I paused no more than a second, then turned, picked up a rock and the thickest stick I could find, and sped back to try and save Rudi.
The bear let go of the tree when it saw me coming, dropped to its hind legs, and met my challenge. It was a huge beast, maybe a yard and a half high; it had black fur, a white quarter-moon mark across its chest, and a whitish face. Foam flecked its jaws and its eyes were wild, like it was touched by rabid madness.
I stopped in front of the bear and whacked the ground with my stick. "Come on, grizzly," I growled. It snarled and tossed its head. I looked up at Rudi, hoping he'd have enough sense to slink down the tree and retreat to the cave, but he stayed where he was, petrified, unable to let go.
The bear swiped at me, but I ducked out of the way of its massive paw. Rearing up on its hind legs, it collapsed flat on me, trying to crush me with the weight of its body. I avoided it again, but it was a closer call this time.
I was prodding at the bear's face with the end of the stick, aiming for its eyes, when the she-wolves rushed onto the scene they must have heard Rudi's yapping. The bear howled as one of the wolves leaped and bit deep into its shoulder, while the other attached herself to its legs, tearing at them with her teeth and claws. It shook off the uppermost wolf and bent to deal with the lower one, which was when I darted in with my stick and jabbed at its left ear.
I must have hurt it, because it lost interest in the wolves and hurled itself at me. I ducked out of the way of its body, but one of its burly forelegs connected with the side of my head and knocked me to the ground.
The bear rolled to its feet and went for me, scattering the wolves with swipes of its claws. I scrambled backward, but not fast enough. Suddenly the bear was above me, standing erect, bellowing triumphantly it had me exactly where it wanted! I slammed the stick against its stomach, then the rock, but it didn't take any notice of such feeble blows. Leering, it started to fall .
Which was when the Little People barreled into its back and knocked it off balance. Their timing couldn't have been any sweeter.
The bear must have thought the entire world was conspiring against it. Every time it had me in its sights, something new got in the way. Roaring loudly at the Little People, it threw itself at them madly. The one with the limp stepped out of its way, but the other got trapped beneath it.
The Little Person raised his short arms, jammed them against the bear's torso, and tried to shove it aside. The Little Person was strong, but he stood no chance against such a massive enemy, and the bear came crashing down and flattened him. There was a horrible crunching sound, and when the bear got to its feet, I saw the Little Person lying in pieces, broken bones jutting out of his body at crooked red angles.
The bear lifted its head and bellowed at the sky, then fixed its eyes on me and leered hungrily. Dropping to all fours, it advanced. The wolves leaped at it but it shook them loose as though they were fleas. I was still dazed from the blow, not able to get to my feet. I began crawling through the snow.
As the bear closed in for the kill, the second Little Person the one I called Lefty stepped in front of it, caught it by its ears, andhead-butted it! It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen, but it did an amazingly effective job. The bear grunted and blinked dumbly. Lefty head-butted it again and was rearing his head back for a third blow when the bear struck at him with its right paw, like a boxer.
It hit Lefty in the chest and knocked him down. His hood had fallen off during the struggle and I could see his gray, stitched-together face and round, green eyes. There was a mask over his mouth, like the kind doctors wear during surgery. He stared up at the bear, unafraid, waiting for the killer blow.
"No!" I screamed. Stumbling to my knees, I threw a punch at the bear. It snarled at me. I punched it again, then grabbed a handful of snow and threw it into the beast's eyes.
While the bear cleared its vision, I looked for a weapon. I was desperate anything was better than my bare hands. At first I saw nothing I could use, but then my eyes fell on the bones sticking out of the dead Little Person's body. Acting on instinct, I rolled across to where the Little Person lay, took hold of one of the longer bones, and pulled. It was covered in blood and my fingers slipped off. Trying again, I got a firmer hold and worked it from side to side. After a few tugs it snapped near the base and suddenly I wasn't defenseless anymore.
The bear had regained its sight and was pounding toward me. Lefty was still on the ground. The wolves were barking furiously, unable to do anything to stop the charging bear. The cub yapped from its perch in the tree.
I was on my own. Me against the bear. No one could help me now.
Spinning, using all my extra-sharp vampire abilities, I rolled underneath the clutching claws of the bear, jumped to my feet, picked my spot, and rammed the tip of the bone deep into the bear's unprotected neck.
