Lucian dropped to his knees, panting with exhaustion. Despite his fatigue, he felt exhilarated as well. Not only had he survived, but he had killed his first vampire.
Now the war has truly begun….
Chapter Nineteen
CASTLE CORVINUS
Courtiers and Death Dealers crowded the throne room as Viktor sat in judgment on the accused lycan. The Elder spotted a scattering of lycan servants present as well, busying themselves at their diverse tasks while slyly eavesdropping on the fate of their wretched sister.
Duplicitous vermin! Viktor thought, seated on his ebony throne. A dark burgundy robe enfolded him, like the wings of a slumbering bat. I should have had them all exterminated weeks ago, no matter what the Council advised.
A bedraggled female lycan crouched on the floor before him. Silver-alloy manacles clamped down on her wrists and ankles. Greasy yellow hair fell across her face, obscuring her features. A coarse woolen kirtle hung in tatters upon her emaciated frame. Scars, welts, and bruises showed through the ragged garment, testifying to the thoroughness of Soren’s interrogation. She sobbed and muttered to herself, as though driven half mad by her ordeal.
Viktor felt no sympathy for her. “Well?” he demanded of Soren. “What did you learn from this lycan slut?”
The dour overseer stood behind his prisoner, his beloved whips draped over his shoulders. “This animal, known to her bestial comrades as Grushenka, denied any knowledge of your daughter’s… indiscretions. But when put to the question, she confessed to passing notes from the princess to a certain lycan, making possible their assignations.”
Viktor winced inwardly to hear his daughter’s shame spoken of openly in his own court, but there had been from the beginning no possibility of concealing the scandal, not when Sonja’s crimes had demanded the lawful execution of a princess of the blood. Such a momentous event could not be papered over by any transparent tissue of lies. He could only hope that time would someday wipe away all record of his dear Sonja’s disgrace.
Would that my own memories could be expunged as well!
“Forgive me, Elder!” the manacled wretch cried out hysterically, apparently aware of her jeopardy despite her addled wits. “I knew not what the letters meant. I meant only to obey my mistress, as was proper!”
Viktor ignored the lycan’s fruitless rantings. He could barely bring himself to look upon the filthy wench, knowing that the ignorant animal had contributed to his daughter’s demise.
If only I had Lucian in chains in her place!
“She is to be shown no mercy,” he decreed. “Make an example of her. I want her drawn and quartered in the courtyard this very night.” A crescent moon guaranteed there would be no encore of Lucian’s galling escape. “See to it that her fellow servants are made to witness her punishment, so that they may see for themselves the dire consequences of such treachery.”
“Nooo!” the condemned bitch keened in alarm, until Soren knocked her senseless with the back of his hand. Excited murmurs arose from the assembled courtiers and their ladies, titillated by the notion of the gory spectacle ahead. Viktor could not remember the last time a lycan had been put to death in such a public and elaborate manner.
Perhaps that is where our error lies, he speculated. We have grown too soft in our treatment of their kind.
He watched in stony silence as Soren’s minions dragged the lycan away to await her fate. He rose from his throne, intending to sequester himself in his private chambers until it was time for the lycan’s execution. He was in no mood to conduct any further business this night.
As he stepped down from the dais, however, he was approached by Nicolae. The pure-blooded heir was resplendent in a red velvet doublet and fawn-colored hose. “Pardon me, Lord Viktor, but might Soren and I have a word with you in private?” The Irish overseer stood silently at the prince’s side. “It concerns the lycan situation.”
Viktor scowled. What new way have these vermin found to plague me? Morbid curiosity, along with the courtesy due an Elder’s offspring, compelled him to nod in assent. “Very well,” he declared. “Let us retire to my solar.”
He turned to address a nearby Death Dealer, who was hovering near the throne hoping to overhear what the Elder had to say. “Kraven,” Viktor said curtly. “Attend us.”
“Yes, my lord!” Kraven replied eagerly, joining the other vampires as they exited the throne room and strode down a short corridor to the thick oak door that guarded Viktor’s private sanctum. The Elder drew open the door and beckoned Nicolae and Soren to step inside. Kraven hastened to accompany them, but Viktor extended a restraining arm. He brushed past Kraven to enter the solar himself, leaving the bewildered Death Dealer outside in the hall.
