To forget my great misery,
I want to get away;
For it all to start again,
Oh, my sweet torment.
(Warning(s]: Violent deaths, racism mentions, gore, blood, explicit non-sexual NSFW]
August,1461, the Castle of Târgoviște
"You could not sleep either." It began as a dry observation, a distant look into the sky spangled with wan, scintillating stars, hardly into them but far more into some blank oblivion. The mind of the Hospodar was decidedly troubled, already a man of few words except where they were most poignant, most needed. Those darkly malachite hues were as grey and stormy as ever, but little could escape the notice of his most trusted of the Armași. The circumstances had been truly awry of late, but in this moment of clarity beneath the Wallachian sky, it was almost as if it didn't exist. Vali didn't reply, for he didn't need to. Something between them spoke loudly enough, communicated in a fashion that made speech too slow. When Vlad resumed his trek on the princely grounds of the castle at Târgoviște, clad in simple garments and yet encumbered by an ocean of troubles, as it always was. "Elizabeta hasn't been sleeping lately. She still has nightmares, Vali. Nightmares of her miscarriages. …But there is something brewing." He would not say he feared it, not betray his cut and confidence when he needed it most. It felt as though crows and carrion would consume him alive if he allowed himself to bleed in such a way.
"Can you blame the princess? Brandur and I have received word that the Sultan intends upon invading. We've only just begun to recover from the consequences of the summer raids upon the Saxon enclaves in Transylvania. Can we truly afford war, my Prince?" came Vali's swift and incisive reply, walking in stride with the slightly older man, Vlad's brows furrowing. He was right. Vali had quite a knack for it, to the point of canniness. Almost to the point of endangerment, as the past had proven before between them, their relationship being one of a quaky confidence until of late when it had finally become one sealed in trust. Vlad trusted him in a manner that few could compare, and he intended to keep that confidence if either of them could help it.
"…No. But what choice do we have? Mehmed must see Wallachia as a prize, Vali—a prize! We have resisted them for so long, but he encroaches like buzzards on a limping calf with a festering and bleeding wound. The more I resist, it is more like a limb being rent. …But I will not let Mehmed have that satisfaction, Vali. He already has with Constantinople, I—I cannot see him taking this country from me while I still live. …For Constantine." Vali didn't truly know about his past, did he? Aside from Elizabeta and Brandur and Edmundur, the older of the two brothers whom had known him from those days, and even Rasputin whom had been an unexpected arrival in his life, very few knew of it. Perhaps it should happen that Vali be made aware of it himself. Vlad paused in his walking, Vali doing so in tandem, ceasing the crunching of their strides upon crisp morning turf. In the lee of the chapel, guards making their nightly patrols were distant and it was dark, only the meek radiance of the moonlight providing a faint luminescence; enough to see. It was enough. Vlad heaved a sigh.
"There was another reason the negotiations with Mehmed at Constantinople fell through, isn't there?" Vali's voice broke through the slight interlude, Vlad nodding his head staunchly. Those piercing blue eyes searched Vlad's while his were averted. Always the face of ferocity and tantamount thought, in this moment, Vali could see an underlying vulnerability only the keenest and closest to the prince could.
"I didn't go there to negotiate. It was for an old passion. …I went there to attempt to retrieve Constantine's body, Vali. Long ago, when I was barely a weaned boy, I was sent to Constantinople by Cneajna's insistence. I was so very excited by it, Vali. The stories of it cannot dream of hoping of comparing to its radiance, a whitened pearl on the Aegean far more splendid than the old tales. I met Brandur there. –And Rasputin," he quipped with a half-smile, "but above all, I was page to the Emperor. The Basileus. Those were the gladdest times I had ever known. Palaiologos and Constantine…they became very close to me. I saw them as a father and brother. In fact, because Constantine had not yet heirs, they were going to make me their son. Say I had died and then I would be raised in secret. Were it not for the love of my mother, I would have. I might have saved Constantinople and it would be I whom would sit upon her throne. The throne of that magnificent empire…" Vlad's spiel waned completely, he heaving a sigh and face becoming a picture of nostalgic grimness. "Have I truly jeopardized too much for the sake of my brother not by blood?"
