Prologue
“Impale them!” the man hissed, sitting with his legs crossed on a large, satin pillow.
Captain Radu, the burly leader of the guard, squinted, wondering if the order wasn’t too harsh. Many of them were already dead; still lots survived and were now tending to their wounds under the watchful eye of the Wallachian army.
He squeezed the handle of the broad sword on his hip and, with the other, scratched his beard, still soaked with blood from the battle with the Turks. He dared the question, “All of them, Your Highness? Many are dead already—”
Like a snake uncoiling, ready to attack, the lord turned slowly toward the captain. The gaze from his emerald eyes pierced the captain as he hissed again, every word burning like a hot rod, “Every one of them.”
“Yes, My Lord,” mumbled the captain with hairs standing on end. Then he quickly retreated with his guards outside the tent.
Scarce in moves, the lord twitched a finger, and his mute servant shadowed the captain outside.
The captain looked at the man who pointed at his heart then mimicked drinking. Radu nodded and closed his eyes for a moment. He knew exactly what the lord desired. When will he stop with the blood?
Peasants called him “Dracul,” the devil, for a reason, yet the lord continued to binge.
Ever since his father, Vlad II, had been sworn into the Order of the Dragon, the lord’s family had worn its insignia with pride. Even Vlad’s crimson red shield had a golden dragon adorned on its front. The ferocious mouth with sharp teeth and fangs terrified many Ottomans in battle, but also peasants and boyars of his own country. How could he defend a Valahian king with such an affliction toward cruelty?
Captain Radu barked orders with the unnerving feeling that the lord was watching his every move. He turned and, through the opened flap of the tent, saw Vlad Dracul, Voivode of Valahia, frozen in place like a statue. Radu knew that behind the lowered eyelids, Vlad gazed like a hawk, ready to strike if orders were not followed to his wishes.
The king was not a tall man and sitting ottoman-style with his legs crossed made him even smaller. In the past, the image fooled many who, in the end, paid for their mistake with their lives in the most grotesque manners. His wide shoulders were encased in battle armor, which he had refused to have cleaned. Nobody dared ask again. Through thin nostrils in his falcon-like beak, Vlad breathed the sweet stench of death smeared on his breastplate. His long face was pale, like the belly of a serpent. A bushy moustache shadowed his upper lip and crawled farther over his jaw line. From under the crimson head cover, adorned in the front with gems and the eight-pointed star of the Dracul family, long, brown locks of hair cascaded past his shoulders. The most terrifying feature of his translucent face was by far the ghoulishly large emerald eyes, and its gaze—piercing and deadly.
At his feet, a shield laid with the Order of the Dragon sprawled painted on top. On each side, a sword clasped at the guard by snakes with fangs trembled ever so slightly in the soft wind.
In the sixth month of the year of our Lord 1462, just outside the capital city of Targoviste, a forest of stakes sprung out of the ground. Soon, it came alive with human branches wriggling in excruciating pain. Over twenty thousand captured, wounded, or dead had long wooden spikes thrust between their legs and forced upward along their spines. The sharpened stakes had to pierce the victims’ bodies with such precision that they had to miss the main organs. It was an art, lost on many, and only the truly maleficent excelled in the dark art of bleeding out people while keeping them alive for days. Then, each wooden spike with a victim dangling at its end was hoisted high above the ground and thrust into the earth to stand as a warning for all who dared invasion upon Valahian lands.
With ravaging screams echoing in the surrounding valleys, the Valahian army watched the horror they were inflicting on their heathen enemy under the orders of their lord, Vlad Dracul.
Drawing pleasure from the terrifying view, Vlad ordered tables with food and wine for a feast under the shadow of the forest. His most trusted soldiers, and not so trusted boyars, sat at the table, barely able to contain their horror. Nobody dared look the lord in the eye, nor at the wiggling victims above. The ground was soaked with gore, and Vlad sneered like a wolf whiffing the stench of death and human suffering.
As soon as he sat at the head of the table, his mute servant poured a sticky liquid into the lord’s cup. Then he stepped back and froze in place with the carafe in hand. The boyars knew well what their lord had in his cup and forced smiles on their crooked faces, faking approval of his conduct.
Vlad raised his cup, and instant silence descended upon the gathering. Even the poor souls withering above seemed to quiet their wails and listen to the words of the infidel.
“We were victorious today, but boyars, I say onto you … the war is not over. Until we bathe in the blood of our enemies, nothing is over.” He stopped abruptly and, with a deadly gaze in his eyes, he knifed the seating boyars, one by one. “I now raise this cup with a beating heart, full of hope that, before long, the heathen Turk will be hurled back to his godforsaken land. I am the hand of the Lord, and I shall see that death embraces all who dare raise their swords against us.” He paused, raised his cup of human blood, and thundered, “Blood calls for blood!”
