“What?” I snapped. I was irritable after three weeks of sleeping rough.
“I smell blood,” he said.
Pausing, I sniffed the air, and after a few seconds I got the whiff too, strong and sickly.
“Stay close behind me,” Mr Crepsley whispered. “Be prepared to run the instant I give the order.” I nodded obediently, then trailed after him as he crept to the opening and slid inside.
The cave was dark, especially after the brightness of the moonlit night, and we entered slowly, giving our eyes time to adjust. It was a deep cave, turning off to the left and going back twenty or more metres. Three coffins had been placed on stands in the middle, but one was lying on the floor, its lid hanging off, and another had been smashed to pieces against the wall to our right.
The wall and floor around the shattered coffin were dark with blood. It wasn’t fresh, but by its smell it wasn’t more than a couple of nights old. Having checked the rest of the cave – to ensure we were alone – Mr Crepsley edged over to the blood and crouched to examine it, dipping a finger into the dried pool, then tasting it.
“Well?” I hissed, as he stood, rubbing his finger and thumb together.
“It is the blood of a vampire,” he said quietly.
My insides tightened — I’d been hoping it was the blood of a wild animal. “What do you think–” I started to ask, when there was a sudden rushing sound behind me. A strong arm wrapped around my middle, a thick hand clutched my throat, and – as Mr Crepsley shot forward to help – my attacker grunted triumphantly: “Hah!”
CHAPTER FOUR
AS I stiffened helplessly, my life in the hands of whoever had hold of me, Mr Crepsley leapt, the fingers of his right hand outstretched like a blade. He sliced the hand over the top of my head. My assailant released me and ducked in the same movement, dropping heavily to the floor as Mr Crepsley sailed by. As the vampire rolled to his feet and spun to strike a second blow, the man who’d snatched me roared, “Stop, Larten! It’s me — Gavner!”
Mr Crepsley paused and I got to my feet, coughing from the fright, but no longer afraid. Turning, I saw a burly man with a scarred, patchy face and dark rims around both his eyes. He was dressed in similar clothes to ours, with a cap pulled down over his ears. I recognized him instantly — Gavner Purl, a Vampire General. I’d met him years ago, shortly before my run-in with Murlough.
“You bloody fool, Gavner!” Mr Crepsley shouted. “I would have killed you if I had connected! Why did you sneak up on us?”
“I wanted to surprise you,” Gavner said. “I’ve been shadowing you most of the night, and this seemed like the perfect time to close in. I didn’t expect to almost lose my head in the process,” he grumbled.
“You should have been paying more attention to your surroundings and less to Darren and I,” Mr Crepsley said, pointing towards the blood-stained wall and floor.
“By the blood of the vampaneze!” Gavner hissed.
“Actually, it is the blood of a vampire,” Mr Crepsley corrected him dryly.
“Any idea whose?” Gavner asked, hurrying over to test the blood.
“None,” Mr Crepsley said.
Gavner prowled around the confines of the cave, studying the blood and broken coffin, searching for further clues. Finding none, he returned to where we were standing and scratched his chin thoughtfully. “He was probably attacked by a wild animal,” he mused aloud. “A bear – maybe more than one – caught him during the day, while he was sleeping.”
“I am not so sure of that,” Mr Crepsley disagreed. “A bear would have caused great damage to the cave and its contents, but only the coffins have been disturbed.”
Gavner ran his eyes over the cave again, noting the tidy state of the rest of it, and nodded. “What do you think happened?” he asked.
“A fight,” Mr Crepsley suggested. “Between two vampires, or between the dead vampire and somebody else.”
“Who’d be out here in the middle of nowhere?” I asked.
Mr Crepsley and Gavner exchanged a troubled look. “Vampire hunters, perhaps,” Gavner muttered.
My breath caught in my throat — I’d grown so used to the vampire way of life, I’d all but forgotten that there were people in the world who thought we were monsters and made it their business to hunt us down and kill us.
“Or maybe humans who chanced upon him by accident and panicked,” Mr Crepsley said. “It has been a long time since vampire hunters aggressively trailed us. This may have been a case of mere misfortune.”
“Either way,” Gavner said, “let’s not hang around and wait for it to happen again. I was looking forward to resting, but now I think it’s best we don’t cage ourselves in.”
“Agreed,” Mr Crepsley replied, and after one last sweep of the cave, we retreated, senses alert to the slightest hint of an attack.
We made our base for the night in the middle of a ring of thick trees, and lit a rare fire — all of us felt chilled to the bone after our experience in the cave. While we were discussing the dead vampire and whether we should search the surrounding area for his body, the Little People returned, carrying a young deer they’d captured. They stared suspiciously at Gavner, who stared just as suspiciously back.
“What are they doing with you?” he hissed.
“Mr Tiny insisted I bring them,” Mr Crepsley said, then raised a quieting hand as Gavner swivelled to ask more questions. “Later,” he promised. “Let us eat first and dwell upon the death of our comrade.”
The trees sheltered us from the rising sun, so we sat up long after dawn, discussing the dead vampire. Since there wasn’t anything we could do about him – the vampires decided against a search, on the grounds that it would slow us down – talk eventually turned to other matters. Gavner asked about the Little People again, and Mr Crepsley told him how Mr Tiny had appeared and sent them with us. Then he asked Gavner why he’d been trailing us.
“I knew you’d be presenting Darren to the Princes,” Gavner said, “so I located your mental pattern and traced you through it.” (Vampires are able to bond mentally with each other.) “I had to cut up from a hundred miles south, but I hate travelling alone — it’s boring having no one to chat with.”
As we talked, I noticed a couple of toes were missing from Gavner’s left foot and asked about them. “Frostbite,” he answered cheerfully, wriggling the three remaining toes. “I broke my leg coming here a couple of Councils back. Had to crawl for five nights to reach a way-station. It was only by the luck of the vampires that I didn’t lose more than a few toes.”
The vampires talked a lot about the past, old friends and previous Councils. I thought they’d mention Murlough – Gavner had alerted Mr Crepsley to the mad vampaneze’s whereabouts – but they didn’t, not even in passing.
“How have you been?” Gavner asked me.
“Fine,” I said.
“Life with this sour buzzard hasn’t got you down?”
“I’ve coped so far,” I smiled.
“Any intentions of topping up?” he asked.
“Pardon?”
He raised his fingers so I could see the ten scars on the tips, the usual