Vali's gaze hardened. He turned in profile, jaw setting and a deep contemplative pall settling upon him. It was not good. Vlad was normally one to be firmly rooted in ideals beyond such personal vendettas, but this time he had made a terrible mistake. At least, one that would inexorably further the path they had been placed upon since the epoch of Vlad's vendetta against the Ottoman Empire. Those lids sunk closed and he pinched either side of the bridge of his nose. But could it be stated so frankly? Yes, they were both of the same arms and Vlad did consider him the most trusted, but even then—he sighed stiffly.
"I cannot say, Vlad. Perhaps. It's likely. When we began defiance from the start we declared a position against him. This is no different than anything else that has been done. War would have been inevitable. For the Sultan will not rest until we are a Pashalik and Radu is Bey peacocking as Wallachia's new voivode. All we can do is stand by you when the flames of war come. I and all those who do not want these invaders taking our lands and wresting our autonomy from us."
Vlad hung his head and began to chuckle darkly. "I have already consigned us to Hell. I did so long ago. Demanding the body of a man who only had a slipper salvageable is only furthering this madness. With God as my witness, I shall see this war to its end."
And yet, you all still follow a madman into the fires of Hell. Perhaps you most of all, Vali.
June 17th, 1462, The Night Attack
It was by the fires of the Dragon that much of their enemies had burned in their hell. Three years of fighting was culminating to this, and by the blessing of Pope Pius II and the commendation of Europe for being the only one to bring such a vehement battle to an enemy they were apathetic to, Vlad had taken it upon himself to fulfill a new Crusade of the likes that had never been championed before. Even Corvinus, King of Hungary and son of his father-in-law, János Hunyadi, could not have undertaken such a thing that Vlad was far better versed and compelled to undertake. All were fighting in this war: men, women, and children; Boyari, freemen, peasants; Wallachians and Roma—none were disallowed. All were to brandish whatever weapon they will and could wield, and they had. Through the hells of Bulgaria, the fortresses in winter, the many skirmishes and guerrilla attacks along the Danube. Advancements had been made, the Turk quelled and embattled in all places they could find purchase and strike with the cold and cruel brutality of a hawk that had been raised to the zenith of ability. The shores of the Danube had been destroyed and her harbors sabotaged, the earth of Wallachia razed and the villages on this path emptied and their people fled into the mountains. Wells contaminated, those diseased sent to proliferate and infect the ranks of the Ottomans, Vlad was unleashing every measure of brutality he could. There was nothing that could halt a Dragon on a warpath that only Hell itself could contest with.
"And yet, all Europa does is sit upon their asses and testify to the deliverance and praise God for this divine providence while doing nothing themselves," Vlad snarled under his breath while stationed upon the crest of a meager hill upon the crest of where the Turks' camp was fortified. Vlad had just returned from a momentary scouting mission hours ago of entering Mehmed's camp and infiltrating it, yet completely unseen. Being so knowing of their culture and language meant for perfect fluidity, and all it had taken was the uniform of a Janissary captured not so long ago, one of their own rank and file. Provisioned in a circularity, the concentric camp was amply situated, but the intel he had mustered had been more than enough to conceive a strategy of a night attack. Though it had been more scrapped together, they had only been relayed of the Sultan's place in the Southern vicinity of Târgoviște but days ago. This would be enough for them.
"My prince, everyone is prepared for your directive. Gales has been sent off and they shall attack at your command. Under the cover of night and these storms, they should not be easily detected." Vali. Vlad was wrenched from his contemplation to the Armasi's voice, seeming to relax but to hardly any significant degree. They both sounded so very exhausted, didn't they? Three years of this and it seemed so endless. Royalty was oft lived in the lap of luxury, but Wallachia was a hard existence. Hardship and turmoil came from many fronts and many turns, but this was what little they could do defend even those hardships. His skin had not touched a cleansing cloth in what felt like years, dusted and slick with sweat, only for it to dry and become layered in dirt and grime. Hair disgustingly matted and tangled beyond salvage, both reeking of mud and soil and soured perspiration, the summer's excruciating heat had only made matters worse with men broiling in their suits of armor should the luxury be afforded unto them. Sleep was little and it showed in the grim crags that lined many a masculine and feminine countenance alike.
