“I see,” said Ragoczy Germainus, to encourage him to continue to talk.
“Why am I telling you this?” He swung around to confront Ragoczy Germainus. “You are tricking me!”
“I am listening to you,” said Ragoczy Germainus without revealing his inner alarm. “And I understand.”
“So you claim,” said Olutiz sullenly. “But why should you?” Before Ragoczy Germainus could answer, Olutiz went on, “You disapprove of how we live. How can you understand?”
“Because I am a vampire, and I have lived nearly three thousand years,” he said.
The quiet statement brought Olutiz up short. He stared and struggled with a response, finally thrusting his hands through his belt and sinking onto the nearest stool. “That may be,” he allowed in an effort to maintain his sense of command. “And you know my mother.”
“Not as well as I would have preferred,” Ragoczy Germainus said. He did not add that he thought Olutiz was very like her; that observation would not be welcome.
“That is part of it, isn’t it?” said Olutiz, chagrin twisting the corners of his mouth. “She does not want anyone to know her too much.”
“It appears so,” said Ragoczy Germainus as he lowered his head.
“Do you intend to see her?” Olutiz asked cautiously. “I should warn you that she will not be—”
“No,” said Ragoczy Germainus. “That is not my intention.”
“That’s right,” said Olutiz with a quick smile. “You said you were planning to go by Roncesvalles Pass, weren’t you?”
Ragoczy Germainus ignored the note of doubt in Olutiz’s question and said, “Yes. I was.”
“Fewer Moors up that way,” Olutiz suggested slyly.
“Yes.” Ragoczy Germainus got to his feet. “I should go to the stable. Rotiger may need my help.”
“Somehow I do not think so,” said Olutiz. “I will have Achona make up a bed for you.”
“So Achona is with you,” said Ragoczy Germainus, not truly surprised.
“Yes. She is.” The justificatory note was back in his tone again.
“Do not bother her,” said Ragoczy Germainus with a wave of his hand. “I will sleep with Rotiger, in the loft.”
Olutiz shrugged. “If you prefer. There are rats in the stable.”
“No doubt,” said Ragoczy Germainus wearily. “There are rats everywhere.”
Olutiz did nothing to stop Ragoczy Germainus from leaving; he remained seated, his chin sunk on his chest, his whole aspect one of indifference. As Ragoczy Germainus closed the door, Olutiz finally moved, but only to set the bolt in place.
The stable was not large, but the stalls were well-made and there was hay in the mangers for their animals. Ragoczy Germainus found Rotiger busy with their chests, which he had piled up in the center aisle between the stalls.
“The jenny is better,” he said as he saw Ragoczy Germainus approaching.
“Good. We will have to travel far tomorrow,” said Ragoczy Germainus.
“Is there trouble ahead?” He stopped in his work, concern in his faded-blue eyes.
“There is trouble here,” said Ragoczy Germainus, coming to sit on one of the chests that contained his native earth.
“With Chimenae’s tribe?” he asked, knowing the answer already.
“And who knows how many others,” said Ragoczy Germainus heavily. He glanced at the nearest stall. “Where are the brushes?”
“In the leather case, where they always are,” said Rotiger, recognizing a sign of worry in Ragoczy Germainus.
“Hand it to me, will you?” Ragoczy Germainus asked as he got to his feet once more. He took the case and went into the stall where he began to brush his grey, working down the glossy neck to her chest and withers. “Have you seen Dorioz?”
“You mean that little ferret of a boy? Yes. He slipped in here to bring buckets of water. He is a guileful one.” He resumed his work while Ragoczy Germainus went on grooming his horse.
“Did he say anything to you?” Ragoczy Germainus asked a short while later.
“Only that there was a well behind the inn,” said Rotiger, feeling uneasy.
“Did he.” He stopped working the brush and looked directly at Rotiger. “We must be on guard this night, old friend.”
“From that boy?” He showed no sign of amusement. “How can that be?”
“Not only the boy. Olutiz said there are six of them here, but admitted that a dozen still remained: I saw only him and Dorioz.” He rested his arm across the grey’s croup. “This makes me suppose there may be many more of them.”