The bear came to a halt. Its eyes bulged. Its forelegs dropped by its sides. For a moment it stood, gasping painfully, the bone sticking out of its neck. Then it crashed to the ground, shook horribly for a few seconds and died.
I fell on top of the dead bear and lay there. I was shaking and crying, more from fright than pain. I'd looked death in the eye before, but never had I been involved in a fight as savage as this.
Eventually, one of the she-wolves the normally shy one cuddled up to me and licked around my face, making sure I was all right. I patted her to show I was okay, and buried my face in her neck, drying my tears on her hair. When I felt steady, I stood and gazed at the area around me.
The other she-wolf was by the tree, coaxing Rudi down the cub was even more shaken than me. The dead Little Person lay not far away, his blood seeping into the snow, turning it crimson. Lefty was sitting up, checking himself for injuries.
I made my way over to Lefty to thank him for saving my life. He was incredibly ugly without his hood: He had gray skin, and his face was a mass of scars and stitches. He had no ears or nose that I could see, and his round, green eyes were set near the top of his head, not in the middle of his face like they are with most people. He was completely hairless.
Any other time I might have been frightened, but this creature had risked his life to save mine, and all I felt was gratitude. "Are you okay, Lefty?" I asked. He looked up and nodded. "That was a close call." I half-laughed. Again he nodded. "Thanks for coming to my rescue. I would have been a goner if you hadn't stepped in." I sank to the ground beside him and gazed at the bear, then at the dead Little Person. "Sorry about your partner, Lefty," I said softly. "Should we bury him?"
The Little Person shook his large head, started to rise, then paused. He stared into my eyes, and I stared back questioningly. By the expression on his face, I almost expected him to speak.
Reaching up, Lefty gently tugged down the mask that covered the lower half of his face. He had a wide mouth full of sharp, yellow teeth. He stuck out his tongue which was a weird gray color, like his skin and licked his lips. When they were wet, he flexed and stretched them a few times, then did the one thing I was sure the Little People could never do. In a creaky, slow, mechanical tone hespoke.
"Name not Lefty. Name Harkat Harkat Mulds." And his lips spread into a jagged gash, which was as close to a smile as he could come.
CHAPTER NINE
MR. CREPSLEY, GAVNER, AND STREAKhad been checking a maze of cliff-top tunnels when they heard faint echoes of the fight. They raced back, arriving fifteen minutes or so after I'd killed the bear. They were stunned when I explained what happened and told them about Harkat Mulds. The Little Person had replaced his robes and hood, and when they asked him if it was true that he could talk, there was a long moment of silence during which I thought he wasn't going to say anything. Then he nodded and croaked, "Yes." Gavner actually jumped back a few steps when he heard the Little Person speak. Mr. Crepsley shook his head, amazed. "We will discuss this later," he said. "First there is the bear to deal with." He crouched beside the dead bear and studied it from top to bottom. "Describe how it attacked you," he said, and I told him about the bear's sudden appearance and savage attack. "It makes no sense." Mr. Crepsley frowned. "Bears do not behave in such a fashion unless agitated or starving. It was not hunger that motivated it look at its round stomach and if you did nothing to upset it "
"It was foaming at the mouth," I said. "I think it had rabies."
"We shall soon see." The vampire used his sharp nails to cut open the bear's belly. He stuck his nose close to the cut and sniffed the blood that was oozing out. After a few seconds he made a face and stood up.
"Well?" Gavner asked.
"The bearwas insane," Mr. Crepsley said, "but not with rabies it had consumed the blood of a vampaneze!"
"How?" I gasped.
"I am not sure," Mr. Crepsley replied, then looked up at the sky. "We have time before dawn. We will trace this bear's trail and perhaps learn more along the way."
"What about the dead Little Person?" Gavner asked. "Should we bury him?"
"Do you want to bury him Harkat? " Mr. Crepsley asked, echoing my earlier question.
Harkat Mulds shook his head. "Not really."
"Then leave him," the vampire snapped. "Scavengers and birds will pick his bones clean. We do not have time to waste."
The path of the bear was easy to follow even an untrained tracker like me could have traced it by the deep footprints and broken twigs.