"It's been over two years, Vali, since this all began. And tonight, I shall see that it finally ends." He didn't look at the other man. For as fate would see it, something had happened between them. Intoxication and misspoken words that he refused to see as extant. Words against God, sentiments that defiled His Word unto His people.
"Prințul meu." Vlad bristled violently at those words, a hand upon his bicep that caused a derailing friction of consciousness to take him. He stiffened, and Vali retracted his own sharply, reasoning as to why.
While Vlad held an abrasive mien, Vali's seemed to be of a sharply inclined guard, like a child scrambling behind the apron of their mother. Trying to hastily conceal a moment of inappropriate vulnerability. For after what had occurred, a confession that was never meant to even be, Vlad had walled himself against even being around Vali when they were alone. Brandur, Edmundur, Wilk, and Ion had all been confused as to why, but Vlad was staunchly against revealing even that to him, and Vali could not know for reasons obvious.
Vlad's face fell, and he faced his closest Armași with a walled reserve and yet slightest modicum of vulnerability, an openness that only the other Wallachian might be able to perceive in this end time when everything was to do decided so very soon. His eyes sank closed, the air laden and heavy with expectation and the heady murkiness of a midsummer's eve. "I pray that God will guide your blade to smite our enemies." It was all that was said, cruel when so much was left without. Too much emptiness, too much that could be spoken between them.
Both were too hardened for the battle ahead to let something such as this phase them. They need only concentrate on what was to come. Vlad stalked into the darkness, issuing orders to rally the troops and mount their steeds, and a dim cacophony arose from that like the flaring of flames by the insistence of but a single match and waiting tinder. The clangor of armor, the whinnies piercing the air from horses as they were woken and stirred, the contest of voices as these orders were communed and all set about their business of preparation. Condensed by the containment of the forest, the noises that ensued would barely pierce a high note into the vale above before the highly dense umbrage of the sheltering forest stifled as much.
The nudge of Kalafat's muzzle only briefly startled Vlad as he laughed aloud, one borne from too much tensity, and smiled at the Arab mare. Dished face and doe eyes held his steadily, breezes tugging at her flaxen mane and forelock. "We are to ride into battle, Kalafat. So many you've been in—I know you will not fail me." Swiftly he mounted the Arab whom had already been tacked up, vaulting on to her back before seizing hold of the reins and wheeling her around so that they could converge with the fifteen thousand that were waiting for him to lead them into what would be a chaotic fray.
His Armași would flank him, and he knew that many a heart was thrilled with terror and trepidation, swollen with justice and courage. Many conflicting emotions that only humankind could bear to possess. A restlessness, an impetus, and he answered to slake that hunger. There was a roar, heels spurred into Kalafat's flanks as she reared and peddled a few steps forth borne by only her hind legs before imitating a charge, hooves digging into the loam whilst Vlad unsheathed the Dragon's Bane in all haste and gripped it in a vice at his side. There was a thunderous staccato ensuing in his wake as his men charged alongside him. Like insects disgorging from an ants' mound, so did they with rapid proliferation from the woods. A blight from the land itself, that carried itself with blades and poorly armed populace, but were to nevertheless fight for their own.
"KAZIGLU BEY!"
They didn't see them coming. By the time the thundering of the horses whom comprised the several thousand were noticed, it was too late. It was a blitzkrieg upon them, where there was no chance of anticipation. Several hundred tents would find themselves consumed and trampled whilst scrambling to their positions. It was chaos. Like a sea storming the shore during a flash flood would they come, the sounds so terrific—the cacophony of screams, cries, rallying warbles, the chaos of movement, the shrill whinnies of the horses, clashing of weaponry, and the turmoil of all else—was the closest many would testify to Hell itself. The sundering of blades and bow and ax and all else would silence many where the stampede had not. Vlad himself was caught within the virulence of this whirling world that was only discombobulated and nigh grounded by shedding blood.
