The Vampire Prince

I stared down at my body, then at Streak, and grinned sheepishly. “I’m standing,” I whispered redundantly. Streak howled softly, then nipped my right leg lightly and faced the trees. Nodding wearily, I set off for the forest and the wolves padded along beside me.

The going wasn’t easy. I was cold and exhausted, and stumbled more times than I could keep track of. Streak and Rudi kept me going. Whenever I stalled, they pressed against me, or breathed warmly over me, or snapped to make me get up. At one stage, Streak let me grab the thick, long hair around his neck, and half-dragged me through the snow.

I’m not sure why they bothered with me — normally wild animals leave wounded companions behind if they can’t keep up. Maybe they wanted to keep on the good side of the vampires, who put lots of scraps their way during Council. Or perhaps they sensed hidden resources within me and knew my cause wasn’t hopeless.

After a long, hard walk, we entered a glade, where a large pack of wolves had gathered. There must have been twenty or thirty of the predators, lying about, eating, playing and grooming themselves, all different colours, builds and breeds. The wolves regarded me with suspicion. One, a dark, bulky male, padded over and sniffed me, then growled threateningly, raising its hackles. Streak met its challenge and growled back. The two stood snarling at each other for a few seconds, before the unwelcoming wolf turned its back on us and loped away.

Rudi ran after the dark wolf, yapping, but Streak barked angrily at the cub and he returned, tail between his legs. As I blinked owlishly at the wolves, Streak nudged me forward to where a she-wolf was suckling three cubs. She laid a protective paw over her cubs and growled at us as we approached, but Streak whined and dropped to his belly to show he meant no harm.

When the she-wolf had relaxed, Streak stood and locked gazes with the female. The she-wolf snarled. Streak bared his fangs and snarled back, pawed at the snow in front of her, then locked gazes again. This time, she lowered her head and didn’t respond. Streak struck the backs of my legs with his snout and I dropped to the ground. As he nudged me on, I understood what he wanted me to do. “No!” I resisted, insides churning. “I can’t!”

Streak growled and pushed me forward. I was too weak to argue. Besides, it made sense — I was cold and hungry, but too weak to eat. I needed to get something warm and nourishing down me, something that didn’t need to be chewed.

I lay down and wriggled forward, gently shoving the three cubs to one side, making space. The cubs yapped suspiciously at me, then crowded round, sniffed me all over, and accepted me as one of their own. When my face was up close to the suckling she-wolf’s belly, I took a deep breath, paused momentarily, then found a milk-engorged teat, closed my lips around it, and drank.

CHAPTER SIX

THE SHE-WOLF treated me the same as the three cubs, making sure I got enough milk, covering me with her paws to keep me warm, licking behind my ears and around my face to clean me (I crept away when I had to go to the toilet!). I remained with her for a couple of days, slowly regaining my strength, cuddling up to her and the cubs for warmth, surviving on her warm milk. It didn’t taste good, but I was in no position to complain.

Pain racked my body as I recovered. Bruises covered every last scrap of me. My cuts weren’t too serious – the cold restricted the flow of blood – but they stung like mad. I wished I had some of Seba’s healing spider webs to apply to them.

The more I thought about my slide down the mountain stream, the more incredible it seemed. Had I really done it, or was this some crazy dream? If not for the pain, I might have believed it was the latter, but dreams are painless, so it had to be real.

More incredible still was that I hadn’t broken any major bones. Three fingers on my left hand were broken, my right thumb was sticking out at an alarming angle, and my left ankle had blown up like a purple balloon, but otherwise I seemed to be OK. I could move my arms and legs; my skull hadn’t been cracked open; my backbone hadn’t been snapped in two. All things considered, I was in astoundingly good shape.

As the days passed, I stretched and tested myself. I still slept beside the she-wolf and drank from her, but I started getting up to take short walks, hobbling around the glade, exercising lightly. My left ankle pained me terribly, but the swelling subsided gradually and eventually returned to normal.

As my strength returned, Streak brought me meat and berries. I couldn’t eat a lot in the beginning, but I sucked plenty of blood from the small animals he brought, and my appetite increased swiftly.

