by Tim Waggoner
Qarakh then forgot that this thing was a demon, forgot that he was, according to Aajav, too young to battle it. All he knew was that the man who was both his bonded brother and his sire in darkness was in agony and losing blood fast. Qarakh rushed around to the demon’s side, grabbed the creature’s arm with both hands and pulled, hoping to dislodge Aajav from the talons that held him above the ground. But no matter how much strength he put into the effort, Qarakh was unable to budge the demon’s arm. In fact, the demon didn’t appear to even notice his presence. The fiend was staring intently at Aajav’s too-pale face, determined to not miss a single moment of his destruction.
Qarakh released the demon’s arm and stepped back. If he couldn’t best the monster with strength, he’d try steel. He drew his saber, gripped it with both hands, and swung it at the demon’s arm with all his might. The blade sliced through the fiend’s flesh and struck bone with an impact so jarring that Qarakh wouldn’t have been surprised if the sword had snapped in two. The saber didn’t break, but neither did it have much effect on the demon. No blood ran from the injury Qarakh had inflicted, and if the creature was in any pain, he didn’t show it. He did, however, turn away from watching Aajav wither and looked at Qarakh with narrowed eyes.
Qarakh attempted to yank his saber free, but it was stuck fast, as if the demon were somehow holding onto the blade with the bone itself. Qarakh swore and released the handle of his weapon and ran to grab hold of Aajav’s legs. If the thrice-damned demon wouldn’t release his blood brother, then Qarakh would just have to pull him free.
Aajav screamed as Qarakh tugged, and he slipped off the demon’s talons with a shower of blood. Both Qarakh and Aajav tumbled backward, and Qarakh made sure to cushion his brother’s fall with his own body. Now that Aajav was no longer in contact with the demon, there was a chance his injuries might heal—if Qarakh could keep the demon away from him.
He shoved Aajav to the side, mentally apologizing for being so rough, and leaped to his feet. The demon was looking with amusement at the saber still lodged in his arm. He reached up with his other hand and pulled the sword free. As his wound healed, the demon turned the blade first one way, then the other, as if examining the craftsmanship that went into making it. He then drew his arm back and hurled the saber into the distance. Qarakh didn’t bother to see where it landed—it was clearly too far away to do him any good now.
The demon then turned to face Qarakh and grinned so wide that the corners of his mouth split open. His teeth grew longer, wider, thicker, skin peeling away from the mouth in all directions until it seemed to Qarakh there was nothing else left: no lips, cheeks, nose or eyes, just a gigantic tooth-filled maw.
It was then that Qarakh knew he and Aajav were going to die for the second and last time.
Not if you listen to me, said a guttural voice.
The demon came toward Qarakh, claws held at its sides, needle-sharp tips clacking together eagerly as it walked.
Very well, Qarakh thought. What must I do?
The voice answered with undisguised glee. Take Aajav’s saber and leave the rest to me.
The demon was almost upon them now, and Qarakh thought he could see black things squirming behind its oversized teeth.
He didn’t hesitate. He bent down next to Aajav, who lay motionless—unconscious or dead, Qarakh couldn’t tell—and drew his brother’s sword. He gripped it tight, straightened and waited for the voice that was his Beast to keep its promise.
Fury welled up inside Qarakh beyond anything he had ever known. It was as if a raging fire filled his being. No, it was as if he were fire… a vast inferno blazing higher and wider than the Great Wall itself, sweeping across the steppe and devouring everything in its path.
Qarakh lifted Aajav’s saber, gave forth a bellow that sounded like the combined roars of a dozen Siberian tigers, and charged at the demon. He moved faster than ever before, fast even for one of his dark kind, and before the demon could do more than begin to raise its taloned hands to defend itself, Qarakh swung the saber in a vicious arc and sliced through the fiend’s neck.
The demon’s head sailed through the air, its maw shrinking as it flew. No blood bubbled up from the wound. In fact, all that was visible inside its neck was darkness, as if the demon were hollow inside. The head hit the ground and bounced once, twice, three times before finally coming to rest on its right ear. Qarakh expected the body to collapse now that it was bereft of a head, but it continued to stand, waiting patiently for whatever would happen next.
