September 7, 2011

• By A Hunter's Moon, chapter 1

  {My latest mini-opus, I've posted 3 chapters, the rest is written, just let me get  some sleep}

   

  He ran.

  What moonlight made it through the interlocking crowns of the treetops came to rest in a crooked patchwork of light on the forest floor. He did his best to avoid the light, but his labored breathing left a succession of slowly dissipating balls of vapor, a trail that, for one who can track by the scent of fear, one for whom the forest gloom was as bright as a summer field, was unnecessary. He never looked behind him, It was there. No chance that It would pursue another of the pack, thus sparing him until another night. The others had been taken, one by one, over the course of a few weeks. It was hungry, he was alone, and he ran.

  He made his way uphill, jumping boulders, rounding huge trunks. He thought briefly of the high mountains where he had spent his puppyhood. There, they had been hungry, but never afraid. Hunger was like another sibling to him, he had known it all his life. Fear was a stranger, an unwelcome one at that, and so he ran. His feet hurt, his lungs ached from the incessant influx of cold air as he ran.

  A shadow separated and fell from the branches above, uniting with its mooncast counterpart in front of the exhausted carnivore. It's breath left no visible cloud. The tall shadow approached the wolf, who backed up, snarling. No more running, time to fight or die. He gathered his legs under him, a low growl escaped his lips as he leaped, powerful jaws opened wide.

  The wolf never saw what had gripped his throat, but he felt his neck snap, saw the red eyes drop below his field of vision, heard the tearing sound, so familiar, the sound of flesh being ripped from a carcass. Suddenly tired, all he wanted was to lay against his mother's belly, a teat in his mouth, his brother and sister snuggled up against either side of him, keeping him warm, keeping him safe....

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  Seeker ran to Vali, then back up the hillside deeper in the woods. Twice the sheepdog repeated the circuit, marking his companion's progress. When he didn't return a third time, Vali knew he was close to whatever had the dog so excited. Even at noon, little light penetrated the forest canopy. This late in the afternoon, the shadows swallowed the light as it filtered downward. Vali unshouldered his rifle as he walked. In Romania, bad things happened in dark places.

  Seeker was standing over the carcass, his tail down. He whined as Vali approached. With the barrel of his rifle he poked the carcass of the wolf, who lay as if sleeping. "What is it, Seeker? " But he felt it, too. On a dare from his little brother, he had once run through the cemetery outside of Lodescu, where they were visiting an aunt and uncle, at midnight. The tingles that crawled up his spine then was akin to what he felt now, looking at a vampire's kill.

  He spoke aloud, Seeker watched him with an air of comprehension. "See the wound in the throat, boy? He did not lay down and die here, he was placed in that position." Vali gestured toward a divot ripped out out the forest duff a few yards away. "He leapt at his attacker from here," Vali talked as he stepped in the direction indicated by the disturbed leaves. Seeker followed, sniffed the disturbed soil.

  Vali saw no tracks, no crushed leaves. Seeker put his nose to a dark spot on the ground. Vali stooped to look at it; it was blood, only a few hours old. Tracks led downhill from the kill site. This was the carcass of the the wolf who had been feeding on their lamb downhill, when he became prey himself. He fled uphill, where he met his killer, and then his fate.

  Seeker barked and looked downhill. He was right, it was getting darker. "Let's go, friend. Lucian should have a pot of boiling potatoes and shallots, and no meat, unless we do our part." Before starting downhill, Vali took his knife and cut off the wolf's right ear. What passed for a regional government these days was promising a bounty.

  As they cleared the forest, Seeker froze, his nose pointed to their left. Vali saw it immediately, a hare, getting a last few nibbles of dandelion before returning to the warren for the night. Vali sighted on the hare and adjusted his aim for the distance, about a hundred and fifty feet, and for the light breeze blowing up the valley. He fired, the brown hare fell over and Seeker ran to retrieve it. When the dog returned, Vali saw that he had hit the hare in the head, all the meat would be fit for the pot. Vali fit the upward-curved stock of his Afghan rifle, a spoil of war called a jezail, under his shoulder, and took the kill that Seeker offered him. He stuffed it in his belt, and together they walked across the wide valley to the farmhouse on the other side of Minascu Creek. The fallen log made a good bridge. The creek was not deep. In the summer, Seeker would splash his way across the stream ahead of Vali. But it was still cold, and he knew that they would not let him in the house until he had dried off.

