The Source (51 page)
Authors: Brian Lumley
“What of your trogs, your lieutenants?” The Dweller pressed her.
“I activated my trogs, turned them loose,” she answered. “My âlieutenants,' as you call them, are faint-hearted dogs! Them I sent away. Maybe the Lords have taken them on. I neither know nor care.”
“Your aerie stands empty?”
“Aye.”
“You've sacrificed a lot.”
“No,” she tossed her head, “I have
been
sacrificed. And now you'd better make your final preparations. You can't hear them but I can, and they're on their way.”
been
sacrificed. And now you'd better make your final preparations. You can't hear them but I can, and they're on their way.”
“She's right,” Zek confirmed it. “Their minds are lusting for war, open to read like reading a monstrous book. They're coming!”
The Dweller nodded, pointed to the four dark shapes
squirting down through the darkening sky. “Your warriors, Karenâare they trustworthy?”
squirting down through the darkening sky. “Your warriors, Karenâare they trustworthy?”
“They answer only my commands,” she answered.
“Then station two of them at the back of the saddle, over the rise there,” and again he pointed, “and the other pair down there, at the foot of the cliffs where the first trees grow. There they'll form our protectionâsome protection, at leastâand they'll be well-positioned for launching, if the need should arise. And how will you fight?”
“In the thick of it!” She swept back her diaphanous cloak from her right side, took her gauntlet from her belt and thrust her right hand into it. Blades, hooks and scythes gleamed silver in the bright starlight where she flexed the deadly thing, adjusting its fit.
“Look!” Jazz snapped. “I see them.”
It was impossible not to see them. The sky to the east was dark with dots large and small, like the approach of a small swarm of locusts. Except, while they were just as ravenous, they were not small and they were not locusts.
“Everyone to his station!” The Dweller cried. “Are those lamps in order?” For answer, all along the wall, Travellers turned on their batteries of ultraviolet lamps, aiming them down into darkness. They cut the night with their hot, smoking beams. The light wouldn't kill vampire flesh, but they would hurt it greatly and blind Wamphyri eyes, however temporarily.
The Dweller caught the elbow of a passing Traveller. “What of your women and children?” he asked. “And my mother?”
“Gone, Dweller,” the man answered. “Down toward Sunside, where they'll stay until they know the outcome.”
Harry Jr. turned to his father and the others. He nodded grimly. “Then we're ready,” he said.
“Just as well,” Jazz Simmons answered, “for it's
already started.” He inclined his head down toward Starside. “Listenâ”
already started.” He inclined his head down toward Starside. “Listenâ”
Hoarse trog cries and the clamour of battle drifted up out of the shadows. The roar and blast of gunfire, too, from a handful of trogs whose learning skills had been able to accommodate weapons.
Harry Jr. said: “Well, this was to be expected. The Lords have been massing their trogs along the fringes of these mountains for a long time now. There'll be many hundreds of them ⦠but I may have their measure.” He turned to his father. “Harry, I could use some expert help.”
“Just name it.”
“When did you last call up the dead?”
Harry took a pace back from the other, his face falling. But then he slowly nodded. “Whatever's in your mind, I'm ready when you are, son,” he said.
They rode the Mobius Continuum down to the plain of boulders, materializing clear of the mountains and their shadows. Up in the gloomy foothills where they met the mountains proper, there they saw dust-clouds boiling up from what could only be furious fighting. Also, amidst the rumble and roil, the occasional flash and
crack!
of a discharged weapon. The two Harrys moved closer, taking a short jump that brought them to the very fringe of the fighting. And already it was clear that The Dweller's trog troops were on the retreat. A thin brave line of shuffling Neanderthals, they fell back under the massive assault of others just like them, driven ever higher into the sullen foothills. But in fact the Wamphyri trogs were not like them, because they were slaves and The Dweller's trogs were free. Which was why they fought.
crack!
of a discharged weapon. The two Harrys moved closer, taking a short jump that brought them to the very fringe of the fighting. And already it was clear that The Dweller's trog troops were on the retreat. A thin brave line of shuffling Neanderthals, they fell back under the massive assault of others just like them, driven ever higher into the sullen foothills. But in fact the Wamphyri trogs were not like them, because they were slaves and The Dweller's trogs were free. Which was why they fought.
When Harry Jr. saw how it was going he groaned. “I'd like to save some of them if I can,” he said.
Harry Keogh, Necroscope, closed his eyes and talked to the teeming dead of this strange world. “We need your help,” he begged of them. “You down there, in
the earth, under the soil and down where the roots twine. We need your help against a great injustice.”
the earth, under the soil and down where the roots twine. We need your help against a great injustice.”
