04 - Rise of the Lycans (2 page)

Viktor wasted not a moment mourning the she-wolf’s death. Slaughtering her
kind had been his life’s work for centuries now. It was the infant that interested him. Lowering the
crossbow, he crept farther into the cell, drawing near to the orphaned baby upon
the floor. His probing azure eyes confirmed the staggering truth:

A baby boy, completely human in appearance, wailed piteously at his feet.

How can this be?
Viktor marveled. He assumed that the bitch had been
pregnant when captured, but that hardly explained why she had given birth to
such a normal-looking infant. The child’s plump pink skin had been licked clean
by its mother’s tongue. His toothless mouth shrieked to the heavens. He shook
his tiny fists at the pensive vampire standing above him.

Viktor wondered what manner of beast had sired the child upon the she-wolf.
Alas, the identity of the father had died with the mother, not that the mindless
creature could have ever communicated that knowledge, even if Viktor had spared
her life. The circumstances of the baby’s conception were destined to remain a
mystery forever.

What mattered now was deciding what was to be done with the unnatural child.
Viktor raised the crossbow once more. Every fiber of his being urged him to slay
the infant immediately, before its very existence overturned the immutable laws
by which their twilight world was governed. Who knew what dire consequence might
result from the birth of this seeming abomination? Best to dispatch the child
now, the same way he had disposed of his mother.

He loaded another bolt into the crossbow and took aim at the baby’s head. His
finger tightened on the trigger.

And yet… the baby’s birth was a miracle of sorts, albeit of a dark and
disturbing variety. And perhaps a miracle should not be taken lightly? Curiosity
as to the child’s true nature and potential arose in Viktor’s mind. Perhaps
there was an opportunity here, as well as risks? Why rush to judgment?

I can always put the whelp to death later on
if
need be….

For now, however, he chose to stay his hand. Putting the crossbow aside, he
knelt and lifted the naked infant from the straw. The squirming newborn felt
small and fragile within his arms. Innocent brown eyes peered up into Viktor’s
own. A small pink fist gripped the Elder’s chin with surprising strength.

He prayed that he was not making a dreadful mistake.

Fifteen years later

Castle Corvinus was carved into the very face of a craggy black peak rising
high above the surrounding forests and countryside. Its forbidding turrets and
battlements stabbed upward at the starry night sky. The light of myriad torches
and lamps shone through the fortress’ lancet windows, making the isolated
mountain stronghold appear to glow from within. Crimson pennants, the color of
freshly spilled blood, streamed atop the watchtowers. Sculpted grotesques, in
the shape of writhing plague victims, perched upon the eaves and ramparts.
Flanking towers abutted the sturdy guardhouse defending the front gate. Armored Death Dealers patrolled the tops of the high gray walls, which were more than
ten feet thick in places. Rectangular stone merlons jutted up from the parapet
like a bottom row of teeth. Flying buttresses reinforced the walls. Massive
siege crossbows the size of catapults were mounted upon the outer palisade.
Steel harpoons more than ten feet long were loaded into the formidable weapons,
which were also known as ballistas. Steel winches were required to draw back the
bow arms.

A slender youth, no more than fifteen years old, stood poised upon a parapet
overlooking the drawbridge below. Dark brown hair fell past his shoulders.
Coarse woolen clothing testified to his lowly status in the castle’s hierarchy.
His dirty brown tunic and breeches were torn and frayed. Piercing brown eyes
peered out from a handsome face that had yet to require the touch of a razor. A
brisk autumn wind rustled his unkempt locks. He gazed past the rampart at the
precipitous thirty-foot drop before him.

Don’t look down,
Lucian thought.

Despite his sage advice to himself, the young servant could not resist
peering down from his elevated perch atop the castle’s outer walls. The
drawbridge below looked impossibly far away. Any mortal man who attempted to
leap from this height would be smashed to pieces for certain.

Thankfully, Lucian was no mere mortal.

I can do this,
he thought.
Lord Viktor expects me to.

