Jürgen shook his head. “We must leave the chieftain intact, and slay the Telyavs first before attacking the other Gangrel.”
Gotzon glanced up, but did not speak.
“I have my reasons, Gotzon.” Jürgen gave a glance to Favst, but the young knight was staring back at his former home. “How far is it from here?”
Gotzon did not answer, but simply began walking. Jürgen clucked his tongue at his horse and followed, and Favst fell into step beside him.
“Should we not bring knights from my order, my lord?”
“I had considered it,” answered Jürgen, “but that would require more time, more exertion and more explanation than I think we can afford. Besides, if Gotzon feels that we can win this battle without outside help, I’ll trust his judgment.”
Favst looked unconvinced. He still wasn’t sure who Gotzon was or why they were following him, but the blood oath was now too strong for him to risk disrespecting his sire by asking. Jürgen decided to change the subject.
“Doubtless you’ve guessed at our diet, Favst.” The young knight winced. “Well, there’s nothing for it. Some Cainites feel it is a sort of purity—‘the blood is the life,’ after all. Some of us feel that we are damned and the fact that we feed on blood and blood only is merely one more way this damnation shows itself.”
“You don’t know?”
“I do not. No Cainite I have ever met knows.” He shrugged. “I merely accept it as what God demands—I drink the blood of the warriors that I and my knights best in war.”
“And none other?”
“Those taken in battle, alive or dead, I own, and will claim my tribute,” recited Jürgen. “I said before that you would find your own ways to claim tribute, remember?” Favst nodded. “Not all blood will sustain you. You’ll feel your hunger purify itself soon, and then you’ll know what tribute best serves you, Favst, Knight of the Black Cross.”
“But your blood—”
“Yes, my blood will always sustain you.” Jürgen smiled. “But I have other uses for it, my childe.”
Favst fell into thought, probably trying to chase down his hunger, to decide upon his prey. Jürgen had faced this search himself, but it had taken only moments—his chosen prey had been clear to him from long before his Embrace. But then, he had been given much more time to consider such things before entering the night.
Ahead of them, Gotzon raised a hand and then silently drew his sword. Jürgen concentrated, and heard people moving. It sounded like very few, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think that assessment correct. Rather than speak, he glanced at his childe and forced a thought into his mind. Remember, childe, you kill the mortals. Leave any like ourselves to Gotzon and I. Favst, to his credit, started but did not cry out.
Jürgen was expecting Gotzon to creep quietly to a place where he could best strike, to act with the stealth befitting a member of his benighted clan. Instead, Gotzon burst forth into the clearing. Jürgen heard the activity in the clearing change, and heard sounds like small trees being torn up from their roots.
An ambush? Jürgen rushed forward, Favst directly behind him. How could they have known? Of course, a spy could have followed them to the chapter house, but—
Jürgen broke off these thoughts as he entered the clearing. Gotzon was battling six people, at least three of them Cainites. They were naked and dripping in blood; a corpse lying on the ground nearby, eyes blank, throat slit, revealed that they had been in the midst of some unholy ceremony. Small wonder that Gotzon had attacked.
Jürgen pointed at the three mortals in the group and barked an order to Favst in Latin. Favst charged in and ran the first one through; the two other mortals (who had been attempting to wrestle Gotzon to the ground from behind) turned on the young knight.
Jürgen turned his attention away from that battle. He knew his childe could defeat two unarmed mortals, and the three Cainites should pose no real threat to Gotzon. But something was wrong—he couldn’t account for the noises he had heard, and while he knew the Telyavs’ numbers were diminished, he had expected more than three of them.
He heard a wet crunch and a body hit the ground. The gasp of breath told him it was one of the mortal pagans. He heard footsteps running for the trees and a voice screaming in a local tongue. Favst chased after the man, both of them running towards the trees.
The trees? Jürgen leapt forward, meaning to stop his childe before he broke the tree line, but was too late. The bark on the tree nearest to Favst split like a woman giving birth, and a blurred pale form tackled him. It knocked him deeper into the woods, and Jürgen heard a cry of pain and then silence. He ran harder, trusting that Gotzon could handle himself.
