David stood, pulling off his remaining bandages to reveal skin that had completely healed. “Apparently, I needed more power.”
“Good. These fainting spells of yours are a pain.”
David chuckled.
Suddenly he remembered what he’d learned in the Underworld. “Dan, there is something I need to tell you about Dragos.”
“It can wait,” Danulf dismissed, bounding up the stairs. David promptly followed.
Radu had arrived and was now seated at a table near the bar surrounded by Ottoman soldiers, including a well-dressed Turk who was pacing the floor in apprehension. David assumed he was the general, his uniform woven with fine silk, a sleek turban wrapped around his head. Both stopped to stare as he entered.
“My men have discovered a traitor among us, a shadow, who divulged our plans to the Imposter Prince,” Radu told him. “He now plans to attack the village and our camp in the wee hours of morning, while we slumber.”
“Lucius has also taken a woman named Hekate, sister to Dragos and our quiet ally,” David informed him in return. “He plans to coerce her into using her powers to revive the comatose Lady Morgana.” He decided to omit the idea that she could potentially be in league with Lucius until he knew for certain. “It might have been she who revealed our plans under duress,” he continued. “Trying to convince her to use her magic, however, might prove more difficult for Lucius. I believe this offers us some time. But the moment he discovers I am still alive, there will be no stopping him.”
“We attack tonight,” Radu decided, shooting a glance at his general who nodded once his accord.
“Tonight,” David echoed after receiving similar approval from both Danulf and a visibly agitated Dragos.
The room immediately burst into uproar, men scrambling to action. David lost Danulf in the shuffle, but could still hear his sonorous voice barking out commands. Most of the men retreated underground as Radu and his foot soldiers left to return to their camp and rouse their army. David turned to leave himself when a fist wrapped around his arm. He turned to see Dragos, his wild, radiating hair free of restriction. “And where are you off to?” he asked.
David scowled, brushing his hand off in an easy motion, the act serving as a warning. “To collect your sister,” he lied, unwilling to reveal his true intentions, especially in light of the new information he’d received. “I wage my wars better alone.”
“Then you should dress for battle,” he pointed out. “You never know what will greet you when you leave the castle.”
David considered his suggestion and reluctantly agreed.
Dragos led him down into the annexed portion of the cellar that served as their armory, fully stocked and swarming with men and creatures. David could hear their frantic, excited thoughts as they gathered their armaments, pulling on pieces of armor and mail. Danulf shouted above the racket, apparently at perfect ease instructing soldiers in battle preparation. He looked oddly misplaced amongst the iron clad Wallachians, the nomadic Norseman with his light eyes and hair, dressed in a plain tunic and slacks with axes strapped to each hip, maps of tattoos covering his skin. David smiled, surmising that had they met decades earlier, they would have proven quite the formidable duo of warriors.
David turned towards the wall, appraising the collection of weaponry. He noticed that every saber, spear, and knife had been dipped in silver metal. He reached for a dagger, when a tattooed arm halted him.
“Radu asked me to give you this,” Danulf said as he pulled an arched saber from its sheath. “I know it may not be your weapon of choice, but anything that can help you murder that fiend the better.” He handed it to David, who examined its blade. Curiously enough, its entire body was made of silver, its handle a pretentious gold carved in the emblem of the Dragon.
“It was the sword of his father, Vladimir Dracul,” Danulf continued. “He thought it would be fitting if you used his father’s sword to kill the one who murdered him.”
David accepted the weapon, admiring the feel of it in his hands and the way it sung as it sliced through the air. “If you get a chance, please give him my thanks.”
“Hurry, it is time!” Dragos’s voice interrupted them as it bellowed throughout the cavernous hold.
In an instant, the shuffling and voices of a hundred men rising out from the armory drowned out all else, their rising trepidation palpable in the air. They met the night, a clanging metal rabble, joining the Turkish Cavalry which had just arrived. The knights appeared polished and clean in comparison to the hodge-podge Wallachian militia, sitting regally on their glossy Turkoman horses, both protected by smooth, glinting armor. They waited patiently underneath the arches of decorative woodwork that lined the main road of the village.
David considered approaching one of the horses, impressed by their temperament, but for as calm as the animals were beneath their riders, he could smell their apprehension. He’d long accepted that no matter what his change of heart, animals would never let him forget that he was, first and foremost, a predator.
The normally desolate town was soon overcrowded by anxious bodies, the wives and elderly villagers coming forward to offer final goodbyes and well wishes. He watched as children kissed their fathers and women hugged their husbands, reminding David of what waited for him at the keep. Although he had struggled to feel a part of the collection of men, in that moment, he found himself worried that he, too, may never see the one he loved again.
The families of the soldiers did not linger long, barricading themselves back inside their homes, preparing for the worst. The mismatched aggregate lumbered forward with Radu at the forefront, boldly leading them on his horse, ornamented by his embellished armor, a white feather protruding from his solid, pointed helmet. The smell of exhilaration soon overwhelmed the piney aroma of the late November air, the rocky hills leading up to the castle clear of snow but not of its polar temperature. David trudged behind, waiting for the precise moment when he could slip away.
In the distance, the great fortress loomed menacingly, it sharp towers stabbing the evening skies. It was not long before they reached Lucius’s gruesome Forest of the Dead, its occupants grotesquely preserved from decomposition by the biting cold. They stared at them, frozen in their last expressions of suffering.
David could hear Radu’s unsettled thoughts as he approached them, almost able to taste the rage that settled around him.
“Do not let it upset you, Prince!” one of his men called before David had a chance to speak. “He puts them there for that reason—we will not let him run us away again.”
“I shall impale his head upon a stick and parade him for all to see,” the prince promised.
They arrived at a citadel that was completely dark and still. The bridge that laid over the moat, a manmade bifurcation of the Arges River, had been drawn up in preparatory defense, the waters treacherous from the earlier precipitation. Although they were unseen, David sensed the nemorti guards that lined the castle borders, awaiting command.
At the Turkish general’s orders, the archers moved to the front of the men, holding up the oiled ends of their incendiary arrows for the torchmen to light. In one fluid movement, they aimed towards the flammable sections of the castle and sent them soaring, hoping to catch its weaker parts ablaze. A second wave followed, this time with silver tipped longbows, these soaring with enough force and precision to pierce several of the nemorti soldiers that quietly guarded the perimeter.
“Again,” the general commanded, this time at the javelin throwers who prepared their weapons to also be lit and tossed overhead.
“Enough!”
The castle suddenly came to life, conflagrant posts revealing Lucius in full, glistening armor, flanked by hundreds of poised archers aiming down at them from overhead. As David presumed, they had been lying in patient wait for their arrival.
“I see you have come to try to take the upper hand,” Lucius jeered. “Look around you, fools. See the men wasting away on the spikes. Do you wish to join them?”
David silent, concealed by the throng of bodies and weaponry.
“You shall pay for your treason and your lies!” Radu cried out, unable to help himself.
“Is that you, Radu the Fair?” Lucius could not contain his laughter. “I’m not surprised that your exaggerated self-worth has brought you back to these gates. Or is it in the hopes of pleasing your Sultan lover? He had enough sense not to test me further. But I suppose we could add more Turkish soldiers to my Forest. Perhaps I will be adding more Wallachians as well, since after I kill all these traitorous men, I will rid the town of its women and children.”
“You fiend,” Radu said with disgust.
“Go home to your sultan and spare the Turkish bloodshed. I will deal with my traitorous subjects myself.”
“I will reclaim what is mine!” Radu maintained.
