Nightlord: Sunset Page 22

  Come to that, what is humanity? What makes a person human?

  As I said, tough questions. I’m getting irritated at having lots of questions and never any answers. I’m glad I didn’t major in philosophy.

  If I’m a human being, then I’m a cannibal. I drink the blood of people and eat the power of their souls. That’s definitely not a good thing, from a human perspective. As I understand it, I can subsist on animals for a while, but eventually, I have to have that last living spark of a human being. At least, I think I have to have human essence, eventually…

  Could this be a disease? A magical one, perhaps? One that has damaged my own spirit to the point I need to refresh it with the spirits of others?

  Or am I just a new creature? Could I be a predator designed for humans? It’s possible I am part of the natural order of things, and I have that feeling quite strongly when I kill someone who longs to die… or is that just their relief at dying? I feel things my meals felt, know things they knew. If they truly, utterly long to die, then wouldn’t I feel I was doing the right thing?

  But if I’m part of the natural order, how could vampires have evolved? Vampires don’t pass on genetic material…

  Wait. We do. We feed our own blood—our successfully surviving blood—into our offspring. Weak lines of vampires die out, strong ones survive. So how do vampires come to be in the first place?

  I have no idea. Skip it. It’s not something germane to the situation at hand.

  Given: I am a vampire. I am no longer a human being. It is my purpose to hunt and kill humans, to eat them for my own survival. I can’t argue my purpose in life; I’ve fulfilled it more than once and felt… felt it was right. Enough of humanity. I am not human.

  Does that make me a monster?

  To other humans? Yes. I look like them, I walk and talk like them, I move among them, and I eat them. Even the most rational of human beings must consider me to be a creature, not a person; a predator.

  A very successful design for a predator. Which is only appropriate; humans are the most dangerous of animals.

  What of my own kind? Vampires must be even more dangerous to hunt humans. What of us?

  Lone predators lack certain advantages. We do not work well together. Sasha called for help and no one came. Vampires have an every-man-for-himself attitude, it seems, which I do not understand. That may be a good thing, overall. Working together could make vampires too successful. Without some sort of check on a predator species, it eventually expands its population to the point it destroys its prey population. Or, overhunting could get humankind wise to the existence of vampires. Humans are aggressive on their own; proving they aren’t the top of the food chain would result…

  …in something like what obviously happened here.

  Vampires are gone from this world. The Church still hunts them regularly—apparently finding them a convenient excuse to perform ‘purges’ of the populace. Given their doorway, it looks like magicians help the Church to extend their hunt into other worlds. I’d guess they plan on a multi-universal genocide; it looks like they succeeded locally.

  Still… what would have happened if the local vampires—nightlords—had unified and defeated the humans? Would things be any better? Or worse?

  But, dammit, that doesn’t help me right now. I still feel human—well, half the time, anyway—and still have human feelings. I miss Sasha. I get lonely. I fear dying.

  Do vampires have feelings? This one does. I don’t know what vampires are supposed to be like. Sasha never got around to teaching me the finer points of being immortal. I think she just assumed I knew, since I look like the guy who turned her into one. I’m completely in the dark—so to speak—and have to figure this out on my own.

  Screw the movies. Forget the legends. Lose the myths. How they hell would they know? I’m the vampire; I’m making this up as I go! If I can feel regret or remorse, being the bloodsucking fiend of night that I am, then I can! If I love, I love. If I hate, I hate. Anything else I manage is perfectly appropriate—because, by definition, it must be possible.

  So it’s decided: I am not human.

  Now all I have to do is figure out what it means to be a vampire…

  I noticed how long I’d been walking. The moon had risen and moved across a good portion of the sky before being hidden by a knife-edged line of clouds. My feet had kept to a general circle, though, and I knew where our campsite was. I turned more sharply and headed back.

  Then I smiled to myself. Even on an alien world in an alternate dimension, it’s nice to have a moon. It looked larger than the one at home and lacked the craters and maria. A shining, silver ball; it seemed brighter, probably because it lacked those darker areas. The moon at home was sometimes illuminated, even during the dark phases, by reflected Earthlight; the moon here seems to be utterly black along the shadowed sections. Less reflection from this planet, perhaps?

