I've heard no more of these terrible Drakuls. Except from Radu, who assures me that at host one of them survives still. 'D.D.' of course.
Wel, so much for them, who were in any case the least of Radu's enemies. As for the worst of them: they were - they are - the Ferenczys!
Let me tell you what is known of them, but in order to do so I must go back a long, long way ...
Now in the vampire world, Radu and the Ferenczy clan had been enemies from the start. Theirs was a bloodfeud that began long before they were Lords, when they were Szgany in Sunside. Radu was a mere youth when the brutish Ferenczy brothers, Lagula and Rakhi, not only murdered his human father but raped to death his sister, the only creature he'd ever cared for in al Sunside. When she was dead ... then he cared for nothing much. Nothing but revenge.
No, not true: he was also fond of a she-wolf who wandered the Sunside hils with him during his days as a mountain man, a loner without a tribe, neither family nor friends, only the sun to warm him and the stars for guide at night. Radu and his she-wolf, aye. But she was infected with vampirism and had a leech; the parasite vacated her for Radu, who was a stronger, cleverer host. Thus he became Wamphyri.
But when Radu crossed into Starside, he found the Ferenczys already there, vampire Lords of their own great aeries. So their bloodfeud continued, becoming part of the greater Wamphyri bloodwars. Eventualy Radu conquered and kiled both of the Ferenczy brothers, but not before Lagula had sired Nonari 'the Gross Ferenczy, whose left hand was like a club, with al the fingers fused into one.
And so the bloodwars went on, year in year out, for decades, until Starside was drenched in blood! But in the end the only real victor was neither dog-Lord, Ferenczy, Drakul, nor any 'common' Lord. No. It was Shaitan the Unborn, first of them al, who had the wit to pick them of one by one when they were weakened by the fighting. Then, when it was over, Shaitan banished them through the Gate for their troubles. Thus Radu came into this world, and his most hated enemies with him - especialy Nonari the Gross.
They could have setled it then, but they were strangers in our world with troubles enough. So they went their own ways; Radu adventuring in the world, and Nonari ... doing whatever he did. But Nonari had sworn vengeance on Radu, his kith, kin, and spawn for al time to come, for the deaths of Lagula his father and Rakhi his uncle: the impassioned vow of a Lord of the Wamphyri, which might even outlast eternity! And down al the years and centuries Radu stayed alert, and kept an ear cocked at al times for word of Nonari Ferenczy.
He heard certain things. For instance:
How one 'Onarius Ferengus,' the Roman Governor of a smal province on the Black Sea, had died in the Year 445 of thereabouts, at the hands of unknown barbarians. That was when Radu had been a Vandal, before they turned on him and drove him out of Italy. But he had also heard how this Onarius had a son in the mountains north of Moldavia, in a place caled the Khorvaty. And this son's name was Belos Pheropzis.
Down the years, as time and his travels alowed, Radu made inquiry but learned little. A hundred years later, when he was a Voevod in the eastern Carpathians, he even tried to discover the whereabouts of this castle of Belos Pheropzis. Events intervened; his duties caled him away; the search must wait.
Centuries later he did come across the castle in the Khorvaty, but found it deserted and falling into ruin. Fortunately the people of the region kept records, and they remembered.
Belos Pheropzis had been a great and terrible Boyar, and his mountain retreat secret and near-inaccessible, as Radu had discovered. He, too, had a son, caled Waldemar Ferrenzig, and a daughter who never ventured out from the castle. It was rumoured that Belos slept with her, a not uncommon practice among the Wamphyri.
Belos had finally come to grief fending of a party ofBulgar raiders; his castle was saved but he lost his life; surviving Bulgars likewise expired, in an avalanche brought about by Waldemar. And thereafter Waldemar slept with his sister...
There were two sons (but one of them might have been