Forever Young Birth Of A Nation (58 page)

Andre backed an opponent toward the women as
both of their sabers flashed and rang. Liri darted forward and
taking a pocket pistol she shot Andre’s opponent in the back of the
head and Andre lopped off his head seconds later, shouting “Thanks,
Liri” as he whirled to dodge a sword thrust and cut off that one’s
sword hand.

Mustafa was by now covered with his
opponents’ blood and was shoulder to shoulder with Louis, as they
fought two males with sabers. Their superior technique and years of
practice with Ian and Li were definitely paying dividends as they
repeatedly wounded their opponents grievously. Finally Louis got a
break and delivered a mighty slash to partially decapitate his
opponent and in the same instant, he recovered and cut the sword
hand off of Li’s opponent as Li sliced off his head. Pivoting,
Louis delivered a mighty side kick to his first opponent, now
staggering about, his head flopping about, attached by his neck
vertebrae and back tendons only. This drove him flying to land on
his back where he met his fate as Andre spotted him and finished
decapitating him.

By now the carnage was so great that all who
remained on their feet had to be cautious where they stepped for
the bodies and body parts lying everywhere. The scene was grisly
and bloody beyond describing and the only thing that kept the smell
of blood from being overpowering was the acrid stink of the gun
smoke that had by now turned the air a sooty gray color.

Fewer gunshots were now heard as most had
discharged all of the weapons they were carrying and as it had been
with the Paris coven, the sounds now were grunting, cursing and
occasional cries of pain punctuated by the sounds of ringing steel
as swords and knives continued to be used.

Deiter had managed to hang on to his double
bladed axe in spite of a serious wound in his side and a vicious
slashing cut from his scalp to his neck which had exposed his skull
somewhat. He grimly bored in toward the staircase where Heinrich
and Wilhelm had a pair of younger swordsmen pressing them back up
those stairs. Taking one from behind, Deiter lopped off his head
and drove his shoulder into the other one’s back, knocking him
forward for Wilhelm to lop off his head.

“Good one, Deiter” shouted Wilhelm as the
three turned and advanced toward a knot of eight survivors who
fought for their lives as the invaders began to bear in on each of
them from all sides. They literally were now standing atop the
corpses of their comrades as they made their last stand in the
foyer of the house. It was a scene out of hell what with numerous
disembodied heads rolling about, kicked hither and yon with their
eyes rolling and mouths moving, trying to scream.

Li began to circle behind his team mates,
searching for dragon pistols not yet fired because those were
always holstered on the back side of the weapons belts. Finding and
gathering four he began to lunge between his comrades and shoot the
males still standing point blank in their faces, each time dropping
that weapon and quickly moving to another gap between his team
mates to dispatch yet another one. In only seconds there were but
four left, three being males and a doggedly determined female, who
was tall and rangy and good with a sword.

The last four fell to Hans, Steven, Josef,
and Celeste who had recovered and had dove between Marie and Sophia
with her dragon pistol, shooting the tall female in the face at
point blank range. It was over, and Li quickly called out “Who is
hurt?”

Jennifer cried “Liri’s hurt! Come here!
Hurry Mustafa!” In seconds Mustafa was at her side and she had
nearly been disemboweled and was moaning as she held herself
together. Jennifer had already given her all four of her flasks and
she was mending as Mustafa gently sat down, cradling her in his
arms, ignoring some eight serious wounds on his own body.

“Louis! Monsieur Von Steuben! Help me! Over
here” said Celeste as she beckoned, kneeling beside Friedrich. Von
Steuben cursed and leapt across the room, searching through the
body parts until he found Friedrich’s hand and brought it to
Celeste, holding it to the body of the young Adept as Celeste held
him. The two stayed bent to their task as Sophia limped across the
room to Li. She had suffered a severely cut calf muscle and could
only hop and stagger to her husband who caught her and carried her
outside to the front porch where he pulled one of his flasks from a
thigh pocket on his fighting suit and held it for her to drink.
When she had drained it he quickly gave her another which she was
able to take and drink on her own. He sat cradling her in his arms,
looking about at the carnage that he could see even from outside on
the porch.

