were said over them before they were put down into the ground ... but they would not stay down! Those of Radu's lieutenants who were perma nently stationed in the plague towns knew wel enough how to deal with these undead 'droppings' of the Drakuls - the stake, the sword, and the fire - but were at a loss as to what to do about the nightly attacks. They were werewolves and ran on the ground, while the Drakuls were flying creatures who struck out of the sky!
And so it was seen how the Drakuls' methods were the very opposite of Radu's. For despite that he was no longer 'anonymous,' still he kept the facts of his vampirism - the fact that he was Wamphyri, and especially the fact of his lycanthropy - fairly wel hidden; whereas the Drakuls scathed openly abroad as vampires and revelled in their power.
And where he used his military might and prowess to keep a tight rein on the peoples who came under his control and within his sphere of influence, they used fear pure and simple. Also, where Radu recruited men only in such numbers as were sufficient to resupply or complement the pack, and kiled only strangers, wanderers, outsiders, and beasts of the wild for the provisioning - but never people under his
'protection'; or rarely, when they were rebellious, or openly suspicious of him - the Drakuls not only recruited their thralls in outrageous numbers but were using their vampirism to infiltrate the enemy camp and destroy opposition from within. So that in a way their blunt methods were subtle after al: first convert Radu's people, and when his power base had been destroyed ... then attack him!
These had been the Wolfs thoughts on the mater, and in his mind's eye he'd seen the gradual eastward creep of the Drakuls -their eating-up of his towns and villages - until at the last, as leaders of two vast vampire hordes, they'd join forces in a mass attack on Wolfscrag itself ... and discover Radu and the remnants of his pack trapped in the cavern manse.
Then ...
... Perhaps it was only the morbidity of Radu's old memories (for in their subconscious minds, even creatures who are grown evil and monstrous beyond words may be terrified anew by nightmares out of their past; even the horrific may be horrified) but suddenly he gave an involuntary shudder; a tremor ran through him in the semi-solid resin of his vat.
Or was the tremor in the resin itself?
What? A sound! A reverberation, however faint - or furtive? Now surely the Drakuls were upon him ... .'/.'
But no, no, for that was only an old dream out of the distant past, while the sound had been here and now ... immediate and threatening. And this time he could not be mistaken. There was someone here! Or... someone coming? Well, of course someone was coming, eventually. A delicious someone who always came. So perhaps that was it: anticipation, or wishful thinking. Imagination.
Ah, yesss! But it was much too early ... she wouldn't be here yet awhile.
Anticipation, yesss. But not yet... awhile.
No, not yet... a ... while ...
Slowly Radu relaxed into resurgent dreams, alowing them to foam up again over his anxieties to drown them. And however uncertainly, however reluctantly - having come that much closer to a true awakening this time - his mind returned to its state of hibernation, its contemplation of bygone centuries ...
* * *
At that time, in the mountains of Moldavia, Radu had scarcely realized the urgency of his situation; he had seen the gradual encroachment of the Drakuls across the Transylvanian mountains into Moldavia as just that: gradual. But in fact their plan had been more immediate, and their campaign not merely one of territorialism but also of destruction.
Radu's destruction, and now!
Partly, it was the enmity which exists between al great vampires. A hatred which had existed since the building of the first Starside aeries, which had been wrought in al the bloodwars of a paralel world, and which would now continue in this world until the end of time, or until no one was left to carry it on. It was the knowledge in the dark heart of every Lord of the Wamphyri that if he would live he must do to others of his kind before they did to him.
But from the Drakuls' point of view, it was also the need to clear the way for expansion. For it seemed to them that they