Upon leaving the clearing, he saw what he expected—his childe lying on the ground, heart pierced by a long, jagged branch. Strange that they didn’t try to drag him away, thought Jürgen, for interrogation or simply destruction. He took a step forward, trying to listen for movement, but heard nothing except the battle behind him. He reached down carefully, meaning to pull the stake from his childe’s heart.
The yawning, tearing sound from above told him he’d made a mistake. The woman burst forth from the tree as before, planting both feet on Jürgen’s chest and knocking him backwards. Her hands remained melded with the grain of the wood, however, allowing her the firm handhold she needed to twist her body and stamp down on the stake in Favst’s chest. He gasped slightly as it loosened, and then his body froze again, the look of pain etched on his face, as she drove the stick deeper into his heart.
Jürgen righted himself. The Telyav—if indeed she was one—pulled her hands from the tree. Jürgen took a moment to size her up. She was naked, and her body was caked in earth and a glistening coat of sap. She crouched low, her hands only inches away from Favst’s throat, although what threat she was making Jürgen did not understand. She couldn’t strangle him, after all. She smiled at Jürgen, but he saw desperation behind that smile. She knew her time had come.
And yet, something about her disturbed him. He took a step forward and raised his sword; she took a step back towards her tree and grabbed Favst by the neck. Her eyes never quite made contact with his. That wasn’t so surprising. She probably knew what the result of that would be. But still, there was a deliberation about what she did that made Jürgen uneasy. He had fought naked savages before, but had never seen this kind of method in them.
Behind him in the clearing, he heard a shriek of pain. Gotzon was winning, apparently. He glared at the naked woman. “If you surrender, I’ll spare you.”
His Beast lashed out in fury, and he actually raised his sword arm a little before taking control. Spare her? She straightened up a bit. Apparently she’d understood. Her eyes held none of the mindless fury that Masha, the Tzimisce woman’s, had. She was well aware of what was happening. “And then what?” she asked.
“Do what you like. I intend to take power in these lands, but I cannot begrudge Cainites who wish to dwell in the forest.” He did not tell her, of course, that von Salza and his knights were not likely to be as understanding to her people. His Beast approved.
“Why have you come here?” Her eyes were hard, angry, but somehow sad at the same time. Her face was heart-shaped, Jürgen noticed, and she looked… newborn, somehow, with the moonlight sparking off her body. She was caked in dirt and blood and sap, yes, but somehow familiar, somehow beautiful.
“I… have come for power,” he said. “I have come for revenge.”
She nodded.
“Hunger,” she said. “I know hunger.”
Chapter Forty-One
By the time Jürgen had finished speaking with the Telyav woman and removing the stake from his childe’s heart, Gotzon had slain the others. The Telyav refused to give them her name, but when Favst found out that she had made a bargain with Jürgen, he called her “Varka,” and the name stuck. They seemed to feel the name was ironic; Jürgen didn’t understand, but didn’t press the issue. He had more important things in mind.
He didn’t trust Varka, but did admire her sense of self-preservation and her courage. She had fought well and with intelligence, and her decision to surrender had been wise, but surely she must have felt some loyalty to the Cainites and mortals that they had slain? Gotzon, of course, advocated killing her outright, and said as much to Jürgen later, while the four of them were walking back to Jürgen’s monastery.
“She can merge with any of these trees,” Gotzon muttered quietly, “and God only knows what else she can do. Beyond that, she is a pagan and a demon. Remember the koldun—her magic seems only a small step removed.”
“She could convert to our faith,” said Jürgen.
“Cainites do not find faith easily.”
Jürgen gave his confessor a stern look. Gotzon had, of course, himself found faith. “Be that as it may, I need her for the moment. I need to arrange a meeting with the Gangrel chieftain. We were lucky today—the enclave we found was small.”
“We should burn it. Who knows how many of those trees might have hidden those demons?”
Jürgen shook his head. “No, I think that might well be the last of the Telyavs. I think they have other enemies in these forests, and the same is true of the Gangrel.” He thought of Favst’s memories of the huge, powerful creatures in the battle, tearing everything they could reach limb from limb. “I have no desire to fight with Qarakh, and if he’s truly a wise leader as well as a powerful warrior, he’ll listen to what I have to say.”
