by Tim Waggoner
The rain picked up. Though he felt no cold, István shuddered and drew his cloak tighter against his body. Then again, the sooner they reached camp, the sooner they could get dry.
His thoughts drifted to a mortal woman he’d had his eye on for a while. She was the wife of one of the blacksmiths, and she’d been growing increasingly frail over the last few weeks as the wasting sickness spread through her. She was in constant pain—István was adept at sensing such things—and he thought her agony had ripened quite nicely. Once they returned to camp and made sure this torpid animal was secured, István thought he would send for the woman and enjoy her pain even as he delivered her from it.
Lost in thoughts of his meal to come, István was unaware that anything was wrong until one of the knights shouted. István turned just in time to see a large gray wolf slam into the warrior and knock him out of the saddle. The other two knights turned their horses about, drew their swords, and converged on the wolf, which was now savaging their screaming companion.
István didn’t know if the wolf was another guardian ghoul, one of the Gangrel, or even Qarakh himself, and he didn’t much care. All he cared about was surviving long enough to deliver his captive to Alexander, so that he might continue to survive in the nights ahead. He cracked the reins and kicked his horse into a gallop, pulling the other mount along with him.
Rain poured down upon the battlefield, and Grandfather walked among the carnage as Cainites, ghouls and mortals struggled to deliver the Final Death rather than receive it. He walked calmly, dodging arrows, ducking swords and evading the claws of his own people who had allowed the Beast too great a hold upon what remained of their souls. He carried no weapons, but he didn’t need any. As he walked, his hand would dart out faster than any eye—human or Cainite—could see, talons sprouting from his fingertips, and another Christian knight would suddenly be missing a significant portion of his throat. Grandfather never stopped. He tossed each grisly handful of flesh to the wet ground and continued walking, leaving the wounded knights to bleed to death or, if they were Cainites, to be finished off by other Gangrel.
To an observer, the ancient vampire would have appeared serene, at peace with himself despite the violence that surged around him. But the truth was far different: inside his Beast screamed a song of blood and death, thrashing against the reins Grandfather had lashed to it so long ago. But Grandfather knew how to give the Beast what it needed, not what it wanted. And so he walked, and from time to time he killed, and when the Beast was almost to the point of breaking its leash, Grandfather would feed. The Beast would be satiated, at least for a time.
The number of Gangrel that had succumbed to all-out mindless frenzy disturbed him. They could not ride the Beast as Grandfather did. Now they attacked one and all, even one another. Most were new members to the tribe that he had only begun to instruct in his ways. Several were caught in terrible cycles of transformation, warping between wolf and man in a mad flow that burned away their blood and drove their hunger and mindless fury to new heights. These Gangrel were in the most danger of being left with permanent aftereffects of frenzy. Features that remained bestial were among the most common. He thought of the fur covering his arms, a legacy from a night many centuries past when his own control had slipped. But if a Gangrel spent too long a time in the grip of the Beast, he or she might well be marked in mind as well as body, becoming an animal in both spirit and flesh.
This thought was still lingering in his mind when he saw Wilhelmina. The Viking maid crouched before a Christian knight, more wolf than Cainite now. Her body was covered with amber fur, her nose and mouth merged into a wolf’s snout. Her fingers had lengthened into curved talons. She bled from dozens of wounds—so many that she should have been too weak to fight—but she showed no signs of relenting. The frenzy had too strong a hold on her. The knight was also wounded. An arrow protruded from the wrist of his sword arm, and his face and neck were crisscrossed with deep gashes. His tabard was soaked in crimson. But he too displayed no sign of giving up the fight. He held his sword before him in a steady grip, and his gaze remained focused on his adversary.
Grandfather wasn’t overly concerned with Wilhelmina’s wounds. A good feeding or two and she would be fully healed. But he was worried about the effects frenzy might have on her. Wilhelmina hated Christians with a passion greater than any he’d ever seen in his long unlife. Now here she was, with an entire army of Christian warriors to slay. He had no doubt that she would keep on fighting until every knight in Alexander’s army lay mutilated and dismembered on the field of battle. That is, if the Final Death didn’t claim her first.
