Dezmir and Vidra.'
'Aye,' Heinar gave a curt nod of agreement. 'That was Vidra's voice just then, for sure. But what ails the lad?' No one ventured to answer; they would find out soon enough.
A party of three entered the clearing: a watchman with his wolf, ushering two others ahead of him. The two came stumbling, dishevelled, apparently exhausted. Heinar recognized only one of them - Vidra Gogosita.
'Heinar!' the youth cried. 'Heinar!'
'What is it?' Heinar demanded, as Vidra all but collapsed in his arms. 'What's happened? Where's Klaus and Dezmir? And who's this?'
'Klaus ... Dezmir ...' Vidra babbled unashamedly. 'Both ....oth of them ... dead! In the hills.'
'What?' Heinar gasped. 'Dead, you say? How?'
'We were ... were set upon, ambushed!' Vidra appeared to make an effort, pulled himself together. 'Outlaws! They came out of the twilight. And I'd be dead too, if not ... if not for ... for this one. He ... fought them off, saved my life. His name is ... is ... is ..." But he could say no more; his eyes rolled up; he sagged in Heinar's arms.
The stranger swayed, began to topple. Eager hands caught him, lowered him to a prone position. The fire lit strangely in his eyes as they slowly closed. And his voice was a sigh, trailing into silence as he told them:
'My name ... is Shaitan.'
II
At first, all had been chaos in the camp of Heinar Hagi.
For almost an hour Heinar and his men, and various women, had chased about, doing their best to care for and see to the immediate needs of young Vidra Gogosita and the stranger he'd brought into the camp, the man called Shaitan.
Vidra's mother, the slender but voluble widow Gogosita, had been first on the scene; she had been awake, waiting in her small tent for her only son's return from the mountains. Hearing something of the excitement, and sensing the sudden tension, the horror creeping in the night, she'd gone to the campfire of her own accord. And when first she'd seen her boy stretched out like that - such a weeping and wailing! But ... Vidra was alive, merely exhausted and sleeping! And how she'd cradled the youth in her arms then, while the men told her what little they knew of the tale. And the endless blessings she'd heaped on the tall pale stranger who had saved her son's life: Shaitan, who lay there close at hand, as in a coma, absorbing all he could of these people and their ways.
Then they had sent for the grown-up daughter of Dezmir Babeni, lovely Maria; at first she could not accept the fact of her father's death, so that she looked in vain for his face among the men. And finally her grief, strong but silent, when at last she went to sit alone, rock herself and weep. And the wife and sons of Klaus Luncani, all dazed and staggering from the impact of this unexpected, unacceptable news. So that the traditional peace and quiet of the campfire had been quickly transformed into a scene of tragedy, grief, trauma.
No one felt the Szgany Hagi's loss more than Heinar himself. He couldn't face the weeping women; giving instructions for the welfare of the survivors of this atrocity, he retired to his bed. He would be up and about at intervals through the long, forty-hours night, of course, but long before sunup he would lead a search party into the foothills, to recover the bodies of the dead. And if by any chance they should stumble on a party of loners or outcasts up there ... But Heinar knew that the odds were all against it.
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
Meanwhile, the widow Gogosita had had her son carried to their tent where she watched over him. The badly bruised flesh of his neck was puffy, lacerated, probably infected. His fever was high and he tossed and turned, moaning in his sleep. As for what he moaned: they were things of blackest nightmare, resulting no doubt from what he'd experienced in the hills.
At the campfire Shaitan had been made comfortable, a blanket thrown over him, his head propped up on a bundled skin. And Maria Babeni had come to sit beside him, staring at his drawn, handsome face in the flaring of the fire. It seemed to her he should be taken in, given proper shelter, cared for and protected until he was fully recovered. Hadn't he risked his life for the men of the Szgany Hagi? All