The Last Aerie (53 page)

The trouble with Wratha the Risen was this: she liked to toy with her men, and all the men of Wrathstack knew it. Still, Wran Killglance would have her if he could, and Gorvi the Guile if he thought it would strengthen his hand. As for Canker Canison: the dog-thing had openly admitted that he would swap half of the whelps in Mangemanse—even his own flesh and blood—for just one good ride on Wratha! But there was her reputation to consider, which was that of a certain spider: the sort that lures a male with her sex before she devours him! How may one mate with a maneater? With a great deal of care, the Lord of Suckscar was sure …

These were some of the necromancer’s thoughts as his man Grig Lichloathe approached, bowed, and shuffled his feet until he had his master’s attention. And finally: “What is it?” Nestor spoke softly, as was now his wont.

“A flyer has landed in the main bay, Lord,” Grig answered. “Turgis Gorvisman is here with a message from his master.”

“From Gorvi?” Nestor lifted an eyebrow. “And have you left the lieutenant waiting?”

“Yes, Lord.”

Nestor stood up. “Then take me to him. Let’s see what’s on the Lord of Guilesump’s mind.”

In a walled staging area over the landing-bay, Turgis Gorvisman prowled to and fro, three paces this way and three back, between six of Nestor’s senior thralls. They were armed and he was not. It would not have been seemly—indeed, it would not have been allowed—to bring a gauntlet into another’s manse. A huge man as most lieutenants were, Turgis’s message was brief and his voice a fair imitation of the rumbling growl of a Sunside bear as he said: “Lord Nestor of Suckscar, my master Gorvi the Guile proposes a meeting with you. He would discuss business: a matter of mutual interest, which might possibly lead to huge profits for both of you.”

“Indeed,” Nestor answered, inclining his head. “And the nature of this … business?”

The other shrugged, and growled wryly: “
Hah!
That will be the night, when Gorvi the Guile shares his thoughts with lieutenants or lesser persons! But this much I know: my master has heard it rumoured that you are a necromancer, with the power to talk to dead men.”

Nestor nodded. “He wishes to avail himself of my talent, then. And where will this meeting take place?”

“In Guilesump, naturally.”

But: “Ah, no!” Nestor shook his head, and smiled a slow, knowing smile. “If at all, it will take place here, in Suckscar.”

“I very much doubt it,” said the other. “For the Guile seldom leaves his manse except to raid on Sunside, or when he inspects his creatures where they prowl abroad near the foot of the stack. He prefers accustomed places, in order to maintain a measure of control. He takes no chances.”

“In this we are not dissimilar,” Nestor replied. “Now go back and tell your master that I’ll meet him an hour from now out on the boulder plains, due north of Wrathstack and just a mile from its foot. In fact, we’ll meet in the shadow of the stack itself.”

“At sunup?” The lieutenant’s gaze went out over the wall and across the mighty gulf of air, high over Starside to the barrier mountains.

“The sun never shines on the boulder plains, fool,” Nestor retorted, but quietly. “Anyway, we’ll be meeting in the shadow of the stack, as I said.”

“I heard and understood you,” the other answered. “But I also know that Gorvi hates to be abroad when the sun rises over Sunside. It is his nature.”

Nestor turned away. “It is the nature of each and every one of us, to fear the sun,” he said. “Also, it’s our nature to argue, and to have our own way. Gorvi desires to talk business with me; very well, I’ve named the place and time. Just the two of us. No gauntlets, lieutenants or warriors. If this is satisfactory, he’ll be there. If not…”

He made to go back inside.

“I can only tell him what you have said,” Turgis nodded, and started down a ladder to the landing-bay. “Who knows, he might even agree.”

Nestor paused and glanced over his shoulder, and stared into Turgis’s eyes before he disappeared from view. “Those are the arrangements,” he said. “If Gorvi doesn’t like them, he can wait a six-month before approaching me again. Time is in short supply. I can think of better ways to waste it than in arguing meeting places with Gorvi the Guile.”

“So be it,” the other’s answer came back to him.

And in a little while, Turgis Gorvisman launched out and down from Suckscar …

Gorvi was there. Nestor had watched from a north-facing window and had seen the Guile speed out upon a flyer. Only Gorvi could look like that: a great evil scarecrow of a man hunched in the saddle, his cloak flapping like the wings of a huge black bat. The other Lords were sinister, naturally, but Gorvi the Guile was
sinister
.

