‘Huh!’ Arkis grunted. ‘Well, at least your premonitions were good. Perhaps too good. It seems to me this one has the edge on us. He sees and knows all while we remain in the dark, as it were.’ He swatted at a small white bat which flitted too close.
And the Ferenc’s eyes went wide as he gave a small start and burst out, ‘His albinos! His bats! We should have known. That’s how he tracks our course. The midges pursue us like fleas after a wolf cub!’
Shaithis nodded sagely. ‘I had suspected as much. They’re his minions no less than Desmodus and his small black cousins were ours back on Starside. They scan our whereabouts and circumstances, reporting all back to … whoever.’
Arkis gaped and grasped his arm, drawing him to a halt. ‘You suspected these things and said nothing?’
‘A suspicion is only a suspicion until it’s an established fact,’ Shaithis answered, angrily shrugging away the other’s restraining hand. ‘And anyway, it makes a very important point and gives us an insight into his circumstances.’
‘Eh? Insight? Circumstances? What are you on about? What point does it make?’
‘Why, that the cone’s master fears us! Bats to report our movements; a snowfall to hinder us; a sword-snouted creature guarding his hive, as the soldier bees of Sunside guard their honey? Oh, yes, he fears us – which in turn means that he’s vulnerable.’ And to himself: Good reckoning – perhaps he really is. But still I’ll take my chances with him. At least we have this much in common: our intelligence.
And at once, gurgling in Shaithis’s mind: And our blood, my son. Don’t forget our blood!
Again, at once, the Ferenc snapped, ‘What?’ His huge head swung round in Shaithis’s direction, and his eyes glared under gathered black brows. ‘What was that? Did you say – or think – something just then, Shaithis?’
Shaithis hid his momentary panic behind bland innocence. ‘Eh?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Say something? Think something? What’s on your mind, Fess?’ And as the Ferenc and Arkis scanned nervously all about, he sent a triple-shielded thought: Twice you’ve almost given me away, Shaitan. Do you think this is a game? If there’s so much as a hint of what I’m up to, I’m a goner!
The Ferenc scowled. ‘On my mind? No, nothing on my mind, except to get finished with this, that’s all.’ He straightened from his half-crouch. ‘So what say you: do we go on, or do we call it a day? Is he vulnerable, this master of the volcano, or are we even more so? It’s a nervy business, this climbing in the snow, not knowing what’s waiting for us.’
Shaitan came whispering into Shaithis’s mind:
Get on with it; bring them in; bring them to me! Do it quickly. For he’s no fool, this giant. He’s sensitive and we’ve both underestimated him. You’ll need to watch him – and carefully.
‘I’ve noticed,’ said Shaithis to the others, almost conversationally, ‘how the small albinos come and go from the west. So I say we stick to the ledge and see where it goes.’
‘No!’ the Ferenc growled. ‘Something’s wrong, I’m sure of it.’
Shaithis looked at him, then at Arkis. ‘Do you wish to go down again? Have we wasted all our time and effort? Has a cloaking vampire mist entirely unnerved you? But our enemy wouldn’t have issued it unless we had unnerved him!’
Arkis said, ‘I’m with the Ferenc.’
Shaithis shrugged. ‘Then I go on alone.’
‘Eh?’ The Ferenc stared hard at him. ‘Then be sure you go to your death.’
‘How so? Is this the place where Volse was taken?’
‘No, that was on the other side, but . . .’
‘Then I’ll take my chances.’
Arkis said, ‘Alone?’
Shaithis shrugged. ‘Which is worse, to die now or later? Better to do it here, I think, locked in combat, than locked in the ice with something drilling its way to my heart.’ And then, suddenly, as if he’d run out of patience, he hissed at both of them: There are three of us, remember! Three “great” – hah! – Wamphyri Lords against . . . what? An unknown being who quite obviously fears us almost as much as we – as you – fear him.’ And he turned away from them.