  Shada was sleeping when I came up. Bronze nodded at me as I came into the cleared spot. The cooking fire was out, and Shada was curled up on both cloaks and inside the thermal blanket film. With some surprise, I realized it was quite cold. Last night was just cool—uncomfortably so when riding at speed—but tonight there was a decided chill in the air. The first faint touches of frost were visible along leaves and grass. I thought it was a cold snap before winter; the leaves were still green.

  Then there came a roll of thunder.

  “Damn.”

  I worked quickly to gather enough leafy branches and bare limbs to make a shelter. I took care, however, to knock on any tree and ask first. No answer meant the tree in question lost some wood. I spread it out to avoid irking anybody too badly, visions of haunted forests dancing in my imagination.

  While dragging a pile of brush back to the campsite, I reflected on the effectiveness of a dryad for forest conservation.

  I gently nudged Shada to wake her. She muttered in her sleep and curled up more tightly. I said something ungentlemanly but refrained from waking her; better to let her stay curled up and as warm as she could manage. Besides, she would have to start a fire for light before she could help build. So I fell to working.

  The thunder came again, followed by a howling, baying noise that made all the hair on my body stand up. It was a lot like the baying of hounds, but deeper, louder, and somehow purer—wilder.

  If I had been mortal at the time, I don’t doubt I would have had a chill.

  The thunder diminished but did not cease. It became a low, steady rumble, and I began to suspect it was not thunder but something more like the pounding of hoofbeats. I set aside the materials for a lean-to and tried to wake Shada. She muttered something incomprehensible and moaned in what sounded like fear. I couldn’t wake her.

  I drew pistol and sword, left and right, and uncoiled tendrils all about. Bronze moved to stand behind me and I wondered again just how smart my horse was.

  Then I heard the horn. It was both piercing and deep, all at once, and sent a bolt of cold fear all the way through me, from my feet to my head. The baying grew to a howling.

  The hell with this! thought I.

  I thrust both pistol and sword back into their containers. Shada I picked up by grabbing the edges of our cloaks and wrapping her in them. I swung into the saddle and kicked Bronze ringingly. I slung my unconscious burden over one shoulder, rose to a crouch in the stirrups, and we were off.

  Bronze pushed herself that night, and we saw just how fast a metal horse could go. If she had been a statue of a winged horse, she would have flown, power-to-weight ratios be damned. Trees flashed by at either hand like telephone poles along the highway. I had no way to guess at our speed other than “bloody fast.” The horn sounded again, merrily giving chase, and the deep baying of the hounds told me they found our trail.

  Bronze lowered her head, flattened her ears, and went even faster.

  We broke from the treeline, headed southward, literally burning a line through a cornfield. I glanced back under the arm that wasn’t holding Shada and
noted the hoofprints Bronze was leaving were smoking. I could already smell hot metal in the plume of smoke streaming steadily back from her nostrils.

  Then our pursuers broke from the treeline and I shouted to Bronze to move faster.

  It was a pack of dogs—but what dogs! They were white dogs, an ugly, bone-white color that made me think of eyeless fish and dead things. They were the size of ponies, with greenish fires where the eyes should be and licks of green flame whipping over their shoulders like elongated tongues. The thunder wasn’t hoofbeats; it was the pounding of the pack.

  And behind them…

  It was a man, or manlike in form, mostly. He was huge, easily seven feet tall, not counting the antlers that sprang up and out from his head. He was as black as tar and muscled like a piece of sculpture. He bore a spear in his right hand and ran behind the dogs, keeping up on foot even at that mad pace. His eyes glowed green.

  I tugged on space around us. Rather than decrease our weight, I tilted the plane of gravity; everything was now downhill to us. Bronze was not slow to take advantage of this; her gait shifted more in support of us than in propulsion and we went even faster. We passed through fields and fences, over ditch and over road, while the smoke from Bronze’ nose and mouth became shot with sparks and red flames.