“Watch the door,” Viktor instructed Kraven brusquely. “See to it that we are not disturbed.”
The frustrated Englishman tried in vain to hide his disappointment, much to Viktor’s private amusement. “Yes, my lord,” he said sourly. “I live to serve.”
Viktor chuckled quietly to himself as he shut the door in Kraven’s face. The young vampire’s naked ambition was positively comical. Kraven might well prove to be a useful underling, but Viktor was not about to make him privy to all his secrets just yet. Perhaps later, he mused, after Kraven has proven himself to be as discreet as he is power-hungry.
A yearning for fresh human blood came over Viktor, and he felt an almost overpowering urge to glut his thirst on some insignificant mortal victims, if only to relieve the unbearable sorrow and anger that had weighed down his soul ever since Sonja’s tragic fall from grace. His bloodthirsty imagination pictured a terrified peasant maiden squirming helplessly within his grasp, crying out in vain as his avid fangs pierced her throat. He could practically taste her warm blood on his tongue, so much richer and more intoxicating than the tepid cattle blood the Covenant compelled him to subsist on.
It has been too long, he reflected, since I have indulged myself thus. Such nocturnal sorties were his secret vice, known only to his most trusted subordinates. I must go hunting again soon, once this business with the lycans is concluded. Who knows? he thought. Perhaps I will bring Kraven along to clean up afterward….
For now, however, Nicolae and Soren awaited his attention. He turned away from the door and sat down on a high-backed wooden chair facing the two men, who remained respectfully on their feet. “So,” he said gravely, “what about the lycans?”
“Another new volunteer to see you,” Josef announced heartily as he stuck his head through the doorway. He gave Lucian a lascivious wink. “This one says she knows you of old.”
Lucian looked up from his work. Parchments bearing sketches of the mining camp’s new defenses were strewn atop a long oak table that had once belonged to Zoltan before Lucian took the late vampire’s quarters for his own. Carved out of the very face of the mountain, from solid rock mercifully devoid of silver, the cavelike chamber had provided Zoltan with a private sanctuary safely cut off from the sun. Oil lamps gave Lucian enough illumination to work by, while an expensive Persian carpet, imported from the Holy Land, covered the hard stone floor.
She? Lucian thought, puzzled. He had no idea whom Josef might be referring to—until the one-eyed Crusader stepped aside to admit a redhaired female clutching a naked infant against her bosom. “Olga,” he blurted in surprise.
“Shall I leave you alone?” Josef asked with a grin.
Lucian shook his head. “That won’t be necessary.” Stepping away from the table, he addressed the woman directly. “Greetings, Olga. I must admit, I never expected to see you or your child again.” He gestured toward a bench against a rocky gray wall. “Please, seat yourself.”
She remained standing, however, staring warily at Lucian as though she suspected a trick of some sort. Her closed expression betrayed little hint of what she was thinking. Mud and grass stains streaked her clothing, evidence of a long, hard journey from Castle Corvinus. Her baby, whose name Lucian knew to be Ferenz, sucked his thumb contentedly, oblivious t
o the tension in the room.
“So,” she said at last. “It is true what they say. You still live—and wage war against the bloods.”
Lucian heard skepticism in her voice. A pang of guilt tweaked his conscience as he eyed the M-shaped brand on little Ferenz’s bicep. He knew that Olga bore a similar brand on her own flesh—and that he had helped put it there.
“If you doubt me,” he asked her, “then why have you come?”
She was hardly the first to find him here. As word of his escape from the vampires’ dungeon spread, lycans from all over had sought him out to join his crusade. But never before had one of these new arrivals had so much reason to hate Lucian instead.