Rudi spent a lot of time with me. He was fascinated by my bald head – I’d had to shave my hair off after it caught fire during one of my Trials of Initiation – and never tired of licking it and rubbing his chin and nose over it.

After four days (possibly five or six — I hadn’t kept a clear track of time) the wolves moved on to a new patch. It was a long march – seven or eight kilometres – and I lagged behind most of the way, helped along by Streak, Rudi and the she-wolf who’d been suckling me (she now regarded me as one of her cubs, and mothered me the same as the others).

As punishing as the trek was, it was beneficial, and when I awoke that night after a long, dreamless sleep, I felt almost as good as I had before my descent down the stream. The worst of the bruising had subsided, the cuts had healed, my ankle barely troubled me, and I was able to eat normally.

That night, I went hunting with the pack. I couldn’t move fast, but I kept up, and helped bring down an old reindeer that several of the wolves were tracking. It felt good to be contributing to the pack after they’d done so much for me, and I gave most of my share of the meat to the she-wolf and cubs.

There was a nasty scene the next day. The dark wolf who’d objected to my presence when Streak brought me into the pack had never accepted me. He growled and barked whenever I came close, and often snatched food from my hands while I was feeding. I avoided him as much as I could, but that day, when he saw me playing with the cubs and handing meat out to them, he snapped.

He charged at me, barking wildly, meaning to drive me off. I backed away from him slowly, not showing any fear, but I didn’t leave the pack — if I let him chase me out once, he’d never stop hounding me. I circled around the wolves, hoping he’d lose interest in me, but he followed, determined, snarling menacingly.

As I prepared to fight, Streak darted between us and faced the darker wolf. He raised his hackles to make himself look big, and growled deeply. It looked as though the dark wolf would back off, but then he lowered his head, bared his fangs and lunged at Streak, claws extended.

Streak met the challenge and the pair rolled away, biting and scratching at one another. The wolves around them hastily cleared out of their way. Some younger cubs yapped with excitement, but most of the older wolves ignored the fighting or looked on with only mild interest. They were accustomed to quarrels like this.

It seemed to me as though the wolves were going to tear each other to bits, and I ran around them worriedly, hoping to prise them apart. But as the fight progressed, I realized that, for all their barking, snapping and clawing, they weren’t doing a lot of actual damage. Streak’s snout had been scratched, and the dark wolf was bleeding from a couple of bites, but they weren’t out to really hurt each other. It was more like a wrestling match than anything else.

As the fight wore on, it became obvious that Streak had the beating of the other wolf. He wasn’t as heavily built, but he was faster and sharper, and for every swipe to the head he took, he delivered two or three of his own.

All of a sudden, the dark wolf stopped, lay down and rolled over, baring his throat and belly. Streak opened his mouth and clamped his teeth around the dark wolf’s throat, then let go without breaking the skin and stood back. The dark wolf got to his feet and slunk away, tail between his legs.

I thought the wolf might have to leave the pack, but he didn’t. Although he slept by himself that night, none of the wolves tried to chase him away, and he took his regular place in the hunting pack the next time they set out.

I thought about that a lot over the next day or two, comparing the way wolves handled their losers with how vampires handled theirs. In the world of vampires, defeat was a disgrace, and more often than not ended with the death of the defeated. Wolves were more understanding. Honour mattered to them, but they wouldn’t kill or shun a member of their pack just because it had lost face. Young wolf cubs had to endure tests of maturity, just as I’d endured the Trials of Initiation, but they weren’t killed if they failed.

I wasn’t an expert on the subject, but it seemed to me that vampires could learn a thing or two from wolves if they took the time to study their ways. It was possible to be both honourable and practical. Kurda Smahlt, for all his treacherous faults, got that much right at least.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A FEW more days slipped by. I was so glad to be alive, I was savouring every moment of it. My body had healed almost completely, though faint bruises lingered in certain places. My strength had returned. I was full of vim and vinegar (one of my Dad’s expressions; I never figured out what it actually meant), raring to go.

