It would be a leap of all of thirty feet, possible only if he had a clear run along the ledge. And even as I thought it, so the lesser wolves made way, shrank back into shadows, left the ledge clear. He ran back, turned, made his loping run and leaped — and mid-flight met my bolt, which sank directly into his heart. Dead, but still snarling his last snarl, he hit the rim of the opening and went tumbling into oblivion. And when I looked up, the rest of the pack had melted away.
But I knew that the Ferenczy would not give up that easily.
I went up onto the battlements, found jars up there full of oil and cauldrons seated on tilting gear. Setting fires in braziers under the cauldrons, I half-filled each one with oil and left them to simmer. And only then did I return to the locked room.
As 1 approached a hand, slender, female, wriggled in the hole in the panelling, tried desperately to reach and take hold of the key in the lock. What? A prisoner? A woman? But then I remembered what old Arvos had said about the Ferenczy’s household: ‘Retainers? Serfs? He has none. A woman or two, perhaps, but no men.’ Here was a seeming contradiction: if this woman was his servant, why was she locked in? For her safety while there was a stranger in the house? That seemed unlikely in a house like this.
For my safety?
An eye peered out at me; I heard a gasp and the hand was withdrawn. Without further pause I turned the key, kicked open the door.
There were two of ‘em, aye. And they’d been handsome enough women in their time.
‘Who . . . who are you?’ One of them approached me with a curious half-smile. ‘Faethor did not tell us that there would be. . .‘ She floated closer, gazed upon me in open fascination. I stared back. She was wan as a ghost, but there was a fire in her sunken eyes. I looked about the room.
The floor had a covering of local weave; ancient and wormy tapestries hung on the walls; there were couches and a table. But there were no windows, and no light other than the yellow aura from a silver candelabrum on the table. The room was sparse, but sumptuous by comparison with the rest of the place. Safe, too.
The second woman was sprawled somewhat wantonly on one of the couches. She stared sulphurously upon me but I ignored her. The first drifted closer still. Stirring myself, I held her at bay with the point of my sword. ‘Move not at all, lady, or I’ll spit you here and now!’
She turned wild in a moment, glowered at me and hissed between her needle teeth; and now the second woman rose like a cat from her couch. They faced me menacingly, but both were wary of my sword.
Then the first one spoke again, her voice hard and cold as ice: ‘What of Faethor? Where is he?’
‘Your master?’ I backed out of the door. They were
vampires, obviously. ‘He’s gone. You’ve a new master now — me!’
Without warning, the first one sprang at me. I let her come, then drove the pommel of my sword against the side of her head. She collapsed in my arms and I threw her aside, then yanked shut the door in the face of the second. I barred it, locked it and pocketed the key. Inside the room, the trapped vampire hissed and raged. I picked up her stunned sister, carried her to the dungeon and tossed her inside.
Ehrig came crawling. He had managed somehow to remove the thong from his neck,-which was white and puffy and looked sliced as if by a knife around its entire circumference. Similarly, his head at the back was strangely lumpy, deformed like a freak’s or a cretin’s. He could hardly speak and his manner was childlike in the way of simpletons. Perhaps I had damaged his brain, and the vampire in him had not yet corrected it.
‘Thibor!’ he husked his amazement. ‘My friend, Thibor! The Ferenczy — did you kill him?’