by Tim Waggoner
“There is no need. As I said, the cold doesn’t bother me.”
Even through the cloth of his tunic, Qarakh felt the chill emanating from his blood brother’s hand. “But you feel like ice! Please allow me to—”
“Enough. I said there is no need.” His grip on Qarakh’s shoulder tightened to the point of being painful.
Something else struck Qarakh as odd, though he couldn’t quite… and then he realized what it was: the smell, or rather the lack of it. Mongols smeared sheep fat on their exposed skin as protection against the cold wind. But Qarakh detected no hint of the scent wafting from Aajav.
“Very well,” Qarakh said. He had no wish to argue with a guest seeking shelter in his ger late at night. Besides, Aajav was nothing if not stubborn.
“Good.” Aajav removed his hand and settled into a cross-legged position next to Qarakh’s bed.
Qarakh stared into the darkness and tried to discern his blood brother’s features. Though his eyes had adjusted somewhat, he still could make out only a shadowy figure where Aajav sat. But this didn’t matter. He knew Aajav’s face better than he knew his own: head and chin smooth-shaven, a broad and easy smile, and the unflinching gaze of a warrior born.
Qarakh also assumed a sitting position, but though he was cold and would’ve liked to pull the bearskin blanket around his shoulders, he did not. If the temperature did not bother Aajav, then it did not bother him.
Aajav chuckled softly, as if he knew why Qarakh did not cover himself and found it amusing. But if so, Qarakh took no offense. His brother had always had something of a strange sense of humor, and Qarakh was accustomed to not always understanding why he thought certain things were funny.
“It has been many months since we have sat together like this,” Qarakh said.
In the dark, Aajav nodded. “Nearly a year. Much has happened to me in that time.”
“You must have many good stories to tell. But before that, we should exchange gifts.” It was customary to give and receive presents when someone paid a visit. Often these were mere tokens, the most common being blue scarves that were used in religious ceremonies. Qarakh believed he had one such scarf left… somewhere. He patted his tunic, searching for wherever he had tucked the scarf.
Aajav laid a hand on his wrist, and Qarakh flinched at the touch of his brother’s cold flesh.
“I have a specific gift in mind,” Aajav said. “One to strengthen the bond between us. A sharing of blood.”
Aajav’s request was odd, but Qarakh loved him. “As you will.”
“Good. But first I have a most wondrous story to tell you, my brother.” He grinned, and even in the dark of the ger, Qarakh could see Aajav’s sharp white teeth. “Most wondrous indeed.”
Chapter Three
Qarakh woke to darkness and a feeling of being closed in on all sides. Panic welled up within him. He tried to thrash his arms and legs, but he could not move them. He struggled to draw in a breath, but his lungs felt as if they were full of something thick and heavy.
Aajav had been talking to him just a moment ago… telling him about his encounter with a strange man named Oderic, and the dark gift this man had given him, a gift which he in turn wished to pass on to his beloved brother….
Then Qarakh remembered. That night in the ger with Aajav—when he’d first become Aajav’s ghoul, when he’d taken his first step away from mortality and toward becoming a vampire—was decades gone now. It had been a dream-memory, nothing more. Then again, perhaps the dream had been an omen of sorts, a message from the spirits that he should go speak to his brother and seek his council. Qarakh decided to do so immediately after the kuriltai.
He willed himself to rise from the earth in which he had slept, and a moment later he stood in the center of his ger once again, the ground beneath his feet freshly turned. Lying on the bed was the still form of the female ghoul, the one whose neck he had broken last night when the Beast had gotten the better of him. Her loss was regrettable. A Mongol hunter never killed except for food and fur, and then he killed in the most humane way possible. A Mongol warrior killed only to protect his tribe or when conducting a raid. But Qarakh wasn’t only a Mongol; he was also an unliving thing, what the folk here called a Cainite or a vampire. He drank the blood of men to feed the great Beast in his heart—and the Beast needed sating from time to time. Mongols believed the ideal person attempted to live yostoi, in balance with the world, but when one also had a Beast’s soul, yostoi was most difficult to achieve.
