Vampire World 02 - The Last Aerie by Brian Lumley

Author:Brian Lumley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

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The Sunside end of the pass was in sight, and beyond it a far horizon still stained with strips of dying colour: dun orange, a pale, dirty yellow, and amethyst. Nestor and Canker ordered their flyers up, up, until they rode with a knot of dark clouds scudding south. Should they be seen from the ground, they'd be just two more clouds chasing the fallen sun.

Now the hunt was on, for down below was Szgany territory. And as Nestor led the way and sped out with the clouds over the forest, so Canker inquired: And just where do you think you're taking me?

Man, these woods are dense, and the Szgany know them a damn sight better than we do! We should stick to the fringes, look for their fires. And where in hell do we land? And having landed, from where do we launch? I mean, I know you're no novice, that you've done all this before, but you're listening to the voice of real experience here.

Seventy years of it. And I tell you we should —

— Shhh! Nestor hushed him. Let me think. It's this way, if my memory serves me right.

Aye, this way! What is this way? Canker demanded.

Meat on the hoof, Nestor told him. And everything else you mentioned.

A woman for you—neither virginal nor young, but untainted certainly — and another for me. And the blood of a good strong man to boot. You can have both the man and his wife, and I shall have their daughter.

It's the best of thralls, be sure, but there's always the provisioning.

You know this for a certainty? Canker was eager now. That these people are here, I mean? But he could tell that indeed Nestor knew it for a certainty.

I know it. Down there, maybe four, five miles ahead, a cabin in the woods, all secret and hidden away. Their fire is out by now but its smoke will linger a while. In a minute or two you'll sniff it out with that great wolf's snout of yours. That is, now that you know it's there to be sniffed.

Huh! Canker grunted in Nestor's mind, and complained: But the wind's in the wrong direction! Still, if there's smoke to be smelled, be sure that Canker will smell it!

Ahead, a river uncoiled from the night like a silver snake glinting in the starlight. And Nestor remembered a time when he had very nearly drowned in that same river. Only Brad Berea had saved him, and returned him to life in the warmth and security of his cabin in the woods. Except . . . Brad had been unkind to him, too, at times, and his wife Irma was often surly and grudging; she'd even begrudged Nestor his food, despite that he'd hunted for all of them. Only Glina had truly felt for Nestor, and they had been lovers a while.

Well, they'd shared sex, at least. But love? No, for Nestor already had a love . . . or would have had if his olden, forgotten enemy had not stolen her away.

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