by Bob Gansler
# 11 - Jun 2001	Attack on Castle Dracula

ROMANIA

In the hamlets and towns that stood below the sinister shadows of Castle Dracula above, all was silent. The streets and squares had been bustling with activity while the sun cast its life-giving rays upon the Earth. Now as the last feeble beams of light scattered through the atmosphere, the nightly sense of dread came upon the living inhabitants of the world.

Many residents had left in recent days, whether to visit other locales or to move there permanently. The feeling of unease that came with every nightfall had grown in recent days. While it was not a feeling they could attribute specifically to one of the five senses, it was clear to many nonetheless. There was something brewing in the area - something big and something evil.

There had been some physical proof of these notions. The few foolhardy souls who had ventured out after dark had never returned. More than the typical number of cattle was found slaughtered when morning came. Then there were the rumors of wholesale destruction of one of the neighboring towns.

The populace had good reason to fear. A climactic event was about to be played out - an event brewing ever since Dr. Strange had weakened the Montesi Formula by his inadvertent casting of the Vampiric Verses. The race of the undead, once banished the world over, had now returned. Not every vampire who had been obliterated by the Darkhold magic had returned, only those with the strength of spirit to fight their way back. It was not all of them, but it was more than enough, and their numbers were growing. As was their wont, the vampires added to their numbers by turning some of their prey. The forces of the undead were growing, and soon their numbers would be turned against the living exclusively. For now, there was division among the vampire community. The return had left a vacuum at the uppermost part of the hierarchy. The last lord of vampires, Dracula, had been late in returning. Having been at the epicenter of the casting of the Montesi Formula, it had required bonding for a time with the discorporated spirits of Frank Drake and Hannibal King for him to return to the mortal world. Already, his predecessor Varnae, the first beneficiary of Dr. Strange's mistake, had been re-establishing his claim to the vampire throne. There were others with designs on the throne, but they had been destroyed by rivals, or like Deacon Frost, by the undead's worst daymare, Blade.

Now factions devoted to the two former Lords of Vampires were poised to settle the claims for the throne. Compounding the conflict was the third pretender, Dracula's daughter Lilith. The troops of Varnae and Lilith, unaware of each other, were set on storming Castle Dracula and slaying the master within. Dracula, however, was all-too-aware of the forces marshaling outside of his walls. He was not fearful, he was not worried; rather, he was eager for the conflagration to begin.

Dracula had risen even before the sun had completely dropped below the horizon. In the darkened recesses of the ancient stone fortress, he did not have to fear the painful embrace of solar light. He had rested well, he had fed well. His powers would not be at their peak until darkness fell over the land, but even at this moment he felt confident in overcoming any foe - living, unliving or other - who might dare assault his home. On this ground, on his native soil, he felt invincible. Before the sun rose again, victory would be his.

"Awake from your slumber. Arise from your sleep," Dracula exclaimed in energetic tones. His voice could be heard by all of his legions who were gathered inside of the castle. "A new night is dawning. Let rivers of blood run deep!"

Vampires all over the castle took up a resounding cry in response to Dracula's words. It was a sound that eclipsed all others to which the castle had been the scene. The wars against the Ottoman Turks so long ago, the near destruction of the fortress at the hands of Quincy Harker - these paled in comparison to the din raised by Dracula's followers. The fearful sound was not lost upon the human denizens of the countryside below. Nor was it lost upon the undead forces that converged upon the castle.

The ancient Varnae stood at the rear of his swarm of vampires alongside the three who had become princes to the heir apparent to vampire kingship. Ruthven, Varney, and Lajos surveyed the undead soldiers who rose from their daytime rest to march now in Varnae's cause.

"Is not our army glorious, Lord Varnae?" the fawning Varney exclaimed gleefully.

"They are but offal upon whose slaughtered corpses I will climb to the throne that was mine in the beginning and will be mine once again," Varnae growled.

"And Dracula's shredded body will provide the last step for you, my lord," Lajos added. The Hungarian's hatred of Dracula was never subtle.

Ruthven shrugged as he looked over the bands of revenants that were falling into order at Varnae's powerful mental command. Many of their troops were younger vampires, less than a century old. To them, Varnae was just a legend, to them Dracula had been the unquestioned Lord of the Undead. They followed Varnae not out of a sense of devotion but out of simple servitude in hopes of future benefits. The motives of those who had been turned since the fall of the Formula he could not directly ascribe. "Likely an attraction to power," Ruthven thought.

As for himself, Ruthven's allegiance to Varnae was one based upon reason. Though absent from the world for centuries, Varnae was still the First vampire. He had never been destroyed by any foe. He had only relinquished his title to Dracula because he had grown weary of his existence. Ruthven could see that desire had returned with Varnae's reemergence. This was the vampire who had done the unprecedented - he had stormed the Vatican itself. Ruthven was a logical creature; Varnae was the logical choice for whom to follow.

"Dracula's minions make a fearsome sound, do they not?" Ruthven commented wryly. He could see that some of their troops were taken somewhat aback but the cries emanating from the castle.

"The shrieks of a cornered animal," Varnae replied. "There is no escape for the Wallachian. We shall press upon his hut from all sides, painting his walls with blood."

Varnae looked up to see one of his advance scouts return in the form of a bat. The revenant shifted back to his humanoid form and reported. "Lord Varnae, there is another force approaching the castle. An army of our kind."

"Hmm," Ruthven thought. "Dracula has put forces in the field already. A curious stratagem."

"These vampires do not belong to Dracula," the scout explained. "They are subservient to his daughter, Lilith."

"There is no love lost between the pig and the pig's daughter," Lajos chuckled deviously. "She obviously has the same intentions as we, to slay the despot."

"She has always been one to seek that vengeance personally," Ruthven remarked. "Now she needs an army. She has always been a different breed of vampire. Once she became like us, but since the Bloodrise, she has reverted. She must hound, but she cannot slay her father herself."

"Then she is useless!" Varney proclaimed. "Let us destroy her and her host first!"

"Enough with your prattling!" Varnae barked. "She and her contingent are not useless, they will simply serve to stack the piles of the destroyed!" He closed his eyes and sent a general command to all. "Do not reveal our presence to the forces of Lilith. Engage them only if scouts discover us. Else allow them to assault the eastern side of the castle while we swarm the other sides."

"Er, a thousand pardons, Lord Varnae, but how are we to gain entrance?" Varney said meekly.

Varnae looked at him incredulously with wide eyes. Then he threw back his grotesque head and roared with laughter. Drool dripped from his horrible smiling face as his mirth dissipated. "You speak of an invitation inside, do you not, lackey? A Firstborn does not require any invitation. You weaker bloods, I have noticed, do. No matter. I have garnered your invitation." He look to his left and pointed at a group of marching vampires. "Govro, approach!"

The pathetic rotting wretch that answered the command turned, broke from the ranks, and came towards Varnae. He knelt before the Atlantean. "Yes, my Lord? Have I not served you well?"

Varnae extended his bloated hand and put it on Govro's shoulder. "Yes you have done well, you traitorous swine. Your betrayal of the Wallachian will aid in my inevitable victory."

Lajos' vampiric canines ground against his other teeth. "You have taken a turncoat into our camp? No one associated with Dracula can be trusted."

Varnae caressed Govro's face. "Trust is not the issue here. Govro has been inside of Castle Dracula. Thus he is able to offer us entrance. He has done so to me, although it was unnecessary, and now I do so to all who march under my banner." With a nod of his head, he bade Govro to rise. The pathetic vampire rose to his feet, his rotted frame overshadowed by the grotesque bulk of Varnae. "Now that you have completed your task, your usefulness is at an end. Lajos is right. Anyone who could so easily betray one master might do so for another." His hand slowly moved away from Govro's face. Then suddenly, with a flattened hand, he struck at Govro's neck. Varnae cleaved Govro's head from his body. The attack had taken the onlookers by surprise. They had never seen such a display of vampiric power.

Varnae reveled in their astonishment. "Let that be a message to all who might think to challenge me. I was First. All secrets of the undead are known to me. Let Dracula learn his lesson most horribly."

Elsewhere, the forces of Lilith were also on the move. They would likewise not be hindered by a need for invitation. Castle Dracula had been her home, albeit briefly, those many years ago. Her father had thrown out her mother and herself because of his hubris. That pride had led to the transformation of Lilith into the unique vampire that she was. While she was not hindered by daylight, the host that followed her was. Now that night had shrouded the area in darkness, she could strike.

"What news do our scouts report?" she said, turning to her comrade, the voluptuous Carmilla.

"There has been no sign of activity from the castle. No other vampires, save those pledged to you, have been spotted in the area. There was some type of disturbance in the air on the other side of the castle, albeit momentarily, but it seems to have dissipated."

"An attempt to fashion the elements into a weapon against us?" Lilith thought for a moment but quickly discounted it. "He cannot know of our approach. And even if he did, he would not squander his power in such a way. To harness the power of the skies would be too draining upon him." She looked to Carmilla. "Tell our minions to take wing. We strike now at the eastern walls!" Lilith's form melted into the shape of a ravenous bat.

Carmilla put her hands to her mouth and relayed the order. "Vampires of Lilith, take wing and descend upon Castle Dracula. Slay all who dwell within!" With that, she undertook the transformation herself and lifted into the air.

The hordes of vampires that marched behind the fiendish females transformed en masse and became a hideous flock in flight. The air was filled with the gruesome sound of leathern wings beating rapidly.

In the expansive room in which he had held court in days gone by, Dracula rose from his ancestral throne. His informants in the two besieging camps had informed him, via the link a master vampire shared with his thralls, of the movements outside. He had felt the link with Govro severed. Obviously Varnae had disposed of the planted "traitor". The loss did not concern him. There were other agents in the midst of Varnae and Lilith's troops.

"The arrogance of these posers to my rightful rule," Dracula bellowed as he headed out towards the ramparts. "To think that they could assemble armies pure in the intent of destroying me. Too many remember my rule. Fear and loyalty keep them pledged to me. I know the strength of my foes; I know enough of their plans. Castle Dracula will not fall. Dracula will not fall. Rather he will rise to the summit of the vampire kingdom!"

The sycophantic underlings bowed as they approached the massive metal doors. One had a dragon-adorned cloak draped in his arms. The other had an exquisitely detailed wooden sword. Dracula had eschewed the dark formal wear that he had almost exclusively sported in recent years for the garb of his medieval principality. He lifted his chin to allow the slave to clasp the cloak about his neck. He extended his right hand, and the other underling placed the hilt of the blade into it.

The sword could not hope to compare to the delicately fashioned blades he had wielded in the wars against the Turks. Plain steel was of little value against the undead. Any treatments that could have made the metal more effective and revenants would also be harmful to his touch. Wood, on the other hand, could be deadly to a vampiric foe while not harmful to an undead wielder. This sword had been crafted from tough ancient oak and finely shaped to razor sharpness. He held the sword before him and bellowed the ancient battle cry "Up, Up Wallachia!"

His voiced echoed through the halls of Castle Dracula. The sound of his voice carried along the cold stone walls, and it was joined by the forces who served as the castle's defenders. "Up, Up Wallachia!" circled around the castle, serving both as encouragement as well as a signal to man their stations.

While the approach of Lilith's forces was readily apparent to the naked eye, the convergence of Varnae's hordes could not be detected by Dracula's sentries. Varnae's power extended over his entire host, rendering them for all practical purposes invisible. This demonstration of yet another vampiric power was to no real advantage, however. Dracula had been alerted to their movements by his inside agents. The Wallachian's own forces were moving into place to meet the attack. Vampires now lined the walls that surrounded the inner portions of the castle. Though they could not see the foe, Dracula's mental messages assured them that the foe was indeed there.

Varnae was surprised to see the defenders lining the walls of the castle. He had expected to breach the walls with no difficulty. Once his forces came into contact with the defenders, his shroud of invisibility would not longer stand. However, it seemed that the shroud had already fallen

"Destroy them all!" Varnae bellowed as his troops' flight neared the walls. "Slay all who are not pledged to the true Lord of Vampires."

All around the castle, the first waves of Lilith's and Varnae's forces came over the walls. Dracula's defenders stood snarling but motionless until the very last instant. At that moment, they bent over to pick up the long wooden spears that had lain hidden upon the floor of the turrets and walls. They lifted the spears as the invaders descended and reverted back into their humanoid forms. Dozens of vampires were slaughtered by the wooden pikes.

The commanders of the two invading contingents had held back somewhat, letting the underlings suffer the first casualties. Both Lilith and Varnae were surprised at how Dracula had been prepared. Their respective attacks had apparently not been unexpected.

Dracula's forces had to lower the pikes now, their victims still impaled by the sharp points, in order to engage the hordes of other revenants that swarmed over the walls. From his lookout position in the central tower of the castle, Dracula watched with pride. "Vlad Tepes will ever be the Impaler!" he cried.

Varnae, Lajos, Ruthven, and Varney hovered near the castle walls, waiting for their forces to make some headway against the defenders. The battle was now one of tooth and claw. Ichor began to paint the cold grey stone beneath them as the vampires literally tore into each other.

"Lord Varnae," Varney exclaimed. "Those massive stakes …"

Varnae shot a cruel glance to the mewling underling. Even in bat-form, he was more hideous than any other revenant on the battlefield. "The stakes are useless now, cur! For Dracula's servants to bring them into play again, they would first have to disengage those who had been pierced. The wounded would heal soon enough to rejoin our cause. There is no danger. We alight now. The Wallachian will soon fall to me!"

On the eastern front, all was far from quiet. The first wave of Lilith's attack was similarly slaughtered, although the successive waves were beginning to make slow and costly progress. Lilith began to surge forward towards the line of battle. Carmilla sped ahead and cut her off.

"Mistress," Carmilla pleased. "We have not yet breached the walls. Please remain until our forces can clear a path for us. Then I will slay your father for you at last."

"You forget," Lilith hissed as she avoided the mid-air collision and maneuvered around Carmilla. "The same curse that keeps me from slaying him myself also prevents me from being slain in most of the ways of the vampire. I fear not their pikes or whatever weapons with which Dracula may have equipped them. I press on!"

The invaders had now pressed Dracula's soldiers back from the outer walls. The carnage was staggering. The shredded remains of vampires were everywhere. Those who had not been staked or beheaded would regenerate but most and had been wounded so severely by their own kind that such regeneration would take some time. No one stopped to help wounded comrades; the invading undead sought only to destroy for the glory of their respective masters.

Dracula's defenders had been pushed back almost to the central tower that the Wallachian occupied. He continued to watch the battle from the top of the tower. He could see now that the upper courtyard was filled with invaders. He sent a mental command to his reserves who waited hidden in the base of the tower. He held forth his wooden sword and cried "Loose!"

The doors at the base of the tower flung open, and the two dozen vampires, armed with longbows, emerged. Their bows were already nocked, and without selecting any specific target, they let their arrows fly into Lilith and Varnae's ranks.

Wave after wave of arrows sailed over the heads of Dracula's defenders and into the midst of the invaders. Dracula watched with glee as the wooden shafts embedded themselves into his enemies. He thought about how many times Rachel Van Helsing had tried to slay him with her crossbow bolts. "For a single target, the sharpened shaft makes a poor weapon, against a horde it is quite effective." He would have enjoyed showing this lesson to her, but she had not returned from oblivion after the Formula was broken. He had turned her, but the mutant Wolverine had apparently destroyed her forevermore.

The ranks and morale of the invaders withered under the unrelenting assault. The aggressors still outnumbered the defenders, but the difference was narrowing by the minute.

Varnae watched with disgust as he saw his troops slaughtered. He launched himself forward into the fray. His semi-namesake Varney, afraid of being destroyed but more fearful of his Lord's ire, followed as quickly as he could.

"Our lord grows impatient," Ruthven noted calmly.

"As do I!" Lajos answered. His tone did not hide his aggravation. "I want the Wallachian's blood! He is orchestrating the defense, but from where?" His eyes scanned the battleground but he could detect no trace of the hated Voivode. Even if Dracula had been in some other form, Lajos knew that he would recognize him. The defense was holding up; Dracula must still be leading it. Then his eyes fixed on the tower. He peered ahead as powerful as his occult sight would allow. There was something there. "It has to be him," he growled.

"Patience, Lajos," Ruthven warned, but the warning went unheeded. Lajos was too full of rage to listen to any words of caution. The Hungarian sped over the battleground and streaked into the tower.

On the battlegrounds, Varnae was pushing his way through his own troops as well as those of Lilith and Dracula. Anything that got in his way was swatted or broken. Varney followed behind, vainly believing that he was protecting the Atlantean's rear flank.

Lilith meanwhile was slicing though the defenders' arrows continued to rain down around her. A few had struck her, though she did not resemble the pin cushion that Varnae had become (apparently oblivious to the pain). The arrows created discomfort but not pain to the degree a traditional vampire would feel. Any pain she did feel was overwhelmed by the hatred she felt for her father. Dracula's lackeys became his proxies. She could not kill him with her own hands, but she could kill them. Carmilla joined in her mistress' slaughter, convinced that Lilith was in no immediate danger, at least for now.

Ruthven watched from behind the carnage as Lajos entered the central tower. He focused his occult senses on the opening through which the Hungarian had entered. He fixed his eyes and ears on that area, blocking out the din and spectacle below. He could see signs of struggle, but he could not make out the combatants.

The battle raged on, above and below. Vampires and remnants of vampires were strewn everywhere. The invaders had been decimated but the defenders had suffered a heavy toll. All of the principal participants were still engaged in the battle. Varnae was clearing a path in which Varney meekly followed. Lilith and Carmilla were mere yards away from the archers who continued to fill the air with deadly wood. Ruthven had finally alighted on a castle wall and shifted back to humanoid form. His attention was focused on the central tower where Lajos had sought Dracula.

The bedlam of the battle was overcome by a deafening proclamation. "BEHOLD!" All the combatants paused and turned towards the source of the voice. Varnae looked up from the pile of vampires that lay twitching at his feet. His eyes went to the tower.

From one of the windows of the central tower, the form of Lajos Czucron stood. In his extended lefty hand, he seemed to be holding a wooden sword. He stood motionless and silent.

"Then Lajos ...?" Ruthven thought. He had not considered the Hungarian up to the task of defeating the castle's master.

Ruthven's thoughts took a turn as he saw the arm withdraw, back through a gaping hole in his chest. Lajos drooped forward, and the sword was seen again, slashing at his neck. Head came cleanly away from body. Gravity took hold of the head of Lajos and pulled it to the ground below. A force from behind soon sent the body tumbling after it.

The true wielder of the sword emerged into sight. Dracula, his cape stained with Hungarian blood, extended his arms in victory. "The Hungarian is dead, as will all of you who continue to assault impregnable Castle Dracula." He turned towards the two leaders. "Wench," he called Lilith. "Sire," he addressed Varnae insincerely. "If you wish to continue this folly, send your troops away, what pitiful remains of them are, and face me in the castle itself."

"Mistress?" Carmilla turned to Lilith,

Dracula chuckled. "You may bring your lover, sow of a daughter. You, Atlantean, may bring your lieutenants. I shall destroy all who enter. This Dracula swears." He disappeared into a cloud of mist and wafted down into the castle.

A mental shout from Varnae sent what remained of his contingent scurrying back into the night. A similar command from Lilith sent her forces away. The surviving defenders shifted to bat form and took to the sky.

Varnae did not need to address Varney or Ruthven. They knew that they were to follow him. The trio assumed bat form and flew into the central tower. Lilith and Carmilla did the same. Dracula waited confidently for them below. "The endgame begins," he hissed.

NEXT ISSUE: As Dracula just said... "The endgame begins"!