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Sky Fight!
From then on the Necroscope had been different; his parasite’s ascendancy had been reversed; once again his humanity had the upper hand Karen to the contrary: she tried to insist that he accompany her on raids into Sunside to ’blood’ hi of it, and she would be furious
’But you’re not blooded!’ she’d growl at him as they made love ’There’s a frenzy in the Wamphyri which only blood will release, for the blood is the life! Unless you take, you may not partake in your fullness You ht, can’t you see that? How may I explain?’
But in fact there was no need for explanations; Harry kneell enough what she meant He’d seen it in his oorld In boxers, the ht and so at their opponents with evenaway at the sae and small: the first splash of mouse-blood which turns a kitten to a hunter, or drives the hunter to a frenzy And as for sharks: nothing else in all the unexplored span of their lives has half sofor them!
But: ’I’ve eaten well,’ he would answer
And: Hah! he would hear her s, and roasted? What’s that for fuel?’
’It fuels h’ ’And your vampire not at all!’
’Then let the bastard starve!’ But he would never allow hier than that
So is co,’ he told her ’Didn’t we see it in the Möbius Continuum, in future time? Of all the lessons of my life, Karen, this is the one I’ve learned the best: never try to change or avoid what’s written in the future, for it is written All we can hope for is a better understanding of the writing, that’s all’
Again her snort: Hah! And bitterly, ’And noho is beaten, even before the fight?’
’Do you think I don’t feel tempted?’ he said then ’Oh, I do, believetime now that I can’t just let it win, no e and lust - went out and took the life of a ive th I need to destroy Shaithis and Shaitan? Perhaps, but ould be next after theain, but strong this time as never before, with all the powers of a Necroscope to play with? And with , what then? Do you think I wouldn’t begin to look for a way back into ue-bearer of all ti there,’ she answered ’With me to share your bone-throne’
He nodded, but wryly ’The Red King, aye, and eventually Emperor of a scarlet dynasty And all of our undead lieutenants - our bloodsons, and those who got our va their pus on a crudoms of their own; as Janos would have done from his Mediterranean island, and Thibor the warlord after he’d turned Wallachia red, or Fa��thor on his blood-crazed crusades And all of our progeny Necroscopes in their own right, with neither the living nor the dead safe fro, Karen!’
Follohich he wouldn’t even listen to her But even if he had it would have been too late
For that hen Karen’s other watchers, great Desht news of the arrival on Starside’s far northern borders of Shaitan and his small but deadly aerial forces Inaudible except to Karen and to others of their own genus, the cries of the great vae back across seven hundred miles of barren boulder plains: the fact that after four and a half years of peace, the Old Waarrived, and went straight to Harry where he stood wrapped in his thoughts on a balcony facing north ’Stand there long enough, Necroscope,’ she told him, ’and you’ll be able to wave the’
He barely glanced at her, acknowledged her presence with a nod ’I know they’re here,’ he said ’I’ve felt the on the ends of my nerves They’re not so many, but they shake the ether like an ararden’
’You go,’ she told hi went out of her voice ’See if you can call down your son out of the hills Maybe he’ll bring his grey brotherhood with hiood they’ll be is hard to say But me, I’ve a trio of warriors to wean and instruct They’re built of fine, fierce stuff, right enough - good stuff, left behind by Menor Maimbite and Lesk the Glut, which I found intact under the ruins of their stacks �C but when it co well, it’s true I’m a novice compared to them’
’Just make sure they’ll own me as their master as well as yourself,’ was Harry’s reply ’That way, even if they haven’t the ht be able to coht her up so swiftly in his arasped aloud And: ’Karen,’ he said, ’we’ve seen our futures: the red threads of our livesIt didn’t look too good for us, but at the sa We simply don’t understand it And in any case, whatever it means, it has to be better thanof our enemies’ futures; for they didn’t have any! No scarlet threads in Starside’s tomorrows, Karen’
’I re ht Whatever becomes of us, it’s worth it to know that they die, too’
Harry held her very close, very tightly, and his looks were evenit were all a fantastic dream, and that he’d wake up a schoolboy with all his future ahead of hih of the dreas worked that way! ’I wish I’d known you as soirl in my oorld, when I was just a man,’ he told her on impulse
Karen wasn’t so romantic She had been an innocent in her ti Traveller youth had wanted her, but in those days she’d kept herself (as she’d thought) for so lovers for an hour’ Her ansas harsh ’To hell with itI prefer e’ve had! Anyway, you are the Necroscope What do you know of ordinary men?’
The fire in her was a catalyst; it burned outwards through her shell to illuminate her as she really was: Wamphyri! Harry could be like her, yes, but did he need to be? He’d gone up against Dragosani, Thibor, Yulian Bodescu and all the others as a man, albeit a man with powers No, never an ordinary man, but neither had he been a ainst But again, as a man, or as nearly as possible
He released her ’Is there a flyer ready?’