  The wind was blowing from the direction of the house, Vali could smell the potatoes and herbs. Seeker smelled more than potatoes, and he growled a warning to his human. Vali shushed him with a pat on the head, and reloaded the jezail as they neared their home.

  Lucian was standing outside, a few feet from their open front door. He faced five hooded men on horseback who were spread apart in a line the length of their one-room wood-and-stone cottage. Lucian looked calm, relaxed. In his belt was their father's pistol, the two-barrel, his favorite. The horseman closest to the approaching hunters looked their way. It was Skender, which meant that the big man astride the middle horse was Iorghu Khorzha, the vampire hunter. Vali joined his brother in front of the house. Seeker took his place between them. Greetings of a cool nature were exchanged.

  "We heard the shot, Vali." Iorghu rasped. Turkish tobacco would kill him before any vampire would. To Lucian, he continued, "When your brother rode with us, he kept us well-stocked with game. Once we heard a shot, Ferka would start a fire." Iorghu stopped to cough up something bloody. "He never disappointed us by coming back empty-handed."

  "I wish I had more than a single hare, Iorghu. I regret that I have not enough for our Father's friend and his retinue."

  "Never could be plain-spoken, you two." Iorghu coughed, then spat before continuing. "Lucian was just telling us that vampires must be, what was that word again?"

  "Omni-hemovores." Lucian said evenly. " It means that..."

  "Yes," Iorghu cut him off. "Vampires can live on the blood of any warm-blooded animal." Skender turned in his saddle, and looked down the path that had brought Vali and Seeker from the forest. Seeker did, too.

  "Howsomever, retinue," Iorghu declared with a sneer, "They prefer human blood, not the blood of a bear, like the one Skender found at the edge of the wood, the remains of a goat in its belly. Been dead for a while, but it was undoubtedly a vampire kill. As was the lynx Skender found in your trash pile, along with the remains of several egg-laying hens that were his meals, is my guess."

  On hearing his name, Skender returned his gaze to the brothers. The hair on Seeker's back stiffened. The smaller man smiled, his teeth were gapped and yellow

  "Your animal does not like me." Skender remarked in a sibilant whisper. Vali knew that it was all he could muster. Skender had famously bested a vampire in hand-to-hand combat, a feat which had made him a legend, but cost him a fair piece of his larynx. The talk was that the bite had made him part-vampire, or that he had taken on the spirit of the godless creature. Vali took no stock in that tale, Skender had always been a fierce man in any kind of fight.

  "Does anybody?" Vali wanted to say. Instead he pointed to Skender's saddle bag, "Maybe he smells your souvenirs." There were proofs required for the payment of bounty on vampires, as with any other predator. Fangs were good, if the creature's death came about by means of fire. Whole heads were better.

  Lucian patted the dog's back and said nothing.

  Now that it was almost fully dark, Lucian went about lighting the oil lamps on either side of the front door. Flickering lights and shifting shadows played across the hunters' faces, making Skender's mirthless grin even more unnnerving.

  Iorghu retook control of the conversation. "No, vampires definitely prefer human blood, like that of the night watchman at the mill outside Petisoara."

  Vali had not heard about that attack. Petisoara was several leagues downstream, where the valley broadened. But Iorghu was not through.

  "And what vampire would not want a taste of little Mina Ibanescu, niece of my man Emilian here." He gestured toward the dour man, the only one of the party with a right to be morose, on the black horse to his right. To Emilian's right was Iorghu's son, Iosif, his match in strength and size, but not in intellect. To Iosif's right was the smokehouse, a supply of wood beside it, chopped and ready for the coming spring slaughter.