The former renegade thought long and hard before answering. “I saw you whipped in the dungeons,” she reminded him. Her voice was cold and flat, as though all emotion had been beaten out of her by the harsh rigors of life at the castle. “When the first few lashes drew screams from your lips, I rejoiced, glad that you were finally learning what it truly meant to be a slave to the bloods. But as the whipping went on, with each new lash stripping the flesh from your back, I suffered with you, realizing that you were still one of us after all. Then, when you rose up in defiance, striking out at the Elder himself, I rejoiced once more, but this time because I saw a werewolf stand up to a vampire—and live to tell of it. And that gave me hope that someday the rest of us might be free as well.”
Lucian felt himself deeply moved by the woman’s testimony. For the first time, he fully grasped that there was perhaps more at stake in this campaign than his own personal revenge against Viktor. For countless generations, the vampires had oppressed his species, condemning him and Olga and all their kind to never-ending servitude and dooming Sonja simply because she, unlike the rest of the vampires, dared to treat a lycan as her equal.
No more, he vowed.
“I give you my word,” he assured Olga. “I shall devote my life to destroying the vampires, even if it takes more than a thousand years.”
She nodded, accepting his promise. “Then Ferenz and I are where we belong.”
The baby squirmed in her arms and started to cry. She tugged her bodice off one shoulder and offered Ferenz her exposed breast. The brand on her upper arm was plainly visible as the babe suckled happily at his mother’s teat.
Lucian contemplated the tender scene, and the reality of Sonja’s death tore at him anew. If not for Viktor’s implacable “justice”, he might have watched Sonja nurse their own child thus, but such an idyllic moment was never to be his. Sonja’s father had seen to that.
Watching little Ferenz feed, he could not help wondering what his own son or daughter might have become. Sonja had believed that their child, the half-breed offspring of pure-blooded vampire and lycan, would possess extraordinary attributes. Was that what had alarmed Viktor so much that he had put his own daughter to death? Did he fear the unknown power of such a hybrid?
It was something worth thinking about.
Nicolae stepped forward to address the seated Elder. “I’m afraid, my lord, that there is increased unrest among the servant population. Many of the household lycans, including my brightest and most able manservant, appear to have defected from the castle altogether, while those who remain grow ever more truculent and uncooperative.”
“It’s true,” Soren confirmed, frowning beneath his beard.
His whips still bore evidence of Grushenka’s blood. “The stinking curs have gotten goddamn insolent ever since… that night with Lucian.”
“You mean the night my daughter died?” Viktor said caustically, subjecting Soren to a withering glare. He had still not forgiven the careless overseer for letting Sonja fall under that lycan’s spell. All this might have been avoided, he brooded, if only Soren had warned me in time. I might have been able to save Sonja from herself!
“Just so,” Nicolae agreed, diplomatically inserting himself between Soren and the aggrieved Elder. “Why, just last night, a lycan server deliberately spilled wine over my new satin doublet and displayed a singular lack of contrition when I upbraided her as she deserved.”
Viktor’s churning anger erupted to the surface. “Did I not intend to have every one of the vile beasts put to death after Lucian escaped? Yet you and the other Council members urged me to reconsider. It was too ‘drastic’ a step, you said, not wanting to do without your precious lycan servants!” His voice trembled with emotion. “It was not your wife or daughter who lost their lives thanks to these animals’ uncontrollable appetites!”
“No one is more conscious of your dreadful losses than I,” Nicolae assured him. “Still, one rebellious troublemaker, no matter how abhorrent his transgressions, should not cause us to reject in haste the venerable institution of lycan slavery.” He spoke in a measured and reasonable tone. “We have benefited from their servitude for many centuries now. Let us not proceed rashly.”
Viktor reluctantly saw some merit in the prince’s argument. Who would guard their fortresses by daylight if not the lycans? “What do you suggest?”
“The problem, simply stated, is Lucian.” Nicolae spat out the name, as though it were a curse. “His escape and his success to date at eluding our justice have made him something of a hero to his fellow lycans. The rumor among the servants is that Lucian is even now raising an army to oppose the coven and that lycans from all over are flocking to his banner.” He rolled his eyes. “A ridiculous notion, of course. Doubtless, he is actually lying low in some deplorable hiding place, terrified of being recaptured, but our credulous vassals imagine him as some sort of lycanthropic Spartacus, destined to lead them all to moonlit glory.”