And with certain reservations, Nestor had sped after him.

For of course, Gorvi had been the one who would have made trouble for Nestor when first he came here out of Sunside. And it was Gorvi who had suggested a trial period, following which Nestor would either be accepted … or dropped. Probably from a very great height!

Well, it hadn’t come to that, but neither had Nestor forgotten. And now the Guile wanted something from him. All well and good—but nothing for nothing, be sure.

Nestor landed his flyer on a shale hillock some seventy yards from where Gorvi stood beside his own beast. Dismounting, he glanced all about, and turned his eyes on Wrathstack a mile away. Possibly they had been seen flying out and were even now spied upon. He felt the shields go up in Gorvi’s mind and applied his own. Their thoughts were now guarded.

And striding out towards each other, they and their long shadows soon came together in the greater shadow of the last aerie. They looked at each other a moment or two: Gorvi tall, slender, with the dome of his skull-head shaven except for a single central lock with a knot hanging to the rear; dressed in black, as always, so that the contrast of his sallow flesh made him look fresh-risen from death; and his eyes so deeply sunken they were little more than crimson jewel glimmers in their black orbits, yet shifty for all that. And Nestor: not quite so tall but well fleshed-out and handsome as hell, and open as a door left banging in the wind … or open by Wamphyri standards, at least. Then:

“Well?” said Nestor. “And do you have business with me? Or is it that you’ve decided I didn’t quite ‘get there’ after all, and now you’d like to throw me out to fend for myself in the stumps of the fallen stacks and scramble for a living in the scree and the rubble of Starside?” And he laughed a quiet, humourless laugh. “Ah, but that will be the day, Gorvi!”

“That’s all over and done with.” Gorvi’s voice was oily as ever as he held up a slender but wickedly taloned hand in a gesture intended as placatory.

“Forgotten by you, perhaps,” Nestor answered in his quiet fashion.

Gorvi threw up his hands. “I came out here against my best instincts to meet you as a friend, a colleague, even a partner! Now tell me: how may I make known to you the details of the … the matter in hand, if you insist on scowling, carping and mulling over ancient, best-forgotten scores? Anyway, what are you complaining about? You did ‘get there’ in the end, didn’t you? What? And if I had not set a limit on your ascension, can you honestly believe that the others would not have done so?”

Nestor smiled his slow, cold smile and said: “Don’t waste my time, Gorvi. Why don’t you get to the point? What is it you want from me? Who do you want me to … examine?”

The Guile tried not to look too surprised, but Nestor saw how his eyes narrowed. And eventually, carefully, Gorvi said: “But you’ve been talking to my man, Turgis.”

“Isn’t that why you sent him to me?” Nestor raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps you should have cut his tongue out, and sent him to me dumb! Turgis told me nothing—except that you were interested in my necromancy. That was enough.”

“Huh!” Gorvi snorted. “And they call
me
the Guile!” But in a little while: “Very well, I do have a man—or the body of a man—who has or did have secrets. And yes, it would be in my interest to know the things he knew. Indeed I would give a lot to know them. Even so much as half of the profits.”

“An even split?”

Gorvi nodded.

“But of what?”

“Knowledge! Flesh and blood! Red revenge! Women for your bed! And sly, taunting laughter on our lips when the others see what we’ve achieved! All of these things and more.” Gorvi grinned to show his needle teeth and crimson gums. “Well, what do you say?”

“I say you’ve told me nothing, as yet.”

“Very well,” said Gorvi. “Now hear my story:

“Almost two years ago, when first Wratha led us here out of the east, our first raids on Sunside were against a pair of Szgany townships named Twin Fords and Settlement. And that was when we first learned that there are Szgany and Szgany. In Turgosheim’s Sunside, for over a hundred years, our prey had given us no real trouble. But here they fought back! We lost flyers and men that night, which we could scarcely afford. Indeed, we lost almost
all
of our lieutenants. And we vowed revenge!

“The first of our losses happened in Twin Fords, and we Lords were lucky that we weren’t among them! The men of Twin Fords—some of them at least—knew what they were doing; they’d had dealings with vampires before. They had crossbows, which had been forbidden in the east since Turgo Zolte’s time. Tipped with silver and steeped in kneblasch, their bolts were of ironwood. Also, they wore long knives in their belts and were equipped with sharp wooden stakes!

