Carpathian 05 - Dark Challenge

confession startled her. Shocked her. Terrified her. She had never once, in all their centuries together, remembered her brother admitting such a thing. He had gone into battle countless times, had been savaged by wild animals, wounded by mortals, had hunted and killed the most dangerous of all, the vampire.
    She slipped her arm around his broad back. "You need blood, Darius, right now. Where is Syndil?"
    Desari knew she was far too weak herself to help her brother. She looked around the scene of chaos and realized her brother was still shielding them from the sight of the mortal policemen. He must have been maintaining the illusion for some time. That in itself was very draining.

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    She clenched her teeth and dragged him to his feet. "We will call Syndil, Darius. She must be hiding deep within the ground not to have been aware of this disturbance. It is time she came back to the world of the living."
    Darius shook his head, but he leaned his towering frame against Desari. "It is too soon for her. She is still traumatized."
    Syndil, we are in much trouble. You must come for us. You must heed our call . Desari sent for the woman she regarded as her closest friend and a sister. She felt sorrow for Syndil, outrage on her behalf, but they needed her now.
    There had been six of them, children thrown together in a time of war and cruelty. Darius had been six years of age, Desari six months. Savon had been four. Dayan had been three, Barack two, and Syndil a year. They had grown up together, depending only on one another, looking to Darius for leadership, protection, and their very survival.
    Their parents had been caught just before the sun was at its peak, weak and lethargic, paralyzed in the way of their race. The marauders had overrun the village and killed every adult, including the Carpathians attempting to aid them. Children had been herded like cattle into a shack and the building set on fire.
    Darius had noticed a peasant woman escaping unseen by the attackers. Since the sun did not affect Carpathian children as severely as it did the adults, Darius had awaited his opportunity, hiding five younger children from the murderous insanity. He managed, through sheer force of his will, to cloak the presence of the human woman and the Carpathian children, even as he planted the compulsion in her to take them with her. Unaware of their race, she had led them down the mountains to the sea, where her lover had a boat. Despite their terror of the ocean, they had set out, more afraid of the cruelty and sheer numbers of the marauders than of sea serpents or sailing off the edge of the world.
    Hidden in the boat, the children remained quiet. Afraid of the war, knowing of no safe shore, the man took the boat much farther than he ever had. High winds pushed it even farther out to sea. There a terrible storm buffeted the vessel until it broke up and went down, the mortals sinking beneath the rolling waves.
    Darius had once again saved the children. Even at six he had been unusually strong, his father's blood pure and ancient. He took on the image of a powerful bird, a raptor, and, clutching the small ones in his talons, had flown to the nearest land mass.
    Their lives had been extremely difficult in those early days, the coast of Africa still wild and merciless.
    Carpathian children needed blood but were unable to hunt. They also needed herbs and other nutrients.
    Even then most children did not survive their first year of life. It was a tribute to Darius's strength of will that all six children had survived. He learned to hunt with the leopard. He found the little ones shelter and soil and began to learn the healing arts. None of the lessons had been easy. He was sometimes wounded in his hunts. Many of his experiments failed or backfired. But he persevered, determined he would not allow any of them to die. He often poisoned himself trying new foods for the children, and he learned to force the poison from his own body.
    Over the centuries they had stayed together, a family unit, Darius guiding them, always acquiring more knowledge, devising new ways to hide their differences from the humans they encountered, and even to invest money. He was powerful and determined. Desari was certain there was no other like him. His rule was unquestioned; his word was everything.

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    None of them