“That requires that you find him.”
“That is why the woman still has her head.”
If Varka heard, she did not acknowledge them. She stood behind them, talking with Favst in their native language. Jürgen wondered what Favst thought of her; clearly, he saw “pagan” and “woman” before “Cainite” and “Telyav.” How long has it been, thought Jürgen, since I saw another Cainite as more than their clan, more than their beliefs?
Since Rosamund left. And perhaps the sense of familiarity he felt when he looked at Varka…
He shook off the thought. “What are we?” he said aloud.
“Damned,” replied Gotzon immediately.
Jürgen glanced at him. “That isn’t what I mean. I mean… you, for instance.”
Gotzon stiffened noticeably. He wasn’t at all comfortable talking about himself, and Jürgen knew it. What he had revealed in Kybartai had been quite out of character.
“You aren’t typical of your clan.” Gotzon crossed himself. “You aren’t even what most Cainites expect out of even the most pious of us.”
“Your point, Jürgen?”
“I’m not sure.” He thought of Rosamund. His first impression of her, more than a decade ago in Magdeburg, had been that she was a pretty Toreador. But now he knew more of her—knew her—and she was more than the blood in her veins. “Is blood so important?”
“Blood is life, and ultimately death, to us,” muttered Gotzon. “Everything we do is stained with it.”
“But does it define us?” Jürgen felt he was unsuited to this discussion, but then, Gotzon wasn’t exactly a church scholar, either.
“It does,” he said. “It spells our damnation, which is of great importance, at least to us.”
“What of salvation?”
“You and I, Jürgen, have all the salvation that we are ever likely to see.” He threw a glance back at the two young Cainites behind them, and then dropped his voice low enough that Jürgen had to strain to hear it. “And I am unsure, sometimes, about you.” With that, he quickened his pace, and was soon lost in the darkness ahead.
Jürgen pondered this for a moment, looking for some sign within himself that he had slipped from any chance of salvation. It was true that he was a soldier, and therefore killed of necessity. Gotzon killed only out of holy duty, or so he believed. But the wars upon which Jürgen embarked were just; he would never attack a truly Christian foe.
His Beast laughed.
Shaking his head, he slowed his pace until Favst and Varka caught up with him. “Why did you agree?”
Favst opened his mouth, and then realized his sire was talking to Varka. Varka furrowed her brow. “I don’t understand.”
“Are you unfaithful to your gods or your clan? Why did you agree to my offer?”
“When the alternative was to die?” She laughed dryly. “I value what life I have.”
Favst’s eyes widened a bit, but Jürgen frowned at him and he stayed quiet. “But dying for faith—”
“Is something fools do,” she responded. “Ask me as a mother to die for my children or as a woman to die for my lover. Don’t ask me to die for my gods. Martyrdom is something that people do when all that’s left are symbols.”
Favst crossed himself. Varka seemed not to notice. Despite the implied blasphemy, Jürgen was intrigued. “We killed your clanmates—”
She laughed, and the sound was so bitter that Jürgen’s Beast cringed. “You killed what? My clan? My family died many years ago. What you killed back there were monsters, blood-drinkers, who one night decided that I should join them in their insane quest.”
“What quest was that?” asked Favst timidly.
Varka dropped her gaze to the forest floor. “To be what we once were,” she answered. “They made me a monster to make me help them become human.”
A memory tickled at the back of Jürgen’s mind, something he had heard from a guest in his court, a rumor of the Heresy… “Golconda?”
Varka stopped, and stared at Jürgen in horror. “You… you, too? Are all of us so possessed?”
Jürgen raised his hands and shook his head vigorously. “No, no. Golconda is a fantasy. We are what we are because of God’s will, and no fervent wishes otherwise will change that.”
Varka began to walk again. “No blood-magic or sacrifice, either. Nothing changes.” She dragged a fingernail down her forearm and watched the furrow close immediately after. “Nothing.”
Favst shot a worried glance at his sire. Jürgen decided to change the subject. “There is a chieftain of sorts here, a Cainite. A Gangrel.”
