Brothers to the Death (The Saga of Larten Crepsley) (8 page)

As the years turned, Larten realized he might as well be a blind man casting stones into the sea in the hope of hitting a fish. If Randel Chayne didn’t want to be found, there was no way of finding him. Like those of the clan, the vampaneze could dwell in the darkest shadows of the night for centuries on end, hidden from the eyes of even the most keenly sighted.

He had hoped that other vampaneze would lead him to Randel, but the vagabonds had no spiritual homeland. They didn’t gather for Council. There were no leaders keeping track of their movements. It was possible for one of them to go decades without bumping into another of his kind.

“We have to draw him out,” Larten said to Gavner one dark and frosty night as they huddled over a fragile fire in a graveyard. They’d been discussing the matter in depth, both having reached the conclusion that they were on a fool’s errand.

“How?” Gavner asked.

“
War
,” Larten said heavily, and when their eyes
met, Gavner saw that Larten hated more strongly than he ever could. In that moment he knew he didn’t want to follow where Larten intended to lead. He also understood that Larten didn’t want to go in that direction either. But he would. Because, unlike Gavner, he was willing to let himself become one of the truly damned if that was what it took.

Larten set off in search of Wester that night. Gavner didn’t travel with him. There had been no argument. He told Larten that he’d team up with him again if either of them got a sniff of Randel Chayne, but he didn’t want to be part of the General’s new, tyrannical quest. Larten had accepted his assistant’s decision with a curt nod. He might even have been relieved, though he gave no indication either way. With a short handshake, he turned his back on the man who had once longed to call him father and set off through the snowy recesses of the night, alone.

“So often alone,” Larten muttered, staring into the dregs of his mug. He was surprised to see that he’d drained it while reminiscing.

He gazed at the remains of the ale, recalling the many lonely years, wondering if solitude and unhappiness were always to be his lot. Then, conscious that
Wester would be waiting for him, he downed the last drop, cast his eye over the most recent additions to the list to make sure Gavner’s name hadn’t been added, then stood and staggered from the Hall of Osca Velm, readying himself for the ignoble business of warmongering.

Wester had welcomed Larten into the fold without any reservations. Larten thought his old friend might try to dissuade him when he said that he wanted to help lead the clan into war, that Wester would tell him to take more time and only make a decision when his head was clear. But Wester knew what it was like to lose loved ones to the vampaneze. He didn’t question Larten’s reasons for joining him. Instead he simply told the General how he planned to win back supporters who had deserted them in recent years, and persuade others to unite behind them.

Larten’s stock had continued to rise since they’d last spoken. Many vampires had heard about Alicia
and they admired the way he’d put duty before his thirst for revenge. The pair found an attentive audience wherever they traveled. It didn’t matter that Larten was a poor speaker, or that he only repeated things that Wester and others like him had been saying for decades. When Larten spoke, vampires listened, and when he asked for their support, many gave it willingly.

They’d met dozens of vampires in the course of their travels, but Council was their first chance to make a deep impression. This was when the great and the good gathered in the wintry wilds of Vampire Mountain, when they could potentially bend hundreds of Generals to their cause. Wester thought it would take thirty or forty years to win over the majority of vampires—Larten would need to become a Prince before they could push ahead with their more elaborate plans—but if they had a successful run at Council, it might be possible to do it sooner than that.

It wasn’t the best time to try to promote a war. The Nazis had driven the world to global chaos. Millions of humans were locked in battle, and it looked as if it would produce the highest body count ever. Many vampires thought that the Great War could not be topped, but those with firsthand knowledge of
the Nazis were glumly betting on this one being even grislier.

A lot of vampires were sick of war. They’d already seen some of the casualties, towns razed to the ground, innocents rounded up and slaughtered. They wanted to retreat from battle, hole up in Vampire Mountain for the duration of Council, and pretend they lived in a civilized world.

Larten and Wester ignored all of that and worked hard to win support. They made dire predictions and grand promises, doing all in their power to convince the rest of the clan to follow them into an all-out, decisive war with the opposing creatures of the night.