Celeste saw Marie looking at a nasty wound
on Henri’s thigh and called to her “Marie, can you help us?” She
and Henri both came over, picking their way through the carnage and
Marie knelt beside them, holding one of her flasks to Freidrich’s
lips and allowing a bit of blood to dribble into his mouth.

Heinrich said “Look, it is beginning to
knit!” The flesh around his wrist began to close up as he spoke and
the four of them stayed huddled over him, ministering to him as
Jennifer and Andre looked to each other’s cuts. Josef was helping
Alexander with Simone who had a grievous shoulder wound that had
exposed and broken her collar bone. She wept as Alexander held her
while Josef and Louis realigned the bone ends as best they could.
The bone began to knit and realign itself, straightening properly
as it grew together. In less than two minutes, the flesh started to
knit back together, the bone being healed already.

Standing up, Henri looked about and spied
Wilhelm, helping Deiter over to the stairs where he could sit.
Little of the furniture on the first floor had survived save for
two sofas which were covered with corpses and body parts. Coming
over to the two he said “I need to see some Gendarmes up the street
now. Can you come with me?”

Deiter said “Go ahead” as he took a flask
from Wilhelm’s hand. As the two went out the door, Henri said “this
one was about as bad as it gets from my experience.”

Laughing, Wilhelm said “My God, Henri, I
hope so. Austria was not near as bad as this thing. What a
nightmare!”

The two split up, each carrying a sealed
package to two small groups of Gendarmes two blocks away. The
Gendarmes were thanked and told to stay until sunrise.

Back at the house Marie had asked Steven and
Hans to each take one of the two humans to a nearby church and
release them. They were left bound and covered until they were
released and had not seen anything that happened although both had
been frightened out of their wits by the experience.

Two female survivors were questioned by Li
and Mustafa. Moreau had been there, but had gone to look for two
other vampires who were supposed to join them that night for
planning the assault on the chateau. They swiftly executed the two.
Henri brought Alexander and Simone to Sophia and Li and said “Li,
these two are taking over all of your property rentals. You two
have trained them well enough.”

The two looked at each other and then at
Henri as he said “I have a job for the two of you and it involves a
bit of traveling.” He put an arm around each of them then and they
walked away from the others as he began to explain.

The cleanup lasted until sunrise and then
the house was seen by local residents in that area burning, and it
burnt to the ground that very morning. The Gendarmes never
investigated the fire as no bodies were found at the site. The
cause of the fire was never determined by the authorities.

As Ian had leapt over the campfire and all
who sat around it he landed running at a frightening pace, sword
raised and eyes glowing. A voice cried out in the darkness then
saying “Ian, it is me!”

Dropping his sword, he ran to Moon Owl and
picked her up, holding her over his head like she was a little
girl, whirling around laughing as he said “Oh how glad I am to see
you” as he set her down and kissed her several times. Laughing she
said “I only lasted a day after you left and I couldn’t stand it so
I followed you. The others should be here tomorrow.”

“Did you let them see you?”

“I avoided them. I just passed them by late
today.”

“Come to the fire. There are some people I
want you to meet” he said as he bent to pick up his sword. Calling
out to them he assured them that a friend had come and brought her
to the camp fire. The others were all standing now and even the
little girls were awake. Introductions were made and after a while,
they all settled down around the fire, Moon Owl reclining against
the same tree trunk with Ian. All four of the little girls came
over then and wanted to lie with them, so Ian and Moon Owl covered
the four and sat back with them, answering questions for over an
hour. The women were amazed that she would come that far alone and
that she had been able to track her husband.

By then the little ones were asleep and
others were now rolling up in blankets to sleep themselves. Ian and
Moon Owl sat talking in low voices for a while and when the fire
had nearly died a couple of hours later they silently got up.
Quietly they rolled up their blanket, fed the fire and left the
camp. Ian said “Let’s do a circle to make sure no one is nearby.
Then we should hunt so they will have meat in the morning.”

