Nightlord: Sunset (56 page)

WEDNESDAY,

OCTOBER 12
TH

N
othing new, aside from more pronounced hunger pangs.  I haven’t seen anyone; the door hasn’t opened once since they took everyone away.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13
TH

T
his does not bode well.  I think they’re just letting me starve.  Not that this happens quickly—I’m thirstier during the day than I am hungry—but at night!  Right now, I understand the idea of a junkie needing a fix.  They don’t need to torture me; hunger is doing that.  I wouldn’t normally have a problem this soon, but…

Maybe they’re just letting hunger soften me up for negotiations?  I’m hungrier than I thought I could become.  It feels like I’ve swallowed an empty barrel.  One wrapped in barbed wire.  And it’s spinning slowly in my stomach, trying to grind its way out.  My blood… I can
feel
my blood.  It’s cold and thick and somehow it feels crackly—I don’t know how else to describe it.  Moving makes every muscle feel like it’s made out of lead—warm lead, and it takes about as much effort to move as it would to mold the metal.  Even my bones are hurting, like they’re all a little too large.

There isn’t even anyone to bargain with.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14
TH

S
omeone once told me civilization is two meals and twenty-four hours away from total collapse.  I believe it.  I don’t know what I’d do if I had someone to eat.  I can feel myself slipping… it’s like I’m not completely me anymore.  I need to feed.  I
need
to.  I can’t describe it; it’s deep.  It’s hunger that
hurts.
  And it won’t go away.  I can’t even ignore it; it’s too intense.  It’s all I can think about.

I burned my hands a moment ago.  I tried to reach out and claw at the outer circle; the power there singed me and brought me back to myself for the moment.

Would I be this hungry so soon if I hadn’t been beaten and bled so much?  No, certainly not.  Sasha once said something about some kinds of vampires lasting weeks between major feedings.  But what about the power I put into my protective circle?  Did that have anything to do with my current hunger?  I doubt it; that’s a more a function of the spirit than the flesh.

I’m hungry.

I have to get out of here.  I have to.  I have to have blood.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15
TH

I
’m… not entirely sure I’m really writing this down.  It’s hard to think, to focus.  It’s easier in here, in the depths of my mental study; I’m distanced from my body.  If I
am
in here.  If I’m not imagining I’m in here.  All I can think about is the taste of blood.  I have to feed.  I can’t stand it.  Something is throbbing, like a heartbeat.  I can feel it in every line of my body, like rage.  It’s like every organ, every muscle, every fiber is pulsing with the need for nourishment.  It’s getting stronger every minute.

Tomorrow will be worse.

SOMETIME LATER,

DATE UNKNOWN.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19
TH

T
he sun has just come up, and I’ve come back to what passes for sanity.  I’m in a cave, that’s all I know.  Somehow, I’m out of their circle.  I feel fine, though—not even hungry or thirsty.  I think that means someone is a rattling husk.  If I’m lucky, I found a flock of sheep.  I’m going to hope that’s the case while I try and find my way back to the surface.

WEDNESDAY,

OCTOBER 19
TH

A
ll right, same day, later.  I’ve found out a lot.  Here’s what I’ve done so far.

First thing I did was conjure up a light and start heading upward.  When I did so, I discovered there were a bunch of holes in my clothes—judging by the cuts, I guessed they were from swords and either arrows or crossbow bolts.  Most of the holes were punctures, which made my rags—sorry, “clothes”—look like something from Goodwill’s garbage.  Bad sign, that.  It meant a lot of people tried to kill me.

Ironically, I felt absolutely wonderful, in tip-top condition.  That spoke of a lot of blood. 
Other
people’s blood.

The surface wasn’t all that far away; I could smell fresh air and headed for it.  Apparently, I’m somewhere along the Eastrange.  At least, I think I am; it looks high and rugged.  The cave opening was small, or used to be; I apparently widened it forcefully on my way in.  There were handprints on some of the rubble.

Outside, Bronze was waiting for me.  She had a few scars—melted places, I guess, where bolts of fire or lightning must have hit—and was scratched, dented, and scuffed in general.  She seemed pleased to see me and otherwise healthy enough.  For a metal horse, I mean.  She was still hot to the touch, too.

I don’t know how she found me.  I don’t know how she even knew I was gone, for that matter.  But Bronze isn’t an ordinary horse—or even an ordinary golem.  I think.  She’s certainly very special to
me
.  She had with her the saddle I’d left on her, but there was no sign of Firebrand, and the saddlebags were rags.  I’d bet something cooked off the remains of my ammunition; a melted scar ran along her flank right where one of the bags used to be.  The saddle was mostly okay despite some scorching.

“I don’t suppose you saw what happened?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.  She surprised me by nodding.

“Can you tell me about it?”

She shook her head.

“I wish you could talk.”

She flicked an ear at me and turned so I could mount.  I took the hint and did so.  Ten minutes later, I had a good view of a pile of rubble with bits of wall standing in it.  Around it was the smoking remains of a sizable village.

