Folki

The next years were spent in an endless circle of continental Europe. Across the bottom of the Holy Roman Empire into Turkish Armenia that first year for the winter, into the lands of Venice into the Papal States as far south as Bologna. Then on through the smaller Italanate states into the kingdom of Sardinia, and into France. the smaller German states, into Prussia on to Poland and then the 30 Russias. Finally, after following the Black Sea, and back into the Romanian Province of the Holy Roman Empire again. Some years, winter caught us late, and we wintered in the Papal States instead.

Even in the dead of winter there is food to be had if you know what to look for. I found that I could find one thing of value the others could not. There is a fungus growth called a truffle. Highly prized for it's flavor to the west. In most places they use swine to find them, in fact what you must do is watch them because the pigs love them as much as people did. They were all right, I suppose. But to me they were coin we could make, not something to fight over. Ludmilla and I worked especially hard to find winter herbs that Dagmar would turn into one of her potions.

To me that first year was a wonder. Until then I never seen more than portions of the village I had been born in. For the first time I saw other places, the wonder of the Black Sea stretching beyond the horizon. So many things. To my companions, those who would one day be my first true family, it was merely their path through the outer world, for to them their Vurdon, and their camp was the whole of it.

I learned so much that first year; how to read the signs carved into trees near farms and villages, because we avoided the cities. Whenever one of the families would pass through, they would leave marks on trees, fence posts, and stones, and they told us what places to avoid, because while we were an occasional sight to the people of the lands we passed through, it depended on the nature of the people there when it came to what would happen when we came through. Some would greet us warmly, let us camp for a few days, buy the medicines Dagmar would make, have worn pots fixed so they could be used for another year, even visit us to see us perform. For at night our camps became a wonderland for these people tied to the land.

In some places we were unwelcome as far as the leaders and headmen were concerned. They called us thieves, wastrels, gypsies. But we were the Folki, the people. If we were not welcome, we would leave, because there were other places to see. We had no nobles to bow to, no lands to tend, no nations to defend. And except for those who worked to keep the vurdons running, no real work.

Our women were sloe-eyed beauties renowned for their dancing, and men would come to see them, throwing coins that we used to buy what we did not make ourselves. Ludmilla's mother Tatiyana would tell their fortunes, using cards, a crystal ball, tea leaves or their palms. Dagmar's medicines were much sought after, and many days were spent gathering the herbs, then watching as she performed the magic of how they were made. Before too long I was helping with the grinding and mixing. She joked about some of them; that the pennyroyal tincture she made was for women who didn't want more children, that the belladonna one made women more doe eyed and attractive.

I also learned about myself during that year. That to me a tree was not an obstacle, but merely another path leading upward. One of the boys would sometimes perform by walking a rope stretched between trees, juggling as he paced it. No one was more surpised than I when I found I could swing myself up, and walk it as if I were on the ground. As our clan moved west that spring, I would join the boy Usheno as he walked the rope, then we would juggle between us to the roar of those who watched us. I also had an ear for languages, and my singing would draw the crowds to watch. As I heard them, I began to understand them; as if just hearing was enough. When our winter camp broke up I had already learned Armenian and Turkic, and in every land we traveled through I learned more.

Every few weeks my hair would be dyed black again. Still highlights of my natural red shown through, and the villagers called me fire hair, yog-bali inRomani, because it sometimes looked like the coals glowing in a bed of ash. For the first year it was necessary. While crossing into the Ottoman Empire meant facing an entirely different religion, a treaty had been signed between them and Mother Church that allowed them to watch over and protect their members of the faith in that other land. Posters warned of a red haired 'demon' who appeared to be a young girl. During the winter Dagmar had added tattoos on my face made of the same henna compound she used on my hair. When asked, the villagers would be told I had been promised to clan Shesti, a joke, because the word meant nonsense.

I also met the first vampire other than my father.

It was south of Adrianople, right before we went into our winter camp. Vladimir, who merely traveled with us rather than being Folki had come back to our slowly moving wagons. "There is the dark mark on a tree ahead. We must head east at the crossroads."

I was riding in the first wagon with Andrzej, one of Ludmilla's many cousins. "What does that mean?" I asked him. "The dark mark?"

"Vampir." He said tersely. "One of the bad ones. The dark mark means they take 'tribute' from those who pass by."

