“So the theocratists and the militarists have little power in the Polismoot, but their powerful spokespeople on the Council of State make them a major force. Conversely the reformists, despite having a good third of the members in the moot, rely on just one or two families for their support on the Council – the Balliols from west Flintshire, the Von Tamberdalls and the Islaynes from Lynshire, and the Wessans from Violland. About four-tenths of the nobles and about half the mootsmen are just moderates, though.”
Hannel did his best to follow Nathaniel’s brutally fast overview of his own country’s politics and factions whilst also half-walking, half-running down the twisting backstreets of Murrod.
“So do even the Dukes and Generals go to one faction or another?”
“The Generals are, like yourself and the troops, not allowed to vote. Incidentally, since my department doesn’t officially exist even if everyone knows it does, you’ll now be able to vote come an election, Captain. Ah, here we are.”
The white-coated young nobleman paused outside a rickety, battered wooden doorway. Along the street, every tall and thin house had boarded-up windows and rusting door-handles; the cobbles were rutted and broken along the back-lane that he had led them down. Nevertheless Nathaniel Von Tamberdall walked up to the old door and knocked. A spy-shutter opened quickly and then closed, before the rickety wood swung open to let the three men in, Nathaniel leading Wekker and the noble’s mysterious manservant, Pearson, following behind.
“Oster! We were attacked getting here. Vampire and some mercenaries, get Pearson to give you a report. Come on through, Wekker.”
The man who had opened the door scuttled away with Pearson, and the Captain was able to glance around the inside of the building for the first time. It was, in a word, beautiful. Elegant carvings adorned thin, fluted columns in a small entrance hall. A plaque on the wall told Wekker that he had entered “The Academy for Information and Intelligence”. The outside gave nothing away; from the dingiest backstreets of the city he had stepped into a building that had had as much beauty of design lavished on it as most palaces of great offices of state.
Nathaniel led his guest down a long marble corridor, pausing occasionally to introduce his guest to various figures he saw. The men were a total mixture; some were scarred soldiers, others efficient-looking young clerks or aged diplomats. Most were armed, all had a look of expertise and ruthless efficiency.
“All Chaltary’s spying work is done here. I’m one of the more senior administrators; not a spy myself, but I deal with collating the information and getting it to the foreign ministers and the army. Commander Karnel runs the whole place, you’ll meet him sometime maybe. That said, not all of what we do is spying by a long shout. Experimental weapons development, half our negotiations with other countries’ ministers, a lot of the administration for the army… this is the heart of our government, right where nobody would find it.”
“How big is this place?”
“It fills two entire blocks of houses, which are two blocks apart and connected by tunnels.”
“Crikey.”
“Good response. Right, here’s where you’ll be living.”
The room he showed Wekker would have been considered spartan by a noble or even a merchant, but to a man used to the cut and thrust of military marches it was more comfortable than many a bed from the past. The room was small, with a thin-mattressed but not uncomfortable bed, a small writing desk, and a wardrobe that turned out to contain three well-made and practical sets of civilian clothes – all already made to Wekker’s size.
“Wow. I mean… all these people. I’ve never talked to an engineer before or thought about doing so, except to ask for a gun that fires lightning so I can blow a few more enemies off the planet.” He gave a short, harsh laugh at the oddity of it all, then paused. “So what am I actually going to be doing here? You’ve never really told me.”
“Depends on what gets clearance from Karnel. Essentially our worries at the moment are relating to the fact that they seem to be expanding their spying service with more Vampires, and also that they’re clearly trying to work to eliminate more of their enemies to the north. We’ve never really had any contact with Nurreich or the Union’s Rebels since the land between us was totally under Union control, and the Papacy only tends to send hate messages south to us… but if we CAN help the Union’s other foes we need to try. Even if I could only send you, Pearson, and possibly an engineer or another soldier we could potentially wreak a lot of havoc where we’re not expected. On the other hand, if any of our spies get captured – particularly someone like you who knows all about our troop numbers along the russet-coat passes – then they could hit back at us very, very hard indeed. At the least they could find this place, and then we’d find it hellish to get anything done for fear of assassins.”
“So what shall I do for now?”
“I need to go and get Pearson’s report looked over and filed, we’ll get some guards out into the woods to pick up the Vampire’s assistants and see if we can recognise any of them. Feel free to wander around the place a bit; the experimental weaponry department’s on the left of the main corridor, or tactics and military planning is up the third set of stairs on your right.”
