A Sharpness On The Neck (Saberhagen's Dracula Book 9) by Fred Saberhagen (most read book in the world .TXT) 📗

provoke and alert the monster underground. By this means they dug and scraped away the first two or three feet of age-packed soil, using tools they had brought with them, or had stolen nearby. Then, unreasonably afraid that their noise and activity would rouse me prematurely from my trance, they tried to impale me with wooden spears, screaming as they thrust down at me through the last two or three feet of earth.

      The remaining layer of soil was hardened by having lain undisturbed for many decades, but it failed to muffle the louder scream of mingled rage and agony, which now went up to them in answer.

      I owe my life to their fear—and to the fact that my potentially strongest opponent still suffered a weakness in one arm. The assault failed by being launched prematurely, before they had dug deeply enough to be sure of my exact position, and too tentative.

      Having thus brutally been made aware of the presence of mine enemies, I dragged myself awake as rapidly as possible. The process occupied only a few seconds, much less than it would have taken ordinarily, but under the circumstances it was still almost fatally slow. Long enough for my enemies, stabbing blindly into the ground in a frenzy of over-confidence, to inflict another wound or two.

      I was struggling, trying to fight back, even before I was fully out of my resting trance. Fortunately no more than two of the ten or more spear thrusts into the dirt had actually struck me. Clawing my way up out of the earth, spurting blood and spitting mud between bared fangs, I cursed my own overconfidence, lack of prudence—call it what you will—that had caused me to underrate my brother’s ability to mobilize a force against me and to overrate my own power to terrify and subdue the opposition.

      Wounded, with only one arm fully functional, I erupted savagely in man-form out of the temporary grave, raging and showering loose dirt in all directions.

      Even still half-asleep, before I was completely up out of the earth, I used my hunting knife to good advantage, slashing a breather’s Achilles tendon and thus bringing one opponent down.

      Shortly I sustained a belaboring with wooden weapons which deprived me of this handy knife. But moments later I was gripping in my right hand the fire-hardened point of one spear I had already caught and broken off. With this weapon I quickly disposed of one more of my attackers.

      Exactly what reaction my foes had expected of me when they provoked me to come roaring up out of the earth, I do not know, but evidently not the berserk fury of this counterattack. No mere breathing human possessed a fraction of the speed and strength required to face one of the nosferatu in open combat. I make no idle boast when I assure the reader that, had they not taken me by surprise, no three or four of them would have been able to stand against me for a full minute.

      My strategy was to concentrate my efforts upon one of them—ideally the most dangerous, he of the poisoned arm—and quickly put him out of action or drive him away.

      Knowing the best strategy and being able to achieve it while under multiple attack are not the same thing.

      The small grove echoed with the savage impacts of wooden weapons. One after another, these went splintering away. Blood spattered violently upon the nearby trees, and winged little breathing things, and running things, went clamoring out of our way.

      After making a good beginning to the fight, I was forced to endure a long moment or two in which I could do little more than sit, almost helpless. They might have finished me then with spear-thrusts, but they delayed a little. And that little was too long.

      They stamped and wheeled around me. Fortunately for me not all of them were skilled in personal combat and they got in each other’s way, their wooden spears and clubs clattering against each other, saving me from further immediate damage.

      A turning point came when I was able to seize my remaining breather attacker by the ankle, and by main force throw the man off balance.

      I fought my way to a standing position, only to be seized and dragged to the ground again by the desperate effort of my opponents. Kicking viciously at every ankle I could reach, I shattered several bones. In a moment I had again regained my feet.

      My enemies might have chosen to abandon the struggle at that point, but instead were incautious enough to stand their ground and try to finish me off. One factor in their calculations must have been that they still dreaded their master more than me.

* * *

      There is a peculiarity of vampire combat that I have seldom heard remarked upon: that one never gasps or pants with exertion. Physical weariness ensues at last, as it must in all living things, but not because of lack of oxygen. One must resort to other means to gauge the weariness of one’s opponent, or ally. Even when one is mortally wounded, the voice ordinarily remains full and well-controlled. Only emotion, and not the need to gulp for air, may cause it to break chaotically.

      When the broken fore-end of my captured wooden spear was broken once again, this time into uselessness, I fought on with my bare hands and, toward the bitter end, with a succession of small logs or fallen branches. Stones, born of the ancient earth but as lifeless as brass or steel, tended to be no more effective than those refined metals.

      At this point, with only three of my original five assailants still on their feet, the breather turned tail and ran away in terror. Evidently the thought of what Radu might do to him was not enough to make him face me any longer.

      One might, in emulation of Samson of the Old Testament, use an animal skull or one of the long bones as an effective weapon. On occasion I have