Necroscope 9: The Lost Years (41 page)

Nodding slowly, grimly, the young man said, ‘Now tel me: did they bring in a basket of fruit?’ His voice was cold as the wind through the mountain passes. Though his eyes showed litle or no emotion, his lips were thin and pale; his chest rose and fell, rose and fell, as if from running. And suddenly Borisciu saw the right and wrong of it - the cold-blooded murder of it - and could keep his peace no longer.

They did,’ he gulped at last. ‘A basket laden with fruit and nuts. And I remember thinking it strange that for the first time in as long as I could remember, the Zirescu twins had done a litle hard work!’

‘Dirty work, aye,’ the other muttered, turning away. ‘They must be mad or half-witted, to bring that basket back here.’

‘Or they don’t give a damn,’ The Provisioner caled after him, quietly. ‘Because for too long they and their father have stood taller than any law, even their own. But you … you’re grown to a tal one in your own right! Only go carefully, lad, and look for them at Hzak’s brandy stall. They were halfway drunk when 1 passed by an hour and a half ago. By now they’ll have had a skinful; they shouldn’t give you too much trouble. But what’s this? Wil you go hot-blooded and without a weapon? I like you, Radu Lykan; even as I liked your father. I’d hate to see you dead, too.’

Good advice. Radu went to the caravan of Freji Lykan, now his … and found it dark and stil, the lamps unlit, the door swinging ajar in a night breeze. But an empty clay jug lay on the grass outside, and a whiff of brandy stil drifting on the air: foul breath of the beasts who had been here before him.

Magda … was in the bushes close by, where they’d dragged her, used her, and left her broken and naked and dead. And Radu incapable of believing it; he could only sit holding her in his arms, rocking her and shaking his head. Until in a little while he grew cold, then hot, then bitterly cold again, and trembling as from a fever - or from the fury building inside, as he pictured in his mind’s eye that which he
could not bear
to picture:

The blood under her fingernails, some of which were broken, a sure sign of the furious fight she’d put up. The coarse-weave scarf around her neck, with which they’d choked her screams and eventually her life. The bruises and other …
signs,
upon her tanned body. Many hands had gripped Magda’s flesh, to hold her down (even as Radu had been

held down, upon a time), their fingers digging in, to leave disgraceful, impure marks on what had been purest of al. And al of them had shared in her - shared
in
her! And there had been more than just the Zirescu twins …

Back to the caravan Radu went, his feet finding their own way, for his mind was somewhere else. To the box under his bed, where in the afternoon he had cleaned his crossbow, and wrapped it in an oiled rag until the next time. For now it
was
the next time, except he wasn’t after goats now but pigs.

Then to the campfire, where the coarse, gutural laughter of drunken men - or louts - rang out loud in the red-flickering light; and a half-dozen of them sitting there, where decent men no longer sat, for the Szgany Zirescu were ashamed of themselves. But no shame here, only whispers and jeers and the mention of … of a name! Magda’s name! But to have heard it from the rubbery, brandy-sodden lips of her violators and murderers! To have heard it in
such
a context: That’s
a fuck
I’ll never forget! And tight as the skin on a tambourine -wel, until we were al done with her, anyway!’ The speaker was one Arlek Bargosi. He burst out laughing at his own coarse wit - then coughed, choked, and lurched to his feet. The others looked to see what was wrong with him—

—And saw the flighted half of a crossbow bolt sticking out of Arlek’s Adam’s apple, and the red-dripping barb protruding from the back of his neck! Arlek clutched uselessly at the stout ironwood shaft, said, ‘Urk! Urk! Urk!’ Then spewed blood and fel on his face in the fire. And as hot cinders flew this way and that, Radu Lykan stepped into view, stretched the gut on his weapon, and laid a second bolt in the tiller’s groove.

But Radu was changed, his face no longer expressionless but broken in a nightmarish grin, his eyes reflecting the red firelight, and teeth bared like bars of white light where saliva foamed in the corners of his mouth. Taler and greyer than ever, he looked, and even more hawklike - except the hawk was blooded now, and stooping to its second prey.

The Zirescu twins shot to their feet. Bulky, bearded, red with booze, they were nevertheless sober in a moment. For this time, in the astonished silence, they heard the
thrum
as Radu released his bolt, and the
hiss
as it flew true to Ion’s heart… or would have flown true, if another of their cronies had not stood up and put himself stumblingly in the way.