They regularly focused on Mr. Tiny’s warning and the threat the clan faced if they did nothing. Wester even asked Larten to use the specter of the new World War to drum up anti-vampaneze sentiments.

“If the other countries of Europe had acted earlier, the threat of the Nazis could have been nipped in the bud,” Larten argued a dozen times a night. The words were Wester’s (he would never have used such an expression), but he delivered them from the heart. “They have taken the world to war, but only because they were allowed to. If we do nothing, a Hitler of the vampaneze will come along and then we will face a
war of
their
making. We must act now, while we have the power to control our fate. Better we start a war we can win, than find ourselves in the middle of one we are destined to lose.”

Larten spoke often of his meetings with Desmond Tiny, elaborating and adding details at Wester’s suggestion. He told them Mr. Tiny wore a string of shrunken vampire heads around his neck. That the little meddler spoke with great fondness of the vampaneze. That he had perched on the grave of Perta Vin-Grahl and vowed that all vampires would be buried under ice by the end of the century.

Larten didn’t like lying. It went against all of his principles. And he was bad at it. But as Wester kept telling him, vampires—especially the younger members—were coming to him for horror stories. They
wanted
to hear tall tales of Mr. Tiny’s treachery. They
needed
to be afraid, to have a bogeyman to obsess about.

“Everything gets distorted when stories are told,” Wester said. “All legends and myths are one-tenth truth, nine-tenths exaggeration. It doesn’t matter if we change the facts to make more of an impact. All storytellers have done that since the beginning of time.”

Seba Nile was worried about his ex-assistants. Wester had been trying to start a war with the vampaneze for almost as long as he’d been part of the clan. Seba had never thought it would come to anything, that the guard would eventually discard his plans when he saw that most vampires were against him. But Larten had revived Wester’s enthusiasm and was drawing more supporters to their dark cause with every passing night.

Seba knew that Larten sought war merely to force Randel Chayne out of hiding. He was sure Larten would regret his course in the future if he succeeded in driving the clans into battle. He wanted to sit down with the younger vampire and discuss the matter sensibly, reason with him, talk him out of his self-destructive mission.

But Larten had avoided Seba since returning. The quartermaster thought Larten knew of his ex-master’s feelings and was too ashamed to talk with him one on one. It upset Seba that Larten should think that way, but the General was his own man and had been for a long time. It was no longer Seba’s place to lecture him. He had come to believe, over the course of his many centuries, that you had to give the young the freedom to make their own mistakes.

Vancha March, on the other hand, held no such belief. He’d been abroad for the last few years, ensuring no vampires got mixed up with the Nazis. He hadn’t heard about Larten’s involvement with Wester, or the way they were trying to manipulate the clan.

Vancha was in high spirits when he sighted the snowcapped mountain after a long, hard trek. Arrow was to be initiated at Council, and Vancha looked forward to welcoming a new Prince into the ranks, especially one who had fallen into a pit of despair and come so close to losing everything. He might even break his own strict rules and drink a mug of ale in Arrow’s honor when he was presented as a Prince to the Stone of Blood.

His excitement was quashed before he reached the network of tunnels and Halls. As he was scaling his last stretch of mountain he ran into Kurda Smahlt, a young General who had established his reputation as a thinking man’s vampire. Kurda was keen to re-establish contact with the vampaneze and debate their differences. Many vampires distrusted the slim, fair-haired pacifist. Some felt he would have been better off becoming a vampaneze if he liked them so much. But Vancha had met Kurda a few times and been impressed. He didn’t see eye to eye with Kurda
on everything, but he thought the General was honest and intelligent, a credit to the clan.

Kurda had checked in with the guards of Vampire Mountain a few weeks before and had only ducked outside now to draw fresh air. He was in a gloomy mood when Vancha found him and the Prince soon learned why. He was surprised to hear that Larten had sided with Wester, then angered when Kurda explained about Randel Chayne and told him some of the wilder claims that Larten had been making about Desmond Tiny.

“I don’t mind a serious discussion,” Kurda sighed, “but they’re using lurid scare tactics to stir things up.”