He took a deep breath to steady his nerves, closed his eyes, and stepped off
the parapet. Gravity seized him and he plummeted downward at breathtaking speed.
The night air rushed past him, roaring in his ears. His eyes snapped open in time to see the hard wooden floor of the
drawbridge appear to surge up at him like a battering ram. His brief,
inconsequential life raced before his eyes as he feared that he had fallen
victim to some cruel joke on the part of his undead masters. Would it amuse
Viktor and the others to see his brains splattered across the mountainside?

Perhaps.

It’s not fair!
he despaired, only heartbeats before hitting the
ground.
I haven’t even begun to live yet!

He braced himself for death, only to land nimbly upon the drawbridge in one
piece. The impact didn’t even knock the breath from his body, let alone kill
him. He glanced down at his intact flesh and blood in astonishment. He gasped in
relief.

I did it!
he rejoiced.
Just like Viktor promised!

His jubilation was cut short, however, when three beefy ruffians emerged from
the shadow of the castle’s high front gate. Lucian recognized the men as mortal
laborers employed in the ongoing expansion of the fortress’ dungeons. Their
unwashed hides had been baked brown by the sun, compared to the paler
complexions of the castle’s more nocturnal inhabitants. Dried mortar splattered
their filthy garments. Iron bludgeons in hand, they charged at the unarmed
youth. Angry shouts and florid red faces made clear their hostile intentions.
Their breaths reeked of strong spirits.

Lucian had no idea what he had done to incur the men’s wrath, but he did not
intend to be beaten senseless by the likes of these. They were just mortals,
after all, and mere commoners to boot, not vampires whose harsh discipline he
might be expected to submit to without resistance. Although he was nothing more than a serf himself, Lucian
owed no deference to these drunken louts. A growl escaped his lips as he dropped
into a defensive crouch. His brown eyes turned cobalt blue.

The men spread out around him, clearly intending to assault him from all
sides. The first man—a bald-headed lummox with a neck like an ox—came at Lucian
from the front. He swung his club at the youth, who ducked beneath the blow and
butted his head into the human’s chest hard enough to crack the man’s ribs.
Gasping in pain, the man staggered backward. His club flew from his fingers and
Lucian effortlessly snatched it from the air. He smacked it against the man’s
skull, dropping him to the ground, even as he heard the second man—a
sallow-faced brute with bad teeth—lumbering up behind him.

A backward kick sent Bad Teeth flying off the drawbridge. A startled yelp
ended abruptly as he crashed down into the rocky slopes below, which were
studded with jagged boulders. A high-pitched shriek gave way to agonized groans
as the man was impaled upon a granite outcropping. He would have been better off
breaking his neck instead.

Two down, one to go,
Lucian thought. He spun around to confront the third
man, who had attempted to waylay Lucian from the right. A one-eyed stonemason
who wore a leather patch over the empty socket, this one appeared both larger
and cagier than his more impetuous cohorts. Swollen veins bulged atop his meaty
thews. A mermaid tattoo suggested that he had once gone to sea. Daunted by the
preternatural speed with which Lucian had dispatched his fellows, the cyclops took his time attacking.
“Demon!” he hissed at the boy as they circled each other warily. “I’ll send you
back to hell where you belong!”

Lucian growled in response. He bared his teeth.

The stonemason’s face blanched, and, for a second, Lucian thought he might
turn tail. The man crossed himself fearfully but did not back down. Mustering
his courage, he let out a ferocious whoop and raced at Lucian with his club held
high. His boots pounded against the wooden planks of the drawbridge, but,
compared to the boy’s inhuman reflexes, he might as well have been slogging
through heavy mud. Grinning wolfishly Lucian sprang from the ground and leapt
over the mortal’s head, landing nimbly behind his foe. He spun around quickly,
before the startled cyclops even realized what had happened, and kicked the
man’s legs out from under him. The man fell forward onto his knees. His club
slipped from his fingers and rolled away from him. He frantically scrambled for
his weapon, but it was already too late. Clasping his hands together, Lucian
clubbed the man across the back of his head with both fists. Bone cracked and
the stonemason collapsed face-first onto the hard wooden planks. Blood and
brains spilled across the drawbridge.

So much for those ruffians!