That one’s name was Kherl Fumari, and Radu’s bolt smashed through his spine and pushed out his jacket a little in front before it lodged there. And as Kherl gave a gurgling cough and crumpled to his knees, Ion Zirescu saw how close he had come. For Kherl clutched at him as he slid to earth, and looked up into his face with eyes already glazing over.

And there stood Radu grinning his mad wild grin, chil as the night but fluid as a river, nocking his weapon and sliding home his third bolt on the Brian Lumley

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tiller … a shot destined never to be fired. Behind him, a massive figure loomed out of the darkness: that of Giorga Zirescu himself! A club was in Giorga’s hand; he hefted it, then swung it with smashing force against the back of Radu’s head. And that was that.

Giorga tossed the club aside, scowled at his dumbfounded sons and their stumbling coleagues. And: ‘Huh!’ he growled. ‘As wel I still have a friend or two -despite that I sired such as you two!’

‘Father, we—’ Lexandru started to speak.

‘—Be
quiet!’
his father told him. ‘Do you think 1 don’t know what brought al this about? Wel, I do! I was woken from my sleep by a friend, as I said. And he had overheard you talking about it round the fire. Radu’s sister, Magda - dead, and by your hands! Six of you, onto one girl! This pair of mangy corpses here, Kherl Fumari and Arlek Bargosi, and the Ferenczy brothers, Rakhi and Lagula,’ (Giorga glowered at the Ferenczys where they stood shuffling their feet and glancing sly-eyed at each other), ‘… and you two, of course!’

‘Not al our fault,’ Ion shook his tousled head. ‘It was you who sent us after Freji, to do him in. Wel, and there was that in Radu’s eyes as told us he knew! He must have found his father out in the woods. As for the girl: that…
was
an accident. She wouldn’t hold still.’

Coming closer round the fire, the old man kicked Arlek Bargosi in the side so that he roled over out of the embers. Smoke and the smel of roasting meat came up from Arlek’s scorched corpse; his black face crackled and popped. Giorga stepped around his body, and paused where Kherl Fumari lay sprawled on the trampled grass. ‘Huh!’ he said again. ‘A hel of a to-do, al this!’ And to Ion: ‘Help me with Kherl.’

Ion stepped forward—

—And met Giorga’s fist like a rock, smashing into his face! ‘Never accuse me again!’ Giorga stood over him where he fel. ‘Never answer me back in any way.

Do you understand?’

And Ion could only look up dazedly at his father, dab at his bloody mouth and nod.

Giorga nodded, too, glanced from face to face, narrowed his eyes and mutered, ‘Now then, listen in and I’ll tell you what’s to be done.’

The four gathered round him, and waited while he considered it. Then: ‘First the girl,’ he said, ‘where is she?’

Lexandru started to answer but Giorga cut him short. ‘No, don’t bother telling me. I don’t want to know. Two of you can colect her from wherever she is, take her into the woods and bury her. And bury her deep!’ He looked scathingly at his sons. ‘Later, when everyone has their heads down, you two had beter do the same for Freji Lykan. Except this time make sure no one can find him - ever! As for Radu: if that clout I gave him on the head didn’t do for him, the river wil. So drag him to the river bank where it’s deep, put a weighted rope round his neck and toss him in. In the morning we’re moving on; the next time we come round this way, there’l be nothing of evidence left. That’s it: a whole family dealt with. And our hands clean …’

Ion said, ‘And no one wil ask questions?’

Giorga nodded. ‘Probably. But this is how it was: ‘Radu went mad. He was always the weird one, as everyone knows, quiet and sneaky and what have you. So he was overheard arguing with his father. Then he must have folowed Freji into the woods and done away with him. His sister guessed the truth of it and accused him. He threatened her and she ran off. Knowing that she might come back and tell what she suspected, Radu made to go after her. Before he could leave camp, Kherl Fumari and Arlek Bargosi, who had learned something of the story from the frightened girl, chalenged him; Radu kiled them - one in a cowardly fashion, from the rear - and ran off. As for the veracity of the tale: why, here’s poor Arlek, al done to a turn, and Radu’s bolt in his neck. And here’s Kherl with another bolt in his back, and Radu’s crossbow lying where he dropped it. And there were witnesses: you four.

‘Al of this was tonight… you must work out the finer details for yourselves, for from now on I don’t want anything to do with it. But in any case, and since we’l never see any of the Lykans again, there’l be no one to deny your story.’