I thought about it, then my eyes widened in horror. "You mean-" He nodded. "Why don't they stop him?"

"Vampir are hard to kill and even to find. If you try and fail, they retaliate. Would you see all of us dead?"

"So what do we do?"

"We head east toward the sea, hope we get far enough away that we are out of its territory." He slapped the reins, driving the mules faster.

We finally had to stop. Mules can run farther than horses can, but they do grow tired. As the sun was setting we stopped because our mules were staggering. "Not far enough." Andrzej growled. He leaped down, and I went to help as he removed the tack from the animals. As soon as we had released them, he sent me back to the third vurdon which was home to Tatiyana and Merakano, along with Ludmilla. She was huddled beside the stove, and caught my hand pulling me down beside her. Neither of her parents were there, and she told me they had gone to quickly gather wood and dried dung for the fire. Tonight we would hide in the vurdon; protected, hopefully, by the crosses that were already mounted.

Her parents returned, closing the door firmly. "What of Dagmar?" I asked.

"She is in her own vurdon." Merakano told me. "She knows what hunts the night."

As night settled in, I found I could hear every sound outside. The hoot of an owl, the footsteps of a fox looking for prey. Then suddenly, as if an axe had fallen, it was dead silent. I knew, somehow, that the vampir had found us. I looked, and somehow knew where he was, for I also knew, somehow, that it had been a man in life.

"If you hide from me, I will slaughter your mules, and any who try to stop me. I will have my due, or you will all suffer." A raspy voice called. There was silence as we huddled down. "I will not tell you again. One of you will feed me, or I will feed on all of you one by one once the mules are dead. Decide."

Merakano sighed, standing. "Take care of our daughter, my love."

"Father! No!" Ludmilla shouted.

"Ah." that dread voice purred. "A young one. So sweet and tender. Send her out to me."

I felt terror. My only true friend, my sister by everything but blood. I could not envision a world where she was not in it. I caught her arm as she started to stand. I stood instead. But as I passed Merakano I slipped the dagger from his belt. Then I opened the door and leaped down.

The snow and bare trees made a chiaroscuro backdrop of the night. Only the small windows in the vurdon made from thinly sliced skins gave any light at all. The mules were huddled together for warmth, eating from their nosebags. I looked around, and for a moment I saw nothing but the background. But then I saw him. He was tall, skeletal, wrapped in dark cloth that I took to be an ancient winding sheet used on the dead when they were buried. He looked at me with eyes as red as my hair truly was.

"Come, little one. It will be swift, and the others will live to see another sunrise." I walked toward him, the blade of the dagger against my side. I stopped barely within reach of him, looking up, for he was very tall.

"You will not hurt them."

He looked at me curiously. "You say that as if I care what you might think." He reached forward, grabbing my arm. "And if I decided to kill them all, how would you stop me?" Then he pulled.

I went with the pull, the blade coming up, and I rammed it into his abdomen. He growled, then flung me aside. I went, the knife dragging from his flesh, causing me to spin like a top, and I hit one of the wheels of the vurdon behind me. I screamed as every rib on that side shattered from the impact. Somehow I stayed on my feet, turning as he glared at me, blood pouring down his side, but I could see the wound beginning to close even as I watched.

"For that I will eat them all little one. The other girl in the wagon will join me and together we will wipe your people from the face of-" An arrow punched through his lower chest, and he glared at it. Behind the monster I saw Vladimir calmly dropping his crossbow point down, his foot set in the stirrup on the front of it, pulling the bowstring back up as his other hand snatched a quarrel from the quiver on his side. "Foolish mortals!" The monster roared, snatching the quarrle from his chest, pulling it out like a thorn. He flung it aside, and I smelled something delicious as it imbedded in the vurdon's skin. It was a heady scent, like spice cake fresh from the oven, like my mother's plum and lamb stew.

It was his blood calling to my wounded body. Everything seemed to slow down as he turned toward Vladimir, giving me his back. While my body screamed in agony, I knew the cure was standing between me and that brave man.

The vampir started toward him, and I moved, ribs grating, lung punctured, still I moved like a great cat leaping on a fawn. I leaped upward, feeling the dagger imbed itself in his neck to the right even as I swarmed up onto his back. My fangs sank into his neck, and he screamed. I was like a tick, holding tight with dagger, legs and fangs as his blood flowed into me.