He prayed to Tengri that having her neck broken hadn’t damaged Pavla’s soul too severely, otherwise she could not be reincarnated.
Qarakh looked down at Pavla’s body. “Goodbye, woman. You served your khan well. I hope you find many rewards in your next life.” He then strode toward the ger’s door, eager to get the council underway. But when he stepped outside, careful as always not to allow his feet to touch the threshold, he was met by a chorus of cheers.
The camp was filled with mortals: men, women and children, all wearing the dress of Livonian peasants. Some of them he recognized as ghouls and thralls, but most were unknown to him. He estimated the newcomers at three dozen or more. Standing apart from the crowd were the other Cainites in the camp—evidently he had slept longer than he’d intended and was the last to rise this night.
Deverra stood with the other Cainites, and now she stepped forward. “These mortals live in the nearby village of Gutka. They heard that the great khan had returned to their land, and they have come to pay homage.”
Qarakh knew he should have expected this. The camp was always set up close to a human village so the Cainites in his tribe would have easy access to sustenance, and since the Livs believed the vampires were demigods, they were more than eager to sacrifice their blood for good fortune, a bountiful harvest and strong, healthy children. In order to keep from draining any one village dry, the tribe moved every few months and made camp on the outskirts of another human settlement. The arrangement—not unlike that of a Mongolian sheepherder in some ways—worked quite well, but occasionally it meant that Qarakh was forced to play host to his “worshippers.”
As a priestess of Telyavel, the Protector of the Dead, Deverra served as the liaison between the mortals and the spirit world, so it was only right that he address his words to her. “Priestess, your people are welcome among us.” His tone was formal, and he spoke loud enough for all to hear. “We accept their tribute and bid that they remain among us for a time and receive our blessing.”
This brought a few scattered cheers from mortals who were quickly shushed by those standing close to them. The ritual wasn’t finished yet.
Deverra folded her hands over her chest and bowed. “On behalf of the people of Gutka, I thank you, oh great khan. May Telyavel hold our ancestors close and lend them his ear when they seek his favor on our behalf.” She straightened and Qarakh was surprised when she winked at him.
Qarakh turned toward the humans and spread his arms wide.
“Let the communion begin!”
In the center of the camp, a celebratory fire had been lit, though it was not very big, and the Cainites kept well away from it, averting their eyes from the bright flames. The villagers sat around the fire, eating bread and cheese and drinking wine, all of which they had brought themselves. They offered none to the Cainites or their ghouls; the people knew what fare they subsisted on. An old man played a sprightly tune on a violin while several pretty young women danced, no doubt trying to attract the attentions of the male Cainites.
Qarakh sat on a felled tree trunk, Deverra at his right side. The Livs viewed her as the female complement to his male energy, almost a consort of sorts, and so the two always remained together when in the presence of mortals that revered them. Sitting on a second log and facing Qarakh and Deverra were three other Cainites, all members of the Mongol’s inner circle.
In the middle, wrapped in an old blanket, sat an ancient vampire known simply as Grandfather who served as the tribe’s lore-keeper. H
is face was wizened, as if he had been Embraced toward the end of his mortal lifespan, and his eyes were slitted like a cat’s or a serpent’s. His arms and hands, neither of which was visible at the moment, were covered with coarse gray fur. When he spoke, his deep voice belied his apparent feebleness, and though he normally remained still, when he chose to move, he could do so with a panther’s deadly speed.
To Grandfather’s left sat a large brooding man with long black hair that spilled past his shoulders. A ponytail hung back from the center of his head, and two twin braids dangled past his bearded chin. His eyes were cold blue, and a scar ran across the right, a legacy of his mortal life. Despite the fact that his mouth was closed in a grim line, the tips of his two razor-sharp canines protruded over his lip, and his ears were tufted like an animal’s. Though concealed at the moment, his torso was covered with fur—another mark of the Beast. Before his Embrace centuries ago, Arnulf had been a Goth soldier, and now he wore simple leather armor, deerskin pants, black boots and a black cape. He carried a broadax that Qarakh had rarely seen him without.
