Vampire Impaler (The Immortal Knight Chronicles Book 6) by Dan Davis

Author:Dan Davis [Davis, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2019-04-06T22:00:00+00:00

***

“You are a fool,” Eva said.

Stephen nodded emphatically. “It is clear now that he is both an immortal of William and an agent of the Sultan. We must dispose of him immediately before he turns on us.”

“Keep your damned voice down, Stephen,” I said. We were meeting in our house in Târgoviște, in my bedchamber, without servants in attendance. It was as private as we could manage in that city but one never could know who might be listening. “It is hardly a surprise. We knew this would happen.”

Earlier that day, Vlad Dracula had done as he had said, receiving the Sultan’s emissaries at Târgoviște with extreme courtesy. I had expected Dracula to pay the annual tribute, and it was agreed at two thousand gold ducats, but then the Turks had demanded the resumption of the rights of access that Vladislaus II had given. That was the right of free passage through Wallachia for Turkish soldiers so that they could raid the rich towns of Transylvania. In exchange, the Sultan would recognise Dracula as the rightful ruler of Wallachia. This meant the Sultan would not seek to remove him or undermine him nor would he invade or raid his lands.

Dracula readily assented.

He did at least decline their offer to travel to Constantinople to make his obeisance to the Sultan in person but how much meaning that had we could not agree.

“And there is Moldavia to the east likewise rolling over without a fight,” Eva said.

Stephen of Moldavia had taken the throne there with Wallachian support and so there was now a unified front of sorts but it seemed as though both kingdoms would simply continue to pathetically submit to the Turks.

“Can you really blame them?” Stephen had said. “By submitting, they hold on to their lives and their position. Why challenge the established order when it is that very order which keeps you where you are?”

“I do blame them,” I said. “Not just the princes but the boyars of both kingdoms who allow it. It is weakness. It is treachery. They throw their people to the wolves so that they may sit in their palaces and pretend to be lords and kings.”

“What now?” Eva asked.

Walt scoffed. “Obvious, ain’t it? What we always said. Get close to our dear Prince Vlad and…” Walt drew his thumb across his neck. “And then we make off to some other likely kingdom and there attempt to make this immortal army.”

“There is no likely kingdom left,” I said. “And even if there were, we must first do as you suggest with the prince. It can be done, of course, but how shall we then escape this damned country? We will have ten thousand Wallachians after us.”

Rob had a suggestion. “We wait until he journeys to the lowlands, close to the Danube. We do him there, in the south, then we can reach the river by nightfall.”

“And then what? Sail to the Black Sea? And then?”

Rob shrugged.

“Anyway,” I said, “he never leaves the safety of the north.

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