“How many more?” Rotiger asked without any indication of distress.
“I wish I knew.” Ragoczy Germainus went back to brushing his horse, then picked out the hooves. “Olutiz said we would not be disturbed, but—”
“—but you are not convinced of it,” Rotiger finished for him.
“Exactly,” said Ragoczy Germainus as he came out of the stall, the leather case in his hand. “It might be best to build up a small fire near the door.”
“I take your point, my master,” said Rotiger. “And when that is done, I will keep watch from the loft.”
Ragoczy Germainus laid his hand on Rotiger’s shoulder. “That should be my task, old friend. If you will guard the animals, I will be sentinel for us.”
Rotiger nodded. “As you wish,” he said, and began to set up tinder and wood near the entrance to the stable while Ragoczy Germainus climbed into the loft to keep watch.
Report from Yamut ibn Mainum to Khallad ibn Baran ibn Fadil, carried by military courier.
In the name of Allah, the All-Compassionate, may I be struck dumb and blind if I report inaccurately in any detail; may my family be beggars in lands of famine, and may no son of mine bring honor to my name if I fail to present all the information you, most revered official of the Caliph—may Allah give him long life and many sons—have asked of me.
The detail of slaves and guards you have assigned to me have been set to work in the hills to the north of the Iberuz River, for the purpose of logging trees and clearing land, to which task we have devoted ourselves for the last sixteen months. The labor has been demanding, for as we have continued up the mountains, we have faced more opposition than was expected. The villagers here do not often fight us, for they have few weapons, and nothing to bargain with but their few flocks. Some have even sold themselves to us so that their children might be allowed to leave. Most of those who have departed have gone toward Christian territory, or the city of Usca, where many villagers have sought refuge.
But we have encountered other difficulties. The villagers in the higher valleys are not like those on the lower slopes. They have rituals that make them stubborn to our advances, and they tell us of demons that come in the night to drink the blood of unwary men. These tales have been told for years, and some of our men have heard them with fear. I put little faith in such fables, for surely anyone could understand how it was that the villagers would claim such an evil in the hope of protecting themselves from what our tasks demanded we do. Those men who claimed to have seen these night-demons all said that nothing could be done to keep safe but to set fires or behead the vile creatures. To keep our slaves from being made weak with dread, I ordered that fires be lit and maintained around our camps at all time. I also ordered the guards to behead anyone they caught sneaking around our camps at night. For a time this sufficed, and all those under my command were willing to work without fear.
But that has changed. In the last month we have been cutting trees in the region called Holy Blood, and there have been problems we have never encountered before. Not only is it more difficult to log in these mountains, but we are no longer able to count ourselves safe from the night-demons, for it would seem—Allah witness that I speak truth—that some of the night-demons are Moors, for only Moors could approach our guards and not be stopped or beheaded. In the last month, four of our guards have died, bled white and left with wooded stakes driven through their chests. The slaves are no longer willing to work, for they are afraid that they will die as their guards have died. The number of logs we have cut and sent down the slope is halved because of this fright that I cannot combat or fault.
I have sent to Usca to ask the Imam there what we must do to save ourselves from these night-demons that are all around us. We have taken refuge in a walled village called Mont Calciuz, and we have made the villagers work for us, both in cutting trees and in tending the flocks that follow, for they have long dealt with the night-demons and are wise in their ways. It is an abomination, but we have allowed the villagers to leave men at the gates on certain nights as offerings to these night-demons, and thus far we have not had any more of our guards or our slaves killed. It is wrong of us to do this thing, but—may Allah bear witness—I can think of nothing else to save those consigned to my care.
The land we are to log is in this region of Holy Blood, and I cannot suppose that we will not encounter the same difficulties we have experienced here. The land is steep and the villagers leave tribute for the night-demons and kill pigs to make offerings to them. If we are to persuade our guards to stay at their posts, I must be allowed to continue this policy of appeasement to the night-demons, not only to save our slaves and guards, but to end their terrors. I ask you to allow me this liberty, or you will have to send many soldiers to root out and slaughter the night-demons, which would be a costly venture at a time our soldiers are needed elsewhere.
