Hunters of the Dusk Read Free

pulling it on, as it often did — I’d broken the thumb six years ago and it still stuck out at an awkward angle.
    Taking care not to rip the fabric on my extra-tough nails — which could gouge holes in soft rock — I freed my thumb and finished dressing. I pulled on a pair of light shoes and ran a hand over my head to make sure I hadn’t been bitten by ticks. They’d appeared all over the mountain recently, annoying everyone. Then I made my way back to the Hall of Princes for another long night of tactics and debate.

CHAPTER THREE
    T HE DOORS TO THE H ALL of Princes could be opened only by a Prince laying a hand on the doors or touching a panel on the thrones inside the Hall. Nothing could break through the walls of the Hall, which had been built by Mr. Tiny and his Little People centuries before.
    The Stone of Blood was kept in the Hall, and was very important. It was a magical artifact. Any vampire who came to the mountain (most of the three thousand vampires in the world had made the trek at least once) laid their hands on the Stone and let it absorb some of their blood. The Stone could then be used to track that vampire down. So, if Mr. Crepsley wanted to know where Arrow was, he could lay his hands on the Stone and think about him, and within seconds he’d have a fix on the Prince. Or, if he thought of an area, the Stone would tell him how many vampires were there.
    I couldn’t use the Stone of Blood to search for others — only full-vampires were able to do that — but I could be traced through it, since it had taken blood from me when I became a Prince.
    If the Stone ever fell into the hands of the vampaneze, they could use it to track down all the vampires who’d bonded with it. Hiding from them would be impossible. They’d annihilate us. Because of this danger, some vampires wanted to destroy the Stone of Blood — but there was a legend that it could save us in our hour of greatest need.
    I was thinking about all this while Paris used the Stone of Blood to maneuver troops in the field. As reports reached us of vampaneze positions, Paris used the Stone to check where his Generals were, then communicated telepathically with them, giving them orders to move from place to place. It was this that drained him so deeply. Others could have used the Stone, but as a Prince, Paris’s word was law, and it was quicker for him to deliver the orders himself.
    While Paris focused on the Stone, Mr. Crepsley and me put field reports together and built up a clear picture of the movements of the vampaneze. Many other Generals were also doing this, but it was our job to take their findings, sort through them, pick out the more important ones, and make suggestions to Paris. We had lots of maps, with pins marking the positions of vampires and vampaneze.
    Mr. Crepsley had been intently studying a map for ten minutes, and he looked worried. “Have you seen this?” he asked eventually, calling me over.
    I stared at the map. There were three yellow flags and two red flags stuck close together around a city. We used five main colors to keep track of things. Blue flags for vampires. Yellow for vampaneze. Green for vampaneze strongholds — cities and towns that they defended like bases. White flags were stuck in places where we’d won fights. Red flags where we’d lost.
    “What am I looking for?” I asked, staring at the yellow and red flags. My eyes were bleary from lack of sleep and too much concentrating on maps and poorly scrawled reports.
    “The name of the city,” Mr. Crepsley said, running a fingernail over it.
    The name meant nothing to me at first. Then my head cleared. “That’s your original home,” I muttered. It was the city where Mr. Crepsley had lived when he was human. Twelve years ago, he’d returned, taking me and Evra Von — a snake-boy from the Cirque Du Freak — with him, to stop a crazy vampaneze called Murlough, who’d gone on a killing spree.
    “Find the reports,” Mr. Crepsley said. There