knives, axes, and their bare hands and fierce teeth; while the Vandals had leather armour, lances, bows and primitive crossbows. (And that last was an irony in itself, for it had been the Wamphyri who brought the first crossbows with them out of Sunside/Starside. In their world the crossbow had been a Traveler weapon, which the vampire Lords had neither the skill nor the patience to duplicate or manufacture for themselves in this one. As for the few entirely human Szgany thrals they had brought through with them: they had become scatered among the peoples of this new world. Aye, and al their skills with them. Hence that the Vandals had crossbows).
Yet still Radu's pups slew three to one, except there was always a fourth to come. And pierced by lances, feathered with red-streaming shafts, one by one they went down. And al their tribute stolen, their women raped and butchered, finaly their very lives forfeit to the treachery of the Vandals ...
The sun rose on a hillside that seemed to smoke from al the blood and urine, al the sweat and guts and foulness that had been spiled there; four hundred and ten bodies reeking under the hot sun. But Radu and two of his lieutenants had survived; seeing how al was lost, they'd crept away through Radu's mist to find refuge in a deep dark crevice till nightfal.
And coiled like a snake in the cool dank of their hiding place, and wiling his leech to heal his several wounds, Radu had vowed a Wamphyri vow where he sheltered - not only against Gaeseric and the
Vandals but against mankind in general. For so far Radu had been the most 'lenient' of al the Lords, the most 'human' of an inhuman lot. But that was over now.
What, treacherous, the Wamphyri? Hah! For now it seemed to Radu that those old Starside Lords had been the veriest beginners in the ways of the traitor! And as for cruelty ...
The lust of the vampire was that of a man, increased tenfold by his parasite. When he raped it was because he must! His passions, rages, delights, al of his emotions were larger than life or even undeath. He could no more turn away from a shapely woman than