Grandfather decided it might be best if he remained close to her until the fighting was done. That way, should she slip too far into the bestial side of her nature, he could remove her from the battle and stay with her until she (hopefully) returned to normal. But first he had to deal with that knight.
Grandfather walked toward the two combatants, his fingers itching to bury themselves in the Christian’s throat.
Wilhelmina’s world consisted of two equally strong visions, one overlapping the other. In the first, she crouched in front of a sword-wielding knight, looking for an opening so that she might finish off the bastard. But in the second she stood before the smoldering ruins of a burnt longhouse, the greasy stench of seared flesh still heavy in the air.
Bjorn was gone, as were the others—slain by those who professed to follow a god of peace. She was one of Bjorn’s shield-maidens. She should have been here to add her sword to theirs—to fight and, if necessary, to die at the side of her lord and the rest of her war band. But perhaps the gods of the north had spared her for a reason: so she could seek vengeance upon the Christians for what they had done. If so, she would accept the gods’ will. She would hunt down and slay every follower of Christ she could find, and she would not stop until all were dead and gone, and Jesus Christ was just another man who had lived and died, only to be forgotten by history.
She snarled and coiled her muscles, preparing to leap at the knight, but out of the corner of her eye she saw a figure approaching: an old man in a gray robe. There was something familiar about him, but it was so hard to think… there were so many distractions… the sounds of battle and falling rain, the stink of burnt wood and Cainite flesh, the flash of lightning and rumble of thunder… and above it all the blood-fury roaring in her ears.
The robe—old man—a monk—must kill, kill, kill!
Wilhelmina spun around and lashed out with her claws. Blood sprayed the air and the monk stiffened, eyes wide with surprise. His head teetered and fell backward, prevented from falling to the ground by a single strip of flesh that kept it connected to the body. The old man collapsed to the grass, the impact causing the strip of flesh to tear, and the monk’s head—no, Grandfather’s head—rolled across the wet grass and came to rest with its right cheek in a rain puddle.
Wilhelmina stared at Grandfather’s head, unable to believe what she had done. She let forth a howl of despair and then bounded off, sometimes running on two feet, sometimes four. She had no idea where she was going. All she wanted to do was run as fast and as far as she could. Perhaps if she ran far enough, she might even outrun the memory of the look in Grandfather’s eyes as awareness faded and they grew dim. A look of understanding, of pity and above all love.
Rudiger lowered his sword as he watched the she-wolf dash away. He wasn’ t sure what had just happened—why she had slain the old Gangrel and then fled—but war was chaos and ultimately beyond anyone’s understanding, save that of almighty God.
He could afford to spare no more thought for the matter. The rain was coming down harder now, and the pagans’ ambush had proven most effective. The vanguard was in complete disarray, and he had no sense of how many casualties they had suffered, let alone how the rest of the army fared. There was no hope for it; they needed to fall back (he didn’t think of it as a retreat, for a true knight would never do something so dishonorable).
He yanked t
he arrow from his wrist and threw it to the ground. He turned and began jogging toward the main body of the army, keeping his eye out for a horse he could commandeer.
Alessandro’s horsemen were almost out of arrows when he heard the sound of trumpets echo over the battlefield. He ordered the archers to hold their positions. Moments later, the Christian knights began to retreat. A cheer went up from Alessandro’s men, but the Iberian didn’t join in the exultation. They had fought and won but a single battle.
The war was by no means over.
Chapter Twenty
Qarakh ripped out the knight’s throat and spat the bloody hunk of flesh in the man’s face. He then leaped to the side to avoid a sword blow from one of the other abductors, then leaped again as yet another knight took a swing at him. In less time than it takes an eye to blink, Qarakh shed his wolf form and once again became the Mongol warrior known as the Untamed. He intended to show these two Christians exactly how he had come by that name.