  Dragos crouched on the smokehouse roof, next to the chimney, where the other horsemen blocked Skender's view. Skender's famous kill was against a newly-sponsored vampire, a whelp with yet-undeveloped strength and skills. Dragos knew he could best the lizard-man, and the drinking of his blood would be a delight. But the man's senses were uncanny; He had almost spotted him twice before Dragos made it to the smokehouse. He wanted to stay and listen. So far, the brothers had not given any indication that they knew he had taken up residence on their land. But the Vampire-hunter had said Petisoara, and Dragos knew what that meant, and what he had to do. He slipped off the roof making less noise than the family of mice huddled in the shingles surrounding the chimney, their whiskers vibrating rapidly.

   

  "Iorghu, are you accusing us of harboring a vampire? Father hunted the red-eyes with you, remember. My brother did as well." There was anger in Lucian's voice. Vali sighed, and began to clean the hare, throwing bits to Seeker, who closed his eyes in delight each time he bit into another fresh morsel.

  "No, not harbor," Iorghu sounded as if he had water in his lungs. "More that you tolerate its presence, because it has become the guardian of your livestock."

  "We lost a lamb yesterday, to a wolf. I found the body this afternoon." Vali noted.

  "And there are the hens and the goat that you know about, Iorghu." Lucian reminded the large, slump-shouldered man.

  "Were that the extent of our losses, I would thank the saints." This from Ferka, from his position between Skender and Iorghu. "Since the drought began in the north two years ago, predators have swarmed into our valleys, our farms and towns and villages like refugees. Our family has lost ten sheep and two milk cows to bears, and that is in winter, when the beasts are normally asleep, and the flock stays close to home at night."

  Emilian spoke up. "Thirteen sheep, two goats, and most of our hens. ...and our beautiful Mina..."

  "I was looking forward to courting Mina, when she became of age." Iosif said to to Emilian. Behind his back, Iosif made a crude gesture for sexual congress as he spoke. Nobody laughed. Iorghu looked at the brothers, shook his head.

  Lucian ignored Iosif's contribution to the discussion. Of Iorghu, he asked, "And thus our miniscule losses must be none other than the result of a symbiotic relationship with a demon of the night?"

  Iorghu studied Lucian for a breath, then turned to his brother. "I thought you were the one your father sent to the University."

  "I sent my books home from Bucharest as I finished each class." Vali threw the skin into a pail of water to soften overnight, laid the gutted hare on a table used for butchering when the weather was benign. "He taught himself, without the benefit of professors. He is smarter than I."

  "No small feat," Iorghu remarked. "And an even better shot, I have heard."

  As if in response to Iorghu, there was a soft fluttering from above. Lucian looked skyward. He brought his pistol up, high above the horsemen's heads. The steeds whinnied and stamped at the two unexpected shots, but they did not bolt. Two dark objects fell from the sky. Skender snatched one as it dropped between him and Ferka. He held it up before him. It was a bat, a musket-ball sized hole in its chest. Seeker trotted over to the stone fence where the other had fallen, brought it back, and laid the bat at Lucian's feet.

  Iorghu laughed. "By the light of a quarter moon, no less! Still, not enough meat for the pot to warrant an invite to dinner, and we must be on our way. Two new men are waiting to join our party in Petisoara, mercenaries, fresh from the Hapsburg's latest campaigns. We have a very active vampire, and a town willing to pay handsomely, the faster to be rid of it. We can discuss this matter further once I have satisfied the terms of this contract." Without another word, he turned his horse and spurred the black Belgian to a fast trot, the others followed him. Skender threw the bat in front of Seeker, who ignored it, preferring to track the smaller man as he rode by the smokehouse, studying it minutely. The brothers watched the procession as they rode by the Nicolae family mausoleum. Vali thought briefly of his wife in there, two years now. How beautiful she had looked, even as the pneumonia weakened her beyond saving. Tomorrow, he would pick some fresh spring flowers to place on her casket.

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  Dragos stopped when he heard the shots; he knew the sound of the two-barrel well. Hearing no answering rounds, he resumed his run westward to Petisoara. Years ago, he had made a mistake. Now it was time to correct that error.

  chapter two starts here

  • 8:47 am
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