  The dogs had been gaining slowly ever since I spotted them and were about a mile behind us. Bronze just kept creeping up in speed, almost imperceptibly, until she was about as fast. If things kept going like that indefinitely, she would lose them.

  The horn sounded again, and I knew how it felt to be hunted.

  I felt the flare of anger, hotter than the fear, and a low throbbing in my blood. There was something in my anger, a fury that seethed, normally quiescent and deep down. It made my blood roar like dragons, and the rage answered with that same throbbing power I had felt before.

  I hate being hunted.

  Bronze ran on, but in my mind I stopped running; I started thinking. At this rate, things were going to get really ugly in about an hour, perhaps less. I had a feeling the Wild Hunt would vanish with the dawn—but then again, so would I! While the Hunt would re-form some other night, I wouldn’t. Ergo, escaping at the break of dawn wasn’t an option for me. I started thinking about fight instead of flight.

  There looked to be about twenty hounds. Not too bad, all things considered. The huntsman, however, gave me some small concern… but if I could deal with the dogs first…

  I forgot about plotting a course. I let Bronze have her head and I concentrated, weaving a spell on Shada. Her personal gravity lessened further and I added a few supporting tendrils, like the legs of some gigantic, mantic spider that had eaten her. It cost me dearly, both in power and in headache, to make her levitate like that, but I couldn’t have her slung over my saddle when I turned to fight. If I hadn’t had a lot of power in reserve for the levitation and a good feel for how to tweak gravity, I’d never have managed it. I released her into the air and she floated there, ten feet from the ground, magical tendril-legs flickering madly back and forth as she continued to coast forward. She would follow the rise and dip of the terrain and slowly coast to a stop. I just hoped she’d stay in the air until then; the levitation wouldn’t last long at all.

  I wheeled Bronze about as we reached an open hilltop. We faced the closing Hunt. I dipped into a saddlebag for one of my salvaged weapons and made sure it was loaded.

  I had a couple of misgivings about the dogs. I’ve had to fight a dog before; typically, they bite. If you can get them to bite something, they generally hang on to it. One dog isn’t really a problem. Once he sets that bite, he thinks he has you—but you have him, too. It’s a whole pack that becomes a problem. They bite everything, generally by surrounding you, getting your ankles and knees from behind and pulling you down for their mates.

  These dogs looked like they might set fire to me when they did.

  So I waited until they got fairly close—way too close, I thought—and used the submachine gun to draw a line of bullets across the front rank. I didn’t really expect it to work. Therefore, I was quite gratified to discover that supersonic projectiles had considerable impact—yes, pun intended, so there.

  The front rank of the charging mastiffs went down, tripping up and blocking the ones behind. The huntsman skidded to a halt as well, but did not join the pile. Judging by his gestures, he gave the dogs orders I couldn’t hear, which I thought was odd. Then again, I’d just fired an automatic weapon empty, so a little deafness might be understandable. I switched clips while they sorted themselves out.

  When they did, they came charging up the hill and I emptied the second magazine into the dogs. That done, I lowered the gun by its strap to the ground and drew Firebrand. A few of the dogs were still twitching and whining, but all of them were down and bloody. It was probably the best use I could possibly have made of my machine-gun ammo. With the blade laid bare across my lap, I urged Bronze forward at a walk.

  The huntsman looked at me with burning eyes and I met them. It took a lot to do that.

  Who are you?

  The words lashed at my mind and I swayed. This was no time to be shy; I uncoiled a bunch of tendrils and lashed back, thinking and saying, “I am known as Halar. Who are you?”

  I am the Master of the Hunt!

  “Nice to meet you,” I said/thought back at him. He seemed nonplussed by this.

  You are the hunted! You cannot do this!

  “Want to bet?”

  He looked at me with undisguised hatred.

  I do not know what strange magic it is that you bear, but it will not avail you against my curse, wizard!

  “Oh? What sort of curse?”

