Wamphyri

Chapter Three

The path clung to the black rock of the cliffs like a silver snake under the moon. Its surface was wide enough to take a small cart, no more; but in places the rim had fallen away, and then the track narrowed to little more than the width of a man. And it was in just such narrow spots that the night breeze off the forests picked up to a bluster, seeming to tug at and threaten the men who toiled up like insects towards that unknown aerie which was their destination.

'How long is this damned path, anyway?' Thibor snarled at the Gypsy, after maybe half a mile of slow, careful climbing.

'The same distance again,' Arvos at once replied, 'but steeper from now on. Once they brought carts up here, I'm told, but that was a hundred years or more ago and the way has not been well kept.'

"Huh!" Thibor's apish aide snorted. 'Carts? I wouldn't bring goats up here!'

At that the other Wallach, the hunched one, gave a start and pressed more closely to the cliff. 'I wouldn't know about goats,' he whispered hoarsely, 'but if I'm not mistaken we have company of sorts: the Ferenczy's "dogs"!'

Thibor looked ahead to where the path vanished round the curve of the cliff. Silhouetted against the starry void of space, hump-shouldered wolf-shapes stood with muzzles lifted, ears pointed and eyes ferally agleam. But there were only two of them. Gasping his shock, then a harsh curse, Thibor looked back into the deepest shadows - and saw the other two; or rather, he saw their triangular

moon-silvered eyes. 'Arvos!' he growled, gathering his wits, reaching for the old gypsy. 'Arvos!'

The sudden rumbling might well have been thunder, except the air was crisp and dry and what few clouds there were scudded rather than boiled; and thunder seldom makes the ground shudder beneath a man's feet.

Thibor's thin, hunched friend was hindmost, bringing up the rear at a point where the path was the merest ledge. It required but a step to bring him to safety. 'Rock fall!' he cried hoarsely, making to leap forward. But as he sprang, so the boulders rained down and swept him away. It was as quick as that: he was there - arms straining forward, face gaping white in the light of the moon - and he was gone. He did not cry out: clubbed by boulders, doubtless he'd been unconscious or dead even as he fell.

When the last pebble and plume of dust had fallen and the rumbling was an echo, Thibor stepped to the rim and looked down. There was nothing to see, just darkness and the glint of the moon on distant rocks. Up and down the trail, of wolves there was no sign.

Thibor turned to where the old gypsy shivered and clung to the face of the cliff.

'A rock fall!' The old man saw the look on his face. 'You can't blame me for a rock fall. If he'd jumped instead of shouting his warning...'

Thibor nodded. 'No,' he agreed, brows black as the night itself, 'I can't blame you for a rock fall. But from now on blame doesn't come into it. From now on if there's any problem at all - from whatever cause or quarter - I'll just toss you off the cliff. That way, if I'm to die, I'll know that you died first. For let's have something clearly understood, old man. I don't trust the Ferenczy, I don't trust his "dogs", and I trust you least of all. There'll be no further warnings.' He jerked his thumb up the path. 'Lead on, Arvos of the Szgany - and nimble about it!'

Thibor did not think that his warning would carry much weight; even if it weighed on the gypsy, it certainly wouldn't weigh on his master in the mountain. But neither was the Wallach a man to issue idle threats. Arvos the Szgany belonged to the Ferenczy, no doubt of that. And so, if more trouble was on the way from that quarter (Thibor was sure that the avalanche had been arranged) then he would see that it came to Arvos first. And trouble was coming: it waited in the defile where the cliff was split by a deep chasm, at the back of which sat the castle of the Ferenczy.

This was the sight they saw, Thibor and his simian Wallach friend, and the now sinister gypsy Arvos, when they reached the cleft. Back in the dim mists of time the mountains had convulsed, split apart. Passes had been formed through the ranges, of which this might have been one. Except that in this case the opening had not gone all the way through. The cliff whose face they'd traversed had led finally to a high crest which reared now a half mile away. The crest was split into twin peaks - like the ears of a bat or a wolf. And there, straddling the defile where it narrowed to a fissure - clinging to both opposing faces and meeting centrally in a massive arch of masonry - there sat the manse of the Ferenczy. As before, two windows were lighted, like eyes under the sharp black ears, and the fissure below seemed to form a gaping mouth.

'No wonder he runs wolves, this one!' Thibor's squat companion grunted. His words acted like an invocation.

They came down the cliff-hugging track from the castle, and not just four off them. A flood of them, a wall of grey fur studded with yellow jewel eyes. And they came at the lope, full of purpose.

'A pack!' cried Thibor's friend.

‘Too many to fight off,' the Voevod shouted back. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Arvos start forward, towards the oncoming wolves. He reached out a leg, tripped the old gypsy.

'Grab him!' Thibor commanded, drawing his sword.

The squat Wallach lifted Arvos as easily as he would lift the dead, dry branch of a tree, swung him out over the abyss and held him there. Arvos howled his terror. The wolves, scant paces away, came to an uneasy halt. Their leaders threw up pointed muzzles, howled mourn-fully. It was for all the world as if they waited upon some command. But from whom?

Arvos stopped his yelling, turned his head and gazed wide-eyed at the distant castle. His gullet bobbed spastically with his gulping.

The man who held him glanced from the wolves to Thibor. 'What now? Do I drop him?'

The huge Wallach shook his head. 'Only if they attack,' he answered.

'You think the Ferenczy controls them, then? But... is it possible?'

'It seems our quarry has powers,' said Thibor. 'Look at the gypsy's face.'

Arvos' gaze had become fixed. Thibor had seen that look before, when the old man used the frying-pan mirror down in the village: as if a film of milk had been painted on each eyeball.

Then the Gypsy spoke: 'Master?' Arvos' mouth scarce moved. His words were the merest breath, vying with the mountain breeze at first but rapidly growing louder. 'Master? But Master, I have always been your faithful -' He paused suddenly, as if cut short, and his filmed eyes bulged. 'No, master, no.r His voice was now a shriek; he clawed at the hands and brawny arms that alone sustained him against gravity, shifted his once more clear gaze to the ledge and the wolves where they gathered themselves.

Thibor had almost felt the surge of power emanating from the distant castle, had almost tasted the rejection which had surely doomed the Szgany to his death. The Ferenczy was finished with him, so why delay it?

The leading pair of wolves, massive beasts, crept for-ward in unison, muscles bunching.

'Drop him!' Thibor rasped. Utterly pitiless, he urged, 'Let him die - and then fight for your own life! The ledge is narrow - side by side we've a chance.'

His companion tried to shake the old man loose but couldn't. The gypsy clung like thorns to his arms, fought desperately to swing his legs back onto the ledge. But already it was too late for both men. Heedless of their own lives, the pair of great grey wolves sprang as one creature, as if triggered. Not at Thibor - not even looking at him - but directly at his squat comrade where he tried to break Arvos' grip. They struck together, dead weight against a lurching double-silhouette, and bore the apish Wallach, Arvos, and themselves out over the rim and down into darkness.