Nathaniel swept out. He was no fighter, as Hannel had found, but at what he did he was as good as anyone; loyal, efficient, and determined to do a good job. That seemed to be the ethos of this place. Captain Wekker liked it.
He decided to wander toward the tactics department, and so set off down the corridors. A loud banging noise behind him spun him round, though; a sign pointing to the Department for Research and Knowledge was shaking violently. When he had walked back down, Hannel discovered that unlike the wood-panelled doors that dominated the building, the Department only had a curtain. He gingerly began to push it aside, fearing the wrath of some aged professorial type surrounded by scribbling clerks.
“Come along in! We would have had a door, but I kept burning the damned things down. Are you new, sir?”
The room that the Captain looked into was unlike anywhere he had ever been before. Smoke and steam permeated the air and gave it an odd and unfamiliar weight; everywhere bar nowhere boilers and cogs and ratchets lay discarded in heaps. He peered through the haze to try and see the speaker.
Eventually he wandered further into the room, and saw who had addressed him; it was a young man, in a long green coat and thick leather gloves. He waved a heavily clad hand towards Hannel, who picked his way carefully across the metal heaps.
“Uhm… hello?”
The young man was not strongly or athletically built, but nevertheless made a surprisingly athletic jump as he swung himself over a large steam-pipe and strode over to the newcomer.
“I’m James – son of Earl Balliol; you’d be Hannel Wekker? Nathaniel’s been wanting to get a good soldier in the spies for a while now, didn’t think Von Wennedon would send one though. The man’s quite precious about his staff.”
He spoke with a bright tone though his voice was deep, and his face had hints of dark stubble under a mess of mouse-brown hair. The hazel eyes had rather a mad look about them, though not an unfriendly one.
“Anyhow, Captain, do come and look round. We’ve really got quite a collection of equipment here, as you can see.”
The two men stumbled along through workbenches, open books, boiling substances, and vials of mysterious powder. Finally Balliol noticed a shape in the smoky haze.
“Here! Is that you, Whatley?”
They came upon an elderly man tightening bolts on what appeared to be a large wooden barrel – large being an understatement; it had a door on one side, and could easily have fitted two men inside.
“It’s nearly finished! And it works ENTIRELY by pedal power!” The man turned the handle on the door, swung it open theatrically, and even managed not to look put out when the entire door-panel came off in his hand. “I haven’t fixed that bit yet. Not to worry. James, look, it’s totally watertight!”
“So it’s a boat?” The odd barrel didn’t seem to have much that would make it useful on land or sea; a small screw at the front, true, but you’d never get close enough to bore into a ship with it.
“Not so much a boat as, ehem, an under-boat.”
“What?”
James butted in whilst Whatley’s mind visibly floated away from the trivialities of humanity and back to his project. “It goes under the water, Captain.”
“But… it’ll float, surely? Or it’ll be too heavy and sink.”
“Not so. There’s a tank into which you can let water, or pump it out. The thing can do real damage too; you can screw into ships well below the waterline, and they’ve got a hold full of water before they know it.”
”You’ve tested it then?”
“Not yet. We’ll see. Now come along, there’s a ton more things to show you.”
“PAHAHAAAAAAAA!”
A strange noise – a laugh – cut through the thick air. Startled, Wekker pulled out a pistol and pointed it wildly into the smog, before noticing with slight embarrassment that Balliol, though unarmed, was simply wandering towards the source of the maniacal cackle.
“What the hell was that?”
“Josua Von Karlurden. Mad as a fruitcake. Good ideas about one time in a hundred, that said, and worth their weight in gold when they are good… Josua! Where you at?”
“I’ve done it! I’ve done it!”
A little man in glasses bounced over to them, and pointed at a sheet of paper.
”The energy of your sparks in boiling water! It doesn’t need aether at all! Look!”
James’ face knotted in concentration. “But you’ve added this constant, here” - he pointed to what as far as his guest (feeling more like a bewildered soldier by the minute) was concerned was a minute squiggle on about the fifth line of calculations down – “what does that mean?”
“Um… it seemed to be necessary. Not really sure.”
“But it’d have to be another receptor for the value of V, and V is a form of energy… So… dear gods, it looks right though. Might bugger the theory of Energies entirely, but it works.”