Kalafat's charge had been halted, she only able to move haphazardly over the roiling waves of inanimate objects, heat, and men whom were trampled underfoot by the previous charge, labyrinthine. Vlad bellowed his war cries often, many a man felled his blade, staining the night crimson and scarlet. But he would keep at it, for Mehmed's tent lay at the center and that was his ultimate destination. Behind him, he could hear the cries of his men, but it was still too soon. They couldn't retreat! "Damn! Damn them all to Hell!" Vlad roared above the din, but as Kalafat reared to begin a headlong sprint, a spear dug into her breast, a fatal wound. A shrilly whinny of pain sounded and the mare capsized to her side, Vlad unable to truly perceive what was happening. A rush of vertigo as they keeled, Vlad realized in a panic that he could not move, let alone fend himself from the small, opportunist group of Janissary whom ganged upon the fallen Hospodar.
"YOU WILL NOT TOUCH HIM!" a voice roared and rasped with guttural vociferation, the mad eyes of a bear ranging upon those numbered as Vlad weakly craned his neck to see Vali charge into view, the man furious with a righteous anger. Vali glowered beneath darkened brows, a hellion who would protect his own. Vali charged into the fray, engaging them with his blade and sundering two in their distraction, an abstraction of movement allowing him to slay the third without trouble. Through a pillaging chaos raged all about them, Vali sprinted towards the Hospodar and griped his fingers beneath the breadth of the dead animal, shouting with exertion as he shoved aside as much of the dead mare as he could, enough before Vlad could finally free himself.
Vlad wobbled to his feet, but his armor was tough and had protected him. The black armor of the Drăculești trimmed in silver, something that had been passed down for centuries and had protected all its forebears just as well as the next. With a firm hand on Vali's forearm, the Armași hauled Vlad to his feet, a grateful few missteps proceeding before he was fully steadied. How long had it been since they'd been so close to one another? Vlad swallowed thickly, averting harsh emerald hues before focusing upon his feet solely. "Thank you," he murmured, knowing that they couldn't linger. But, oh, these horrors were only beginning.
The interlude had been a mistake. Soldiers of the enemy had taken notice and moved to strike, Vlad raising the Dragon's Bane to parry an impending blow, but there were more than one. Vali had stepped aside to engage in a furious scuffle with a few, leaving Vlad vulnerable. His sword slashed and glanced blows, parrying as best he could before brutally hacking through lightly armored flesh. His countenance was stained a brilliant crimson, they all dyed some shade of bloodied red. A sick color, a fouler scent of iron that drenched his senses where the gunpowder from cannons and handcannons did not obfuscate far more so. The scent of Hell.
"Aye, lad!" Vlad turned to the direction of the voice, eyes widening as Brandur feinted before him, grinning hard as he held against that blade, but even Vlad could see the exertion was taking an enormous toll on the Faeroe, nearly elderly man. Vlad moved aside, leg still weakened from having nearly been crushed by Kalafat's girth. Brandur was fervently and manfully engaging a Janissary easily half his age but with twice as much strength as he. They were all too preoccupied, but in that moment, Vlad's eyes flashed with a haze of red and all he could think about was protecting his Armași. He hacked, he cleaved, all that necessitated passing through this wall of men. God, please—Domnul, don't let him be taken. Let him live andandand—
What an odd way of answering a prayer. Oh, the movement had been a haze, but he moves with such swiftness that the wind might green with envy. For a man his age, he saw so much, from when Vlad was a young boy until now. Had protected him, had shadowed him. All these years, and he there was no opportunity for good-bye. Where a word should have been spoken, blood sputtered and frothed at his lips, staining his ragged beard a livid crimson. Vlad could only stare, transfixed, as his Armași stood between him and a wicked blade sheathed in his abdomen that menaced against Vlad's breastplate with threatening closeness. He could only glance numbly upon it while his face was frozen in horror, unable to say a single word as Brandur slumped with dead weight to the side, Vlad's jolted eyes following the movement with a delay as though it were a nightmare and couldn't possibly be happening.
"BRANDUR!"