In a matter of moments, the melee was over. Lucian stood triumphantly over
the fallen bodies of his assailants. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

Before he could fully savor his victory, however, the boy’s keen ears alerted
him to another threat. Something came whistling through the sky behind him and he whirled around just in
time to pluck a speeding crossbow bolt from the air, only inches from his face.
The silver glare of the arrowhead hurt his eyes, so he tossed the offending
missile away. It rattled harmlessly onto the floor of the drawbridge.

A smattering of light applause came from the castle. Lucian looked up proudly
to see Viktor and a small group of vampire courtiers and ladies gazing down at
him from the grand balcony upon the central keep. The aristocratic vampires were
clad in all their finery, wearing elegant gowns and robes of the darkest silk
and velvet. Legend had it that the bite of a bat had transformed Marcus into a
vampire; the flowing black raiment of his kind draped over their slender forms
like folded wings. Viktor lowered the crossbow. He nodded in approval, plainly
pleased by Lucian’s prowess.

Of course,
Lucian thought, as the reason for the mortals’ unwarranted
attack upon him became clear.
It was another of Viktor’s tests.

The regal Elder had taken much interest in the young man over the years,
despite (or perhaps because of) his bestial origins. Lucian sometime wondered
why so powerful a monarch concerned himself with the bastard child of a dead
werewolf, but he was grateful for the Elder’s patronage—and for the fact that he
had not been put to death at birth. He knew that many in the castle wished
otherwise; they made little effort to disguise their contempt and suspicion when
they passed him in the drafty corridors of the ancient fortress. Nor could he
blame them for their disdain. Despite his best efforts to prove that he was not an unreasoning animal like
his savage forebears, the taint of the wolf still flowed through his veins….

“What do you think, Sonja?” Viktor’s voice carried from the balcony as he
addressed his small daughter, who stood beside him behind the railing. The
girl’s birth, eight winters ago, had been a time of both celebration and
mourning. Her mother, the Lady Ilona, had perished giving birth to Viktor’s only
child. “Shall we make more?”

“Of him?” The little girl was spellbound by the handsome youth below. Curly
brown locks framed the child’s angelic features. A black satin kirtle clothed
her diminutive form. A crest-shaped pendant, centered around a polished
turquoise gemstone, dangled on a chain around her neck. Wide chestnut eyes
peered down at Lucian.

“
Like
him,” Viktor clarified. “Lucian will be the first of a new breed.
The first of the lycans.”

Sonja nodded absently, seemingly more interested in the boy himself than her
father’s machinations. “Lucian,” she repeated, trying the name out in her mouth.
“Lucian…”

Pure-born vampire children were rare in the castle. Lucian wondered what she
would be like when she grew up.

Lucian crouched nervously in his humble den in the castle’s sprawling
dungeons. A straw pallet rested in the corner of the cell, but there would no
rest for him tonight. Viktor had other plans for him, plans that filled the
boy’s heart with trepidation. His stomach rumbled unhappily; upon the Elder’s orders, he had not been fed for hours.
His eyes were fixed on a narrow window cut high in the moldy stone wall before
him. Naked, he waited apprehensively for what was to come. A capital
V
for
Viktor
was branded on his bare right arm.

He felt the full moon rising outside even before the first silvery beams
invaded his lair. His brown eyes dilated, shrinking down to tiny black
pinpricks. Blood pounded in his ears, like a tide crashing against the shore.
His heart stampeded wildly beneath his hairless chest. Teeth and nails tugged at
their roots. His skin felt hot and feverish. A sudden sweat drenched his body.

No,
he thought, just as he did every month when the moon waxed full.
Not
again!

He wanted to shrink away from the moonlight, yet that would have been
contrary to Viktor’s expressed wishes. Iron bars trapped him inside the cell,
making retreat impossible. There was no escape from the rising moon—or the beast
it awoke inside him.

His face contorted into a hellish mask of pain as his innards twisted within
his gut. Bulging veins throbbed beneath his skin. His eyes glazed over into
inhuman cobalt orbs. Jagged fangs clenched tightly to keep from screaming.
Convulsing, he collapsed onto the straw-covered floor and rolled into the pitch
blackness at the rear of the cell, as far from the open window as he could get.
He huddled upon the floor in torment, praying for deliverance.