He handed the paper back, and continued with his tour of the strange complex of laboratories, whilst giving Hannel a long lecture on the theory of energies and how it HAD to be flawed, which the soldier didn’t understand at all but listened to on the grounds that it would be impolite not to.
“Now THIS is the real deal, Hannel. Your sort of invention.” James had finally returned to his own workbench, and was delving into the mass of piping thereon. What he pulled out was something that might’ve been a long, thick-barrelled, but for the large array of twisting piping that adorned one end.
“Heh, looks like some sort of steam rifle… right?”
The hazel eyes glittered slightly. “Half-right. I’d advise you to stand back whilst I demonstrate the other half.”
Steam guns were known for occasionally exploding anyhow; Wekker’s friend Captain Jaksen had lost a hand trying to shoot a Union officer once. Hannel got well out of the way.
As he watched, Balliol pressed several catches at the back. A hissing began to come out of the machine as the water inside began to get hotter and hotter, building up under pressure. Eventually, with a slightly worrying grin, the engineer tugged hard on the trigger. He was clearly no marksman, but that was not what Wekker was looking at.
The water droplets flew across the room in a long, hissing jet that would have scalded anything in their path. Between them, though, jumped flashes and sparks of iridescent light that lit up the faces of the two men. A gun that fired lightning.
“Wow.”
”I’m pretty pleased with it myself.” James’ voice was quieter, in awe of his own achievement. He looked up, to see a young and agile woman coming along and swinging herself over the top of a small Trammech, before sliding down the angled side to sit on a cannon barrel. She could only be half-seen through the fog, but she clearly had a wide mane of curly hair.
“James! Nathaniel voudrait voir toi et le capitane. Il est dans la salle de Karnel.”
“Merci, Magalie.”
The girl gave him a friendly nod, then walked away.
“That was Vertenne you were speaking, right?”
”Yep. She says that Nathaniel needs to see us… we’d better get going.”
“She from the Green Coast then?”
“No, Chaltarian as you or I. We just prefer talking Vertenne to each other, it’s a nicer language really. Smoother.”
James eventually led Hannel to a large double-door, somewhere on the top floor of the building. The white-painted door was carved with the royal emblems of Chaltary – two boars, with crossed spears between them.
”This is Commander Karnel’s meeting room. There’s obviously something important going on… let’s see.”
He knocked carefully. Both doors swung open, and at last Hannel Wekker stepped through to see the man who would decide his fate…
Commander Kurt Karnel was the antithesis of his organisation. The most subtle, clever, efficient part of Chaltary’s government was led by a fat, noisy, unstable beaureaucrat. That said, he had a few skills that enabled him to do the job. The main one was, of course, that of delegation.
The round table around which Hannel Wekker, his latest emplpyee, was ushered to sit contained some of the brightest minds and toughest fighters in the nation. The Commander wasn’t among them, but – as James Balliol had explained while he and Wekker were getting to the meeting - he had “a damn fine knack for spotting them.”
“Here, you go and sit near Kaia over there.” Balliol pointed out a woman of around thirty with reddish hair, who was flanked on one side by a huge man, probably of northern descent and wearing a heavy fur coat. Hannel walked over, neither confident nor showing nerves, and took his place. He gazed around the table; James was across from him, talking to a strange hooded figure who looked far too small to be at a grown-up’s meeting, Nathaniel was on one side of Karnel, and on Karnel’s other side was a very recognisable figure. He had heard of Olander Von Darhell many times, and even seen him once. The woodsman and leader was a legend down the redcoat passes… it almost took something away that he had been in the pay of the government all along, but his reputation secured awe enough.
Finally his gaze wandered round to the giant sitting two seats from him. The fur-coated man looked uneasy – and with the sort of unease that was unlikely to go away in a hurry. He gazed at each other person there with a steady, piercing glance of the sort done as much to unnerve as to genuinely discover. That was one thing that was concerning Hannel about the man. The other thing about the man that was conerncing were the three openly carried pistols and the only-just-concealed riaxa – a long-barrelled rifle with a barrel that could also be slotted quickly onto the head of a sizeable axe – slung across his back. Hannel, on the other hand, had left his only pistol in his room.
“Olaf’s not that dangerous really. Or rather he IS, but only if you happen to be trying to attack him.”
Despite sitting next to her, Wekker only then really noticed the woman referred to as Kaia. She wore a loose skirt of faded but once-rich material, and then a hide jacket more suited to a woodsman. Her reddish hair fell loose down over her shoulders and down her back, and she had a clear-featured face.
