Under the Eye of God (27 page)

“I have certainty!”

“No, you don't. You only
think
you do.” Finn explained, “Before you take the dog-child down into that camp, look and see what they do there. Then, you'll have certainty.”

“You talk in circles. How can I understand?”

“The same way anybody understands anything! Look and see!”

At the top of the ridge, Kask stopped. He stood solidly at the crest and studied the camp below. To the others following him, he appeared silhouetted by the wall of light coming over the eastern horizon. The Eye of God had begun to open. The radiance poured over the horizon and lit up the entire landscape with a fairy-tale glow.

The others caught up with him and pulled him backward to keep any observers below from seeing him. “What should I look for?” Kask asked.

“Just watch,” said Finn.

“For how long?”

“Until you see what the Vampires do here.”

Kask grumbled, but he settled down to watch and wait. The humans lay flat on the crest of the hill. Kask squatted down beside a boulder, flattening himself as best as he could. As the Eye of God drifted higher and higher into the sky, the valley below began to shimmer like a translucent bowl.

“There—” said Finn. He pointed.

“Oh, my God,” said Harry.

“I knew it,” said Lee.

Kask rumbled uncomfortably in his belly.

Sawyer didn't say anything at all.

“The Vampires eat their prey live,” said Finn.

“Son of a witch,” said Arl-N, the tall spindly man. “That violates the Charter—”
³⁸

“Where?” demanded Ibaka. “What?”

Sawyer grabbed the dog-boy and tried to pull him back, desperately trying to cover the squirming child's eyes. Ibaka snapped and bit. “Let me see!” Ibaka broke free and leapt to the crest of the hill. He looked down at the golden bowl below.

“My brother!” screamed Ibaka. “I see my brother, Ubaja!” He started shrieking. “See? See? The little running dog? But why does he run? Why do they chase him? Oh, no! No! I have to help him—” He started running down the hill.

Sawyer started after him, but Kask overtook him. Kask pounded after Ibaka and snatched the dog-boy up into his arms before he could get very far. Quickly, he brought him back over the ridge; Ibaka screamed and pounded at the Dragon's chest.

“You knew about this! Didn't you?” Ibaka accused.

Kask didn't answer. He looked troubled and uncertain and even terrified. Holding Ibaka close to his chest, he began to growl. The growl rose in loudness and pitch, becoming a hideous rasping sound. Now, Kask threw his head back and let loose a terrible roar of anguish, one that rattled the bones of all those who stood near him. He raged up at the Eye of God in a vile dreadful curse in the Dragon language. The sound echoed out to the horizon, prolonged and painful, and then came rolling back again.

When Kask fell silent again, he looked around at the stunned humans. “I didn't know—” he said to them. He repeated it to Ibaka. “Not like this.” He held the sobbing dog-child close to him and began patting it gently on the head. “The Vampires have no honor. How could they lie like that? How could they violate the Charter? I can't reclaim my honor this way,” he admitted. He sounded close to tears himself. “I can't restore my honor by giving them this child. That would make me a party to the violation.” He held Ibaka and patted him again and again as gently as he could. “Forgive me, little dog-child. I will have to find another way to reclaim my honor. I promise you, I will not let the Vampires get you. I will not let the Lady Zillabar hurt you. You have my word on that.”

The humans stared at Kask, astonished. None of them had ever seen a Dragon make such a declaration before.

“Well, damn my eyes,” whispered Lee in amazement. “The alliance of life
does
work.”

“You doubted it?” asked Harry.

“Never for a moment,” said Lee. “I just didn't think it would happen in my lifetime.”

Ibaka continued to sob in the Dragon's arms.

Sawyer started to say, “We'll have to go around—” but Kask hadn't finished speaking. He'd made a decision.

“We have to kill the Vampires.”

Sawyer looked to Finn. “Kernel d'Vashti won't like that very much.” They both grinned at the thought.

Harry said, “I have a responsibility to point out that such an action would violate the laws of Thoska-Roole.”

“You don't have to come,” said Lee. He unslung his weapon and began checking its battery load.

“I didn't say I wouldn't come. I just wanted to say that it violates the law.”

“Count me out,” said one of the prisoners, a man whose name Sawyer had never learned.