“Vasagi the Suck took a bolt in the side, but to him it was little more than a scratch. And in any case, Vasagi was a master of metamorphism; he would quickly shed the poisoned flesh and replenish himself. The fact that he’d been shot at all, however, had come as something of a shock. And as I said, the rest of us were lucky.
We
were lucky, aye, but as for our lads … the majority of our lieutenants went down and stayed down.

“Ah, but didn’t we make them pay for it? You can be sure we did! We wrecked their town, ordered our warriors down onto their houses to crush them flat, made as many changeling vampire thralls as we could, and instructed them to report to us with all their goods in Starside before the dawn. Canker Canison ravaged with a vengeance; the Killglance twins raged like the madmen they are, naturally; and the Lady Wratha … well, she was wrathful! As for the town: we’d turned it to a shambles and it was the beginning of the end for Twin Fords. But it hadn’t even started yet for Settlement.

“That first town was serious work. It had been necessary to recruit thralls and lieutenants, have them fill our manses with all the good things out of Sunside, and set them to work for us in Wrathstack the last aerie, to make it liveable. And despite our losses, in the main we’d been successful. Szgany losses were far greater, and what are a few lieutenants after all? Still, it
had
been serious work. But Settlement would be for fun. So we thought…

“It was Wratha’s idea. She must have thought: ‘Now that my dogs have done their work, maybe it’s time I let them off the leash a little.’ For we were Wratha’s renegades then, do you see? And we might have been even now, if she wasn’t such a thief. But that woman … for every four we recruited, she stole one away! That’s what broke us up, and that’s the way we’ve stayed. Oh, each of us has a part to play in the maintenance of the stack—huh! And some play a greater part than others, too!—but as for the rest of it, we’re on our own.

“But there, I’ve strayed a little from my story.

“So, Wratha rewarded us by turning us loose on the second Szgany town, this veritable fortress of a place called Settlement. Well, she and the others were straight into it, no warning and no quarter given. But as for myself … right from the start I hadn’t liked the look of it. Especially not after the trouble we’d had in Twin Fords.

“Now, Settlement stands in the mid-west, directly below the foothills at the edge of the forest. The entire town is housed within a massive timber stockade with watchtowers and four huge gates, and giant crossbows mounted on the battlements…” Gorvi paused and frowned.

“But … why do I concern myself to tell you all of this? Surely you must know something of Settlement from your Szgany days?” A moment more and he snapped his thin fingers. “Ah, no! I remember now: you have no memory before the time of Wran and Vasagi’s duel.

“A pity, for if you had, perhaps you would also have the answers to my questions … without that you must torture the dead for them!”

Nestor shrugged. “I still don’t know what your questions are.”

“I’ll get to it,” Gorvi told him. And after a moment:

“That first night, after Twin Fords, I let the others go ahead and raid on Settlement while I settled for smaller prey. There was a house on a knoll in the foothills, overlooking the town. I had seen its lights, however briefly, from on high. But as we stationed our aerial warriors windward of the town behind a jut of crags, landed our flyers in the hills and called up a mist, so the lights were extinguished. It made me suspect that just like the people of Twin Fords, these Settlement folk had also had dealings with vampires. All the more reason to steer clear of the town …

“Well, I’ll cut a long story short. While Wratha and the others fell on the town, I made straight for the place on the knoll. And without pause I landed my flyer on top of the house and crushed it, then looked for survivors in the rubble. There was no one there. But scanning all about, I discovered a woman hiding in a stand of trees behind the broken house. She knew I had spotted her, made a run for it and ran right into me! She was mature, good-looking, and had a fine body on her. I would have struck her down at once, there and then—taken her for my thrall, and
taken
her, too—if not for an interruption.

“A youth, no older than you yourself, Nestor, had come up from the town. He was the woman’s son, surely. And he attacked me! One man, or callow youth, and he dared to attack Gorvi the Guile! It was astonishing. Ah, but he had a knife! The blade of his weapon was coated with deadly silver, which burned me where it glanced off my ribs and sliced my forearm. And meanwhile the woman had found a hatchet!