“I certainly wouldn’t want to be trying to go for him myself…”
“Ssh, Karnel’s about to speak.”
The two watched as the overweight Commander rose to stand.
“Gentlemen.” Kaia stiffened a little. “We have come here to discuss matters, I say, of great importance. You all know that Vampires have been seen more and more spying around the city. However, I also have figures from spies across the union. The number of Vampires is not just increasing here…” he paused for effect. “It is increasing everywhere.”
Everyone in the room, of course, knew of Kahlenbach’s Legion. The creation of four thousand Vampires by an old deranged magician forced into it by the small Vampiric cabal that was even then pressing towards uniting the principalities of what would one day be the Union was folklore – if folklore that was part of a deadly reality. Since Kahlenbach’s own death, though, no new Vampires had been created. The accidental creations that had been created before him and his four thousand were all that there were… the secret, the terrible secret of their creation had been lost. More vampires? The looks that were gliding around the room spoke volumes, and volumes of fear at that.
“It seems as if someone, then, or something, is making the Union more Vampires. We need to send some men to the union to attempt to investigate this, led by Lonner. I also propose to send-”
“Have we managed to bring any Vampires in, sir?” A voice rang out across the table, though Hannel could not see from where.
“Until now we have been unable to attempt the capture of such a beast. However, one blew its cover following Nathaniel and Captain Wekker back through the forests.”
“You’ve captured it?” The speaker was a man to the right of Balliol; he was bearded and looked old, and had a heavy book on the table in front of him.
“Yes, Lonner, we’ve captured it… Bring it in!”
The pale figure was roughly shoved into the room. The vampire looked weak and thin in the brightly lit room, particularly with the dark mass of Pearson on one side and a bull-chested, reddish skinned man (who looked oddly like a picture Hannel had seen once of the mysterious nomads of the great plains) upon the other.
The man who had just spoken looked carefully at the prisoner. The vampire was tightly bound, hand and foot; the dark eyes were like tunnels into nothingness. He was pushed down into a seat opposite Karnel, and the man opened his book and spoke.
“Vampire, you have been brought here because you were trespassing on land that belongs to our nation, and for trying to kill one of our own. We may be willing to release you, if you share what you know with us. How came you to Murrod?”
“I will say nothing,” replied the pale figure, “while I am bound here like an animal.” His voice sounded softer and smoother than it had in the forests; weakness but pride sounded jointly in each syllable.
“We cannot unbind you while you remain a danger. Tell us what you know, and then we shall unbind you.”
“Just kill me, Chaltarian. It will help you not. If I told you all you wish to know it would not help you.”
“Perhaps we do not wish to kill you. Why do you not wish to tell us what you know, even with your life in the balance?”
“Because…” the vampire paused for a few seconds, glancing around at the faces enraptured by the exchange. “Because you have done to me just what my people would have done to you. The Union is the pinnacle of scientific achievement, has greater armies, mightier factories… so if you cannot beat them in courtesy, you match them in nothing. And if you match them in nothing, why should I tell you what I know? My life is small in the world.”
The man looked up from the vampire and over to the commander. “I doubt we can get him to talk, sir. Torture doesn’t work on Vampires, and assuming we won’t uncage him-”
“Why not release him?” Karnel looked over at the vampire. “He looks half emaciated, and we’ve got enough fighters in this room to take him down if he tries anything. And we need that information.”
”I wouldn’t advise it, sir.” Olander spoke for the first time, and all heads turned his way. “He’s not going to necessarily be honest anyway, and he only needs a few seconds to kill one of us; and who here can we afford to lose? Take Lonner - nobody else knows half what he does about Vampires, and most of that is in his head.”
“Objection heard, Von Darhell, and overruled. We NEED to hear what the Vampire has to say, and that must come above personal considerations.”
Hannel Wekker was feeling the loss of his pistol even more, as he watched Pearson tentatively begin to unbind the captive. Loose vampires in enclosed rooms were not usually his personal idea of a good start for a meeting. Stiffening with slight fear. He patted his leg where there would normally have been a pistol holster. Nothing there, of course.
However, before he could bring his hands up onto the table again in despair, he felt a second hand touch his, softer and smoother. The gentle grip was not just the first time a woman had held his hand in about seven years, though; between his own hand and Kaia’s (for it was Kaia’s) rested the extremely comforting barrel of an army-standard flintlock pistol. He flicked his glance sideways momentarily, and the eyes of the two spies met. She quietly drew a second pistol from a leg-holster that had been hidden by her long skirt, and then both of them turned their eyes back to the vampire-shaped elephant in the room.