“Me too,” said his partner. They both began sliding back down the hill.

“I'll fight,” said Arl-N. “I want to kill Vampires.”

“We'll need to reconnoiter, make a plan—” began Finn.

Suddenly, Sawyer looked up. “Kask!” he shouted. The others looked. The big Dragon had made his decision and hadn't waited to see if the others would follow. He had already travelled halfway down the hill toward the camp.

“Oh, shit!” said Finn.

“Come on! Let's back him up.”

“Right! To hell with Plan B!”

They began charging down the hill after Kask. Skidding and slipping on the rocky slope, they couldn't catch up, but they had a great view of what happened next.

Kask strode straight into the center of the camp.

As he walked, the Vampires—all male—began gathering around him. They followed him in, a crowd of thirty or forty of them, lustrous and beautiful and intrigued that a Dragon would come out of the desert and into this very private place of Phaestor recreation.

Kask stopped in the center of the plaza. He looked around at all the golden Phaestor faces. Some of them still had blood trickling down their cheeks.

“Take me to the lord of this place,” he demanded. “I have information that he must hear.”

The Vampires crowded around Kask, laughing in high musical voices. Almost child-like in their amusement, they seemed both delighted and dangerous at the same time. Kask ignored their merriment. Resolutely, he headed for the main hall of the villa. It sprawled like a palace. It wore a crown of red and black filigree, ornate decorations, and lanterns of green and pink and pale blue.

The huge door dilated to its full diameter to allow Kask to enter. He strode directly into the spacious central chamber where Lord Drydel laughed and feasted drunkenly with his friends. He wore a frivolous-looking, pink silk daygown with red trim and a purple sash. He stood upon the head table, holding a bloody leg of something in his hand, waving it about while he caroled obscene verses about eating and killing—in that order. He paused in his recitations only to pull raw wet chunks off of the leg and gulp them down salaciously. The other Vampires, almost all young and pretty boys, had goblets of blood in their hands, and they toasted their host's every utterance with broad high gestures, loud cheers, and raucous jokes.

Drydel held up a hand for silence. “I demand respect!” he insisted. “For soon, very soon, I shall stand before you as the most powerful Vampire in the Regency.”

“Don't let Zillabar hear you say that,” cautioned one of his consorts, a ruddy boy with a scornful lip.

The drunken Drydel strode down the length of the table to the boy who'd spoken. “Falex, you always bring me such dreary warnings,” the Lord confronted him with a deceptive laugh. “I shall have to call you Cassandra to honor your skills at precognition.” He bent down low and took Cassandra's chin in his bloody hand, tilting the boy's face up to his, almost close enough to kiss. “The Lady has named me her Consort. We have posted the bans and soon we will exchange our formal vows.
I
will father the next generation of Vampires in the Zashti line. And do you know the first thing I intend to do?”

Cassandra managed to shake his pretty head. His ringlets of curls bounced around his face.

“The first thing I will do . . . I will eat d'Vashti's sky-damned heart.” He said it with such fury in his eyes that no one dared to speak. “And for dessert,” Drydel taunted, “Perhaps I will eat one of you. Or maybe just a part of one of you.”

“I will cheerfully volunteer for such a
death
my Lord,” Cassandra offered. He lowered his long lashes seductively, but before he could amplify on his remarks, the room fell curiously silent. Drydel released his grip on Cassandra and straightened. He turned to see who dared intrude on his private pleasures. His eyes widened at the sight of Kask. His anger began to rise. “How dare you—”

The huge Dragon bowed low. Despite his dirty appearance, he still made an impressive sight. Behind him, the rest of the Vampires came crowding in, giggling and tittering like children.

“Forgive me, my Lord, for interrupting your feast. I acknowledge my bad manners and humbly beg your pardon for this breach of courtesy. But I have information that you must hear at once, and the need for immediacy outweighs the lesser concerns of courtesy.” Kask bowed again.

Drydel's eyes narrowed. He had no intention of granting any forgiveness easily—not to a Dragon, not to anyone, and certainly not today. Truly important information only came from Vampires. Nevertheless, he wanted to hear what the Dragon had to say. He strode across the table and sat down languorously on the edge of it, adjusting his gown, and preparing himself for whatever curious information this crude Dragon might have to impart. “Go ahead,” he waved, casually.