Like Qarakh, and much of the other blood-drinkers in the tribe, Grandfather and Arnulf traced their line to the Gangrel clan. One of the great lines of the undead, the Gangrel were known for their animalistic gifts and their stalwart hearts. The hidebound Cainites of the cities and settled lands looked down on Gangrel as wild and barbaric, but Qarakh knew they simply hid their fear. Unlike the khan and most others, Grandfather and Arnulf were both elders even among the unliving, having spent centuries under the night sky. Still they had both sworn oaths to their khan and that superceded age.
On Grandfather’s right sat Alessandro de Garcia, sometimes referred to as the Hound of Iberia. Not a Gangrel at all, Alessandro was a handsome man with short black hair and a small thatch of beard beneath his lower lip. He wore a simple black shirt and pants, a red sash around his waist, and a pair of highly polished black boots. An Iberian whose blood ran to the Brujah line, he appeared to be in his midthirties and had been a soldier and mercenary during his mortal life. He remained a skilled fighter, but was also a philosopher who sought a more complete understanding of the Beast. He served as Qarakh’s second-in-command, running the camp and the tribe’s training sessions whenever the khan was away.
Only one of his inner circle was missing. “Where is Wilhelmina?” Qarakh asked.
“She left a week ago to patrol the western territory,” Alessandro said, speaking Livonian with a slight Iberian accent. “There have been rumors of trespassing Cainites preying on the mortals there, and she went to determine if they were true. We have had no word from her since.”
Qarakh grunted. A week was not long to be away, and Wilhelmina was a Viking warrior-maid as well as a savage huntress. She could take care of herself. And it was possible the interlopers were tied to this boy prince. Anything she might learn about them would prove valuable to the tribe.
Qarakh was about to begin the kuriltai in earnest when his male ghoul—whose name was Sasha—came over, leading two other servants with him. All of them held clay goblets filled with blood.
“My khan, please forgive the intrusion, but I thought you might hunger.” He lowered his head and held out a goblet toward his master.
Qarakh looked over his shoulder at the celebrating villagers. The lower-ranking Cainites in the camp—about a dozen in all—were moving among the humans, drinking first from this one, then from that. Some were bleeding the mortals into drinking vessels, while others partook straight from the vein. The mortals closed their eyes and drew in sudden hisses of breath, lost in the throes of ecstasy. Qarakh approved—the Beast must be fed, after all. He only hoped his people would be careful not to bleed too many of the villagers dry, for the continued health the herd.
He was surprised to see that one of the more enthusiastic Cainites—a man on the verge of completely draining a small female child—was Rikard, the incompetent sentry whose throat he had cut last night. So the man had survived to make it back to the camp after all. Perhaps he was made of sterner stuff than Qarakh had given him credit for. Rikard’s complexion was ivory white from loss of blood, and his throat was an ugly mass of scar tissue. The tribe had strict rules about slaying children, but the man had earned a reward for making it back to camp. Qarakh knew the sweetness of a child’s blood and let Rikard be.
The khan’s mouth was watering as he turned back to Sasha. “You may serve us.”
Sasha and the two others gave Qarakh and the elders mugs full of blood. They bowed one last time, then turned to go, but Qarakh said, “Hold for a moment, Sasha.” The mortal did so, motioning for the other two humans to continue on.
He turned to face his master once more. “Yes, my khan?”
“Last night…” Now that he had started, Qarakh wasn’t sure how to phrase what he had to say.
“I saw Pavla when I brought your saddle and tack inside the ger,” Sasha said, voice and face expressionless. “You had already retired for the day by then. I would’ve taken her body from the tent, but I wasn’t certain you were finished with it. With your permission, I’ll remove the corpse after the feast.”
“Of course.” Qarakh felt a vestigial twinge of an emotion he hadn’t experienced much even during his mortal life: guilt. Sasha had lain with Pavla last night, as he had many nights before, but now all she was to him was the corpse, trash to be removed from his master’s ger and disposed of. And he had become this thing—this ghoul—because Qarakh had made him so.
Sasha bowed one last time before departing.