They rocketed away and completed a circle
within an hour listening very carefully. Assured that there were no
hostile forces in the area, the two hunted and killed seven
rabbits. They drained and refilled their flasks, skinned and
dressed the game, rolling each rabbit in its hide and taking those
to the camp fire silently, where they left them for the others to
roast. They then bathed in the stream in the ravine and made love
in the moonlight after running a short while to dry themselves.

Looking up at the incredible display of
stars Ian said “I know I said it, but I am really glad you came to
me.”

“Mmmm. Yes, I think you just showed me that”
she said as she snuggled closer to him, kissing his neck. What was
it you wanted to tell me about the captives?”

“We didn’t get all of them.”

She sat up then, looking down at him “There
are more?”

“Yes. The war party split up and took eight
other women and two other children with them.”

“No sign to follow?”

“The storm washed it away.”

“Could you have caught up with the ones you
took these from?”

“Yes, but I would have had to leave these
alone and they were so hungry and afraid, I thought it best to get
them back to their people.”

Nodding then, she agreed as he continued. “I
hoped to try to pick up their trail later and track them to their
village. If we can do that yet, we might find the others.”

“You think they will tell you anything?”

He looked at her and let his eyes glow
fiercely for a few seconds, saying “I can be persuasive.”

***

Arnaud Moreau stood in the deep shade of a
grove of trees around midday, looking dejectedly at the smoldering
ruins of the house he had bought for his coven. He was devastated
and depressed. Was this an accident, or was this a result of a raid
by the Lafayettes? There was no evidence to sift through and no one
to talk to either. He would return tonight and wait all night if
need be for any of them to return to the place. They surely had a
stake in seeing this through, being as he had promised them they
could loot the Chateau de Lafayette completely and keep anything
they could carry away. The last time he had been with them was the
evening before when he went to see what was keeping his last two
members. He had never found them, but their place was extra messy
for some reason, almost as if there had been a fight there too. He
thought
what in hell happened here? Was it an accidental fire or
maybe a fight over one of the females? Perhaps I should have
brought in more females to prevent this sort of thing. I will
return here tonight to see if any come back. If none return, then
what do I do? Damn this bad luck!

***

Chief of the King’s Gendarmes Claude
Rousseau paced back and forth as he read this latest letter from
the Laforges. It had come with a drawing of a man. He was asked to
circulate posters of a person named Arnaud Moreau for the crime of
sedition. Laforge assured him the man would leave France once this
happened because he could not be jailed even for a short time, for
unexplained reasons. A plausible cover story was suggested in the
off chance that the man walked into a Gendarmerie and surrendered.
He would be held until the Laforges could be told where he was
incarcerated. Then he would be released. It would be called a case
of mistaken identity due to an addled witness, and the Office of
the King’s Gendarmes would be free of any suspicion. So he had
nothing to risk in this one either.

Shaking his head with a smile he took the
drawing and description to his assistant with an order for it to go
to a printer immediately. He thought
I just turned the Chief
Inspector of Marseille Gendarmerie into a babysitter, so what could
be more bizarre than that? The Laforges can’t find this Moreau, but
no doubt they know where or who he will go to once he is in hiding.
Who is this fellow that he would make enemies of people like
them?

***

Priscilla had thrown herself into organizing
the tenant house at the Stedman Estate and without any help other
than Oliver she had cleaned the place from top to bottom including
washing all windows inside and out. She had taken the smallest room
for herself and Oliver and assigned the others to share the larger
rooms, but she had tested all of the beds and had taken the best
one for hers and Oliver’s room.

Asking Yvonne if she might have money to buy
a paint brush, turpentine and paint, she had scraped and Oliver had
painted the shutters, window casings and doors white, being as the
building was stained a barn red color. After everyone had moved in,
she had cleaned up the surrounding area, putting many things either
in one of the two barns or behind them. She had even repaired an
old swing out there, finding fresh rope in the barn for that. The
place had never looked better and even Stefan was impressed. Grundy
had even told her one day that the place looked nice. For her part,
Yvonne was well pleased and congratulated herself for being so
clever as to allow Priscilla more freedom and also for mating her
with Oliver. By now she was convinced to allow Priscilla all of the
time away that she asked for so long as it did not exceed maybe
three days at a time.