Vancha was supposed to announce himself to his fellow Princes as soon as he arrived, but he was so agitated by what he’d heard that he tracked down Larten and Wester first, trailed by a fascinated but nervous Kurda Smahlt. The General had never seen Vancha this worked up and wasn’t sure what the Prince planned to do when he found the pair of conspirators.

Vancha located them in the Hall of Sport dedicated to Oceen Pird. Larten had been sparring. He always drew a crowd when he sparred—everyone had heard the rumors that he was edging ever nearer
to becoming a Prince, so they wanted to catch him in action. Wester had been using that interest in Larten to promote their cause. Once Larten’s bouts came to a conclusion, the orange-haired General would move among the excited crowd, share a barrel of ale with them, and repeat his anti-vampaneze messages in an attempt to win them over.

Vancha kept to the rear for a time, listening to Larten speak of Mr. Tiny, the threat of the vampaneze, the need to organize against them. The Prince’s ears reddened as he listened. When he’d heard enough, he thrust through the vampires clustered around Larten and Wester.

“Crepsley!” he shouted.

“Sire March,” Larten beamed, delighted to see his old friend again. He hadn’t noted Vancha’s angry expression, so he bowed low with a welcoming smile. “I was not sure which of the Princes was going to be absent from this Council. I am glad it is not you. We have much—”

“What’s this rubbish about going to war with the vampaneze?” Vancha snorted, and Larten’s smile disappeared.

“Sire?” Larten muttered. The other vampires sensed
trouble and drew back. Only Wester stayed close to Larten, ready to defend him if required.

“Kurda told me you were one of Wester’s puppets, but I had to see it for myself to believe it,” Vancha jeered.

Larten stiffened. “I am no one’s
puppet
,” he growled.

“You must be,” Vancha insisted. “I’ve known you for a long time and I’ve never heard you criticize the vampaneze before. Everything you’re saying has come straight from the lips of Wester Flack.”

“It doesn’t matter where the truth originates,” Wester said heatedly. “I help Larten with his speeches, but so what? Many a Prince has relied on help from his advisors. Most of our leaders aren’t natural orators. Sometimes they need guidance when it comes to wording what they feel in their heart.”

“No,” Vancha said. “We need help wording laws and decrees, but no vampire of good standing ever needed another to tell him what was in his heart. If Larten believed what he was saying, I’d have no quarrel with him. You have your view of the world, Wester, and you’re entitled to it, as every vampire is. But Larten’s passing off your opinions as his own,
and that stinks. I won’t stand for it, even if these idiots will.”

He spun and glared at the vampires around them. Most dropped their gaze and coughed with embarrassment.

“You do not know what I feel or why I say these things,” Larten snarled.

“Of course I do,” Vancha retorted. “Your mistress was killed by a vampaneze.”

“She was not my
mistress
,” Larten thundered, squaring up to the Prince. “She was a gentle, loving woman, deserving of respect. I will not have you say anything derogatory about her.”

“I’m not sure what that word means, but I can guess,” Vancha sniffed. “I meant no offense. I’m sure she was a fine person. But no individual is worth going to war over. Find the cur who killed her and tear him apart, but don’t pledge yourself to a cause you don’t believe in. Don’t let Wester use you as his mouthpiece. You’re better than that.”

“I speak the truth as I see it,” Larten hissed. “The vampaneze are scum and it is time we dealt with them. If you believe otherwise, so be it. But do not try to stop me from speaking my mind or treat me like a fool.”

“But you
are
a fool,” Vancha said, and many of the vampires around them gasped.

Larten’s face paled. “Take that back,” he whispered.

“I won’t,” Vancha huffed. “You want to guide the clan to disaster because of a private feud. You seek to stir up war with the vampaneze simply because you haven’t been able to find the one who hurt you—kill them all to destroy just one. Only a fool seeks war over a petty, personal cause, and I’ve no time for fools.”

Larten was quivering with rage. “If you were not a Prince…”

“Don’t let that stop you,” Vancha said with a vicious grin.

For a moment Larten held back. Then, with a roar that had been building inside him since Alicia was killed, he threw himself at Vancha and lashed out.