Night was coming to a close as we pulled up at a small mound of stones and found what had driven the bear mad. Half-buried underneath the stones was a purple body with a red head of hair a vampaneze!
"By the way his skull is crushed, he must have died in a fall," Mr. Crepsley said, examining the dead man. "The bear found him after he was buried and dug him up. See the chunks that have been bitten out of him?" He pointed to the gaping holes in the vampaneze's belly. "That is what drove it mad the blood of vampaneze and vampires is poisonous. Had you not killed it, it would have died in another night or two anyway."
"So that's where our mystery vampaneze was," Gavner grunted. "No wonder we couldn't find him."
"We don't have to worry about him anymore, do we?" I sighed.
"Quite the contrary," Mr. Crepsley snapped. "We have more reason to worry now than before."
"Why?" I asked. "He's dead, isn't he?"
"He is," Mr. Crepsley agreed, then pointed to the stones which had been laid over the vampaneze. "But who buried him?"
We made camp at the base of a cliff, using branches and leaves to make a shelter where the vampires could sleep, safe from the sun. Once they were inside, Harkat and me sat by the entrance and the Little Person told his incredible story. The wolves had gone off hunting, except for Rudi, who curled up in my lap and dozed.
"My memories are not complete," said Harkat. Speaking wasn't easy for him and he had to pause for breath a lot. "Much is clouded. I will tell you what I remember. First I am a ghost."
Our jaws dropped.
"A ghost!" Mr. Crepsley shouted. "Absurd!"
"Absolutely," Gavner agreed with a grin. "Vampires don't believe in crazy things like ghosts, do we, Larten?"
Before Mr. Crepsley could reply, Harkat corrected himself. "What I should have said is, I was a ghost. All Little People were ghosts. Until they agreed to terms with Mr. Tiny."
"I don't understand," Gavner said. "Agreed to what terms? How?"
"Mr. Tiny can talk with dead," Harkat explained. "I did not leave Earth when I died. Soul could not. I was stuck. Mr. Tiny found me. Said he'd give me a body, so I could live again. In return I'd serve him, as a Little Person."
According to Harkat, each of the Little People had struck a deal with Mr. Tiny, and each deal was different. They didn't have to serve him forever. Sooner or later, they would be freed, some to live on in the gray, short bodies, some to be reborn, others to move on to heaven or paradise or wherever it is that dead souls go.
"Mr. Tiny has that much power?" Mr. Crepsley asked.
Harkat nodded.
"What deal didyou strike with him?" I asked curiously.
"I do not know," he said. "I cannot remember."
There were lots of things he couldn't remember. He didn't know who he'd been when he was alive, when or where he'd lived, or how long he'd been dead. He didn't even know if he'd been a man or a woman! The Little People were genderless, which meant they were neither male nor female.
"So how do we refer to you?" Gavner asked. "He? She? It?"
"Hewill do fine," Harkat said.
Their blue robes and hoods were for show. Their masks, on the other hand, were necessary, and they carried several spares, some sewn under their skin for extra safekeeping! Air was lethal to them if they breathed normal air for ten or twelve hours, they'd die. There were chemicals in their masks that purified the air.
"How can you die of you're already dead?" I asked, confused.
"My body can die, like anyone else's. If it does my soul goes back to the way it was."
"Could you agree to another contract with Mr. Tiny?" Mr. Crepsley asked.
Harkat shook his head. "Not sure. But don't think so. One shot at extra life is all I think we get."
The Little People could read each other's minds. That's why they never spoke. He wasn't sure if the others were able to speak or not. When asked why he'd never spoken before, he flashed a crooked grin and said he'd never had cause to.
"But there must be a reason," Mr. Crepsley pressed. "In all the hundreds of years that we have known them, no Little Person has ever spoken, even when dying or in great pain. Why haveyou broken that long silence? Andwhy? "
Harkat hesitated. "I have a message," he finally said. "Mr. Tiny gave me it to give to Vampire Princes. So I'd have had to speak soon anyway."
"Amessage? " Mr. Crepsley leaned forward intently, but pulled back into the shadows of the shelter when the sun hit him. "What sort of message?"
"It is for Princes," Harkat said. "I do not think I should tell you."
