Frowning, Heinar inquired, 'And if this evil lingers on, how should I guard against it?'

'Chiefly with your eyes. And whenever you see it, put it down! One of your men hasn't returned. If he does, watch him - and his wolf! Watch the ones who did return, likewise Maria Babeni. Most obvious of all, watch Vidra Gogosita.'

'Vidra? His mother's in a state. He wandered off in the night, apparently. His fever ...'

'Oh?' Turgo hardly seemed surprised. 'Then say a prayer that he never comes back. Aye, and you'd do well to watch his mother, too.' He put his pack on his shoulder, headed off.

Heinar felt the sun warm on his weatherbeaten face and was seduced by a feeling of well-being. He called after Turgo: 'I think you exaggerate! Whatever evil came with this Shaitan, whatever sickness he carried, it's disappeared with him. Also, and wherever he is, it's bound to kill him in the end. There's nothing here now to run away from.'

'Running?' Turgo called back over his shoulder, dappled by sunlight where he strode among the trees. 'Yes, I suppose I am. It's the only way I know to put distance between.' When he paused to look back, his lips were tight and grim. Then:

'In certain ways we're alike, you and I, Heinar,' he said. 'And do you make camp beside a poisoned pool? No, for you know better than that. Well, and so do I know better. For I've seen this thing before and know that I can't live with it. Now let me warn you one last time, and I pray you'll heed these final words of mine: keep watch, Heinar - keep watch!'

But the sun still felt very warm and reassuring to Heinar. He would keep watch, of course - well, for a while. 'Eat well, then,' he called out after Turgo, perhaps a little too gruffly. 'Stay healthy. Have many children ... eventually.'

Turgo's nod was his only answer. And then he was gone...

Turgo Zolte was right: it would take Heinar Hagi eight long years to eradicate Shaitan's vampire taint from his people, a task which in the end would amount to culling the tribe down to less than half its current numbers. It was to be man's first real stand against vampires (if not the Wamphyri proper), out of which would be learned many a valuable lesson for the future.

Of the Szgany Ferenc who had featured in Turgo's tale of Oulio lonescu: the taint in their blood never would be washed away but would stay with them to the end of their days, not only in this world but also in one other.

That, however, is a tale already told ...

Ill

Raging, Shaitan fled from the camp of Heinar Hagi. He flowed through the night, which was his element, and covered himself with its darkness; but behind him a watchdog - indeed a wolf - came fast on his heels. And behind the wolf came Sunsiders, Szgany, which he had discovered were in no way trogs. Difficult to impose one's will on such as these. Their own will was so very strong! Shaitan would have more sway over their women, who at least appreciated his beauty. But to remain beautiful, indeed, to remain alive ... this was now his chief priority.

Turgo Zolte's bloodied hardwood bolt stood out from his right shoulder, giving him pain. He might will something of the pain away, but not the bolt itself. That would have to be drawn out. And despite the speed of his flowing flight along the forest's fringe, the wolf was gaining. Its eyes were very nearly the equivalent of Shaitan's own in the night and the darkness.

Cliffs reared suddenly on Shaitan's left hand; he lengthened his stride, flowed through the uneven foliage, climbed up onto a low ledge. Vines and creepers hung down from above. But it was not his intention to climb.

He jammed the flight end of the bolt in his shoulder into a niche, wrenched his body sharply to one side. The bolt snapped ... and Shaitan cried out! Blood flowed freely, its smell inflaming him. Now he felt behind his shoulder with his left hand. The barb of the iron arrowhead protruded an inch, but he had no leverage to pull it out. He tore down a length of tough vine, looped it over the arrowhead, tied its ends to a creeper growing from a crevice.

The wolf had heard Shaitan's cry, smelled his blood. It came snarling, leaping to attain the ledge, scrabbled there a moment to regain its balance. Then it saw Shaitan and leaped again, locking its jaws on his arm. Its weight overbalanced him; locked together they fell from the ledge; the bolt was torn from Shaitan's back.

In the near-distance, Shaitan's closest human pursuer called out to his wolf: 'Seek him!' But the wolf had already discovered Shaitan, who was himself on the point of discovering a new and terrible weapon. Within him, his vampire was at last mature. Metamorphic, its flesh was Shaitan's flesh.

The wolf had jaws like a bear-trap, clamped fast now to the bones of Shaitan's forearm. Their eyes met, feral yellow against evil scarlet, and the man felt something of the beast's ferocity. So did his vampire, which must make him ferocious to match. Something was summoned to his flesh, summoned from his flesh! He felt a burning in his fingers as if they were on fire, an agony in his face and jaws far greater than the mere pain in his back. And yet these additional pains were not without ... pleasure?

It was not unlike those occasions when he had summoned his vampire mist; but he had not summoned this, not knowingly. For this was the instinctive response of his metamorphism, the tenacity of his vampire, its lust for life; and suddenly the great wolf was no more than a puppy!

Shaitan's fingers, grown to claws, rammed into the animal's sides and tore them; his jaws, yawning impossibly wide, elongated into a nightmare cavern of serrated tusks which sprouted from red-gushing gums; his eyes were blobs of sulphur shot with scarlet fire. Gutting the wolf, he let its entrails spill. And when its agonized jaws flew open, then Shaitan's closed - upon its throat. Which he tore out in a welter of pipes and gristle and gore!

In just a moment, the wolf was wolf no more but a mangled carcass; it hadn't even cried out but died silently, in vast astonishment...

A second passed ... another ... and a third.

'Lupe?' A voice called from close at hand. 'Where in all that's ...?' A man stepped out of the trees into starlight - in time to see something move in the undergrowth at the foot of the cliffs. 'Lupe?' the man repeated, but in a whisper now, wonderingly, as he lifted his crossbow.

Crouching down a little, he ran to the place beneath the cliffs. As he got there, so the darkness came flowing to its feet! Starlight gleamed on the horror that was Shaitan, which reached out a bloody hand and caught the other by his throat.

The watchman would have discharged his weapon -but he'd left the safety on! Shaitan knocked it from his trembling hand and drew him closer. And:

'Lupe?' he quietly, almost conversationally growled, his monstrous head cocked on one side. 'Ah, no - for my name is Shaitan!' And as he lowered his face to the other's throbbing neck, 'But from this time forward you must call me master ...'

With his new disciple or lieutenant, who was the first entirely human underling of the Wamphyri, Shaitan headed east as before. There were no more pursuers; the night was long; they covered a good many miles - before the sun found them out.

For Shaitan's symbiont or parasite was a two-edged sword: one could not accept its advantages without its disadvantages. Sunlight, which had irritated Shaitan from the outset - almost from the moment of his breathing the red, corpse-spawned spores - now became a seething agony in his eyes and against his hide. It burned him, visibly steamed the moisture from his flesh, ate into him like acid and sapped his strength. He could stand to go out from the shade for seconds, but minutes would deplete him horribly, and an hour would kill him. His thrall was less susceptible for the moment; given time, however, and he, too, must surely succumb to direct sunlight. Such was the measure of Shaitan's corruption, and his contagion.