Page 128 of Dragon Slayer

25

RUMOR HAS IT

Somewhere on the Road

Malik snapped several twigs in half and fed them into the fire. Then he sat down on the felled log opposite Vlad’s, elbows resting on his knees. Thus far in their march, Vlad had never seen the man look tired. He woke before dawn, without prompt; rose from his bedroll without all the usual griping and stretching and blinking. Just popped to his feet, bundled up his bedroll, and went to rouse his men. He never yawned. Never complained.

If he hadn’t been able to tell differently, Vlad might have thought he was an immortal.

“The horses are secure,” he informed Vlad. “Watches have been posted.”

“Good. What of Mustafa’s men?”

“Sleeping.” He gave a little grunt that Vlad had learned was a one-note laugh. “Gambling.”

Vlad snorted. “Will they be ready if we’re ambushed, you think?” Vlad dangled the line as an opening – an invitation to criticize the foot-soldiers together.

But Malik said only, “Yes.”

Vlad nodded and reached for his saddlebag, which waited at his feet. From his carefully rationed allotment of food, he chose a piece of flat bread and some dried goat meat. A cloth-wrapped bottle of dark wine lingered at the bottom, but he wouldn’t break into that yet. He wanted to be sharp. Sometime later, when the others were asleep, he would move silent and careful to the horse lines, and take a little blood from his mount.

Malik dipped into his own rations, and they ate in silence for a time, the fire crackling between them.

They’d crossed the Danube two days ago, and it was now that their travel had to become stealthy. For the first weeks, marching out from Edirne in a wide column that occupied the whole road, travelers and merchants had quickly moved to the shoulder, heads bowed in deference to the emperor’s Janissary Corp in their fluttering crimson capes. Road dust kicked up from hooves and boots had hung over them like a cloud; Vlad had tasted it every time he’d opened his mouth to issue a command. They’d made good time on well-traveled roadways; an ideal trip.

But the river marked the boundary. Vassal state of the Ottomans or not, the Romanian-held lands of Wallachia were under Vladislav’s control. If any of his men spotted janissaries, or worse, Vlad himself, on the move, they’d raise the alarm. When Vlad arrived in Tîrgoviste, he wanted it to be a surprise for his nemesis.

As he chewed the tough jerky, and stared into the hypnotic dance of the flames, he realized he hadn’t had so much time to stew in his own thoughts since he was first taken captive all those years ago.

At Edirne, his days had been full. Schooling all day, in groups and with private tutors who, despite his insolence, had been forced to grudgingly admit that he was clever. Then it was riding, dueling, archery practice, and dancing lessons. Of all the crimes the Ottomans had committed against him, no one could claim that hadn’t given him a proper knight’s foundation. He was only seventeen, but he’d been prepared for this moment – for this war for his homeland.

But he’d beenbusythen. His thoughts only his own in the twilight moments before exhausted sleep claimed him, or in his quiet visits to the chapel. Now, save a few commands, and consultations of the map with Malik, he was plagued with the quiet. The creak of saddle leather, the clink of armor, the clop of hooves, and the background din of soldiers’ voices. As they moved slow and steady toward Tîrgoviste, he was left to his own imaginings. And there was only one thing hecouldimagine: death.

He imagined his father as Cazan had described him: ragged and breathless, writhing on the ground in the jaws of a wolf. Dying alone. Imagined the red, wet knives of the men who’d known they had to cut his heart from his body. How had Vladislav known? How had he acquired a wolf?

He imagined Mircea, sputtering around a mouthful of dirt, weak and bleeding out. His last vision had been of darkness. How quickly had the earth they’d heaped on him crushed his chest? Or could he still be alive? Asleep? Like a true vampire?

He imagined his mother, their household wolves. Cut down screaming, blood spraying across walls, soaking into the cracks of the paving stones.

He imagined the ways in which he would kill Vladislav. Personal, painful. He would drag it out and make it hurt; he would know the fear in his eyes before his soul left his body.

Every dream, every blink, visions of death played out behind his eyelids.

If he allowed himself to analyze this, he would be appalled.

“…Vlad.”

“Hm? What?” He lifted his gaze from the fire – the flames had branded his vision, a flickering white afterglow lingering – and found Malik staring at him, the beginnings of a frown notching his brows together. The firelight shadowed his scar so it looked deeper, almost sinister in the dark.

“I asked about your father,” Malik said.

Vlad clenched his hand into a fist; the piece of jerky in it snapped in half and fell to the underbrush.

“You think of him often.” It wasn’t a question.

“He was killed violently, and we march now to avenge that death. Of course I do.”

Malik was unphased. “Many men hate their fathers. Or at least resent them. You could march to avenge him, and still not think of him at all.”

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