"Go on, Harkat," I urged him. "We won't tell them you told us. You can trust us."
"You will not tell?" he asked Mr. Crepsley and Gavner.
"My lips are sealed," Gavner promised.
Mr. Crepsley was slower to make his pledge, but finally nodded.
Harkat took a deep, shuddering breath. "Mr. Tiny told me to tell Princes that the night of the Vampaneze Lord is at hand. That is all."
"The night of the Vampaneze Lord is at hand?" I repeated. "What kind of a message is that?"
"I do not know what it means," Harkat said. "I'm just the messenger."
"Gavner, do you " I started to ask, but stopped when I saw the expressions of the vampires. Although Harkat's message didn't mean anything to me, it obviously meant a whole lot to them. Their faces were even paler than usual, and they were trembling with fear. In fact, they couldn't have looked more terrified if they'd been staked to the ground out in the open and left for the sun to rise!
CHAPTER TEN
MR. CREPSLEY AND GAVNERwouldn't explain the meaning of Harkat's message right away they were too stunned to speak and the story only trickled out over the next three or four nights, most of it coming from Gavner Purl.
It had to do with something Mr. Tiny told the vampires hundreds of years ago, when the vampaneze broke away. Once the fighting had died down, he visited the Princes at Vampire Mountain and told them that the vampaneze were not "hierarchically structured" (Mr. Crepsley's phrase), which meant there were no Vampaneze Generals or Princes. Nobody gave orders or bossed the others around.
"That was one of the reasons they broke away," Gavner said. "They didn't like the way things worked with vampires. They thought it was unfair that ordinary vampires had to answer to the Generals, and the Generals to the Princes."
Lowering his voice so that Mr. Crepsley couldn't hear, he said, "To be honest, I agree with some of that. Thereis room for change. The vampire system has worked for hundreds of years, but that doesn't mean it's perfect."
"Are you saying you'd rather be a vampaneze?" I asked, shocked.
"Of course not!" He laughed. "They kill, and allow mad vampaneze like Murlough to run around and do as they please. It's far better to be a vampire. But that doesn't mean thatsome of their ideas aren't worth taking on board.
"Not flitting on the way to Vampire Mountain, for example that's a ridiculous rule, but it can only be changed by the Princes, who don't have to change anything they don't want to, regardless of what the rest of us think. Generals have to do everything the Princes say, and ordinary vampires have to do everything Generals say."
Though the vampaneze didn't believe in leaders, Mr. Tiny said that one night a champion would step forward. He would be known as the Vampaneze Lord and the vampaneze would follow him blindly and do everything he said.
"What's so bad about that?" I asked.
"Wait till you hear the next part," Gavner said gravely. Apparently, not long after the Vampaneze Lord came to power, he would lead the vampaneze into war against the vampires. It was a war, Mr. Tiny warned, that the vampires couldn't win. They would be wiped out.
"Is that true?" I asked, appalled.
Gavner shrugged. "We've been asking ourselves that for seven hundred years. Nobody doubts Mr. Tiny's powers he's proved before that he can see into the future but sometimes he tells lies. He's an evil little worm."
"Why didn't you go after the vampaneze and kill them all?" I asked.
"Mr. Tiny said that some vampaneze would survive and the Vampaneze Lord would come as promised. Besides, war with the vampaneze was exacting too heavy a toll. Humans were hunting us down and might have made an end of us. It was best to declare a truce and let matters lie."
"Is there no way the vampires could beat the vampaneze?" I asked.
"I'm not sure," Gavner replied scratching his head. "There are more vampires than vampaneze and we're as strong as they are, so I can't see why we shouldn't be able to get the better of them. But Mr. Tiny said numbers wouldn't matter.
"There's one hope," he added. "The Stone of Blood."
"What's that?"
"You'll see when we get to Vampire Mountain. It's a magic icon, sacred to us. Mr. Tiny said that if we prevented it from falling into the hands of the vampaneze, one night, long after the battle has been fought and lost, there's a chance that vampires might rise from the ashes and prosper again."
"How?" I asked, frowning.
Gavner smiled. "Thatquestion has puzzled vampires for as long as it's been asked. Let me know if you figure it out," he said with a wink, and drew the conversation to a troubling close.
A week later, we arrived at Vampire Mountain.