“I thank you, commander, for loosening my bonds.” The vampire bowed his head to Karnel.
“Very… well.” Karnel was clearly nervous about his own decision. “Let’s get on with this, shall we?”
Lonner began to speak once more. “I have,” he addressed the Chaltarians first, “been doing much research into the origins of the vampires. I believe I have ascertained how they might – not definitely, but might – be being created. I have not written it down yet, as I want confirmation of my theory first.” He turned to the vampire, who was resting back against the old oak chair. “We believe you have been created after Kahlenbach’s Legion, vampire. All we really need to know is how.”
“So…” the vampire looked up. “What do you wish to ask me, then?”
Lonner took a deep breath. “What do you know about the work of the scholar Kalaris of Galath?”
And as he uttered the name, everything changed.
The Vampire did not do what could be called a leap; he did not bound across the room… he almost flowed up and over the table, all darkness and accuracy and deadliness. No-one could have reacted; no-one could have stopped him. He was, after all, something other than human.
And Hannel Wekker pulled Kaia’s pistol from below the table and fired it, and a decade of fighting on the hardest frontier in the known world did not stop the Vampire. And Kaia, too, veteran of tracking so many Vampires in the mountains of Chaltary, could not stop the Vampire. And so the Vampire continued, on, and on, and on…
… and stopped.
It had eight bullets through it, two being through the head and two and a wooden bolt through the heart.
Lonner’s throat was simply not there any more. The remnants of his beard were thick with still-running blood, and his head lolled back, lifeless against the chair with the vampire sprawled over him. The latter’s body was not bleeding much; a little thin and watery blood leaked out, but nothing like a human corpse. A few chairs were strewn across that side of the room, and James Balliol – white with shock – hauled the vampiric corpse over onto the floor.
Slowly, slowly, Wekker lowered the gun. Nobody spoke.
Nathaniel Von Tamberdall looked around the room, and then at his superior. The commander was in total shock at the terrifying results of his own decision to free the Vampire… and Lonner would be due at the Polismoot at seven! The Union’s spies would know something was afoot if he was not there. Had the Vampire let himself be captured? No matter. Action was needed.
Hannel looked on as orders snapped out of the young man. Nathaniel’s weakness in fighting and running was more than balanced by his ruthless efficiency in organisation. The bodies were swiftly taken away, along with the shocked commander, leaving the Lynshireman in charge.
“Lonner was going to go to the Polismoot this evening, the Union’s spies will know about this soon. We can’t hesitate, even with this… loss.
I want two teams going in to the Union: one will go up the coast to the great cities and try and work on finding anything we can out about Vampire creation. The other I’m sending to Nurreich to see if we can open communications there.”
The Lynshire noble of course did not have the authority on paper to order this. He did not have the right… but he had authority of a different sort, and beyond his years. Nobody naysaid him, and everybody listened intently.
“Kaia, you can go with Olaf to Nurreich. Take Huar too.” He nodded to the man with the deep coloured plains-skin. “Lonner was going to be going to the cities… but who can lead his team?”
“I can go.” James stood up, volunteering himself.
“No. You’re too…”
“Too what? Young? You’re only a couple of years my senior; don’t open your own weaknesses. I’m not needed for anything that’s going on here much, and you need someone with academic knowledge to try and work on finding out what Lonner was on about.”
“Ti’ak is going anyway, so…”
“But Ti’ak can hardly talk to any Union academics we find. He’s rather noticeable in public – no offence.” He glanced at the hooded figure, who – face still shrouded – slowly nodded his (or her, it was impossible to tell) head in agreement. Nathaniel pursed his lips.
”I don’t like it, but I can’t see a way of not letting you go. Very well. Hannel?”
“Sir?”
The Lynshire noble jerked his head at the young engineer.
“He hasn’t got a bloody clue which end of a normal weapon is which, look out for him.”
A short time later, four horses rode south from Murrod, before taking the east road to the coast. One horse carried a man who had killed more people in his lifetime than many military regiments had in their entire history, another was carrying a backpack with more books in it than the average library, a third wasn’t even carrying a human being. And the fourth horseman, riding into the apocalypse? His name was Hannel Wekker.