I took hardly any notice of the cold. I’d grown used to the nip of the wind and the chill of the snow. The occasional strong blast set me shivering, but most of the time I felt as natural wandering about naked as the wolves.

I’d been accepted as an equal member of the pack now that I was back on my feet, and I was constantly out hunting — since I was able to run faster than the wolves, my services were in great demand. I was gradually coming to terms with the way they thought and communicated. I couldn’t read their thoughts but most of the time I had a good idea what they were thinking — I could tell by the way they hunched their shoulders, widened or narrowed their eyes, perked or dropped their ears and tails, growled or barked or whined. On the hunt, if Streak or another wolf wanted me to go to the left or the right, they only had to look at me and twitch their heads. If a she-wolf wanted me to play with her cubs, she howled in a certain soft way, and I knew she was calling me.

The wolves, for their part, seemed able to understand everything I said. I rarely spoke – there wasn’t much need for words – but whenever I did, they’d cock their heads intently and listen, then reply with a yap or gesture.

We moved around a lot, as was the wolfen way. I kept an eye open for Vampire Mountain, but didn’t spot it. That puzzled me — the reason the wolves met out here in the wilds was to converge on the mountain and eat the leftovers that the vampires threw to them. I decided to ask Streak about it, though I didn’t think he’d be able to comprehend my question or fashion a reply. To my surprise, when I mentioned Vampire Mountain, the hackles rose on the back of his neck and he growled.

“You don’t want to go there?” I frowned. “Why not?” Streak’s only reply was another growl. Thinking about it, I guessed it had to be the vampaneze. The wolves must know about the purple-skinned invaders, or else they’d simply sensed trouble and were steering clear of the mountain.

I had to do something about the vampaneze, but the thought of going back to Vampire Mountain scared me. I was afraid the vampires would kill me before I had a chance to explain about the vampaneze. Or they might think I was lying and take Kurda’s word over mine. Eventually I’d have to return, but I was delaying as long as possible, pretending to myself that I was still recovering and not fit to make the trip.

My three broken fingers had mended. I’d set the bones as best I could – very painful! – and wrapped the fingers together using long reeds and leaves. The thumb on my right hand still stuck out at an angle and hurt when I moved it, but that was only a minor irritation.

When I wasn’t hunting or playing with the cubs, I thought a lot about Gavner. I got a pain in my belly whenever I recalled his death, but I couldn’t stop thinking about him. The loss of a friend is a terrible, tragic thing, especially when it happens suddenly, without warning.

What really sickened me about Gavner’s death was that it could have been avoided. If I hadn’t run away, or if I hadn’t trusted Kurda, or if I’d stayed and fought with Gavner — he’d still be alive. It wasn’t fair. He didn’t deserve to die. He’d been a brave, loyal, warm-hearted vampire, a friend to all.

Sometimes, when I thought about him, I was filled with hatred and wished I’d grabbed his knife and killed Kurda, even if it meant my own death at the hands of the vampaneze. Other times, a sweeping sadness would come over me and I’d cover my face with my hands and cry, wondering what prompted Kurda to do such an awful thing.

The wolves were puzzled by my behaviour. They didn’t spend much time grieving for their dead. If they lost a partner or cub, they howled miserably for a while, then got on with their lives. They couldn’t understand my mood swings.

To cheer me up. Streak took me out hunting with him late one evening. Normally, we never went hunting by ourselves, but the pack was settling in for the night, so we went without them.

It was nice to be on our own. A drawback to running with a pack is that you have to be very organized — if you make a wrong move that ruins the hunt, you’re treated with disgust. Now that it was just Streak and me, we were free to lollop along as we pleased and make idle detours. It didn’t matter whether we caught something or not — we were in search of sport, not prey.

We tracked a couple of young, frisky reindeer. We didn’t expect to catch them, but it was fun to follow them. I think they sensed our harmless intentions because they kept turning back and running at us, then tossing their heads and fleeing. We’d been tracking them for almost a quarter of an hour when the two reindeer reached the top of a small mound and paused to sniff the air. I started after them, but Streak growled and drew to a halt.