“Thank you, my Lord,” Kask said. “I have the solemn duty to inform you that this place and this gathering and the Phaestor who celebrate with you have all violated the most sacred oath of the Charter of the Regency. I regret to inform you that my duty to the honor of the Dragon's Claw requires that I kill each and every one of you immediately. I will try to make it painless. Please do not resist, as that will only make the job more difficult. Thank you.”

Drydel's jaw had fallen open as Kask had spoken. Now, he started to laugh. He laughed loudly—he did not laugh long.

He died with the laughter still choking in his throat.

Despite his size, Kask could still move quickly. He seized Drydel's neck in his claw and squeezed until he heard it crack. Perhaps he overdid it—Drydel's head came off in his hand and bounced away across the floor.

Panic and pandemonium.

The Regency had designed the Dragons as warriors, not the Vampires. They never had a chance.

Half the Vampires in the room went scattering and screaming, crowding toward the exits; some went scrambling for their weapons—and some died fighting. They hammered futilely at the Dragon. He waded into them, plucking them out of the crowd, first with one hand, then the other, and squeezing them easily to death in his claws. The blood spattered on the walls. The screams became horrendous.

Kask grimaced as he worked. A rictus of anger and ferocity spread across his face. He could not enjoy this killing as he would enjoy a battle; he could only perform the distasteful task with dispatch and duty. One after the other, he broke their backs and their necks and flung them aside. The Vampires screamed and begged, they shrieked and wailed. The shining Phaestor children scrambled and slid across the floor, slipping in the blood of their comrades. But they could not get out the door fast enough to escape the Dragon's wrath—Kask just lunged and grabbed. The bones went
cra-ack
and he threw the boys away without emotion. The golden bodies slammed against the walls and collapsed in ghastly postures.

Behind Kask's back, one of the Vampires had found a hunting rifle. He scrambled to aim it at the Dragon's broad back; Kask moved like a fury; the ruby-red targeting dot of the laser slid across the wall as the Vampire tried to follow him, tried to focus—

The Vampire with the gun exploded in a blast of light! Two beams simultaneously pierced him. Lee and Sawyer came tumbling into the room from the back, shooting wildly in all directions, puncturing the screaming Vampires like hot needles stabbing into a pack of frenzied cockroaches. The noise became intolerable.

Finn and Arl-N pushed into the room from the front. They had to climb over the bodies. They caught their bearings and aimed—

The silence fell suddenly. One last scream of a Vampire in Kask's grasp—and then it too ended in a choke and gurgle. The body thumped limply to the floor. Kask turned around slowly, looking to see if he had missed any of the Vampires. His cruel gaze swept the room like a smoldering searchlight.

Finn turned quickly to the door to stop Harry and Ibaka. “Don't come in here. Keep him out—”

Arl-N asked, “Huh? Why—?”

Sawyer pointed grimly to the remains of the meal spread across the table—a gender-female human boy. “They must have caught her last night.”

Outside, they could hear Ibaka screaming, “Let me in! I have to see!” He burst into the room and skidded, slipped to a terrified halt.

Harry rushed in after the dog-child. “Sorry,” he said. “He bit me.”

Finn tried to grab Ibaka, but the little pup squirmed away. Very casually, Sawyer tossed a fallen drapery across the center of the table, so that Ibaka wouldn't see what lay there.

The dog-child stood alone in the center of the room, staring in horror at the carnage around them. After a moment, he bent down and picked up one of the Vampire's weapons. He held it in stiffly front of him and turned around slowly, in case any of the dead Vampires dared to move.

Harry said to Sawyer, “Only a few came out the front. We got them all.”

“We got the ones who tried to come out the back.”

Finn said, “We'll still have to scour the camp. We don't dare let any escape to tell.” He pointed. “That way—”

Kask grunted. “I'll lead.” None of them argued. Only Ibaka saw Falex-called-Cassandra rising from under the table with a needle-beam in his hand, aiming at Kask. Ibaka fired without thinking. The upper half of Cassandra's body disappeared in a flash, along with half the table. The remaining half collapsed with a heavy crash. The bloody goblets shattered, the silver utensils clattered on the floor. The bloody sheet-covered lump rolled aside, but remained thankfully covered.