The real Dracula was not a count, but a prince. Although he did not drink blood, he was one of the most blood-thirsty maniacs the world has ever known. The sadist who would become infamous as Vlad Tepes- Vlad The Impaler- was born in Transylvania, in the late 1420's. His father , Vlad Dracul, meaning Vlad the Dragon, was prince of Wallachia, the region south of Transylvania, across the Carpathian Mountains. Vlad Dracul was assassinated in 1447, his eldest son, Mircea, was murdered at the same time, buried alive after being blinded with red-hot irons. Vladislav II (Vlad Tepes) then became the new Prince of Wallachia. As the people of Wallachia wondered what to expect of their new prince, a strange omen blazed in the skies. On the night of his investiture and through the first days of his reign, a comet appeared and shone above Dracula's capital Tirgoviste. The first coins struck with Dracula's image feature the comet on their reverse side. One of Dracula's first acts as prince was to order his brother disinterred. He wanted to find out whether what he had heard was true. When the coffin was opened, Vlad saw his brother's twisted corpse, his hands clenched in agony.

The boyars or noblemen who ruled the country and who had helped Vladislav to the throne were still living in Wallachia. With pressure from the Christian and Muslim powers on either side, few princes lasted long enough to gain true control of their principality, which still lay with the boyars. Dracula decided it was time for a reckoning. He summoned 500 boyars to an audience at the castle in Tirgoviste. They stood nervously before him in a great hall- some of them had conspired in Vlad Dracul's assassination, and the murder of Mircea. Standing before them, the new prince demanded to know how many princes they had seen in their lifetimes. Even the youngest of them had seen at least seven princes take the throne only to be assassinated. Some of the elders had seen 30. As they mumbled their replies, Dracula's guards suddenly entered by every door, and surrounded them. On Dracula's command, all were seized, and each impaled alive on a long wooden stake- the method of execution that was to become Vlad's trademark. The lucky were impaled through the stomach, and died fairly quickly. The less fortunate were forced to sit on the pointed end of the stake, and were then pushed down on it, then abandoned. Their own weight slowly impaled them further- a slow lingering death. 500 corpses were left to rot outside the castle. Dracula's message was clear: no one could be certain that they would outlive him.

Although he no longer had to worry about the boyars, Dracula's rule was still far from absolute. Tirgoviste, his capital, was a long way from his powerbase in Transylvania. He was vulnerable to assassination plots and invasions. With the genius of the insane, Dracula hit upon a way to intimidate the remaining boyars further while securing a new capital. He arranged for a large Easter celebration in Tirgoviste, and invited the most powerful noblemen in the land to attend. His guests were understandably mistrustful, but afraid of defying this sadistic maniac. On arriving, they were relieved to find that Dracula had prepared mountains of expensive food and good wine. Reassured, they ate and drank liberally through the afternoon. When Dracula was sure that they were all too drunk to fight back, his troops swept through the party grabbing all the older men and women. They were impaled in front of their families. The remaining nobles, young men and women with their children, were forced to march out of town that night, still wearing their court finery. They were taken to Poenari, at the base of the Carpathian Mountains. There they were placed in enclosures and forced to work like builders' labourers. The work for which they had been enslaved was the building of a castle. By the time they had finished, those who had not died were naked, emaciated and diseased.

Now he had built himself an impregnable fortress- A town which he could flee should his fortunes decline- Dracula could afford to relax and make more long-term plans. All princes of Wallachia had the same problem: they had two powerful neighbours, Turkey and Hungary, who both demanded allegiance. Dracula did not wish to go to war with the Turks while he was still quelling resistance in his own lands. Therefore he continued to pay the tribute that they demanded. In order to raise the money, Dracula turned his attention to Wallachia's economy. Unsurprisingly, Dracula's economic policy required the spilling of blood. In Transylvania, across the border, there were many Saxon merchants whose prosperity was based on underselling Wallachia's merchandise. Dracula decided to impose heavy tariffs on imported goods. He also passed a law forcing Saxon merchants in Wallachia to trade only in certain cities. Faced with the choice of starving or breaking the new law, they chose to break the law. This was just what Dracula had intended. The Saxons had given him the excuse he needed to massacre them. Throughout the late 1450's Dracula was on permanent campaign in his own country, besieging cities and impaling their inhabitants. An example of his sadistic nature is in this passage from a letter written to the Pope of a massacre in which Dracula was said to have killed 4000 people: " He killed some by breaking them under the wheels of carts; others stripped of their clothes were skinned alive up to their entrails; others placed upon stakes, or roasted on red-hot coals placed under them; others punctured with stakes piercing their heads, their breasts, their buttocks and the middle of their entrails, with the stake emerging from their mouths; in order that no form of cruelty be missing he stuck stakes in both the mother's breasts and thrust their babies onto them. Finally he killed in various ferocious ways, torturing them with many kinds of instruments such as the atrocious cruelties that the most frightful tyrant could devise"

A tale from the period also captures something of the pleasure he took in cruelty. Having impaled a large number of his enemies one day, Dracula sat down to eat a meal among the corpses. Some say that he dipped his bread in the blood that ran down the stakes. It has been proven that he forced others to eat human flesh, it is also known that he used to smear honey on his prisoners and allowed animals to lick them for an indefinite period of suffering. If any wife had an affair outside of marriage, Dracula ordered her sexual organs to be cut. She was then skinned alive and exposed in her skinless flesh in the public square, her skin hanging separately from a pole or placed on a table in the middle of the marketplace. The same punishment was applied to maidens who did not keep their virginity, and also to unchaste widows. For lesser offenses, Dracula was known to have the nipple of a womans breast cut off. He also had a red-hot iron stake shoved into the woman's vagina, making the instrument penetrate her entrails and emerge from her mouth. He then had the woman tied to a pole naked and left her exposed there until the flesh fell from the body, and the bones detached themselves from their sockets. A nervous boyar, who was accompanying the prince, tried to ingratiate himself by expressing concern for Dracula's health. The stench of the corpses would, the boyar suggested, give Dracula some terrible disease. Dracula immediately ordered that the man be impaled on the highest stake they could find, so that he would not risk his own health in the fetid air. Later in his life he was married to a member of the royal family, and was given a house in Pesth. There he fathered two children. The details of Vlad Tepes death is not known- all that is recorded is that, soon after Christmas 1476, Dracula's small army had achieved a victory against a force of Turks, and was engaged in pursuit. Dracula decided to climb a nearby hill to get a better view of the route, and made the mistake of leaving his bodyguard behind. As he stood watching the slaughter, a group of assassins from his own army climbed the hill behind him, and one of them struck him with a lance. Badly wounded, Dracula fought with his usual ferocity- he killed five of the assassins before they finally brought him down.