I stopped, wondering what was wrong. Streak was standing stock-still like the reindeer. Then, as the reindeer turned and bolted back towards us, he nudged my legs with his snout and took off for a clump of bushes to the side. I followed quickly, trusting his more highly developed senses. We found a thick bush which afforded us a clear view of the mound, and lay low behind it.

A minute passed. Two. Then a figure appeared over the mound. My eyes were as sharp as they’d ever been, and I recognized the far-off vampire immediately — Mr Crepsley!

I started to get to my feet, overjoyed, and opened my mouth to roar a greeting. A low growl from Streak stopped me. The wolf’s tail hung flat behind him, the way it did when he was anxious. I wanted to rush forward to greet my old friend, but I knew Streak wouldn’t be acting this way without good reason.

Lying down flat beside the wolf, I kept my eyes on the mound, and soon the cause for his concern became obvious: behind Mr Crepsley marched five other vampires, and at the fore, carrying a sharp, polished sword, was the would-be Prince and traitor — Kurda Smahlt!

CHAPTER EIGHT

I KEPT close to the ground as the vampires passed, hidden behind the bushes, downwind so they couldn’t smell me. Once they were out of immediate range, I turned to Streak. “We have to follow them,” I whispered. Streak studied me in silence with his large, yellow eyes, then got to his feet. He slipped further back through the bushes. I trailed after him, trusting him not to lead me astray. A few minutes later, we circled around and caught sight of the vampires. We fell in behind them and matched their pace, careful not to get too close.

I examined the four vampires with Mr Crepsley and Kurda. Three were unfamiliar, but the fourth was Arra Sails. Her right arm had been in a sling the last time I saw her, but it was now hanging freely by her side. After a while, I noticed that two of the unfamiliar vampires were carrying swords like Kurda’s, and were lagging a bit behind Arra and the other unarmed vampire.

It became clear what was happening. Mr Crepsley had decided to come looking for me. Arra and the other vampire had agreed to accompany him. Kurda, worried that I might have somehow survived, must have offered to assist, and brought the armed vampires with him. If they discovered me alive, the swords would flash, and that would be the end of myself, Mr Crepsley, Arra and the other vampire. Kurda was making sure word of his betrayal never made it back to the Generals and Princes.

I wasn’t surprised by Kurda’s devious plotting, but I was upset by the realization that he wasn’t the only traitor. The two vampires with swords must have known the truth about him and the vampaneze, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to rely upon them. I suspected the Guardians of the Blood (weird humans who lived inside Vampire Mountain and donated their blood in exchange for the internal organs of dead vampires) of being part of the conspiracy, but I’d thought Kurda was the only vampire traitor — it looked like I was wrong.

If Mr Crepsley and Arra hadn’t been concentrating so hard on the search, they’d have realized something was amiss — the sword-bearing vampires were edgy, all nervous glances and itchy fingers. I’d love to have jumped out and shocked Kurda – he was the edgiest of the lot – but common sense prevailed. If I was spotted alive, he and his men would kill me and the three true vampires. As long as they believed I was dead, they wouldn’t do anything to give themselves away.

I spent a long time studying the faces of Kurda’s companions, committing them to memory. I wondered how many more were in on the plot to destroy the clan. Not many, I bet. The vampires with him were very young. Kurda most likely recruited them himself and talked them round to his way of thinking before they learnt the ways of the vampires. More experienced vampires, who valued honour and loyalty, would never dream of being in league with a traitor.

After a while, the group came to a halt in a small clearing, where they sat and rested, except Mr Crepsley, who spent the period anxiously pacing. I tapped Streak’s shoulder, then pointed towards the clearing — I wanted to get closer. The wolf hesitated, sniffed the air, then led the way forward. We carefully crawled to within seven or eight metres of the clearing, where we stopped, hidden by a dead tree trunk. With my developed sense of hearing, I could eavesdrop perfectly from here.