Scattered hither and yon were bodies.  Men, women, and children.  Dogs, sheep, cattle, pigs, chickens—everything.  If it walked, flew, or crawled, it was lying in the sun, thin and wasted-seeming.  Dry.

Bronze went down into the village at a walk while I stared, dumbfounded.  I counted bodies, more out of shock and morbid fascination than anything else.  I think there were about sixty people of all ages, and even more livestock.

Corpses look slightly thinner when they’re sucked dry.  Mummified, almost.  The most striking thing about them was the sheer whiteness of them.  Pale as milk or chalk.  Lips without the faintest trace of pink.  White fingernails, even at the quick.

The buildings were the usual huts, sod houses, and occasional cabin; several had burned or were still smoldering.  From the postures of the dead, I concluded they had fought in desperation or tried to flee—and it hadn’t made any difference.

Oh, yes.  This was a complete disaster.  My disaster.

We went to the ruin of the manor or keep or whatever it was.  There was a lot of wood and stone lying in a heap where it had fallen in.  I noted the wall of the outer court—more like a six-foot stone fence—was still mostly intact, aside from the obvious lack of a front gate.  Well, it was there, but broken inward, lying on the ground.  There were hoofprints on it, too.

I pointed at it.  “Your work?”

Bronze nodded and kept walking to the rubble.  I dismounted at the pile and regarded it.  It looked as though most of it had fallen inward.  Since I didn’t know anything about the layout of the place beforehand, I couldn’t guess how it had been done.

“Did the magicians survive?” I asked.

Bronze tapped the ground four times, then scratched at the ground twice more.

“Four survivors that you’re sure of, maybe two more?” I guessed.

She nodded.  I love my horse.

“Well, that’s something, anyway.  Did you get me loose before or after you tried to kill them?”

She looked at me.  I played Twenty Questions with her and found out she attacked the building, charged into the place and wreaked havoc, room by room, until she found me and scraped a hoof across a line.

Then everything went to Hell, because a hunger-crazed vampire was on the loose.

It occurred to me I wasn’t wearing the wrist manacles anymore.  I wondered if I just snapped them off, or yanked them over my hands and then healed the injury.  Somehow, it bothered me to not know.

We had then gone on to kill everything we could find and catch.  I gather I rampaged through the house and brought most of it down.  Bronze kicked out a few supports as well.  I suspect she was being modest; I don’t see why I would attack a wall—they don’t have blood.

I wondered if the elderly young men were in some underground dungeon, or if I’d devoured them.  I decided I had to try and find out; if they were trapped in there, they deserved to be loosed.

Bronze and I started shoving the pile around.  Horses aren’t made for digging, but she did a fine job of shoving things out of the way that were too big for me to move.  I was slightly frightened by the ease with which I hefted stones.  Big stones.  Things the size of my torso.  During the
day
.

Apparently, diet has a lot to do with the progress of the vampire transformation.  Sasha had said something about growing in power as we get older.  Maybe it’s also a question of how much we eat, and what.  Or who, in the case of magicians and their ilk.

Maybe I’m pumped up from being really well-fed just now.  I keep trying not to think about that.  It’s obvious to me I must avoid being hungry.  Hunger always brings out a bad side of me when I’m alive; it’s much, much worse when I’m dead.  So are the consequences.  It’s a lot like my temper.  I’m not so much
different
from what I used to be like as I am
more intensely
so.

There’s something to be said for moderation.

As we shifted through rubble, we found more bodies.  Most looked like the house staff—servants and the like.  Sure enough, we found six magicians in various states of broken.  All six were white as snow and looked like they’d died of extreme old age.  Being caught in a collapsing house didn’t do them a bit of good, either.  But it was the pale, milk-white skin that clued me into the real cause of death.

I also found a key.  It was one of the keys I’d put in a saddlebag—one I stole from the Hand keep in Telen.  We shifted more debris around and I found a couple more nearby.  I kept an eye out for the rest of them while we cleared cracked stone and broken beams.  Whatever destroyed the saddlebag apparently scattered the contents.  More evidence my ammunition blew up.

It was almost noon before we cleared away enough debris to find the trapdoor leading down.  It was broken by falling rock, but the thick wood wedged a large hunk of masonry on the top step, so it wasn’t filled in.  Bronze kicked it once and reduced it to rubble.  I tossed out head-sized pieces.

Downstairs, I found cells.  They were simple things, just pits about twelve feet deep.  There were people in them, or what was left of people.  It didn’t look like I’d done it, though; they all looked ninety years older than God.  If I had to guess, I’d say killing a youth-stealing wizard is bad for the people he’s stealing youth from.  Why that’s the case, I don’t know, but I can’t think of anything else that would explain it.

Indirectly, yes, I guess I killed them, but I didn’t drink them.  I feel incredibly relieved about that.  I’m not sure why that should be so—if I’d been hungry and thrown into a pit with one of them, would I have felt bad about drinking his blood?  Probably.  I think it’s the fact I knew their names, talked with them… I knew them and liked them and didn’t have any need to kill them.  I also promised I wouldn’t; I’d like to think I keep my word about at least the life-and-death matters.