Also, I must warn you that if you are to send flocks into this region, the animals as well as the herders will be in danger from the night-demons. You may think that this is readily avoided, but I assure you it is not. I have been told that the night-demons are of several warring clans, and that unless some arrangement is made with all of them, none of our flocks or men will be safe.
It is my ardent hope that our production of logs will increase through
out the summer, but if we cannot keep the night-demons at bay, I may be forced to withdraw from this region until the soldiers have eliminated the monsters from their havens high in the crags and deep in the forests. It is the cutting of trees that most distresses them, we are told, for the woods have long been a safe harbor for them. Our slaves say that to go into the forest now is certain death, and the villagers encourage them in this belief.
Advise me, O Khallad ibn Baran ibn Fadil, for I do not know what to do that will fulfill my duty and protect those under my command. The night-demons are many and we are few, and our fears increase with every passing day. Soon we will be at a standstill if I cannot be permitted to mollify the night-demons so that we may do the work we are assigned to accomplish. As Allah knows the truth, I tell you that I am at my limit. This at the full moon before mid-summer, in the village of Mont Calciuz.
Yamut ibn Mainum
“They are following us still,” said Rotiger to Ragoczy Germainus three nights later as they made camp in a shallow ravine some forty thousand paces from the remote inn. The crags around them looked much the same as the slope where they had found the inn—swaths of exposed rock with occasional dead stumps serving as memorials to the lost forest. Patches of tough grass showed here and there, fodder for the goats that roamed the mountains in large flocks.
“Tomorrow we will reach the forest and they will find other game,” said Ragoczy Germainus with a tranquility that was only superficial.
“Do you think so?” He shook his head. “We could travel tonight, and put more distance between us.”
“And encounter who knows what in the effort,” said Ragoczy Germainus. “No, I would rather be on the road when they are all at rest. If there are as many vampires in these mountains as Olutiz implied there were, I have no wish to encounter them unprepared.” He glanced at the goose Rotiger was plucking and achieved a wry smile. “You may not think this is much of a meal, old friend, but it was not taken from any shrine to Chimenae’s get.”
“No, it was not,” Rotiger agreed as he continued to pluck, shoving the feathers into a canvas bag and grinning in anticipation of his meal.
“If only the road were better, we would travel faster,” said Ragoczy Germainus, revealing his anxiety in a quick frown. “With so many trees gone, the road may fall away completely in another year or so.”
“We have traveled over worse terrain,” Rotiger reminded him.
“And in greater haste,” Ragoczy Germainus said. “But I do not want to be driven through these mountains in panic if we need not be so.” He struck flint to steel and set the spark to the tinder he had gathered. “I do not like the notion of having to kill my own kind, but it would be wisest to be ready for that, as well.” He had three straight branches as long as his arm lying near the incipient fire. “I’ll get these sharpened when the flames are steady.”
“Do you think you will have to use them?” Rotiger asked, doing his best not to sound worried.
“I hope we will not. But it may be necessary, and I will prepare these to be both torches and stakes.” He frowned, grief at the back of his dark eyes.
“They would not hesitate to use those, or other weapons, on you,” Rotiger pointed out, understanding Ragoczy Germainus’ hesitation.
“Perhaps not,” he conceded. “But I cannot be easy in my mind about the possibility.”
Rotiger said nothing as he continued his plucking. When he was finished, he split the goose and sat down to eat it, after leaving the organs in a small pile a short distance from their camp. “There may still be cats or martens or weasels on these hillsides who will be glad of such food.”
“So there might,” said Ragoczy Germainus as he busied himself sharpening the last of his branches. He worked in silence, his thoughts carefully kept at bay as he worked, his determination showing in the set of his jaw. How long had it been, he asked himself, since he had had to face other vampires? It was half a lifetime ago, at least, in Judea, and the vampires were thought to be demons; then it had not mattered to him, for the killing gave him a rush of terror that filled him with a furious satisfaction that cut through his despair and left him intoxicated with the potency of the emotion. Only later did he discover the nourishment of love, and came to seek it instead of the inebriation of abject fright.