Varka nodded. “Qarakh. He comes from the East. I know little about him.”
“I wish to meet with him.”
“To kill him?”
“No, simply to… redirect him. As I told you, I intend on taking these lands for my own, and I don’t wish to have to contend with him or his people.”
Varka smirked. “He has slain conquerors before.”
“Yes, because the conqueror did not give him the choice—he had either to fight or die. I intend to give him a way out, a way for him to retain honor and still leave these lands without having to oppose me.” He gestured towards the south. “The world is wide, and surely there are others more deserving of his wrath than me.”
“You bring what he fears and hates most, though. You bring people, churches, civilization.”
Jürgen rolled his eyes. These rustic idiots, he thought. Where people are, there too is food, and yet that never occurs to them. “Yes, well, I suppose I’ll have to address those concerns when I speak with him. Surely even his culture has some form of protocol for parley.”
Varka kicked at the mud. Her feet were so filthy that Jürgen had forgotten she wasn’t wearing shoes. “He has agreed to such meetings before. Our high priestess met with him, I have heard, and brought together a meeting between him and other enemies.”
Jürgen didn’t answer. He knew what had happened to their high priestess, though he suspected Jervais had kept a few details to himself about his trip to Livonia. “Can you contact him, or someone who can?”
Varka stopped, and cleared away some leaves from the forest floor at her feet. She said something to Favst in her own language and Favst handed her a small knife. She knelt, and stabbed the knife through her hand.
Jürgen watched as her vitae dripped to the ground, and the ground itself seemed to sigh in pleasure as the blood soaked into the earth. Varka stood and pulled the knife from her palm with a grunt, and handed it back to Favst. The young knig
ht quickly began wiping the blood from the blade, his face shocked.
“Qarakh will know soon enough that you wish a meeting,” said Varka.
“My thanks,” said Jürgen carefully. He was stifling a laugh. One of my clan could have accomplished the same thing with no pain, no blood, and no blade, he thought. The low-blooded are so… primitive.
Chapter Forty-Two
It was another fortnight before the Gangrel came. Jürgen had expected them to come as wolves, and listened every night for their howls. When they arrived, though, they did so as bats.
Jürgen was in the room that had once held Nikita of Sredetz when the bats arrived. He was staring at the patch of floor that had served as the archbishop’s resting place and trying to remember what he looked like. Jürgen had no idea why he was doing this, and when the shrieks from outside began, he forgot that he had ever been there.
He ran outside and found his knights running for cover. Some of them were waving torches at the bats, but with little success. Favst stood his ground, hiding behind a shield, sword ready, but obviously with very little idea what to do.
Varka stood out in the open. She wasn’t naked anymore—Jürgen had insisted she wear clothes and she had torn a monk’s robe to fit her—but her hair fell long around her shoulders and Jürgen could see her bare feet. She stood on open ground and bats dove towards her and then swirled around her like a cloak.
For a moment, Jürgen knew fear. They can’t all be Cainites, he thought desperately. It’s not possible. The whole of Livonia couldn’t hold so many Gangrel. He had seen the way Gangrel fought. They called up swarms of animals to confuse their foes.
Jürgen’s Beast urged him to run. His horse was faster than any bat. He could reach Jovirdas’s keep before morning. He fought the urge, but it was difficult. He thought his Beast might have a strong point.
Varka turned to face Jürgen and the bats surged away from her like a chittering black cloud. Jürgen fought with all his might to keep his hands at his sides rather than flinging them up to protect his face, but the bats veered off before striking him. One of them landed on two legs, growing horribly into human form in the space of a few seconds. The Gangrel was a woman, but was so completely feral in appearance that Jürgen had to look twice to make sure. Wolf-like fur covered her face and her body, which, Jürgen noted with amused resignation, was unencumbered by clothes. Jürgen wondered what the Gangrel had against clothes—some ill-conceived rebellion against God and His Church, perhaps, that incited them to travel as naked as the first people of Eden? He noted that something about her was familiar before turning his attention to the forest behind her.
Dark Ages Clan Novel Ventrue: Book 12 of the Dark Ages Clan Novel Saga Page 25