As one of the remaining knights rode toward him, Qarakh ducked the man’s sword and sliced opened the horse’s throat with one stroke of his saber. The animal tried to whinny, but the best it could manage was a chuffing and gurgling sound as it went down. The knight flew over the horse’s head, arms and legs flailing.
Qarakh turn to meet the charge of the second knight. He drew a dagger from his belt and hurled it with all his strength at the man’s chest. The blade pierced the undead knight’s mail hauberk with an audible chunk. The impact ruined both his balance and his charge. As the knight struggled to retain control of his destrier, Qarakh leaped and drew a heavy wooden stake. Before the knight could regain control, the Mongol drove it into his undead heart. The Christian stiffened, suddenly paralyzed, and slid sideways off his horse and crashed to the ground.
Qarakh turned back to the first knight, who was staggering to his feet after a less than gentle landing. After four quick strides and a slash of Qarakh’s saber, the knight no longer had a head. Six more steps in the other direction and the paralyzed knight suffered the same fate as his companion. Qarakh bent down, yanked his stake from the dead knight’s chest, wiped it clean on the man’s tabard, then straightened and tucked it back into his belt. The Mongol warrior felt no elation at his victory. He felt nothing beyond the determination to rescue Aajav.
He once again donned wolf-shape—though it was more difficult this time and he knew he would soon have to feed once more—and resumed the hunt.
Lightning flashed and thunder roared. The rain sliced down from the heavens like a hail of miniature knives. István couldn’t see a foot in front of his face. His mount, and the one the unconscious Mongol lay astride, were both so spooked that he was having trouble controlling the animals. He had no idea if he was heading in the right direction anymore. All he knew was that he couldn’t afford to slow down, not if he hoped to—
Out of the darkness and the rain, blazing eyes and wide-open jaws came leaping at him, and István had time to think, At least it’s not Alexander, before Qarakh was upon him.
Qarakh, in man-shape once again, led the knight’s horse by the bridle toward a stand of pine trees. The steed upon which Aajav lay came along obediently. The horses were skittish, but he spoke to them in a soothing voice as they walked, and though they didn’t calm down completely, they were docile enough.
The taste of the last knight’s blood lingered bitter in his mouth. He leaned his head back, opened his mouth to catch some rain, swished the water around and then spat into the grass.
Once beneath the shelter of a large pine, Qarakh tied the horses to one of the branches before seeing to Aajav. He knew he should have examined his torpid blood brother right away, but he had been too afraid of what he might find. Now a quick once-over convinced him that while Aajav remained in torpor, he had suffered no injuries at the hands of his abductors. Relieved, Qarakh untied Aajav and carried him over to the trunk of the pine tree. Qarakh sat with his back against the pine’s rough bark and cradled Aajav in his lap as if he were but a child.
“Alexander will pay for this insult, my brother. I swear it.”
Aajav didn’t react. Qarakh hadn’t expected him to.
“That invading prince abandoned all thought of alliance and attacked us. If it hadn’t been for the Telyavs’ wards, we might not have known he was coming at all.” Qarakh continued speaking, telling Aajav of all that had happened since Deverra had announced that Alexander’s army was upon them.
When he was finished, Qarakh leaned his cheek against the smooth skin of his brother’s head. “We are a great distance away from those two Mongolian boys who used to complete at archery and wrestling and anything else they could think of, eh, my brother? A very great distance in far too many ways.”
He felt motion then, and with a start he realized that Aajav had moved. Not much, just a slight turn of the head, but it was the most he had moved in five years. Qarakh shifted Aajav around to look at his face. His brother’s eyes remained closed, but his lips quivered as if trying to form words. Qarakh leaned down close to Aajav’s face so he could better hear whatever words his brother might say after so long a silence.
“Take… me…” The words were little more than exhaled breath, and Qarakh wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined them.
“What, my brother?”
Aajav repeated the words, louder this time but still barely more than a whisper.
“Take me.”
Qarakh frowned. “Take you where? Back to your mound? I shall do so as soon as the rain stops.”