Vlad screamed this in a livid rage and mourning, so powerful that it could shatter ice and glass and silence. Vlad's eyes became profuse with tears that drenched his cheeks in passionate abandon, gripping his sword with blanched knuckles until the Dragon's Bane cut down the one whom had slain Brandur, Vlad mutilating the body, severing it of limbs with a sickening crunch of steel and bone and flesh and rust. However, this blind and homicidal rage could not last. Vali bolted to the side of the Hospodar, seizing him by his bicep and wresting him from his frenzy, leaving and unrecognizable and mangled corpse in his wake.
The prince roared his indignation and fury through his tears at the interruption, face a mask of contorted and crumpled virulence before the sight of Vali seized him from it, terror stricken features matched and paralyzed as he was hauled into reality as brutally as he'd been thrown from it. "H-He's gone, Vali I—I couldn't save him," Vlad uttered breathlessly, throat too strangled to speak his words as properly as they could be.
Vali bowed his head towards the felled body of Brandur, close in proximity to Kalafat, two remnants of happier days, but dead and gone. His eyes shone, but his countenance remained grim even through that watery glaze in those azures, but no more. Seizing Vlad by the shoulders, he shook the mourning man gently. "Vlad, we have to leave, retreat! We cannot remain! Any more and—there will be no one left to mourn the dead." Vlad nodded tightly, cheeks streaked with angry red lines from the sudden tears that cleaned them of the ashes and perspiration and dust. Circling his shoulders, Vali shepherded Vlad towards a shadowed plane where most of the insurgents were dead, procuring a lone horse that had sought shelter from the fighting but was too terrified to flee. Vali mounted the shaking animal, helping Vlad on the back, they riding in tandem. Reining the horse towards the worst of it, Vali roared the order to retreat, Vlad behind him being all the authorization their men needed.
Those that could, whose retreat was not impeded by the retaliatory counterattacks of the Janissary, impelled yet another stampede, although this one was considerably smaller. At least a third withdrew on foot, their mounts having been lost to the slaughter. They would most certainly be followed, and the repercussions in suit, but as of now—Vlad was too beleaguered as to what had gone right and wrong. Foggily, he knew Gales hadn't shown, and–but, his gaze traveled over his shoulder inexorably, jouncy and jarring from the long-strided lope the horse was managing, it lingering to the path they'd taken from the carnage. Then, as slowly as it had searched, he buried it against Vali's neck, shoulders minutely shaking as he sobbed quietly with gritted teeth into the raven locks of the Diaconescu. Vali's brows furrowed in concern, feeling a grief of his own well up, but he only focused on guiding them into a safe retreat, digging his heels into their stolen mount's flanks to encourage a true gallop.
At this point, the only thing he could do was ensure that Vlad arrived home safe and alive, at the very least.
September, 1481, Snagov Monastary
Tresses of raven spilled over shoulders bent and leaning over an embedded grave recessed and smooth against tiled floors, housing the one of he who was beloved. The countenance that studied the grave wasn't like the Impaler of but twenty years ago, smoothed and made beauteous and fair and terrible in a manner only a fallen angel could afford. But there was still a man buried deep within that monstrous heart, that loved the one who was interred within. But the monster loved him freely. The monster only saw the lost years and the wasted opportunities. It was too late now, wasn't it? To the world, they were dead and gone. A hand skittered ever the unmarked grave, the grave of the unknown soldier.
The smile upon Dracula's countenance was lost; lost to some nostalgic paradise as hollow eyes seemed lit with an emptied and haunting glee. "It won't be long now, Vali. You see, I'm powerful now. I was remade, reborn as this twenty years ago. I can take back Constantinople, take back Wallachia. And perhaps someday, I will see you again. Look from heaven, Vali! Look at all I shall do for you!" Dracula's voice resonated cavernously, yet stirred the monks whom presided here. A place that had been locked, deterred of all but the living—he couldn't remain. Chuckling faintly, he moved with ghostly alacrity back to a standing composure.
"Soon, Dragostea mea, soon—wait for me."
I'm just a worthless being
Without him I'm nothing
I wander around alone
To forget my great misery