  He laughed, then. You are hunted, now and forever. And you shall remain so until the hunters take you. Run where you will; they will pursue. Hide if you can; they will find you. Kill them by their dozens and their hundreds; more will rise up against you until the day you fall.

  I considered that.

  “I live with that all the time already. I must say it’s a piss-poor curse.”

  Once again, he seemed nonplussed. Well, nobody had ever given me a manual for having a discussion with a supernatural being. Then again, I am a supernatural being, too—maybe that makes it okay?

  Mortal, you go too far! He lifted his spear to cast it. I lifted Firebrand and a glitter of orange ran along the striations of the blade.

  He paused. I could feel something from him, a sense of confusion, perhaps even shock. I didn’t have time to consider it; I was busy trying to talk my way out of being a shish-kebab.

  “You can throw that thing,” I said, “and I am willing to bet you’re on target with it. But know this: I am not mortal. I am a nightlord and I am the last I know if in this world. There is vengeance and death I must deal out, Huntsman; if you love the church or its minions, then you do them a service if you slay me. If you hate them, then you only make an enemy where you should have an ally.

  “And if you miss, or if I parry your spear… then I promise I will kill you if I can.”

  He held his position for several long moments—about a thousand years, I’d say—while we looked at each other.

  Your horse is not of flesh and blood, he observed.

  “No, it is not.”

  You bear a blade of dragons and of iron. You slay with fire and thunder.

  “You could look at it that way, yes.”

  I have much of grievance against the church of men… but no love for nightlords.

  “What’s not to love?”

  Your kind devours without regard for renewal. You are destroyers.

  “Then have you respect, perhaps, for another huntsman? One who, like yourself, hunts men?”

  He thought about that one for a long time. I was glad I couldn’t sweat; I’d been looking at that spear and it made me very nervous to see how much raw, elemental force was packed into it. I wondered if I could parry it if he threw it, or if it would go off like a small nuke on contact. I also wondered if I d
ared to try and drain him. He didn’t look like a human being to my night-eyes. I could see past the seeming of flesh. Inside, he looked like a raw, elemental force, too. I didn’t like the idea of trying to tap that and consume it.

  Go your way, nightlord, he finally thought at me, and he grounded the butt of his spear in the earth. I will not cage you, but I will have something for this favor.

  “Perhaps,” I admitted, wondering who had managed to send this thing. “Name it.”

  You will pour out the blood of one of your kills for me, once every cycle of the moon. Let the earth drink of it, instead of you. That is the price of your life.

  “Once a month, hmm? And if I miss one?”

  I will come at the full of the moon to… remind you.

  The idea behind that “reminding” didn’t seem to be a polite postcard. He was smiling unpleasantly. But it didn’t sound so bad.

  “I agree.”

  The antlers dipped in a nod. Go your way, nightlord.

  He turned on his heel and loped off back the way he had come.

  I shook my head. Magicians, magical gates, the power of faith, strange beasts, mythical woodland creatures, and now Celtic legends. Where was the rabbit when I needed him to show me back to the rabbit-hole? I’d climb back up the thing with teeth and toenails.

  I sat down on the hilltop, sword still in hand, and shook for a minute. I’m a coward after the danger is over, it seems. At least I have good timing. Or a faulty survival instinct.

  The bodies of the dogs burst into a dark green fire and began to burn. I got to my feet and watched ghostly fire-dogs vanish into the sky. I felt perversely better at that, for some reason.

  Sighing, I sheathed Firebrand and climbed up the wall—excuse me; I mounted my steed. I left the machine gun where it lay; the pistol ammunition was a different caliber, so it was out of ammo. We moved away, heading on our original course, chasing down Shada.

  Shada was sitting by the campfire and shivering. It wasn’t that cold and I’d wrapped her in both cloaks. She kept glancing at me, looking away, and glancing at me again. She wasn’t taking this as well as I was, and she hadn’t even been awake for it. Of course, I have the advantage of being dead; there aren’t a lot of hormones involved when I’m a corpse.