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land in front of the wall, between the wall and the cliffs.
Karen's flyer swept closer, swooped lower, swiftly grew larger in the sky. Far
behind it, four dark shapes made spurting motions across the star-sprinkled
indigo of the heavens. Tiny at this distance, still everyone knew how big they
really were, knew what they really were. 'Here she comes,' Zek breathed.
The flyer, turning face-on to a low night wind that moaned from the west,
dropped lower. It seemed to hover for a moment, like a kite, then dipped down
and uncoiled its nest of springy worm 'legs' to the earth. It bumped gently
down, lowered its wings for stability. The thing parked there, swaying and
nodding hugely, gazing with vacuous disinterest first at the garden, then down
the sweeping ramps of the mountains to the plain, then back to the garden.
Karen dismounted, came to the wall. She was dressed -
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or undressed - to cause consternation, as was her wont.
The two Harrys, Jazz and Zek met her there. It was Zek's impulse to hug her,
but she held back. She saw that Jazz was immediately shaken, stricken by
Karen's looks.
Harry Snr, too: awed by Karen's beauty. It was an unearthly beauty, of course,
for it was the work of her vampire. But what it had given her in looks, shape
and desirability, it had taken from her in the bloody fire of her eyes. She
was unmistakably Wamphyri.
Only The Dweller seemed unmoved. 'You've come to join us in the coming
battle?' His voice was unemotional.
'I've come to die with you,' she answered.
'Oh? And is it that certain?'
'Certain?' she repeated him. 'If you believe in miracles, pray for one! For
myself, I don't care.' And she told them her dilemma, reinforcing what Zek
Foener had already made known, how whichever way she jumped the Wamphyri meant
to be rid of her. This way ... at least I'll take a few of them with me!'
'What of your trogs, your lieutenants?' The Dweller pressed her.
'I activated my trogs, turned them loose,' she answered. 'My "lieutenants", as
you call them, are faint-hearted dogs! Them I sent away. Maybe the Lords have
taken them on. I neither know nor care.'
'Your aerie stands empty?'
'Aye.'
'You've sacrificed a lot.'
'No,' she tossed her head, 'I have been sacrificed. And now you'd better make
your final preparations. You can't hear them but I can, and they're on their
way.'
'She's right,' Zek confirmed it. 'Their minds are lusting for war, open to
read like reading a monstrous book. They're coming!'
The Dweller nodded, pointed to the four dark shapes squirting down through the
darkening sky. 'Your warriors. Karen - are they trustworthy?'
They answer only my commands,' she answered.
Then station two of them at the back of the saddle, over the rise there,' and
again he pointed, 'and the other pair down there, at the foot of the cliffs
where the first trees grow. There they'll form our protection - some
protection, at least - and they'll be well-positioned for launching, if the
need should arise. And how will you fight?'
'In the thick of it!' She swept back her diaphanous cloak from her right side,
took her gauntlet from her belt and thrust her right hand into it. Blades,
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hooks and scythes gleamed silver in the bright starlight where she flexed the
deadly thing, adjusting its fit.
'Look!' Jazz snapped. 'I see them.'
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It was impossible not to see them. The sky to the east was dark with dots
large and small, like the approach of a small swarm of locusts. Except, while
they were just as ravenous, they were not small and they were not locusts.
'Everyone to his station!' The Dweller cried. 'Are those lamps in order?' For
answer, all along the wall, Travellers turned on their batteries of
ultraviolet lamps, aiming them down into darkness. They cut the night with
their hot, smoking beams. The light wouldn't kill vampire flesh, but they
would hurt it greatly and blind Wamphyri eyes, however temporarily.
The Dweller caught the elbow of a passing Traveller. 'What of your women and
children?' he asked. 'And my mother?'
'Gone, Dweller,' the man answered. 'Down toward Sunside, where they'll stay
until they know the outcome.'
Harry Jnr turned to his father and the others. He nodded grimly. Then we're
ready,' he said.
'Just as well,' Jazz Simmons answered, 'for it's already started.' He inclined
his head down toward Starside. 'Listen -'
Hoarse trog cries and the clamour of battle drifted up out of the shadows. The
roar and blast of gunfire, too, from a handful of trogs whose learning skills
had been able to accommodate weapons.
Harry Jnr said: 'Well, this was to be expected. The Lords have been massing
their trogs along the fringes of these mountains for a long time now. There'll
be many hundreds of them . . . but I may have their measure.' He turned to his
father. 'Harry, I could use some expert help.'
'Just name it.'
'When did you last call up the dead?'
Harry took a pace back from the other, his face falling. But then he slowly
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