’In the launching bay, yes But won’t you use the M&ourey brothers wouldn’t seea flyer I’ll be visible, a curiosity Not many flyers in Starside’s skies these days’
At the launching bay, watching hi ht: other than hi empty herself, Karen went back to her warriors
Harry and Karen were together in the garden’s desolation when Shaithis and Shaitan the Fallen came back into the old Wamphyri heartland But contrary to expectations the invaders did not launch an i out of dark, aurora-flickering northern skies, and oh so warily circled the debris-littered plains where the tumbled stacks of extinct vampire Lords lay in shattered ruin Eventually, ever cautious, they landed in the bays of Karen’s aerie and explored its e ini in the shadows But neither did they find gas-beasts, siphoneers, servitors in any shape or forth of the aerie’s ancient walls And even these weren’t secure enough for Shaithis
’I itness to the destruction of greater stacks than this one,’ he told Shaitan ’My own included!’
Two of thereat black cowl ’It took both Harry Keogh and The Dweller to control the power of the sun that time Can’t you see that? But there is no one, shrivelled to a wolf And as for his father: why, on his own this pale unblooded alien is less than a puling child!’
’Then why don’t we attack, and without delay?’
’We do, but not until we’ve fuelled our beasts and filled our own bellies Then, after we’ve rested our bones a little - and perhaps seen to other needs too long denied - that will be soon enough For we’ve co, cold, weary way, Shaithis; and not merely to dispose of this hated enemy of yours, or to let you sate yourself on the flesh of a female who spurned and betrayed you So cal you most desire shall be’
But for all Shaitan’s apparent confidence, deep in his black heart he, too, was concerned about their opponent, the so-called hell-lander Harry Keogh, a vampire who had not yet tasted the blood of other reat leech which was his ancestor had already employed his own superior, infinitely furtive vampire powers in a remote, partial examination of the Necroscope Shaitan’s telepathy was more advanced even than Karen’s and Harry’s (indeed, his was the s); even so, what probes he’d attempted had been perfunctory The reason was simple: only penetrate the outermost shell of the Necroscope’s psychic aura - co Centre of Pohich hewould feel it for hiht if he weren’t such a dullard; but such a beautiful dullard, and all wasted for now, anyway) That pent energy which was so reater even than that of certain vay of what, from where? These were the questions which caused Shaitan’s concern; for until he knehat Harry Keogh was, or what he ht become, he couldn’t really be sure how to deal with hiht, to deal with Shaithis the self-considered Devious - Shaithis the very beautiful, very dull, would-be Great Traitor - ould soon prove himself to be Shaithis the Great Fool That sauard on his hts fly free Except, why, Shaitan had long ago hts, which were secret no longer!
But ih when Starside’s weird, alien defender was dead or otherwise disposed of Or perhaps earlier, but only if Shaithis hi it to a head
These were Shaitan’s thoughts, but all kept hidden fro the aerie and took the rest with them into Sunside, where soon they spied the fires of a Traveller settleht air was filled with the screaluttony; also with the hot reek of the freshly dead, and with the shrieks of those taken alive Of the latter: there were six, and they were all woher s of Karen’s aerie caht of fires; sreat anddenied it was merry, anyway
What battered, broken tidbits were left when Shaithis and Shaitan were done went to the warriors for sweeted flesh still lived
In the garden, Harry and Karen slept
The Necroscope still reckoned tihts As yet, when his ht, his body’s response was to sleep But in any case his weariness would be as much mental as physical, for he knew that in any battle to co himself no less than the enemy The problerew tired, never changed: hoithout calling on his va it full rein over the range of its powers? For to allow his leech total ascendancy would be to signal his own suber be his own man but Wamphyri in every sense of the word
Karen had no such problem: she already was Wamphyri! But before that she’d been woman, and the Necroscope was her man When he slept, so did she, curled in his arms They were not totally unprepared, however: they were clothed, and Karen’s gauntlet lay close to hand And not unrunted a little, shifting its hugely armoured bulk for comfort where it had been positioned in the shadows beyond the crest of the saddle; likewise Karen’s second beast, forward in the lee of the here the ground fell steeply away to Starside’s foothills and the plain beyond As for the third creature: it was situated at a higher elevation, on a ledge under an overhang in the western crags, where its ht-oriented eyes peered far out across the boulder plains, searching the skies and starlit wastes for any unwarranted movement
But unknown to the sleepers, there was a fourth, far less conspicuous watcher Once known as The Dweller, noas a lean grey shape who kept hiarden froed treeline Sometimes, in a flash of memory, he would understand why he had come here, but at others he wasn’t quite sure Anyway, here he was
And it was his snarledof embattled beasts -which startled the Necroscope and his Lady ahen at last the invaders struck And for all their precautions, still they were taken by surprise, for the enemy didn’t strike out of Starside at all but from Sunside over the mountains, where it was still sundown!
The invaders had departed Karen’s aerie in full force, crossed the peaks far to the east where there was no one to observe them, and turned west in the lee of the e, their Sunside flight path had followed the spine of the crags to the latitude of the garden where, rising up over the peaks to look down on the territory of the defenders, they’d carefully noted the locations of the warriors and the fact that nothing else was stirring Then their probes had discovered Karen’s sleeping mind As for the Necro-scope’s mind: even asleep it had been shielded and i
Harry dreamed that he sped down Starside’s future tireen and red lines of life, and his ears see Ahhhhhhhh! monotone of life’s expansion into all of the toht Last ti ence of scarlet vampire threads upon his own And just when it seeether in some weird temporal collision, that was the point at which M&ou-pot which ter?
Maybe not
But that hen his drea awake in the ruined Traveller dwelling which he and Karen hadup in his ar her hand to thrust it into the coarse-lined auntlet
’I’ll see,’ Harry answered, already on his feet and conjuring a Möbius door, which coincided with the doorfrah both, so he glanced at the sky Up there, flyers! He saw them in the moment before the M&ou on high, from whose saddles Wamphyri riders directed the attack of their warriors But apart from warriors already landed and joined in battle with Karen’s creatures, there were several still airborne, squirting across the stars like aerial octopi, their vanes extended and propulsion orifices blasting Three of thele formation around their controllers, but how ed frouardian warrior was under attack from two lesser but incredibly ferocious beasts; one was underneath, pincers and sickles working to diseh to the spine Even e, the Necroscope ordered Get aloft if you can Harass the enemy in the sky In order to address the warrior, he had opened his mind
Karen was in at once: I’ve launched the warrior fros, she imet that one airborne Shaithis and Shaitan ed Their flyers are unconventional, heavily armoured, but still no match for warriors Maybe we can knock the bastards out of the sky!
But now, in close proxier private Ho, Karen! Shaithis called down gleefully froh Ever treacherous, eh? Why, I do believe you’d damn me with your last breath And so you shall, for I shall see to it! And to Harry, growlingly, As for you, hell-lander: ah, but I remember you well enow! For I had an aerie, upon a time - till you and your Dweller son reduced it to so reat wolf, I hear, siring pups by the light of the et hi clearly enough; also Shaitan’s abrupt interruption, which oozed in hisserves no purpose Kill hiht - but until then let it be
The Necroscope’s vaed; it wanted its way; its demands on Harry were mental as well as physical, so that he could alht! Let ive your ive you everything!’ But Harry kneas a lie and that in fact his parasite would take everything
He heard a buffeting of air, adopted a defensive crouch and glanced aloft Karen was already airborne; Harry’s flyer, which she had sent, ht turn and descended towards him As the creature’s fifty-foot span of e and alveolate bone swooped low overhead, Harry leaped and snatched at the harness fittings under its neck Anotherhiuered warrior threw off its attackers and squirted aloft
Good! Harry told it Now get up there with your ugly twin and help him tear those enemy flyers out of the sky
Let’s all assist the a spiralling wind off Starside to where the invaders see up towards the armoured flyers of Shaithis and Shaitan within their arrowhead for warriors, Harry queried: Where’s our warrior nuround, Necroscope, Karen answered, grimly Crushed by the most terrible construct I ever saw In the old days, even to conceive of such a beast would have meant auto to being anything which ht prove difficult to put down For even the feeblest brain will eventually learn tricks of its own As for these things which Shaithis and Shaitan have devised - especially that one -why, can’t you feel their evil intelligence? They are abolanced down through a thousand feet of dark, empty air and sahat followed on behind And: I see what you side Karen and himself, in the same section of the spiral, the warrior he had ordered aloft dripped fluids froouts gleamed red as a ruby necklace wheredeep neck wounds For the present the warrior’s propulsors blasted as before, but Harry fancied he could detect a sputtering even now
A little higher than he and Karen and cli that much faster, the unscathed warrior she’d launched froases in a fury It snorted like a dragon where it made an all too obvious beeline for the alien flyers and their riders overhead Responding likewarriors turned inwards and began to converge, lost a little height, then fell like stones with their vanes angling theistered in a moment: the fact that here in the middle air and overhead, Karen and the Necroscope were already gravely outnumbered As for the situation below, that orse The ene at the back of the garden had launched the up even faster behind them was that destroyer of her third creature, which she’d described as the s, still Harry had to agree
It had squidlike lines which here any coe e and bone, but it had the look and grey as bladders like strange wattles bulked out its throbbing body and detracted from its ht of its arms and arral; like a great thunder-lizard of primal Earth, its weaponry was all built-in Except Nature in her wildest drea was of Shaithis’s fashioning
Well, Necroscope? Karen’s telepathic voice was suddenly shrill with alars, he answered
So? Panic was rising in her like the wind off Starside
So let’s give it our best shot right here and now!