It wasn't the highest mountain in the region, but it was steep and rocky, and looked like it would be almost impossible to climb. "Where's the palace?" I asked, squinting up at the snowy peak, which seemed to point directly at the three-quarter moon overhead.
"Palace?" Mr. Crepsley replied.
"Where the Vampire Princes live." Mr. Crepsley and Gavner burst out laughing. "What's so funny?" I snapped.
"How long do you think we would escape detection if we built a palace on the side of a mountain?" Mr. Crepsley asked.
"Then where ?" Understanding dawned. "It'sinside the mountain!"
"Of course." Gavner smiled. "The mountain's a giant hive of caves and chambers. Everything a vampire could wish for is stored within coffins, vats of human blood, food, and wine. The only time you see vampires on the outside is when they're arriving or departing or going to hunt."
"How do we get in?" I asked.
Mr. Crepsley tapped the side of his nose. "Watch and see."
We walked around the rocky base of the mountain. Mr. Crepsley and Gavner were full of excitement, though only Gavner let it show the older vampire acted as dryly as ever, and it was only when he thought nobody was looking that he'd grin to himself and rub his hands together in anticipation.
We reached a stream that was about twenty feet wide. The water flowed swiftly through it and gushed away down to the flat plains beyond. While we were working our way upstream, a lone wolf appeared in the near distance and howled. Streak and the other wolves came to an immediate stop. Streak's ears pricked up; he listened a moment, then howled back. His tail was wagging when he looked at me.
"He is saying good-bye," Mr. Crepsley informed me, but I'd guessed that already.
"Do they have to go?" I asked.
"This is what they came for to meet others of their kind. It would be cruel to ask them to stay with us."
I nodded glumly and reached down to scratch Streak's ears. "Nice knowing you, Streak," I said. Then I patted Rudi. "I'll miss you, you miserable little runt."
The adult wolves started to walk away. Rudi hesitated, looking from me to the departing wolves. For a second I thought he might choose to stick with me, but then he barked, rubbed his wet nose over the tops of my bare feet, and ran off after the others.
"You'll see him again," Gavner promised. "We'll look them up when we leave."
"Sure." I sniffed, pretending I wasn't bothered. "I'll be okay. They're just a pack of dumb old wolves. I don't care."
"Of course you don't." Gavner smiled.
"Come," Mr. Crepsley said, heading upstream. "We cannot stand here all night, pining over a few mangy wolves." I glared at him, and he coughed uncomfortably. "You know," he added softly, "wolves never forget a face. The cub will remember you even when it is old and gray."
"Really?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, then turned and resumed walking. Gavner and Harkat fell in behind him. I looked over my shoulder one last time at the departing wolves, sighed dejectedly, then I picked up my bag and followed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HE CROSSED ABOVE THE OPENINGwhere the stream came tumbling out of the mountain. The noise was deafening, especially for supersensitive vampire ears, so we hurried on as quickly as possible. The rocks were slippery, and in some spots we had to form a chain. At one extra-icy patch, Gavner and me both slipped. I was in front, holding on to Mr. Crepsley, but the force of the fall broke our grip. Luckily, Harkat held on to Gavner and pulled the two of us up.
We reached the mouth of a tunnel a quarter of an hour later. We hadn't climbed very far up the mountain, but it was a steep drop when I looked down. I was glad we weren't climbing any higher.
Mr. Crepsley entered first. I went in after him. It was dark inside the tunnel. I was going to ask Mr. Crepsley if we should stop to set torches, but I realized that the farther in we crept, the brighter the tunnel became.
"Where's the light coming from?" I asked.
"Luminous lichen," Mr. Crepsley replied.
"Is that a tongue twister or an answer?" I grumbled.
"It's a form of fungus that gives off light," Gavner explained. "It grows in certain caves and on the floors of some oceans."
"Oh, right. Does it grow all over the mountain?"
"Not everywhere. We use torches where it doesn't." Ahead of us, Mr. Crepsley stopped and cursed. "What's wrong?" Gavner asked.
"Cave-in," he sighed. "There is no way through."
"Does that mean we can't get in?" I asked, alarmed at the thought of having trekked all this way for nothing, only to have to turn back at the very end.