As Giorga finished speaking, Ion and Lexandru looked at each other. A mutual message, however silent, passed between them: that they’d beter have words with Provisioner Borisciu, too, to ensure that his lips were likewise sealed. Or maybe to seal them permanently, if they weren’t already. And:

‘Wel, what are you waiting for?’ Giorga wanted to know. ‘Best get to it, before this spreads any further.’

And all four of them, they got to it …

Radu knew nothing of the fact that he was dumped in the river, and that a big rock dragged him down to the mud and weeds. But the Zirescu twins had been very sober by then and in something of a hurry; the knot around his neck was fumbled; it had slipped loose before he hit the bottom. Then the current found him, buoyed him up, and whirled him downstream.

Midnight found him on his back, where wavelets washed white pebbles at a bend in the river. He was tethered by weeds, supported by a mat of drifted branches. The swelling at the back of his head was large as a hen’s egg, but apart from a handful of scratches and bruises he was in one piece, and felt all the better for it after he’d emptied his system of river water. He remembered

… well,
something
of the night before (the vengeful killing he had done, certainly, and of being knocked down and dragged through night-dark undergrowth; fragments of whispered conversation) but precious little. Still, it was enough for now. Sleep and
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warmth were what Radu needed most, to give the soft spot at the back of his head a chance to harden up.

He managed to get a fire going, dried out his clothes and got back into them, built a bed of bracken and grasses to sleep out the night. And spent most of the next day in sleeping, too, and in trying to forget about his father and his sister. It was hard, but he tried anyway.

Because by then he’d decided to forget about mankind in general and be a loner, one of the strange wild men who came down out of the hils now and then to sit by a campfire in the night. Except Radu would be a real loner; no campfires for him but his own, and no man’s company, either.

Al his life he’d known the brutalities of his ‘brother’ men, and for al he knew it would be the same in any tribe as it had been with the Szgany Zirescu. With which Radu Lykan was gone from the Szgany of Sunside, and claimed by the forest and the wild mountains. He had no friend but himself (at least for a while), no cares but his own, no counsel but that of the sun, moon, and stars. For the first time in his life he was free.

And he moved from place to place and territory to territory as if there were no bounds to speak of, taking to the ways of the wild as if it had been preordained. Thus Radu became a creature of nature, a man alone who went where his fancy took him. He left no tracks, and skirted or otherwise avoided the camps of men. But more especially he vowed to keep apart from the Szgany Zirescu, for he knew that if he returned to
them
it would be a bloody thing … his blood or theirs, whichever.

But he also knew that having
tasted
the blood of his foes, he’d found it to his liking, which meant it could easily become a habit. Two of his had died, and two of theirs had paid the price. Let that suffice; let Giorga, Lexandru and Ion Zirescu, and the Ferenczy brothers, stew in the juice of their own miserable existence, and if they thought Radu was dead so be it, he was dead - to them, anyway.

East lay the territories of the Szgany Hagi, the Szgany Tireni, the Mirlus, Lidescis, and many another band or tribe.

Radu often heard their babble, saw their fires reflected from clouds drifting low over the woods at night, read their boundary marks and crossed their trails; but other than that he had nothing to do with them, and they never once knew he was there.

So he wandered the length and breadth of Sunside’s woods; he climbed through the foothills to the tree-line, turned west, and explored the passes and mountain heights. For a year, two, three, he was alone, until the day when he found a great white she-wolf trapped in the scree where the flank of the mountain had slipped a litle. And it was a rare, strange thing …

Radu had been hungry and could have kiled and eaten the wolf. It would have been easy; he’d stolen a good crossbow in his wanderings and could have put a bolt in her, then dug her out and built a fire to roast her joints. She was a dog, true, but she was meat.

But looking into her great, feral yelow eyes, Radu decided against it. He, too, had been crippled in his time - by apathy and cowardice, and by the shame of the Szgany Zirescu, unable to escape from the shadow of a shameless leader - but he’d freed himself, grown strong in his freedom, and survived. This she-wolfs crippling was a purely physical thing: a forepaw was broken where it stuck up awkwardly from the rubble and debris, and she was unable to drag herself free. But Radu saw paralels, and couldn’t bring himself to kill her. It was one of those strange paradoxes; if she’d been Funning with a pack he wouldn’t have thought twice about shooting her. But now: