The son of the devil

Where am I?

Vlad put the gun back on the table. Acrid smoke was coming from the barrel stinking the air in the room. In front of him, Robert’s body was still with eyes wide and mouth open in a silent scream and a hole in the forehead. What began as friendship now ended in killing.

Looking around the room, he mourned the years he lost trusting the wrong people. To think everything was just about the money. He felt sorry for Marta. He made her a widow, but she could do better in the future. He sat back down, waiting for the police to arrive.

Now that it was over, he felt empty inside. No more goal to achieve in the future. All he had left was the hope to reuniting when everything was over. He couldn’t help himself from chiding himself at the thought of an afterlife. All his life, he denied everything that had to do with religion, faith and superstitions. Everything at the time seemed nonsense. A hole in the head and that was it. Life was over. But now at the end, the same nonsense was the only thing left for him to cling to.

He heard the shrill of police cars growing near and he let out a sigh. Finally, game over. He got out the pendant from under his shirt. He bent over, lifting his pant leg, taking out the knife. With a bullet, it seemed too fast for him. He needed the pain.

Gripping tight the pendant in the left hand, he heard numerous hurried footsteps outside. Licking his lips to ease the burning, he closed his eyes. Letting out a heavy breath, he prepared himself. Then, with a quick move, the knife passed over his neck, cutting from left to right severing both arteries.

At first he felt the coldness, then it was a burning sensation as he fell on the back looking at the ceiling, his vision starting to fade away.

Suddenly, he felt his left hand starting to burn, while the shrill cries of a woman was sounding in his mind, that started to shut down.

Then darkness descended over him.

***

What made him aware that he was still alive was the burning pain in the left side of his chest. Letting out a heavy breath he shook his head, opening his eyes. At first, he didn’t understand anything that was happening around him. People were screaming all around, fighting and killing each other with swords, maces, clubs and other antiquated looking weapons. One was trying to kill him right that second. The pain of his lance piercing his left side was what brought him back from the darkness. Both him and his opponent were riding horses wrapped in heavy chainmail. Looking down at the place the pain was burning, he saw his opponent went through both his shield and the chainmail covering his body. Everything was too surreal for him, but his instincts of survival seemed to kick in as he grabbed the shaft in his left gloved fist, trying to stop it from advancing further. His right lifted holding the short war axe and hit with all his strength. The wood snapped, while the pain in his side grew, making him lose his breath and his eyes started to water.

But seeing it was serious, he tried to forget about any pain until the fight was over, preferably with him still alive. Letting the tip of the spear inside, he dropped the now useless shield and lifting his axe once again, kicked his horse, making it advance towards his opponent, who in the meantime drew a sword after abandoning the broken lance.

His movements were quick, while Vlad felt sluggish as if swimming against the tide. He circled around the other, trying to think of a way to diminish his opponent’s sword advantage of having longer reach.

People around them continued to butcher each other with the same frenzy from the beginning. The screaming volume increased while more were cut down, bleeding on the ground.

Vlad had an idea of how to get even with his opponent. Kicking his horse once again with the heels he approached him from the front and, when his horse was in front of the other one, he turned him around with a powerful tug to the left, making them almost perpendicular. His opponent tried to turn his horse while stabbing with the sword to his chest. The heavy axe hit his opponent’s horse in the head while his opponent’s sword crashed against his chainmail, but it was stopped by the padding underneath from producing too much damage. Instead, the blow of his axe went through and he was splattered with blood while his opponent’s horse whinnied, rose on the hind legs and fell on its romp then on its side, catching his owner’s right leg under his weight and, by the sound of broken twigs and his opponent’s howls of pain, his foot was most probably crushed.

Looking around, he saw the fight paused. He saw two men rushing towards the fallen horseman and dragging him from under the weight keeping him down. A horseman, that until now stood at a distance out of the fighting, rushed towards the three dragging another horse after him. The two pushed the wounded one up in the saddle. Once up, neglecting the whimpers of pain, the other rider whipped the other horse while kicking his own and hurriedly left the field, abandoning the rest to the mercy of heavens.

The rest stood side by side fighting until the last man fell, giving those two time to escape.

But Vlad was out of strength, his ears started to ring and his body was covered in sweat. His body kept tilting forward, having difficulty in maintaining his equilibrium in the saddle. He almost fell, when he felt himself being helped into descending from his horse and being put on the ground on top of a large fur and then covered with another. With a sigh, he lost his consciousness.

The next time when he opened his eyes, his sight was attracted by a couple of candles burning near the bed on top of which he was laying. His lips were painfully dry, his throat was parched from thirst and he felt his tongue as a piece of cotton in his mouth. The sharp pain in his chest made him gasp, which caused commotion into the room. He saw a face bending over him. It was the face of an aged man with scars crisscrossing his face. The scars looked like the man fell into a pile of broken glass, being difficult to find a piece of skin intact. But the frightening face was made bearable to Vlad’s eyes by the tears falling from his eyes. It took a moment for Vlad to realize he was the cause for that man’s sobs.

“Master, you’re finally awake. I thought we already lost you. Please don’t scare my old heart like that ever again. Thank God we found a physician in time.”

It took some time until Vlad had enough strength to talk, but the older man didn’t mind, his tongue kept wiggling without a stop button. From his disparate discourse, Vlad found out he was unconscious for almost a week, he was the ruling prince of Wallachia even though he was only eighteen years old and he was struggling to keep his throne, having two rivals who were fighting him for it. A Vladislav and an Albu, who’s army being commanded by Albu’s eldest son was defeated by his men the previous week. The fight resulted in both commanders being wounded, each by the other’s hand.

Vlad finally stopped the uninterrupted talking by raising his hand. He tried to talk, but the dry throat didn’t allow him more than a raspy whisper. The old man got his ear closer to Vlad’s mouth in order to understand what he was saying.

“Water… please get me water.”

The man disappeared for a few moments and he returned with a cup in his hand. He then sat at the edge of the bed and held Vlad’s head, helping him lift it off the pillow while he brought the cup to his lips.

The liquid was refreshing in it’s coolness, but the first gulp made him cough it back out, making him gasp from the pain in his chest. The old man took the cup from his lips, waiting for him to recover his breath before another mouthful of water passed his lips. This time, it was better, only a small portion escaping from his lips down his chin and along his neck. A shiver passed through him feeling the coldness on his skin.

After another gulp from the cup, his thirst was kept in check for now. He finally looked the man in the eyes while whispering the questions that was bothering him the most.

“Who are you? Where are we? What year are we in?”

The man’s eyes grew wide hearing his questions and then began crying. Vlad watched him, unable to understand why he cried. Finally able to speak, the old man spoke.

“Master, please tell me you haven’t forgotten your most loyal servant… I’m Tanase Ciupitu. I’m your guard since you were born. Your mother, God rest her soul, entrusted your safety to me before she died of broken heart. I brought you to your father, who in the meantime married another. Please tell me you remember your old manTanase., even though I failed in my task of keeping you safe.”

Trying to mollify the older man, seeing he didn’t have bad intentions, his care for him visible, he decided to place his “forgetfulness” on his pain,even though he never saw the man before. And if everything he thought was true, he hasn’t met anyone around here before. But a small lie wouldn’t hurt.

“I’m sorry, uncle Tanase. But the pain is too much and makes me unable to remember some of the things before the battle. Thank you for your care over the years. I’m sure if it weren’t for you, I’d long be dead and buried.”

The old man’s smile almost split his face full of scars at his words of praise. Vlad sighed as he drifted back into unconsciousness, but feeling safe for the first time under the careful watch of his new old servant.