"Blasphemy!" He screamed, beating as my head, at my arm around his body, at my legs. The bones in my leg shattered, and as quickly began to reform. He was staggering, his blows weakening. Then he collapsed onto his knees, and I rode him down, still drawing out his blood, still healing myself.

"No more," he gasped, still trying to pummel me. "Mercy..."

I kept drinking his life. He fell face down, and still I drew him into me. "Rayne, move." I rolled my eyes, seeing the soft boots of Vladimir standing in front of the man. The point of his Turkish sword rested by his feet. "If we do not strike off his head, he will heal, he will return. Move. Now!"

I rolled aside, seeing the blade come up then down like a bowl of silver. The monster's head flew aside, and as it did, there was a scent of corruption. The body seemed to deflate, aging centuries. By the time I reached my feet it was a pile of dried bone with bits of flesh clinging, the head a skull with the flesh pulled tight.

Vladimir nodded. "Tell Merakano to come out and build a fire." I did as I was told. He looked at me as if horrified, and I thought of how I must look; my blouse ripped, blood running down my side and chin. Yet he took it all in, and nodded. "Look for wood, we will need it."

I ran into the woods, dragging back dead wood, going again and again as he sent me for more. The fire was as tall as I was before he stopped me. Vladimir gathered up the bones that had been the creature, throwing them into the fire. They almost exploded into flame as they fell into it. "Rayne, the head." He pointed. I picked it up. The eyes were still open, and I could see them almost begging. The lips forming the word please.

I looked into that dessicated face. "You would turn my sister into one of you?" I hissed at it. "Die!" I flung it into the bonfire, the mouth open and screaming silently as it exploded. The others came from the vurdon, silently watching as the monster burned with colors I had never seen in a fire before. Yet I found myself standing alone. I felt sadness. Even these people who knew what I was before were terrified.

"Thank you for distracting him." Vladimir said. I looked up. Distract? I had killed him! He looked at the people shunning me. "She came out so that Ludmilla would not die, or be turned into one of them." He motioned toward the fire. "Then when he caught her arm she stuck her blade into his stomach. That was long enough that I got in the killing blow."

"But the blood... on her side, her face." One of them, Hagai motioned.

"His blood on her side, and when I took his head, it splashed across her face." Vladimir looked at the man. "What did you think, that she fed on him?" Ludmilla pushed her parents hands aside, coming over to hug me. I returned it. She whispered her thanks, then drew me toward the vurdon to change clothes.

No more was said about it. I had just become a foolishly brave girl, not a monster in their eyes. The next morning the older men and boys mounted mules, going to the roads that led into our camp, and expunged the dark marks. Then we moved on, swinging west to finally camp near Salonica. Once we had settled into our winter camp, I had a chance to speak with Vladimir. "Why did you tell them you had taken down the vampire alone?" I asked.

"Why did you hide your dagger?"

The question confused me. "If he had seen it, he would have been wary, taken it from me before he struck."

"Yes. Ones like you, they sometimes think themselves more powerful than they are. It could have been your body being thrown in the fire instead of his if you had been foolish. And those we travel with, they fear enough real dangers in the world without making more of them to fear. Dagmar and our Ataman Yanko knows of your nature, as do I. But none other."

"They told you?" I asked, astonished. He grinned.

"I did not need for them to tell me. We see beneath the surface." Vladimir reached into his shirt, bringing out an icon. I looked at it, for the first time in my life I saw a symbol I would remember in the future. It was a cross with two crossbars, but beneath them were two circles, where his fingers would rest if it were a blade. The symbol of the Brimstone Society which would direct so much of my later life."The problem one of your kind has when you are young, is to learn to hide what you are. Some people will fear you because of your nature."

"Like those of the church in my homeland."

"Just so. Men fear what they do not understand, or do not wish to understand. Your kind are among those things. In times past, those of my order would be sent to kill you rather than speak. Until we learned more. Learned by talking rather than killing." He waved. "The one we fought was not always a monster. Not always thinking of men as food and nothing else. He became old, and separated from those around him. First by time, then by hatred of him, then finally by his own growing hatred of the living.

"When we hear of one such as he, our order sends us out to seek them, and if necessary, to slay them."

"Was it your order that tried to kill my father?"