Strangely, I don’t feel much remorse over a whole village.  Is it a bad sign I don’t mind so much the deaths of so many strangers?  Or is it just because I don’t remember doing it?  It’s like I’m coming across the scene as a tourist.  It’s bad, it’s horrible, and I wish it hadn’t happened—but I don’t
feel
the deaths.  If I wanted to have a full course of denial, I could say
I
didn’t do it; it was the vampire side of me.

But even I don’t delude myself that much.  I know I did it.  I had to have done it.  There’s just no other explanation.  I just don’t remember doing it, so it doesn’t bother me as much as it should, I guess.

Once we found the dungeon, we shifted our priority to search for the rest of those keys.  They may be the only way I’ll ever get home again, and I wanted to have them.  Lucky for me, they’re highly magical; I could sort of feel where they were under the rubble.  I put them in a pouch and tied it to my belt.

Afterward, I cleaned the place up and dealt with the dead.  I gathered up the bodies, stacked them, layered them—a bed of thatch and logs, a layer of bodies with wood between them, another layer of wood, and so on—until they were all accounted for.  I found some oil, and this I sprinkled liberally over the whole arrangement.

Partly, this was out of a sense of obligation, I suppose.  Part of it was that burning them was easier than burying them.  And little bit was the knowledge there was, in fact, a deity that favored cremation, and I was fond of a priestess thereof.

Standing by the about-to-be-pyre, I looked up and addressed the Sun.  I felt stupid.  It’s a few million miles away and it’s hydrogen turning into helium.  It’s a big fusion bomb that’s continuously going off.  Talking to it is silly.  Besides, even if a goddess does have it as a symbol, I’m a
vampire
.  My talking to a solar deity is probably silly—or suicidal—no matter how you look at it.

“I’m not a fire-witch,” I said.  “I’m a man, I don’t have red hair, and I surely don’t know what sort of prayers You might want to hear.  If it matters to You, I’m sorry this happened.  I don’t know many of these people, but I liked several of them, had anger at a few others.  Maybe some of them deserved to die; others deserved to live.  I can only say I wish things were different, and I hope You understand. 

“I’m told if someone is alive, then they are part of Your faith; I’m also told You have an aspect as a guide after life.  Well, they were alive, and now they may need a guide.  I don’t know if You will listen to a prayer from their killer, but I’m offering one anyway.  I hate to leave You with a mess like this, but I don’t know of anything more I can do.  Please look after them.”

I stepped back, spots dancing in my eyes, raised my hands, and cast a spell above the pyre.  A lot like the spell on the Archimedes Ray lens, it shifted some visible light into heat, but it was also refractor, focusing a six-foot circle of sunlight into a dot.  It was an easy spell, nowhere near as power-intensive as the actual enchantment had been.  It was a great magnifying glass in the air, focusing the sun’s rays to light the pyre.

Shockingly easy.  Where I had expected effort on par with pedaling a bicycle up a minor hill, the actual effort was more like keeping a good speed on a level road.  It was the magicians I’d devoured, of course.  Several of them.  Old and highly proficient in their craft.  I made a mental note to watch what I ate.

Flames licked up immediately and I let the spell lapse.  I don’t know how much smoke bloodless bodies are supposed to give off, but I suspect that someone—or, rather, Someone—heard me before I lit it.  It was a
very
clean fire, which gave me much to wonder about.

I led Bronze away from the pyre and we started salvaging what we could find:  Some clothes, a decent sword, all the money, some food, a set of saddlebags, several blankets.  Thus supplied, we headed back toward Eastgate; the sword as a good one, but I wanted Firebrand and the rest of my stuff.

It did occur to me that the escaped magicians might watch my room, use my stuff as a trap, knowing I’d come for it.  Considering what I’d been put through, what Bronze had been put through, and—not the least!—what they had driven me to do in hunger… I rather hope so.

Hmm.

On second thought, I hope not.  Revenge is not something I find I like.  Anger isn’t something I like either.  Especially when I have the evidence of a loss of control on my part lying dead in the sun.

Which brings me to think of Sasha.

Do I want to kill someone in the Church for that?  I think so.  I know that someone—this Tobias person, probably—deserves to die.  But I can’t bring back the dead; why should I presume to kill him?  I could assume it’s my job to mete out death to the deserving, but who is it that dispenses life?  It seems to me that there ought to be a balance to these things.

Or maybe the world just has more live scum than dead nobility?

I must avoid that thought; that way lies cynicism.

Still… some part of me, most of me, doesn’t want to let the issue of the Church and Sasha go.  Call it a sense of duty to her memory, rather than a burning need for vengeance.  I still want to punish them for what they did—and what they are doing—but I don’t… it isn’t… it’s only a quiet determination, not a raging need.  It isn’t the be-all and end-all of my existence.  I’m tired of killing, really.  And this Tobias—I don’t even know him.  He’s just a name, not
someone
to me.  It’s also been a while; I’m not as passionately angry as I was some months ago.  I’m still upset about it, probably always will be.  But…