Things stirred in the ground, heard the desperate voice of a friend and tried to answer him.
Who? What? Help you? But how can we help?
Who? What? Help you? But how can we help?
“Trogs!” said Harry Jr. “Before the Wamphyri, they roved over Starside at will. Thousands of them lived and died here. They were their own masters then, and this was their land.”
“How about it?” Harry spoke to them as he always spoke to the dead, as his friends, his equals. Even as his peers. “If you're dust then you're beyond helping us, but if you can still hear me, if you can understand, then listen.” He told them what was required. Harry Jr, too, answering the stumbling questions of the dead.
The Wamphyri, you say? Some of us served them in life. Many of us, many hundreds, died in their wars. False gods! Vile, terrible masters! But fight them? How? They'll destroy us again, a second time.
“You can't die twice,” Harry and The Dweller were desperate. “Only your brothers can die; and they're doing it right now, dying, to hold back the troops of the Wamphyri.”
Troops? You mean trogs like us?
“Trogs, yes,” said The Dweller, “but slaves of the Wamphyri. Death holds no terrors for such as them. It is preferable to what they have now!”
The Dweller speaks truth,
some of Harry Jr.'s own trogs, recently dead in the fighting, joined in.
We at least know you, Dweller, and we gladly rise up again!
some of Harry Jr.'s own trogs, recently dead in the fighting, joined in.
We at least know you, Dweller, and we gladly rise up again!
“What of the rest of you?” Harry Sr. cried. “Will you not also rise up? Wake up now, before it's too late. You have sons and grandsons and great-grandsons who are fighting even now. Join us in this last great battle against your immemorial vampire oppressors!”
In the cliffs backing these foothills, in ancient cavern burial grounds, the preserved, mummied bodies of a thousand trogs stirred, groped upward, tore free of the
clinging soil. Under the trees, lone graves gave up their dead. Behind the massed Wamphyri trogs where they drove back the defenders, freshly dead cadavers sat up, forced their riven bodies to move, shuffled or crawled toward their vampire-controlled enemies. The stench of the pit filled the air. They came from the shadows, from mildewed graves and niches, from all their many resting places beyond life.
clinging soil. Under the trees, lone graves gave up their dead. Behind the massed Wamphyri trogs where they drove back the defenders, freshly dead cadavers sat up, forced their riven bodies to move, shuffled or crawled toward their vampire-controlled enemies. The stench of the pit filled the air. They came from the shadows, from mildewed graves and niches, from all their many resting places beyond life.
The Dweller's trog forces, when they saw what now battled on their sideâeven
though
they were on their side, hemming the invaders in all aboutâbroke in terror and fled for their secret places. No matter, the grim army of the dead would do their work for them. And they
would
win, for as the Necroscopes had pointed out, they couldn't die twice.
though
they were on their side, hemming the invaders in all aboutâbroke in terror and fled for their secret places. No matter, the grim army of the dead would do their work for them. And they
would
win, for as the Necroscopes had pointed out, they couldn't die twice.
Shrieks of terror split the night, wrenched from hundreds of Wamphyri-trog throats when they saw and understood what they were fighting. Sickened, the two Harrys turned away from the carnage. Butâ
“Son,” said Harry Sr., grasping the other's arm. “Look!”
The sky was dark with Wamphyri flyers and warriors. They circled the garden, descending toward it. And some of the warriors were truly gigantic; any five of them, falling on the garden in unison, would totally obscure and obliterate it. Up there in the mountains, even now, a greater battle was about to be waged â¦
Â
They took their own special route back to the garden.
Warriors had already landed below the cliffs fronting the wall, where the Lady Karen's creatures were now locked in hellish combat with them. Their shrieking and bellowing alone was deafening. Other warriors circled, looking for an opening in the ultraviolet searchlight beams which swept the sky and seared their hides.
Up on a certain peak, mirror-weapons blinked out as Lesk the Glut deliberately crashed his flyer down on the Travellers who sweated and swore and died there. But
they'd seen him coming; before his flyer struck they had turned their shotguns on it, pumping shot after shot at both beast and rider right to the end. Lesk, wounded and more dangerous than ever, goaded his half-crippled beast to slither free of the peak, directed it in an insane suicide dive on the heart of the garden.
they'd seen him coming; before his flyer struck they had turned their shotguns on it, pumping shot after shot at both beast and rider right to the end. Lesk, wounded and more dangerous than ever, goaded his half-crippled beast to slither free of the peak, directed it in an insane suicide dive on the heart of the garden.
