bolt had been only half of it. Now he must draw it out.
He did so without pause, and had to fight from gagging as the red blood spurted. Then, cinching his jacket tightly to his body, he somehow got to his feet and made off down the steep slope. But weak and desperate as he was, his heart was already pounding and his breath faltering. And those men back there - Szgany, and full of bloodlust - they'd not give him a second's respite or his life a moment's thought once they had him. It would be the stake, the knife, the fire for Lord Nestor of the Wamphyri!
He limped to the rim of a bluff and looked over, saw deep water rushing into the foam and spray of broad falls, and white water all the way down to the levels and the broken bridges of Twin Fords. But from behind as if to spur him on, rising above the hiss and surge of foaming waters, he could hear the angry shouts of his pursuers.
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
And looking back just once, to glimpse raised weapons and furious faces, he shouted his defiance - and jumped!
Nathan got into Twin Fords a little less than two hours later. He found the town a shambles - a pesthole of stumbling, slack-mouthed survivors; a bubbling cauldron of narrow-eyed, suspicious, would-be avengers; a chaos of terrified, demented people - with little or nothing of Settlement's order and discipline about it. Before that, however: There were guards on the approach roads to the town, who stopped him the moment he crossed the river through the shallows of the fording place, where all that remained of a once-sturdy bridge was a weir of timbers crushed down into the mud. He was recognized as one of Lardis Lidesci's party, which had passed through heading west for Settlement just yestereve, and allowed to go on into the devastation.
And the chaos was at once apparent. At least two fires were still smouldering where granaries had been gutted; the dead - or their pieces, if they had been vampirized - were still being dragged through barely recognizable streets to be burned on funeral pyres; the wailing of women and weeping of children was nerve-rending. Inside a more or less intact perimeter of wooden buildings, the destruction was enormous, far worse than in Settlement. Here, where a great many houses had been simply smashed flat, it appeared that the Wamphyri and their creatures must have raged out of control.
Approaching the centre, where the leaders and elders of the Szgany Zestos were holding a meeting, Nathan witnessed the discovery and destruction of a vampire thrall who had slept too late. Flushed from her hiding place under the eaves of a house by men brandishing torches, a woman was driven into the street and ringed about. With the sun beating down on her she shrank back and tried to cover herself, all the while raving and gibbering, and cursing the men about her in language so filthy that Nathan couldn't believe it.
Wild, grey as a cloud, with eyes bubbling like sulphur, finally she braved their torches and launched herself at the nearest man. And as she snarled at him it was at once obvious that her eye-teeth were unnaturally long, white and sharp!
The bolt which cut her down was equally sharp, likewise the knives with which they took her head ...
Then Nathan arrived at the meeting place in the shade of a large, hastily erected, open-sided tent. And as the gathering broke up he recognized Karl Zestos, the oldest son of Twin Fords' former leader. His father, Bela Zestos, was dead now, a heroic victim of the vampire raid; if from the wreckage of his people Karl could salvage a number sufficient to lead, then he would become a Traveller King in his own right.
Recognition like sorrow was mutual; the two spent a few moments trading their grim stories; Nathan picked up several details of last night's raid on Twin Fords which had not been available in Settlement. More than anything else, he was interested in Canker Canison. But when he explained why . .. then the other's face turned grey. And:
'My friend,' Karl told him, shaking his head, 'you must pray that your Misha is dead! The reports I have heard ...'
'I know,' Nathan answered, cutting him short. 'And when I think about it, I'm tempted to try willing her dead! Except that's not possible, and I'm glad it isn't.'