Soren snarled at the very idea. “I’ll show them glory,” he muttered, fondling the handle of a whip, “right before I strip the flesh from their bones!”
“But first we must dispose of Lucian,” Nicolae insisted. “He is the figurehead of this incipient rebellion. Crush him, and the other lycans will remember their place.” A cruel smile lifted his lips, offering a glimpse of his fangs. “Spartacus was crucified, as you’ll recall, and the Roman Empire endured another four hundred years. As immortals, I expect we can count on an even longer reign—but only if Lucian is put down like a rabid dog.”
Easier said than done, Viktor thought. He lived for the day Lucian was in his power once more, but trying to find a single lycan in the wilderness was like searching for virgin blood at a brothel. How can we hope to lay hands on him again?
A knock at the door interrupted the meeting. The door swung open hesitantly, and Kraven stuck his head into the room. “Excuse me, milord,” he began.
“I told you we were not to be disturbed!” Viktor snapped irritably. Can I depend on no one this miserable century? At times, he wished that he had never been Awakened.
“Forgive me, Lord Viktor,” Kraven persisted, “but you must hear this.” He pushed the door open farther, revealing an undead messenger whose leathers were splattered with mud and dust, as though from a frenzied ride. A rusty iron bucket was clutched to his chest.
The urgency in Kraven’s tone, along with the disheveled appearance of the messenger, caught Viktor’s attention. He knew before hearing another word that something was badly amiss.
“What is it?” he asked.
The messenger staggered forward, visibly short of breath. Sweat plastered his dusty hair to his brow. “Dreadful news, milord. The mines at Mount Vrolok have been seized by bandits. Lycans, no less!”
“What?” Viktor rose from his chair in shock and indignation. “How can this be?”
“I do not know, Elder,” the messenger replied. “When no ore arrived at the smelter, the foreman sent one of his apprentices to investigate. He found the mines themselves in the hands of a sizable band of rogue lycans, who tortured him severely before setting him free with a message from the bandits’ leader—the lycan criminal known as Lucian.”
Lucian!
Viktor’s nails dug into his palms, drawing blood, as he struggled to contain his fearsome wrat
h. He shot Nicolae a meaningful glance. Perhaps the rumors of Lucian’s rebel army were not so baseless after all.
“What of Zoltan?” he inquired. The undead administrator in charge of the mining operation was a cousin of sorts to the late Ilona, only a few generations removed from the bloodline of Viktor’s own beloved wife. “What news of him?”
The messenger swallowed hard before stepping forward and offering Viktor the bucket he held before him. “This Lucian instructed the apprentice that these… remains… be delivered to you personally.”
The Elder accepted the bucket. He feared he already knew what it contained.
Inside were the fragments of a shattered skull. Fangs jutted from a piece of a broken jawbone, suggesting that the bones had once belonged to a living vampire.
“We believe that to be Zoltan,” the messenger reported unnecessarily.
Viktor seethed with impotent fury. He looked about for something to vent his anger on and spied Soren standing glumly a few feet away. “Damn you, you incompetent Irishman!” He lashed out at the overseer, not caring who heard him. “If you had kept a closer eye on my daughter, as you were sworn to do, none of this would be happening! By the dark gods, we should have left you to rot with your Viking masters!”
Soren opened his mouth to protest, but Nicolae intervened once more. “Wait, milord. Distressing as this news is, there may be, if you’ll pardon the jest, a silver lining to the present crisis.” He smiled shrewdly. “At least, now we know where Lucian is to be found.”
Quite right, Viktor realized. Disciplining Soren could wait; Lucian was the true wellspring of all this turmoil and tragedy.
“Our moment has come, then,” he declared, baring his fangs in anticipation of the decisive battle ahead. “You wanted Lucian crushed, Nicolae? Very well, let us spare no expense or effort to do so.” He drew his mighty broadsword from its scabbard and raised it before him like a scepter. “This sorry state of affairs has dragged on long enough. We will answer this outrage with an overwhelming show of force—the only language these mongrels understand!”