He was seen; smoking ray-beams converged blindingly on him; his flyer felt artificial sunlight eating at its hide, burning in its many eyes. It reared back from its headlong dive, pulled up, swooped low over the garden. Then someone threw a grenade, which exploded directly in front of the beast. With its spatulate head blazing, screaming like a safety-valve under high pressure, it swooped to earth, struck the wall and carried a great section of it away, and with it several defenders. The creature's huge manta body tore up the earth, somersaulted like a derailed train, hurled Lesk out of the saddle.
Other flyers swept down out of the darkness on the periphery. They crashed among the greenhouses and allotments, floundered in the pools. Down from their backs sprang lieutenants of Shaithis, Belath and Volse, to create carnage within the garden itself. Jazz Simmons saw them; he tracked them with tracers and streams of exploding shells. Two at least ducked away into the shadows and smoke, to commence their task of cold butchery on whichever Travellers or trogs they should come across.
Jazz saw Harry and his son on the balcony of the latter's house. They watched the battle. He breathlessly called up “How's it going?”
In the glare and sweep of hot beams, the booming of automatic weapons, howling of monsters and cries of men, it was hard to say. “We should be
in
this!” Harry said to his son.
in
this!” Harry said to his son.
“No,” the other shook his head. “We're the last resort.”
Harry didn't understand, but he trusted.
Zek came running, caught Jazz's arm where he stood by The Dweller's house. “Look!” she cried.
High overhead a warrior dragged some bloated, puffing, incredible
thing
through the sky. A second warrior, higher, was similarly burdened. Scything searchlight beams cut across them and Zek gasped: “Gas-beasts!”
thing
through the sky. A second warrior, higher, was similarly burdened. Scything searchlight beams cut across them and Zek gasped: “Gas-beasts!”
“What?” Jazz gaped. He saw the bloated thing cut loose, begin drifting like some obscene balloon down toward the garden. The thing drifted a little northward, over the wall, where the battery of searchlights was concentrated. The beams picked it out, centered upon it, and it began to smoke. Puffing black evaporation and clouds of steam, it settled faster towards earth.
Jazz saw the strategy.
“No!”
he cried. Then he grabbed Zek, threw her down and hurled himself on top of her.
“No!”
he cried. Then he grabbed Zek, threw her down and hurled himself on top of her.
The gas-beastâa living creature, once a manâissued a hissing, high-pitched scream as its skin blackened and rupturedâand then it blew itself to bits with all the force of a thousand-pound bomb! The ray-gunners directly underneath it died instantly in the blast, their bodies and equipment flattened. At a stroke, one-third of The Dweller's defences had been wiped out.
A foul, stinking hot wind blew across the garden, and when it cleared Jazz helped Zek to her feet. The Dweller's house was still standing, but all of its windows and been blown in and half of its roof was missing. Harry and his son had ducked inside the space under the eaves in the moment before the blast; now they came out, white and shaken.
More warriors had landed at the back of the saddle. There they fought with Karen's creatures, overwhelming and quickly silencing them. But there were Travellers back there and they were armed with grenades; lobbing their deadly eggs, they gave the warriors blow for blow.
Lieutenants of the Wamphyri seemed to be ravaging in every quarter of the garden, their war-gauntlets
drenched in Traveller blood. The night was covered with smoke and stench, split by shotgun blasts, made still more hellish in the surreal slash of searing light and long moments of total blindness â¦
drenched in Traveller blood. The night was covered with smoke and stench, split by shotgun blasts, made still more hellish in the surreal slash of searing light and long moments of total blindness â¦
Down by the shattered wall, the Lady Karen saw something coming up out of the smoke-filled depression. It crawled, but as it reached level ground reared up and charged! It was the mad Lord Lesk, bloodiest of all the Wamphyri, almost fully recovered and little the worse for his wounds and the tumble he'd taken. He saw Karen, rushed upon her full of nightmare intent.
She thrust aside a dazed Traveller and turned his lamp's beam full in Lesk's hideous face, blinding his eye. He cursed, clapped a hand to his face, came on and kicked the lamp from her grasp. Half-blind, he turned his left side toward her, glared his fury from the lidless eye in his shoulder. But as he swung his gauntlet, so his body turned with the swing and he again lost sight of her. She ducked under Lesk's arcing blow, tore away the flesh and ribs from his left side with one raking, razor-sharp swipe of her own gauntlet.
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