Page 132 of Dragon Slayer

The guards ran for the gatehouse, shouting, waving their arms, as the Turkish cavalry unit arrived in a great swirl of dust and three sharp blasts of a horn.

Vlad’s mount crossed the bridge, and he turned in the saddle to take the shot. He got off two – two of the guards fell face-down in the dirt.

And then he was across.

He dropped his bow and drew his sword – his father’s sword, the finely-crafted Toledo blade from the emperor.

He took the arm off of one guard. The head from another.

“Close the–” an interior guard shouted, and Vlad cut him down with a vicious strike across his throat, blood spraying.

“Keep the gate open!” he bellowed. “If you value your life, keep it open, damn you!”

He looked over his shoulder and saw Malik strike down another guard.

Those left threw down their spears and fled for the stable.

The cavalry arrived at the edge of the bridge, and began to thunder across unchecked, dust swirling.

They were in.

~*~

Pandemonium erupted in the main yard, the kind that reverberated through the stable, the training yard, and the gardens…but the kind of a people who knew they’d been conquered. Vlad’s cavalry poured in, and immediately he appointed riders to secure the gatehouses and apprehend what guards they could. Doubtless some had slunk off to bolt holes, and he’d have to execute them later. But for now, he had a palace to retake.

Vlad dismounted and handed his reins to one of his men. He sent a rider back to their camp to summon the foot soldiers. “Malik, with me.”

Sword in hand, he made his way toward the palace.

~*~

There was something almost therapeutic in the way his father’s old blade could cut a man into pieces. Not just any men, either, but Vladislav’s lackeys. Every scream, every slice – he imagined it as some tiny vindication for Father. For Mircea, face-down in a hole somewhere.

He sent men around to other doors, the one that led into the kitchens, the one that let out into his mother’s lavish gardens.

But he himself went in through the massive front doors, straight into the great hall, with its long feast tables and its unlit iron chandeliers.

Men came to apprehend him, swords gleaming.

Vlad cut them down, Malik at his side. The janissary stood beside him, back-to-back, both their blades dripping blood down onto the stones.

Vlad cocked his head, listening. Running footsteps, up above. He tested the air, but the scents of wolf were faint…as was the scent of his mother. If anything had happened to her…

“This way.” He led Malik to the stairwell.

It was like a dream. The same stone steps he’d tread as a boy, worn from years of boots and slippers. The curved walls, the iron sconces that held torches, the windows that looked out on the gardens, the grounds, and toward the Tîrgoviste rooftops beyond. How many times had Fenrir thrown him over his shoulder like a sack of turnips and carried him down these stairs, laughing uproariously all the way? How many times had he pelted down, ducking under the arms of amused wolves and startled maids, hell-bent for a day in town with his friends? He’d been away from this place for seven years, but it was the same; he was a boy again, sprinting, legs burning pleasantly.

But the scents were wrong. Instead of Helga’s honeycakes, it was blood he smelled; and dirt, and filth, and humans he hated.

A pair of guards met them at the top of the stairs, and they fell like young trees beneath sharp axes. Vlad wasn’t even sweating.

He heard the creak of a door, caught a whiff of scent–

A familiar round face peeked out of a room, and stared at him, wide-eyed with surprise, as he moved toward her, armored and bloody and furious.

His face was changed, longer, thinner, his hair tied back in a regal way, his clothes Turkish and strange. But her nostrils flared, and then she knew him, and her face crumpled.

“Master Vladimir,” Helga cried, stepping out into the hallway, tears glittering as they spilled down her cheeks. “You’ve come home.”

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