41
FANGS LONG AND SHARP
The Campaign of 1462
Vlad routed Ottoman forces up and down the Danube, freeing the waterways for trade and travel into and out of Romania. He put every Turk to the sword – or he impaled them, grisly warnings above gates and along wall-tops.
The pox came with the late summer heat, and his men died, and fell sick. They sheltered in the cool of stream-fed mountain forests, and his wolves hunted fresh game, and Eira spent nearly as much time trying to comfort the afflicted as she did training with her sword, sparring with Malik, when the wolves refused to raise a hand toward her, even in the name of preparedness.
And then, finally, Mehmet came. He brought to bear such a force that two vampires, and three wolves were not enough to tip the scales in their favor. So they began a protracted retreat, fighting, killing, engaging their enemy, but all the time falling back, back.
But not quietly. And Vlad hadn’t given up, yet.
~*~
Vlad knelt at the water’s edge and inhaled, smelling the taint of human waste in the water; the enemy was upwind. He stood, and accepted the unlit torch that Cicero handed him. Eira was there, too, and Fen, and Malik, and five other of his most-trusted and fearsome warriors. Night lay black and starless over this patch of forest; owls called, low and somber, and small, slinking creatures moved through the underbrush, watching them.
“Don’t linger,” he reminded everyone. “Kill if you can, but do not allow yourselves to get mired in a fight. This is about destruction, and fear.”
Murmurs of assent.
He looked at his mother, her hair tightly braided, three lines of blue painted like claw marks over each eye, bleeding down her cheeks. Before he could say anything, she lifted blue brows and said, “Going to tell me to stay behind again?”
He’d done it several times now, and she’d nearly slapped him once, and outright refused to listen at every occasion.
“Be careful, Mother,” he said, and bowed his head to her.
She snorted, and rolled her eyes, quick flashes in the dark. Then she came forward, put her small but deadly hands on his shoulders, and stood up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “You, too, my darling.” She pulled back, and smiled, her fangs long and sharp. “And good luck.”
~*~
“God, I hate campaigning,” Val muttered, sinking down into a chair.
This particular campaign was nothing like that of Constantinople, where there had been a fixed camp, one allowed to sprawl and grow over time, the campaign tents homes of a sort, to return to each night, and the battles fought on the same land, and on the same ship, every day. But here, now, Vlad continued a slow retreat, without ever conceding that he’d been defeated. He led them deeper and deeper into the mountains, deeper into his own lands, toward Tîrgoviste, Val had realized. And he harried them constantly. A third of Mehmet’s men had come down with pox in the last fortnight, and eventually, the torturers had gotten hold of a few strange soldiers, and learned they were in fact Wallachian. Vlad had sent his own dying men to infect Mehmet’s forces.
Val nearly grinned every time he thought of it.
The night was dark, and close now, cool mountain breezes chasing away the day’s dry heat, the stars all hiding. Breath of moisture in the air, as it if might rain; a weight that Val could feel pressing down on his shoulders.
Slaves had put up the royal tent hastily, without installing half its usual finery; wagons had been abandoned miles back, and so Val would content himself with dozing in this chair, since a bed would not be made ready.
Mehmet wore dark smudges beneath both eyes, so deep they looked like bruises, but he paced. He’d been drinking blood from some of the baggage horses, and even, Val suspected, from his slaves, and so his gait was strong and quick, with only the occasional wince or sign of a limp.
“How is he managing this?” he wondered aloud.
It was rhetorical, but Val wanted to answer anyway. “Because he’s Vlad.”
Mehmet growled.
Timothée, absently twirling the wine in his cup, turned to Val, brows drawing downward. “Why do you keep saying that? ‘Because he’s Vlad’ isn’t an answer to anything.”
Val was too tired to laugh, so he settled for a smirk instead. “My brother defies all explanation. If you’d ever met him, you’d know that. Why is he able to keep ahead of us? Why has he not surrendered? Why can our spies not catch sight of him? Any other man would have been thrice defeated by now. But he’s Vlad.” He shrugged. “Don’t overthink it.” He threw the mage a wink just to watch him frown and turn away in disgust.
“I for one–” Timothée began.
And was cut off by the clear, forlorn howl of a wolf. A wolf that was very close.
Val sat bolt upright in his chair before he could check his reaction; gooseflesh broke out like a rash across all of his skin, even his scalp, which prickled fiercely. He knew that howl. Fenrir! Mother was here.