"He is sought by us, but no, we had not known where he lived until I met you. The church sent their own assassins to kill him, causing your mother to die, and your imprisonment. He has gone to ground again, and we still seek him."

"I will find him, and I will kill him." I promised.

"Why?" He cocked his head. "He gave you life."

"My mother gave me life." I retorted. "He was a shadow that sometimes visited us, and stole what life she could have had so he could keep her. She loved mother church, and it pained her to give it up. She had a family he stole her from, one that would have denied me as well because of him." I wanted to scream it, but we had walked away from the camp, ostensibly to gather dead wood. "And when he had been discovered, he blamed, and slaughtered her like an animal, and left me to be tormented. I owe him nothing but death."

"But if you are going to challenge their kind, you need to learn."

"Learn what?"

"How to fight. How to survive when confronting them. You cannot expect them to turn their backs on you every time. They do not live to be the age of that one if they make too many stupid mistakes. You will not live to be my age if you make them." He sighed. "I trained for five years, and traveled as an associate of another brother for eight more before I was considered fully trained, and I still make mistakes. Oh you can do as they do;" he motioned back toward the camp. "Hide in your vurdon, pretend that those his kind take are sacrifices for the clan. Face them as ill trained as you are and die, or learn to fight them."

"I will learn."

He smiled, then drew one of his swords; a turkish Yatagan. He flipped it, and extended the grip to me. I grasped it, and he let go, the blade dragging my hand down. "When you can swing this, you are ready."

I lifted the sword, almost three pounds. I was able to lift it to proper en garde, but swing it? I whirled it around my head, the weight causing me to spin as well, then looked at him in satisfaction. He took it back, chuckling. "Maybe I should have said when you know how to use it, you will be ready."

We were not the only ones of the Folki, the folk. Occasionally we met others moving in other directions like the ingredients of a stew upon a fire. That first winter we camped with another group called the Ragedescu. For months we stayed in our vurdon, the children spreading out to gather food and some wood to supplement the dried dung we used for our fires. As spring came one of our wagons joined their caravan, and two of theirs joined ours. This I found was because marriages were arranged as much as ten years ahead, and the Vurdon that joined ours had boys and girls promised to some of ours, and vice versa. Ludmilla had been promised to a son of clan Illescu, and I prayed we would not meet them too soon.

And every day, Vladimir would teach me how to kill them. Vampires have two primary advantages over humans, they are far stronger, and any wound that is not mortal can be healed as I could heal from them. That is why I learned the intelligent vampire hunter would drive a stake through their hearts, then take their head, though as I told Vladimir why bother with the stake when taking the head would kill them. His laughing reply was that the stake was merely to keep them occupied with their own problems long enough for an ordinary human to get that close; something I found I had little problem with.

As spring came, we moved on, passing back into the Holy Roman Empire between Zagreb and Trieste, then into Venice. Here we had to be wary of taking animals in the forests. In most nations of Europe, the forests belonged to the nobles, and the animals were only for them to hunt. Oh a peasant could take an animal on a road, but if it fled into the woods you were not supposed to follow, even if it were mortally wounded. If one of the men at arms of a noble caught you, you could be slain out of hand. We just made sure to not be caught.

Here again my own nature helped. I could hear men on horseback at longer distances than my companions. So they began taking me along when they hunted.

Vladimir spent time not in helping us hunt, but in helping me hunt our enemies. I learned how to use every weapon man had created to that point, though I preferred the pair of Turkish swords Vladimir used, to kill those who treated my own beloved as food. The best way to think of them is like any predatory animal. They have large ranges they call their own, and will drive others from that area. The helpful ones; those that protected humans were few and far between, and as Vladimir had pointed out, almost always descended to the level of thinking of us as merely cattle to be culled.

In Upper Franconia I met a different breed of the monster. The Germanic people have the legend of the werewolf, the man who changes into a wolf to protect their people. What they actually were, I was told, is the oldest of the Vampire kind. Their line was ancient; but how they had come to be was hidden by the passage of time since they were first created.

They left us alone. They would feed on bandits back then, so we only saw them from a distance.

Those years were idyllic. Just the gentle sway of the vurdon, the smell of the forest and fields as we passed. Ludmilla was my constant companion, the sister I never had, her people the family I yearned for. It was the last true peace I knew. Events were going to plunge France into a rebellion, and the entire continent into a war in a few scant years.

