He never should have sworn allegiance to Qarakh. He had convinced himself that the Tartar’s kingdom would one day become the Cainite paradise that Abiageal hadn’t been able to deliver, but in the months since he had come to Livonia, all he’d done was train and, for the last week, sit watch in the trees.
“I should just leave,” he whispered to himself, giving voice to his thoughts to help relieve the boredom. “It’s not as if the Tartar would miss me, even if he were here.”
“Yes I would.”
A lance of cold terror pierced Rikard’s unbeating heart. The words came only inches from his left ear, which meant their speaker was crouching next to him, but he hadn’t heard anyone climb the tree. He knew he should turn to face the newcomer, but he was too scared to move.
“Once a man or woman swears fealty to me and is accepted into my tribe, they become as my own childer, whether they are of my blood or not. And ‘Tartar’ is the Christians’ word for my kind. I am Mongolian.”
The words were spoken in Livonian—a language Qarakh insisted all members of his tribe learn—but there was no mistaking that accent. The khan had returned home.
“Like any good father, I would miss my children, should they stray from the tribe. Miss them so much, in fact, that I would hunt them across all the lands of the earth until I had found them again.”
Rikard felt the cold, sharp edge of a dagger suddenly pressed against his throat.
“And do you know what I would do once we were reunited?”
Rikard was so frightened he lost his grip on his bow, and both it and the arrow he had ready tumbled down the ground. Beads of blood-sweat erupted on his forehead, and he would’ve swallowed nervously if it hadn’t been for the dagger.
“I would clasp them in my arms and say, ‘The tribe misses you. I miss you. Come home.’”
Rikard felt the first faint spark of hope that he was going to survive. He didn’t fail to notice, however, that Qarakh kept the knife to his throat.
“But you didn’t leave, did you?” The khan’s voice was utterly devoid of emotion now. No anger, no disappointment. Nothing. “You merely failed to remain alert at your post. You didn’t hear the approach of my horse, and you didn’t hear me climb up next to you, though I purposely made enough noise to alarm every sentry from here to the Great Wall. If I were an invader, I could slit your throat before you could make a sound, and then continue on to the camp undetected. Do you understand?”
Rikard couldn’t speak. His throat felt full of sand. The best he could manage was an almost imperceptible nod.
“Good. Then you will do better next time.”
A wave of relief washed over Rikard. Qarakh was only trying to teach him a lesson! A hard lesson, but one that Rikard knew he deserved. In the future, he would be more careful to—
Fire-sharp pain blossomed in Rikard’s throat, and warm blood gushed onto the front of his tunic.
“If you are strong enough, your wound will heal and you will make your way back to camp before dawn. If not…”
Rikard felt a hand press between his shoulder blades and shove, and then he was falling through darkness toward the forest floor. He didn’t feel the impact when he landed.
Qarakh leaped into the air and came down less than a foot from Rikard’s head, his leather boots hitting the ground silently. He intended to walk back to where he’d left his horse tethered to a low-hanging branch, mount up and continue on to the camp, but he hesitated. The scent of Rikard’s blood hung thick and sweet in the air. Mortal blood was for nourishment, but Cainite vitae—no matter how diluted—contained power. It was the smell of that power which called to Qarakh now.
A harsh, animalistic voice spoke in his mind. On the steppe, one learns not to waste anything; survival depends on it.
Qarakh gazed down at Rikard. The Cainite lay on his back, eyes wide and staring, blood still bubbling from his slit throat as he tried to speak.
“This is not the steppe,” Qarakh whispered.
And you are not a man. You are an animal. You hunger and there is food before you. Take it.
“This man swore allegiance to me as his khan.”
He is no man. He is a weakling. His kind exists only to serve the strong. Right now, he would serve you best as sustenance.
Qarakh shook his head. “Perhaps that is how he would serve you best. He would serve me and my people far better if he survives to learn from his mistake and makes the tribe stronger.” The Mongol warrior knelt down, wiped his dagger on a clean spot on Rikard’s sleeve, then straightened and returned the knife to its belt sheathe. He then walked off toward his horse, ignoring the frustrated howls of the Beast inside him.
The boundaries of Qarakh’s tribal lands were marked by a quartet of small altars, one for each point on the compass, representing what Mongols called the Four Directions: Front, Back, Left and Right. Qarakh rode up to the southern (front) one and, as was his custom, cut several hairs from his horse’s mane with his dagger. He then dismounted and approached the altar on foot. It was a construction of sticks and poles built on top of a stone mound. Qarakh had made all four of them himself, after the style of the Mongolian tribes he had left on the steppe. Tattered blue prayer flags were tied to the poles, and they stirred in the gentle breeze. Offerings were piled onto the stones: coins, fox tails, eagle feathers and, of course, patches of dried blood. Qarakh walked three times around the altar, then tied the horsehairs to