Nothing was said for a number of minutes. The vampires were blowing into their cupped hands and tugging their jackets closer about themselves, shivering from the cold. I smiled as I thought how uncomfortable they’d feel if they were in my compromising position.

After a while, Kurda got up and walked over to Mr Crepsley. “Think we’ll find him?” the traitor asked, feigning concern.

Mr Crepsley sighed. “Probably not. But I would like to keep searching. I wish to locate his body and cremate him fittingly.”

“He might still be alive,” Kurda said.

Mr Crepsley laughed bleakly. “We traced his path through the tunnels. We know he fell into the stream and did not emerge. You truly think he may have survived?”

Kurda shook his head, as though deeply depressed. The dirty swine! He mightn’t think I was alive, but he wasn’t taking any chances either. If not for that sword of his, I’d have—

I calmed down and tuned back into the conversation. Arra had joined the pair and was talking, “…saw wolf tracks further back. They might have discovered his body and devoured him. We should check.”

“I doubt if they would have eaten him,” Mr Crepsley said. “Wolves respect vampires, as we respect them. Besides, his blood would have poisoned them and we would have heard their mad howling.”

There was a brief moment of silence, then Arra muttered, “I’d love to know what happened in those tunnels. If Darren had been by himself and fallen in, I could understand it, but Gavner has disappeared too.”

My insides froze at the mention of Gavner.

“Either he fell into the stream trying to save Darren,” Kurda said lightly, “or Darren fell in trying to save him. That’s the only answer I can think of.”

“But how did they fall in?” Arra asked. “The stream wasn’t wide where they fell. They should have been able to clear it. Even if it was too wide for them, why didn’t they just jump where it was narrower? It makes no sense.”

Kurda shrugged and pretended to be as baffled as the others.

“At least we know that Gavner is dead,” Mr Crepsley remarked. “Although we have not found his body, the absence of his mental signal means he breathes no longer. His death distresses me, but the uncertainty regarding Darren unsettles me more. The odds are stacked against his being alive, but until we have proof that he is dead, I shall not be able to accept it.”

It was oddly comforting to know that even in the midst of worry, Mr Crepsley had lost none of his elaborate ways of talking.

“We’ll go on searching,” Kurda said. “If he can be found, we’ll find him.”

Mr Crepsley shook his head and sighed again. “No,” he said. “If we do not locate his body tonight, we must abandon the search. There is your investiture to prepare for.”

“Forget the investiture,” Kurda snorted.

“No,” Mr Crepsley said. “The night after next, you become a Prince. That takes precedence above all else.”

“But–” Kurda began.

“No,” Mr Crepsley growled. “Your investiture as a Prince is more important than the loss of Gavner and Darren. You have bucked tradition already by leaving the confines of the mountain so close to the ceremony. You must stop thinking about Darren. As a Prince, it is your duty to put the will and wishes of others before your own. Your people expect you to spend tomorrow fasting and preparing for the investiture. You must not disappoint them.”

“Very well,” Kurda groaned. “But this isn’t the end of it. I’m as upset by what’s happened as you are. I won’t rest until we know for sure if Darren is alive or dead.”

The hypocrite! Standing there, acting innocent, pretending to be upset. If only I’d had a gun or a crossbow, I’d have shot him dead where he stood, the laws of the vampires – which forbid the use of weapons such as guns and bows – be damned!

When the vampires moved on, I stayed where I was, thinking hard. Talk of Kurda’s investiture had disturbed me. It had slipped my mind that he was due to be made a Vampire Prince. But now that I thought about it, things took ominous shape. I’d thought the vampaneze just meant to kill as many vampires as they could and take over the mountain, but the more I considered it, the less sense that made. Why go to all that risk just to take over a bunch of caves they couldn’t have cared less about? And even if they killed every vampire present, there were plenty more who could hurry to the mountain and fight to reclaim it.

There must be a logical reason for them being here, and I thought I knew what it was — the Stone of Blood. The Stone of Blood was a magical stone with which a vampire or vampaneze could locate the whereabouts of almost every vampire on the face of the planet. With the Stone, the vampaneze could track down and destroy vampires at will.