“No. Need… strength to fight… Alexander. Take… mine.”
Qarakh understood then what his brother was telling him. He was asking Qarakh to drink his vitae—all of it—and add Aajav’s strength to his own. Deverra called it diablerie and said it was the consumption not only of blood, but of the very soul.
“I cannot! Do not ask me again!”
Silence for a moment, and then, “You… must.”
Qarakh remembered then what the ancient Cainite he’d encountered outside the Obertus monastery had told him: Victory is in the blood. Qarakh shook his head. “Defeating this Christian is not worth that.”
“To protect… tribe.”
“No!”
“Alexander… too strong. You… must let me fight… with you.”
“I will not! And nothing you can say will change my mind!”
Another silence, longer this time. Then Aajav spoke a single word.
“Please.”
In that one word, Qarakh heard a desperate longing for the lost pleasures of a mortal life on the steppe—riding the plain, hunting, being a mortal man among other mortal men… Qarakh understood then that Aajav would never come out of torpor, even if he should continue to exist beyond the end of the world. Drinking his heart’s blood would be a mercy—if only Qarakh could bring himself to do it.
He looked down upon the face of the man who was both his brother and his sire in darkness. Did he love this man enough to slay him?
Of course he did.
He kissed Aajav’s forehead and then, red-tinged tears brimming in his eyes, he fastened his mouth to Aajav’s neck and began to drink. For once, his Beast was blessedly silent.
Only an hour remained until sunrise by the time Qarakh returned to the battlefield, riding the gelding that Aajav had been lashed to. His own mare hadn’t survived his feeding.
The storm had passed, though its energy lingered in the cool, still air, making it feel as if the world had been born anew. The sensation clashed with the reality of the battle’s aftermath. Bodies lay scattered across the ground—knights and tribesmen, Cainites, ghouls and mortals, as well as quite a few horses. The dead had met various ends--some pierced by steel, others mutilated by claws. Arrows protruded from many of the corpses, especially the horses. A quick survey of the battlefield revealed that the bodies of more knights littered the ground than tribesmen, and Qarakh knew that his people had been the victors this night. He should have felt triumph and pride, but while his bo
dy was on fire from adding Aajav’s essence to his own, his heart felt dead and cold.
Members of the tribe were gathering the bodies of their dead and laying them across the backs of horses or stacking them like firewood in wagons. The Christians were left where they had fallen, the Cainites to be greeted by the morning sun, the ghouls and mortals left for whatever scavengers might find them.
“Qarakh!”
He turned to see Deverra hurrying across the battlefield toward him, Alessandro following behind. Qarakh didn’t feel like talking to anyone right now—especially Deverra—and he was tempted to ride off before they could reach him. But he remained where he was. Alessandro looked none the worse for wear, but Deverra’s flesh was puffy and discolored, as if she had been bruised all over. Had she been involved in the actual fighting or was her condition an aftereffect of her sorcery? Most likely the latter, he decided. Deverra was many things, but a swordswoman wasn’t one of them.
When she reached his side, she looked up at him with eyes full of sadness. “Aajav?”
“My brother is no more.”
For an instant, it appeared that Deverra might question him further, but all she said was, “I’m sorry.”
“As am I, my khan,” Alessandro said as he took a place at Deverra’s side. “Should I send one of our people to retrieve his body so he may be properly laid to rest?”
Qarakh thought of how Aajav’s body had begun to decay after the diablerie was finished. Qarakh had waited until his brother was nothing more than a pile of ashes, and then he had carefully gathered the remains and placed them in one of the gelding’s saddlebags. One day he would return to Mongolia and scatter the ashes on the shore of the Onan River, the Anda be damned. He almost patted the saddlebag to reassure himself that Aajav’s ashes were still there, but he resisted. Though he thought it likely Deverra might suspect what had occurred—he seemed unable to hide anything from her—he didn’t want Alessandro to know. Perhaps because he was ashamed, but also because what had transpired between Aajav and himself had been an intimate, private thing.