“It’s never good for a Cainite to become too attached to his own ghouls,” Grandfather said, as if sensing Qarakh’s thoughts. “If a butcher begins to love cattle, how can he wield a cleaver?”
Arnulf took a gulp from his mug, then lowered it, leaving his black beard and mustache smeared with crimson. “You should kill the mortal as soon as you get the chance, so that you might extinguish whatever feelings you have for him.” He drained the rest of his blood in a single draught, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Never had much use for ghouls anyway. They make you weak.”
Qarakh had been about to take a drink, but now he lowered his mug and gave the Goth warrior a hard look. “What do you mean by weak?” His voice held a dangerous edge.
Deverra laid a hand on the Mongol’s arm. “Pay it no mind, Qarakh. We have far more important matters to discuss this night.”
But it was the Telyav’s words that Qarakh chose to ignore. He shrugged off her hand then stood. “Answer me, Arnulf.”
The Goth’s eyes seemed to take on the same shade of red as the blood smeared on his mouth. He made a fist, and his mug shattered into clay shards that fell to the grass. “Take care, Mongol.” He spoke through gritted teeth, voice low in his throat.
Grandfather smiled, clearly amused. “So priestess, do you have a spell for calming two belligerent Gangrel?”
“This isn’t funny,” Deverra said.
“No, but it may well prove instructive,” Alessandro put in. “Arnulf is eldest and thus nominally the more powerful of the two, but Qarakh is a more cunning warrior. It’s difficult to decide who would be the victor in a battle between them.”
Qarakh wasn’t happy to hear his lore-keeper and his second-in-command calmly discussing the battle that was about to be joined as if he and Arnulf were nothing more than common tavern brawlers to wager on. He would’ve have said something to them, but he knew better than to take even a fraction of his attention off Arnulf.
Neither Alessandro nor Grandfather realized just how young Qarakh was. They thought their khan had stalked the night for two centuries, not a handful of years.
Deverra stood and put herself between the two Gangrel. She turned first to Qarakh. “If you two fools wish to tear each other apart, so be it. But keep in mind that you’ll only be doing our enemy’s work for him.” Before the Mongol could respond, she turned to Arnulf. “Did you not swear an oath of allegiance to Qarakh as your khan?”
The Go
th’s only reply was a bestial growl.
“Did you?” she insisted.
Arnulf’s muscles tightened as if he were about to spring, but then he relaxed. “Yes.” He fairly spat the word.
Deverra looked back to Qarakh, an eyebrow raised as if to say, Well? It’s your turn.
Ignore the bitch! Tear the bastard’s heart out and feast on it!
Qarakh said down on the log once more. “Your council is wise, Arnulf. I shall slay the ghoul before the sun rises.”
The Goth scoffed but was mollified. Deverra gave them both a last look before retaking her place on the log next to Qarakh.
“You are ever the tribe’s scolding mother, Telyav,” Grandfather said. “A tribe of querulous little boys.” He let out a snuffling laugh that sounded more animal than man.
Irritated at Deverra’s interference—however necessary it might have been—and the lore-keeper’s laughter, Qarakh drained his mug in a single gulp and then turned to Alessandro. “Why did you assign that fool Rikard to sentry duty last night? An entire army could have marched past directly below him and he would never have known it.”
“He’s a city-dweller,” Arnulf said with a sneer, as if that explained everything.
“Rikard wasn’t the only sentry on duty last night,” Alessandro said. “There were three others.”
“I was aware of them, and all three were alert to a man. They are not the issue. Rikard is.”
“I posted him to sentry duty as a test. Since joining the tribe, Rikard has been somewhat… ambivalent about performing his duties. I wished to gauge the level of his dedication by having him serve sentry duty for a few nights. If he failed to perform his task well…” There was no need to complete the thought. The tribe must be strong. Weak members were culled from the ranks, one way or another.
“I am somewhat surprised that he not only survived the ‘instruction’ you gave him last night,” Alessandro continued, “but that he returned to camp at all.”
“Perhaps he now wishes to prove himself to his khan,” Arnulf suggested.