"There are other ways," Gavner said, "The mountain's riddled with tunnels. We'll just have to backtrack and find another."
"We had better hurry," Mr. Crepsley said. "Dawn is fast approaching."
We shuffled back the way we'd come, Harkat in the lead this time. Outside, we moved as quickly as we could which wasn't very fast, given the treacherous footing and made it to the mouth of the next tunnel a few minutes after the sun had started to rise. This new tunnel wasn't as large as the other and the two full vampires had to walk bent double. Harkat and me just had to duck our heads. The luminous lichen didn't grow strongly here, though there was enough of it for our extra-sharp eyes to see by.
After a while I noticed that we were sloping downward instead of up. I asked Gavner about this. "It's just the way the tunnel goes," he said. "It'll lead upward eventually."
About half an hour later, we cut up. At one stage the tunnel veered upward almost vertically and we faced a difficult climb. The walls pressed tightly around us, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one whose mouth dried up with nerves. A little after the tunnel leveled out, it opened onto a small cave, where we stopped to rest. I could hear the stream we had crossed earlier churning along not far underneath our feet.
There were four tunnels leading out of the cave. I asked Gavner how Mr. Crepsley knew which one to take. "The correct tunnel's marked," he said, leading me over to them and pointing to a tiny arrow that had been scratched into the wall at the bottom of one tunnel.
"Where do the others lead?" I asked.
"Dead ends, other tunnels, or up to the Halls."
The Halls were what they called the parts of the mountain where the vampires lived. "Many of the tunnels haven't been explored and there are no maps. Never wander off by yourself," he warned. "You could get lost very easily."
While the others were resting, I checked on Madam Octa, to see if she was hungry. She'd slept through most of the journey she didn't like the cold but woke every once in a while to eat. As I was taking the cloth off her cage, I saw a spider creeping toward us. It wasn't as large as Madam Octa, but it looked dangerous.
"Gavner!" I called, stepping away from the cage.
"What's wrong?"
"A spider."
"Oh." He grinned. "Don't worry the mountain's full of them."
"Are they poisonous?" I asked, bending down to study the spider, which was examining the cage with great interest.
"No," he answered. "Their bite's no worse than a bee sting."
I removed the cloth, curious to see what Madam Octa would do when she spotted the strange spider. She took no notice of it, just sat where she was, while the other spider crawled over the cage. I knew a lot about spiders I'd read a lot of books about arachnids and watched wildlife TV shows when I was younger but hadn't seen any quite like this one before. It was hairier than most, and a weird yellow color.
Once the spider left, I fed Madam Octa a couple of insects and replaced the cloth. I lay down with the others and napped for a few hours. At one stage I thought I heard children giggling in one of the tunnels. I sat up, ears strained, but the sound didn't come to me again.
"What's wrong?" Gavner groaned softly, half opening an eye.
"Nothing," I said uncertainly, then asked Gavner if any vampire children lived in the mountain.
"No," he said, closing his eye. "You're the only blooded kid, as far as I know."
"Then I must have been imagining things." I yawned, and lay down again, although I kept one ear cocked while I dozed.
Later we got up and proceeded farther up the mountain, taking the tunnels marked with arrows. After what seemed like ages we came to a large wooden door blocking the tunnel. Mr. Crepsley made himself presentable, then knocked loudly with his bare knuckles. There was no immediate answer, so he knocked again, then again.
Finally there were sounds of life on the other side of the door and it opened. Torchlight flared from within. It was blinding to us after so long in the tunnels, and we shielded our eyes until they adjusted.
A lean vampire in dark green clothes emerged and cast an eye over us. He frowned when he saw Harkat and me, and took a firmer grip on the long spear he was holding. I could see others behind him, dressed in green as well, none without a weapon.
"Address yourselves to the gate," the guard barked. The vampires had told me this was how newcomers were greeted.
"I am Larten Crepsley, come to seek Council," Mr. Crepsley said. It was the standard reply.
"I am Gavner Purl, come to seek Council," Gavner said.
"I am Darren Shan, come to seek Council," I told the guard.
"I Harkat Mulds. Come seek Council," Harkat wheezed.
"Larten Crepsley is recognized by the gate," the guard said. "And Gavner Purl is recognized. But these other two " He pointed his spear at us and shook his head.