DARREN SHAN - Shan, Darren - Cirque Du Freak 06 - Vampire Prince

It was all done in good spirits. It didn't bother the Generals that we'd lost nine or ten of our own (the actual death toll, by the time those with fatal injuries succumbed, was twelve). The battle had been won, the vampaneze had been destroyed, and the mountain was secure. They thought they'd come out of "the scrap" rather well.

A stretcher had to be brought for Arra � there was no way she could walk. She'd grown quieter while waiting and stared at the roof of the cave as though studying a painting. "Darren," she whispered.

"Yes?"

"Do you remember... when I beat you... on the bars?"

"Of course." I smiled.

"You put up... a good fight."

"Not good enough," I chuckled weakly.

Coughing, she faced Mr. Crepsley. "Don't let them kill him, Larten!" she said. "I was one of those... who insisted on his... death when he failed... the Trials. But tell them I said he should... be spared. He's a... worthy vampire. He's earned a... reprieve.Tell them!"

"You can tell them yourself," Mr. Crepsley said, tears dripping down his cheeks, a display of emotion I never thought I'd see. "You will recover. I will take you to the Hall of Princes.You can speak up for him."

"Maybe," Arra sighed. "But if I don't... you'll do it for me? You'll tell them... what I said? You'll protect him?"

Mr. Crepsley nodded wordlessly.

The stretcher arrived, and Arra was loaded onto it by two vampires. Mr. Crepsley walked along beside her, holding her hand, trying to comfort her. She made a death's touch sign at me with her free hand as she left, then laughed � blood sprayed from her lips � and winked.

Later that day, shortly before the sun sank in the wintry sky, despite the best efforts of the medics, Arra Sails closed her eyes, made her peace with the gods of the vampires, breathed her last... and died.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Hours later, when wordreached me of Arra's death, I returned to the cave to try to make sense of it all inside my head. The vampires had departed. The dead bodies had been cleared away by the morbid Guardians of the Blood. Even the many trampled spiders had been removed. Only the blood remained, great ugly pools of it, seeping through the cracks in the floor, drying on the walls, dripping from the roof.

I scratched my cheeks � caked in dust, dried blood, and tears � and studied the random patterns of blood on the floor and walls, thinking back over the fighting and the lives I'd taken. As I listened to the echoes of the dripping blood, I found myself reliving the screams of the vampaneze and vampires, the moans of the dying, Seba leading the blind Vanez away, the relish with which the battle had been fought, Glalda's expression when I killed him, Arra and the way she'd winked at me.

"Mind if I join you?" someone asked.

Glancing up, I saw it was the aged quartermaster of Vampire Mountain, Seba Nile, limping badly from a wound he'd sustained during the fighting. "Be my guest," I said hollowly, and he sat down beside me.

For a few minutes we stared around the crimson-splashed cave in silence. Finally, I asked Seba if he'd heard about Arra's death.

"Yes," he said softly. He laid a hand on my knee. "You must not mourn too grievously for her, Darren. She died proudly, as she would have wished."

"She died stupidly!" I snapped.

"You should not say that," Seba scolded me gently.

"Why not?" I shouted. "It's the truth! This was a stupid fight, fought by stupid people."

"Arra did not think so," Seba said. "She gave her life for this 'stupid fight.' Others gave theirs too."

"That's what makes it stupid," I groaned. "We could have driven them off. We didn't have to come down here and cut them to pieces."

"If I remember correctly," Seba said, "it wasyour novel idea regarding the spiders which paved the way for our attack."

"Thanks for reminding me," I said bitterly, lapsing back into silence.

"You must not take it to heart," Seba said. "Fighting is our way. It is how we judge ourselves. To the uninitiated this might look like a barbaric bloodbath, but our cause was just. The vampaneze were plotting our downfall. It was us or them. You know that better than anybody � you were there when they killed Gavner Purl."

"I know," I sighed. "I'm not saying they didn't deserve it. Butwhy were they here?Why did they invade?"

Seba shrugged. "Doubtless we will unearth the truth once we have had a chance to interrogate the survivors."

"You meantorture," I snorted.

"If that is what you want to call it," he replied bleakly.

"OK," I said. "We'll torture them and maybe learn that they attacked just for the hell of it, to knock us out of shape and take over the mountain. Everything will be fine then. We can walk around proudly and slap ourselves on the back.

"But what if thatwasn't why they attacked?" I pressed. "What if there was a different reason?"

"Such as?" Seba asked.

"I don't know. I've no idea how the vampaneze think or why they do what they do. The point is, neither doyou or the other vampires. This attack came as a surprise to everyone, didn't it?"

"It was unexpected," Seba agreed. "The vampaneze have never attacked us this aggressively before. Even when they split from us, they cared only about establishing their own society, not undermining ours."

"So why did they do it?" I asked again. "Do you know?"

"No," Seba said.

"There!" I exclaimed. "You don't know, I don't know, the Princes don't know." I got to my knees and locked eyes with him. "Don't you think somebody should haveasked? We stormed down here and tore them apart, and not once did any of us stop to question their motives. We reacted like wild animals."

"There was no time for questions," Seba insisted, but I could tell he was troubled by my words.

"Maybe there wasn't," I said. "Notnow. But what about six months ago? A year? Ten years? A hundred? Kurda was the only one who contacted the vampaneze and tried to understand them. Why didn't others help him? Why weren't attempts made to befriend them, to prevent something like this from ever happening?"

"You are commending Kurda Smahlt?" Seba asked distastefully.

"No. Kurda betrayed us. There's no defending what he did. What I'm saying is � ifwe'd made the effort to get to know the vampaneze, perhaps there would have been no need forhim to betray us. Maybe we somehow forced his hand."

"Your way of thinking puzzles me," Seba said. "You are more human than vampire, I suppose. In time you will learn to see things our way and �"

"No!" I shouted, jumping up. "I don't want to see things your way.Your way is thewrong way. I admire the strength, honesty, and loyalty of the vampires and want to fit in as one. But not if it means abandoning myself to stupidity, not if it means turning a blind eye to wisdom and common sense, not if it means enduring bloody messes like this just because my leaders are too proud to sit down with the vampaneze and work out their differences."

"It might have been impossible to work out their differences," Seba noted.

"But the effort should have been made. The Princes should havetried. "

Seba shook his head wearily. "Perhaps you are right. I am old and stuck in the past. I remember when vampires had no choices, when it was kill or be killed, fight or perish. From where I stand, today's battle was savage, but no worse than a hundred others I have witnessed over the course of my centuries.

"Having said that, I must admit that the world has changed. Perhaps it is time for us to change too." He smiled. "But who will lead us out of the darkness of the past? Kurda was the face of our future. He, perhaps, could have altered our ways of thinking and living. Now that he has shamed himself, who will dare speak up for the new world and its ways?"

"I don't know," I said. "But somebody should. If they don't, nothing will change, and today's disaster will be repeated, over and over, until the vampires wipe the vampaneze out, or vice versa."