Wamphyri! Brian Lumley

‘Come,’ said his host, ‘you’ll let your food grow cold. Sit, eat, and we’ll talk.’ He tossed Thibor’s sword down on a bench covered with soft pelts.

Across his broad back, Thibor carried a crossbow. He shrugged its strap from his shoulder, handed it to the Ferenczy. In any case, the weapon would take too long to load. Useless at close quarters, against a man who moved like this one. ‘Do you want my knife, too?’

Faethor Ferenczy’s long jaws gaped and he laughed. ‘I desire only to seat you comfortably at my table. Keep your knife. See, there are more knives within reach – to stab the meat.’ He tossed the crossbow down with the sword.

Thibor stared at him, finally nodded. He shrugged out of his heavy jacket, let it fall in a heap to the floor. He took a seat at one end of the table, watched the Ferenczy arrange all the food within easy reach. Then his host poured two deep iron goblets of wine from the pitcher before seating himself opposite.

‘You won’t eat with me?’ Thibor was suddenly hungry, but he would not take the first bite. In the palace in Kiev, they always waited for the Vlad to lead the way.

Faethor Ferenczy reached along the top of the table, showing an enormous length of arm, and deftly sliced off a corner of meat. ‘I’ll take a woodcock when they’re cooked,’ he said. ‘But don’t wait for me – you eat whatever you want.’ He toyed with his food while Thibor fell to with some zeal. The Ferenczy watched him for a little while, then said, ‘It seems only right that a big man should have a big appetite. I, too, have . . . appetites, which this place restricts. That is why you interest me, Thibor. We could be brothers, do you see? I might even be your father. Aye, big men both of us – and you a warrior, and quite fearless. I suspect there are not many such as you in the world . . .’ And after a short pause, and in complete contrast: ‘What did the Vlad tell you about me, before he sent you to bring me to his court?’

Thibor had determined not to be taken by surprise a third time. He swallowed what was in his mouth, and returned gaze for gaze across the table. Now, in the light from the fire and flickering flambeaux in jutting brackets, he allowed himself a more detailed inspection of the castle’s master.

It would be pointless, Thibor decided, to make any sort of guess at the age of this man. He seemed to exude age like some ancient monolith, and yet moved with the incredible speed of a striking serpent and the lithe suppleness of a young girl. His voice could sound harsh as the elements, or soft as a mother’s kiss, and yet it too seemed hoary beyond measure. As for the Ferenczy’s eyes: they were deep-seated in triangular sockets, heavy-lidded, and their true colour was likewise impossible to fathom. From a certain angle they were black, shiny as wet pebbles, while from another they were yellow, with gold in their pupils. They were educated eyes and full of wisdom, yet feral too and brimming with sin.

Then there was the nose. Faethor Ferenczy’s nose, along with his pointed, fleshy ears, formed the least acceptable part of his face. It was more a muzzle than a nose proper, yet its length stayed close to the face, flattening down towards the upper lip, and pushed back from it with large nostrils slanting upwards. Directly underneath it – too close, in fact – the man’s ridgy mouth was wide and red against his otherwise pale, coarse flesh. When he spoke, his lips parted just a little. But his teeth, what the Wallach had seen of them when the Ferenczy laughed, were big and square and yellow. Also glimpsed: incisors oddly curved and sharp as tiny scythes, but Thibor couldn’t be sure. If it was so, then the man would seem even more wolf-like.

And so he was an ugly man, this Faethor Ferenczy. But . . . Thibor had known ugly men aplenty. And he had killed plenty of them, too.