The fire that burned so strong and hot inside Qarakh dwindled quickly from an inferno to a mere campfire before extinguishing altogether. Qarakh ran his tongue over his teeth and found them sharper than before. The Beast had left its mark on him.
He started toward the demon’s head, intending to destroy it, but before he had taken more than a few steps, the head opened its mouth and a long prehensile tongue snaked out. The tongue split into a fork at the tip, and then the head “stood up” and the tongue walked it back to the waiting body. The body knelt and picked up the head with its claws and gently set it atop the stump. Cut flesh fused together and the head was once more where it belonged. The tongue slithered back into the mouth, and the talons retracted into the fingers from which they’d grown. The demon, fully restored now, looked at Qarakh for a moment before nodding his head as if in a show of respect to a worthy adversary.
In the strange way of dreams of vision, Qarakh was suddenly aware of what should happen next—of what had occurred when this confrontation had actually occurred years ago. The fiend would lean over and vomit a gout of blackness onto the ground. The inky mass would then rise up, coalesce and solidify into the shape of a horse, and without another look at either Qarakh or Aajav, the demon would mount the steed and ride off toward the east. Qarakh would then see to Aajav, who despite being in desperate need of blood, would refuse to take Qarakh’s. Qarakh would then carry his brother-cum-sire to the corpses of the Anda and their steeds and help him drink the blood the demon had left behind.
But none of that happened. Instead, after the demon reattached its severed head, it spoke. And the voice that issued from his mouth was a familiar one to Qarakh. It was the voice of the Beast.
“That was the first time you truly gave yourself over to me, and it saved both you and your beloved sire.”
Qarakh experienced a wave of dizziness followed by a sensation of separation, as if his very self were being split down the middle. One part of him was still the young Cainite who had barely survived an encounter with one of the Ten Thousand Demons, but another part was a decade older, khan of a tribe of Cainites far away from his beloved steppe. The older Qarakh now spoke face to face with his Beast.
“It was also the last time,” he said. After the permanent physical change that had taken place—the slight sharpening of all his teeth—Qarakh had realized that giving in completely to the Beast exacted a heavy toll, one that he was unwilling to pay. Ever since that night on the steppe, he had worked to keep his Beast placated so that he might live in yostoi with it, and for the most part, he had succeeded. When fury came, he rode it like a wild mare, shaping it to its own ends and never surrendering outright.
The Beast smiled with the demon’s mouth. “That does not mean it will be the only time.”
Qarakh was rapidly losing patience with the Beast. Though the older part of him knew this was but a memory that had given way to a dream-vision, his younger half worried about tending to his wounded brother.
“I have no time for games,” Qarakh said. “I have merely to will my physical body to withdraw my hand from the earth, and this spell will be broken. So if you have something to say to me, say it, and speak clearly, without riddles.”
The demon’s face scowled, but the Beast did as Qarakh commanded. “Before this is all over, you will need me, Qarakh. And when that moment comes, you shall be mine. Forever.”
Qarakh didn’t have to ask what the Beast meant. “Perhaps I will need to make use of you again,
but hear this: I am Qarakh, known to some as the Untamed. No man—or Beast—shall ever be my master.”
The demon’s mouth laughed and its arm gestured toward the depression where the slaughtered Anda vampires lay. “That is the ultimate fate of those who are foolish enough to believe that they can resist me. My way isn’t about yostoi; it’s about submission, about giving yourself to me completely—mind, body and spirit—so that we can become one.”
Qarakh shook his head. “No, that way lies nothing but madness and soul-death.”
The demon’s mouth stretched into a skin-tearing grin. “Doesn’t it sound glorious? But enough talk.” The Beast raised the demon’s left hand and once more bone talons sprang forth from the creature’s fingertips. “It’s time I paid you back for decapitating me. A head for a head.”
