Lieutenants of the Wamphyri seemed to be ravaging in every quarter of the garden, their war-gauntlets drenched in Traveller blood. The night was covered with smoke and stench, split by shotgun blasts, made still more hellish in the surreal slash of searing light and long moments of total blindness . . .
Down by the shattered wall, the Lady Karen saw something coming up out of the smoke-filled depression. It crawled, but as it reached level ground reared up and charged! It was the mad Lord Lesk, bloodiest of all the Wamphyri, almost fully recovered and little the worse for his wounds and the tumble he’d taken. He saw Karen, rushed upon her full of nightmare intent.
She thrust aside a dazed Traveller and turned his lamp’s beam full in Lesk’s hideous face, blinding his eye. He cursed, clapped a hand to his face, came on and kicked the lamp from her grasp. Half-blind, he turned his left side toward her, glared his fury from the lidless eye in his shoulder. But as he swung his gauntlet, so his body turned with the swing and he again lost sight of her. She ducked under Lesk’s arcing blow, tore away the flesh and ribs from his left side with one raking, razor-sharp swipe of her own gauntlet.
He cried out, staggered, gasped his amazement. He felt fumblingly with his free hand at the terrible damage to his body. His heart pounded like a great yellow bellows, plainly visible against the dark, pulsing sac of his exposed left lung. Travellers leaped on him, tried to trip him and drag him down. While he roared and raged, Karen stepped in and grasped his naked heart with her awesome weapon-hand. She cut the heart’s pipes and tore it out of his body. He coughed blood, puffed himself up … and toppled like a felled tree! The Travellers fell on him like wolves, beheaded him, poured oil on his body and set fire to it. Lesk went up in flames.
Meanwhile:
A second gas-beast had come drifting directly toward The Dweller’s house. The two Harrys fled the place, encountered a pair of Wamphyri lieutenants in their way. Their strategy in dealing with them proved their kinship: they let the grinning, gauntleted vampires close with them and charge, then ducked through Mobius doors. As their pursuers plunged into that unknown realm directly on their heels, so they closed the doors and exited through others. The lieutenants had simply disappeared; perhaps faint echoes of their screams came back, to be quickly drowned in the row and confusion of battle.
The mewling gas-beast over The Dweller’s house was hit by a stray burst of gunfire. It exploded with a devastating roar, demolishing the place and sending out a great rush of vile stench.
Warriors were coming over the saddle behind the settlement. Another crashed down on the low structure housing Harry Jnr’s generators. The remaining ultraviolet lamps blinked out, leaving only a handful of lanterns and starlight to light the reeling night. The bellowing voices of the Lords Belath and Menor Maimbite sounded inside the garden! From overhead, the Lord Shaithis shouted down instructions.
Still reeling from the gas-beast blast, Harry clutched his son’s arm. ‘You said we were a last resort,’ he breathlessly reminded him. ‘Whatever you meant by that – whatever’s on your mind – you’d better say it now.’
‘Father,’ the other answered, ‘in the Mobius Continuum even thought has weight. And you and I, we’re linked. Wherever we are in the Mobius Continuum, we know each other.’
Harry nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘I’ve done things with and to the Continuum that you’ve never dreamed of,’ The Dweller continued, but innocently, without boasting. ‘I can send more than mere thoughts through it – as long as there’s someone to receive what I send. In this instance, however, what I must send is dangerous. Not to you, but to me.’
‘I don’t follow you.’ Desperately aware that the battle was being lost, Harry licked suddenly dry lips, shook his head.
‘But you will.’ Quickly, The Dweller explained.
‘I’ve got you,’ Harry said. ‘But won’t it hurt the garden, the Travellers?’
‘I’m not sure. A little, perhaps. Nothing serious or lasting. But you should get the Lady Karen out of the way.’ He went running back to the ruins of his house, found a shimmering metallic robe of foil where he’d stored it and put it on. It covered him from head to toe, with tinted glass discs for his eyes. ‘I’ve used it before,’ he said, ‘out beyond the stars. Now you’d better see to Karen.’