In 1798 we were back in France. Ludmilla and I were of an age, fifteen years old. When Dagmar had died the winter before, I had taken her place as the one who made the medecines. I missed her gentle humor, her hands so gentle as she taught an orphan how to make them. I had moved into her vurdon, and Ludmilla would visit often.

It was August, hot as the forge of hell as they would say. We had camped near the edge of a forest, and settled in when they came. I was in the woods gathering herbs in the twilight when I heard the sound of gunfire and screams from the camp. Dropping my burden, I ran as fast as I could.

The vurdon were burning, and scattered around them were the people I loved. Vladimir had been shot, then stabbed. Tatiyana and Merakano lay together, bloody from being beaten to death. Yanko our Ataman had been pinned like an insect to a vudron with the broken lance still holding him. I searched frantically, but one was missing.

Ludmilla.

There was not much I could do for them. I piled all of the bodies into the burning vurdon, and looked at what I had left. The clothes on my back... And Vladimir's swords. Their trail was easy to follow, they had driven all of our mules ahead of them. With only one thought on my mind, I followed them. Miles flew past as I coursed as the hunter I would become, tracking them with nothing but bloodlust in my heart.

They had travelled only about five miles to set up their own camp. I stopped on the edge of the clearing. I recognized one of them, a young aristo I had noticed in the town we had passed through that morning. He had been enamored of Ludmilla, and she ignored him as she should. My first sight of him here was as he stood away from something my mind refused to see. He was doing up his pants, growling with anger. "She wasn't even worth that." He spat at the body on the ground. There was a sound, a mewling in pain as he kicked it. "She is all yours, ami."

I came from the woodline like an avenging angel. They had spent the scant seconds grabbing out weapons, and one of them laughed when he saw that I was merely a girl.

"Maybe this one will be more fun." He flourished his sword. I was in front of him, the sword in my right hand ripping up. He went into the air as if gored by a bull, his blood raining down on me as I flung him aside. I kicked the aristo in the chest, feeling his ribs break under my foot, then I turned to the other three.

One of them aimed an ornate pistol. I heard the report, saw smoke, and at the same time felt the ball rip through my lung. His look of satisfaction changed to horror as I turned, and came for him. He flung the pistol at me, and I batted it aside with my left sword, the right sweeping to send his head flying. A sword thrust into my side, and I grabbed the hand of the wielder, Then I jerked him to me, the right hand sword entering his chest then plunging out of his back.

The last one had an axe, and I dropped my last sword to catch it as it swung for me. He grunted as I stopped the swing in midair as if it had hit a wall. Then I dragged him in. My fangs sank into his neck, and he screamed in mortal terror as I drained his life away. Then he sagged into death. I drew the sword from my side, turning to the gasping aristo.

"Please-"

"How many times did my sister beg for you to leave her alone?" I snarled. The wounds in my side were healing, but I was still hungry. "How many others have you merely used in your time?" I snatched him up, and he moaned in pain from his ribs. "It doesn't matter, it ends now." Then I sucked his life away. I tossed him aside, falling to my knees beside Ludmilla.

Blood gushed from between her legs, and I wished I knew what to do about the sword one of them had dropped that had pierced her side. This was long before medicine had learned how to heal such wounds. Even if I had all of the skills of a doctor, it would have been impossible to save her, only luck would, though I bandaged her as best I could.

"Ludmilla." I whispered. I lifted her up, holding her in my arms. "Stay with me Ludmilla, please."

"Rayne." She whispered back. Her hand came up, touching my cheek. "You came."

"Of course I did."

"They killed our family."

"I know. As I killed them."

"Mama?" She looked past my shoulder. I looked back, but we were alone. "Rayne?"

"Hush, save your strength."

She cuddled against me as she had so many times in our travels. "I am so sleepy. Sing for me, please."

I sang her to sleep, holding her long after life had fled. I went through all that the men had, changing into clothes that made me look like a young boy, though any who saw my chest would know otherwise. I took their weapons, their money, and left them for the scavengers to feast on. At dawn I said goodbye to my dear sister, then I buried her there and went on.

As much as they were condemned later, the Aristo of France were no worse or better than any I had seen on our travels. But on that day, I found a hatred of their kind that would last the rest of my life. Whenever I was in France from then on I would visit the wood where she died. To honor their memory, I took their name as my own and became Rayna Belescu.