As the demon made ready to strike, the younger half of Qarakh mentally protested. It was the demon whose head I cut off, not yours! But the older half knew there was no point in arguing with the Beast. As the talons streaked toward him, Qarakh closed his eyes and willed his physical body to withdraw his hand from the earthen mound…
… and he opened his eyes.
He yanked his fingers free of the earth as if they’d been bitten. He knew that if he’d still been mortal, his heart would have been pounding as if he had suffered through a nightmare. He supposed in a way he had.
He glanced toward the eastern horizon, and though no human eye could’ve detected it yet, he saw the first faint hint of the approaching dawn. It would still be an hour or so before the light became strong enough to be dangerous, more than enough time for him to assume wolf form and return to his ger. If necessary, he could always inter himself within the ground he stood upon when the sun began to rise. He could even sink into the mound and spend the day with Aajav if he wished, though after the vision he had just experienced, he was uncomfortable with the notion.
He continued to sit cross-legged atop the mound and pondered what the vision might mean. He was certain that it meant something; all visions held meaning. The trick was interpreting them. Qarakh’s vision had begun as a memory of the night Aajav and he had faced the eastern demon on the steppe, and it had ended with what sounded like a threat from the Beast that dwelt inside him.
His Beast had never spoken of such things before. Ordinarily it confined itself to urging Qarakh to give free reign to his fury and to kill without restraint. Qarakh had no idea whether any other Cainites experienced their Beasts as voices in their heads. Grandfather and Alessandro were both scholars of a sort in such things, but as khan, Qarakh felt he could not confide in them. The details of his own struggles were for him alone to know. But why had the Beast chosen to intrude on that particular memory?
Perhaps it hadn’t been the Beast that had selected the memory but rather Aajav—and the Beast had insinuated itself in his message. But what could Aajav have been trying to tell him? Why had he chosen that memory above all others?
Perhaps because it had been Qarakh’s first time going into battle as a Cainite, and not merely any battle, but one against a foe far more powerful than he. Was Aajav trying to encourage him, to tell him that he had no need to fear Alexander, for he had fought powerful foes before and not only survived but prevailed? True, Qarakh hadn’t killed the demon—if such a thing was even possible—but he had kept it from claiming Aajav’s life, which surely counted as a victory.
Yes, he decided. That must be it. Aajav had sent him a message to bolster his confidence before he parleyed with the former Prince of Paris, and his Beast had taken advantage of the opportunity to taunt Qarakh in a way it had never done before. There was no more to it than that.
Feeling certain he had interpreted the vision correctly, Qarakh patted the earth in gratitude. “Sleep well, old friend. I shall return to visit you soon and tell you of my meeting with Alexander.”
There was no reply, of course. There never was.
Nearly a quarter of a mile distant from the mound, behind a large oak tree that he had used as concealment, Rikard watched Qarakh bound off in wolf form toward the tribe’s campsite. He then turned his attention to the two true wolves—ghouls, he guessed—that stood watch over the mound. Once their master had gone, they circled three times and settled down again, heads resting on paws, eyes closed.
Rickard didn’t know which dark deity to thank for helping him spy on Qarakh without being detected, but he was most definitely grateful. He had no special Cainite disciplines to draw on to conceal himself, merely stealth and slyness, but they had been sufficient this night.
After the Mongol had left the burnt-out funeral pyre (and the equally burnt bodies of his two human ghouls), Rikard had followed as best he could, but it had been difficult to keep up with Qarakh’s wolfish form, to say the least. He’d almost lost the chieftain several times, but he persisted and eventually caught up to him. By the time Rikard had arrived, Qarakh had already reached the mound and was sitting on it cross-legged, eyes closed, as if in the grip of some sort of trance, one hand buried within the earth. Rikard had taken up a position behind the oak where he could see and hear well enough thanks to his heightened senses, which were sharp even by Cainite standards. He’d watched and waited. Not that there had been much to see: Qarakh had sat motionless for some time before finally opening his eyes and withdrawing his hand from the soil with a violent motion, as if he’d been startled by something, though by what, Rikard couldn’t say.
