“You thought right,” Larten chuckled. “We’ll set off at dusk.”
“With your skin as red as a lobster’s?” Wester asked.
“A minor irritation,” Larten said, wincing as he leant back on his bed of straw.
Without any further discussion he closed his eyes. The others lay down and also prepared for sleep, though it would be a long time before any of them dozed. They rested in the shade for much of the morning, eyes closed but awake, thinking of the war pack, stomachs rumbling with excitement… and hunger.
CHAPTER FOUR
War was the great addiction of humans. Vampires loved to fight and got involved in bloody, brutal challenges all the time. But they had only been involved in a war once, when seventy of their clan broke away to become the vampaneze. Although various vampires had clashed with human forces in the past, they had never engaged in all-out conflict. As an old pun put it, war was not in their blood.
Humans, on the other hand, seemed to be interested in nothing else. Larten had seen much of the globe in the last twenty years. He had explored the continents of Europe, Africa, America and Asia. Wars raged everywhere as men found new, inventive ways to kill even more of their race. It was like a contest, the many tribes of mankind competing to see who could commit the worst atrocities.
Although mature vampires were not drawn to war, the Cubs were fascinated by it. To them it was a spectator sport, the same as boxing or wrestling. Many met at battlefields and cheered on the soldiers, laughed at the innocents trying to escape the crossfire, gambled on who would claim victory.
And of course they fed. By the gods, how they fed!
The war which Larten and his associates travelled to observe that night was a minor skirmish. Scholars might recall it in later decades, but it would not be marked as one of the important battles of its time. No vast chunks of land were at stake. History didn’t hang in the balance. There were no real profits to be made. It was just one more clash of men who felt driven to kill each other for reasons only their leaders knew. And sometimes not even their kings and generals could explain why they were fighting. They often went to war simply because they could think of nothing else to do.
The vampires arrived a few hours before dawn. Signs of fighting were everywhere — bloodstained fields, discarded swords and muskets, limbs that had been left to rot, even a few whole bodies. There was a foul stench and the animals and birds of the night were gorging themselves, picking flesh from bones and nibbling on guts, making the most of the unexpected feast.
Tanish studied a field of trampled crops. His sharp eyes picked out the corpse of a child among the broken stalks. The head of a soldier was half submerged in a rabbit hole. A bare foot was sticking up into the air — the four small toes had been chewed off, leaving only the big toe pointing oddly at the sky. Tanish ran his gaze over the blood and entrails, taking it all in.
Then he laughed.
“These look like an especially vicious lot,” Tanish said enthusiastically. “We should have an interesting day.”
“You don’t think we’ve missed all the fighting?” Zula asked.
“Not by a long shot,” Yebba said. “I smell human fear in the air. That way.” He pointed west. “And there.” East. “They mean to clash again and they know many more will die when they do.”
Although Larten could smell the soldiers, he wasn’t able to pinpoint the scent of fear. But Yebba was fifteen years older and had been blooded when he was only thirteen. A vampire’s senses improved for most of their first hundred years.
The sharp-nosed Yebba led the way as they homed in on their kin. Vampires were harder to track than humans. If Larten hadn’t known there were others present, he probably wouldn’t have noted the subtle traces of their smell in the air.
They found the war pack resting beneath a massive, leafy tree. There were eight of them, a couple younger than Larten, the rest the same age as him or older. Tanish was the eldest and he immediately acted as if he was the ranking vampire.
“On your feet, you lazy, good-for-nothing Cubs,” he snarled, standing just beyond the limbs of the tree, glaring like a General. “Is this any way to behave in front of your betters?”
“You’re no better than the pimples on my backside, Tanish,” a vampire drawled. Larten recognised him — Jordan Egin, one of three in the pack that he’d met before.
Jordan rose, slouched towards Tanish, sneered in his face, then laughed and hugged him hard. “Good to see you again, old friend.”
“And you,” Tanish beamed. “You’ll remember these two.”
“Larten and Wester,” Jordan nodded. “We feasted heartily last time, aye?”
The pair chuckled at the memory, although Wester looked somewhat ashamed. He had overindulged on that occasion and been violently sick afterwards.
“These are Yebba and Zula Pone,” Tanish said. “Yebba has a nose like a hound and Zula is a villain of the highest order. You’ll get on well.”
The vampires shook hands, then moved forward to greet the rest of the pack. It wasn’t long before they were guzzling ale and swapping tales of their adventures.
War packs were a relatively new phenomenon. Vampires had tended to stay out of the way of warring humans in the past, not drawing attention to themselves. But there were so many wars being fought now, on such a massive scale, that the night-walkers could mingle freely with human troops in most places. The Cubs had started frequenting battlefields several decades earlier and now it was a common part of their lives. A lone vampire could nearly always be assured of finding company in a war zone.
Larten listened happily to the stories of Jordan and the others, and told some of his own in return. There was much laughter when Tanish told them of the trick he had played the previous night, and Larten had to take off his jacket and shirt to show his sunburnt back. He had already recovered from the worst of the burning, but his skin was still sore to the touch and a few of the vampires slapped him and hooted when he screeched. He had to knock a couple of heads together before they left him alone, but it was all done in good spirits.
The next bout between the armies wasn’t due to start until late in the morning — both sides were waiting for fresh recruits. So the pack turned in when the sun rose and caught some sleep. When they were awakened by the sound of gunfire, they groaned, stretched, took umbrellas from a large sack and set off to find the battle.
Larten had felt foolish the first time he’d stood by a group of soldiers hellbent on killing one another, sheltered from the sun beneath an umbrella that would have suited a lady far better. But he had grown accustomed to it. He now felt the same way a huntsman did when he pulled on ridiculous-looking clothes before mounting his horse and riding out behind his hounds.
The Cubs found the soldiers massed in a large field. They were fighting hand to hand. Most were armed with swords or knives, which the vampires preferred. They disliked guns for a number of reasons, firstly because the clan frowned on the use of them — guns were the choice of cowards. There was also the fact that guns could be turned against the Cubs. Vampires were tougher than humans and much harder to kill, but a well-placed bullet could account for even the best of them. It was an embarrassing way to die, your brains blown out from a distance.
But mostly the Cubs disapproved of long-range warfare because it was boring. There wasn’t much fun in watching humans shoot each other. The delight came in observing them struggle to stay alive. In dirty scraps like this, dozens of duels were being fought, life-or-death dramas which the vampires could follow with ghoulish glee, then turn away from at the end and discuss like a play.
Some of the soldiers noticed the curious men with the umbrellas, but most were too focused on the business of staying alive. If they caught sight of the scarred, pale-skinned figures walking among them, they paused to assess whether or not the strangers posed a threat. When the soldiers saw