day. Nestor loped silently through a ground mist swirling round his ankles like a disturbed shroud. On his right hand, the forest, and on his left the foothills rising towards the barrier range. But up there where the way was steep: something huge, grey and weird, projecting over the rim of a bluff, nodding and swaying against the dark-blue sky. It scanned the night with dull, disinterested eyes in a diamond-shaped head at the end of a long, tapering neck. An unmistakable design: a flyer! Ideally situated for launching, it waited there. Which could mean only one thing: that somewhere down here its vampire master, a Lord or lieutenant of the Wamphyri, was even now abroad in the night!
Night for the moment, aye, but dawn was fast approaching. Whoever was the beast's keeper, he'd have to be back soon. If he was not already here ...
Desiring to see without being seen, to know without being known, Nestor went more quietly yet. He moved like a cat along the trail, and keeping to the darkest shadows passed under the flyer in its launch site. But in a while, higher up the slope and vague in the deceptive light, he saw a second creature. So, two of the flying beasts, and apparently no one in attendance. It could only be a small hunting party.
Though it seemed unlikely that such dull, stupid creatures would be used as observers, still Nestor took no chances but kept himself hidden anyway. A further fifty paces, and . .. what was that down there, where an outcrop of boulders tumbled to meet the trees? A fire?
It was a fire, flickering red and yellow in the lee of boulders; smoke rising in a grey spiral, carrying a whiff of roasting - what, rabbit? - to Nestor's nostrils and making his mouth water. And ... was that a figure hunkered down, as if turning a spit? Some Szgany loner, fixing himself an early breakfast? It was surely so; for the Wamphyri weren't keen on roasted meat. And they weren't much for rabbits, either! But didn't this idiot know there were vampires about, two of them at least; or three, if Nestor included himself?
He glanced back over his shoulder. The pre-dawn mist was rising, obscuring the trail. No sign of the creatures perched on the hillside now; they were there, of course, but had disappeared utterly in mist and gloom. This fool at his fire was surely unaware of them. But the Wamphyri must return soon. And Nestor had no doubt but that they would be aware of him!
The man had food; Nestor was hungry; he could warn him, share his breakfast. And no treachery to the Wamphyri, his own kind, in this. He was an outcast after all. And his appearance would fool this loner even as it had fooled Brad Berea. But in any case, best to take precautions.
Nestor's crossbow was ready, loaded. Taking care to avoid loose pebbles which might be dislodged, he climbed down boulder to boulder; while below him the fool at the fire coughed where he turned his spit, grunting and grumbling to himself as if he were the only man in the world! Nestor got close, very close, until suddenly the hunched figure fell silent and sniffed the air, looked up and began to turn his head.
The man would be armed; Nestor didn't want another bolt in him; he ducked down behind rocks, waited, gradually nerved himself to look out, even to cry out, and so warn the other of his presence. The mist was thickening, and it had a slimy feel to it. Nestor felt his flesh creeping as he looked out between a 'V in the rocks.
The loner was still there, crouched down. But -
- He was no longer alone!
Emerging from a dark copse to one side, and flowing like some swift and deadly shadow over the mist-wreathed ground, a second figure approached him. But there could be no mistaking this one - or his intentions. He was Wamphyri, and his mind was full of murder! Even in silhouette and little more than a dark blot, still his face was freakish; a jutting bulge of a head with a stunted, vibrating tentacle extended towards his victim.
Nestor scarcely required it, but as if to finally prove this creature's nature it glanced at him - the merest glance - where it sped silent as smoke to its target. Its eyes were red as coals, burning in the hideously misshapen, quivering mask of its