He’d listened closely then, hoping Qarakh might give voice to his thoughts, but he said nothing, which had come as no great surprise. The Mongol was not exactly the talkative sort. But then, just before leaving, he said something—two simple sentences that told Rikard everything he needed to know:
“Sleep well, old friend. I shall return to visit you soon and tell you of my meeting with Alexander.”
Rikard nearly laughed with delight upon hearing those words, but he managed to restrain himself. Good thing, too—he doubted he’d survive being discovered here.
There were rumors among the lower-ranking Cainites in Qarakh’s tribe, rumors that Rikard felt certain were exaggerations at best and outright fabrications at worst. But there was one tale, a story of how Qarakh had first come to Livonia with his sire, another Mongol vampire named Aajav who had fallen into torpor for unknown reasons (at least, unknown to those who passed the tale back and forth) and could not be roused. No one knew for certain what had become of Aajav. Some said that Qarakh had taken him back to the steppe and buried him there, while others insisted that he lay sealed in some hidden monastery or castle deep in the Livonian wilds. But Rikard now knew the truth: Qarakh’s sire was interred inside a mound surrounded by a ring of small trees and guarded by two wolves bound by their master’s blood. The question remained, however, how he could use this knowledge to repay the bastard Mongol for cutting his throat and leaving him to roast in the sunlight.
He ran his fingers over his neck as he thought, and then it came to him. He had originally intended to leave the tribe tonight. Perhaps he would do so and go in search of a new master, one who might reward him most handsomely for the knowledge he possessed.
A master like Alexander of Paris.
Chapter Seven
Malachite approached Alexander’s tent, but instead of announcing himself and asking permission to enter, he hesitated. It would be dawn soon. Perhaps it would be better if he waited to speak with Alexander until after nightfall. Malachite was just about to turn and depart, when a voice called from inside the tent.
“Unless you intend to stand there long enough to greet the morning sun, I suggest you come in.”
Malachite hesitated a moment longer, but he couldn’t come up with a plausible reason not to do as Alexander bade, and so he stepped inside. The exiled prince’s tent—the largest in the camp, of course—contained a bed covered with silken sheets and a goose-down pillow, a highly polished desk and chair with ornate designs carved into the wood, and a large open trunk filled with leather-bound books and ancient yellowe
d scrolls. A hooded lamp sat upon the desk, its light too dim for mortal eyes to see by, but more than sufficient for Cainites.
Alexander sat at the desk, a map spread out before him. He didn’t lift his gaze from it as Malachite walked in. As always, the aura of power that emanated from the slim and youthful-looking prince struck Malachite. The atmosphere around Alexander was charged with barely contained energy, like the air before a violent thunderstorm. Though he had been Embraced as a young man and appeared no more than fifteen or sixteen, in truth he was two millennia old. The steely set of his eyes hinted at his age, but in Alexander’s case it was the way he moved—or rather didn’t move—that revealed how truly ancient he was. There was no wasted motion, no idle tapping of fingers on the desktop, no head movements as he examined the map, no shifting about in his seat to find a more comfortable position. He might have been a highly detailed piece of statuary for all the animation he displayed, and Malachite wondered how long he could remain sitting like that if it weren’t for the necessities of feeding and sleeping. Nights? Weeks? Perhaps longer?
Though they had remained in this location for two weeks without incident, and a number of ghouls guarded the camp while the Cainites rested during the day, Alexander was still dressed for battle in mail armor and surcoat with his heraldry emblazoned on the front: a vair, on a pale purpure, with a representation of a golden laurel wreath. The background color was white with repeating patterns of black spots that, if Malachite remembered correctly, were intended to simulate ermine tails. Running down the center of the shield was a broad vertical purple stripe (the color of royalty, of course) and on the stripe was a gold laurel wreath. Malachite, who had spent most of his centuries of unlife in Constantinople, recognized the symbols of imperial power and admitted, despite everything, that they fit this boyish prince perfectly.
