Behind him, lying on the ground not far from his sister’s corpse, the infant burst out with a wracking cough. Rikard had been true to his pledge; he had not harmed the child.
He continued on to the woodcutter’s cottage.
Chapter Ten
It was well after midnight by the time Qarakh and Deverra approached Alexander’s camp. The ancient’s standard flew above tents pitched in the middle of flat, featureless grassland. Deverra remarked that she was surprised Alexander would choose such an exposed camping ground.
“Here he can see in any direction, and there is no cover for an attacking force,” Qarakh explained. “It also sends a message to anyone who comes near.”
Deverra frowned. “Which is?”
“‘I have no need to hide, for I am mighty enough to defeat all comers.’”
The priestess smirked. “He certainly doesn’t lack for confidence, does he?”
“If he has survived for two thousand years, his confidence is well earned.”
Deverra didn’t reply, and they continued riding in silence.
As they drew near the camp, Qarakh began making preliminary judgments about Alexander’s military capacity. He counted seventy-eight tents, each with the capacity to house four people apiece, perhaps five. Most would belong to mortals—stable boys, cooks, blacksmiths, laundresses and camp followers of all kinds—who would also serve as the Cainites’ food supply. The number of fires throughout the camp attested to just how many mortals there were. Cainites detested fire, and they had no need of it to cook or see by. There would likely be a number of human warriors as well—a mix of knights, men-at-arms and mercenaries—while the remainder of the fighting force would be made up of Cainites and ghouls. The higher-ranking vampires would sleep two to a tent, and of course Alexander would have his own quarters. Qarakh then counted the horses and wagons before doing a quick mental calculation. Around thirty Cainites, fifty or so ghouls, perhaps two hundred mortals. Three hundred all together, he decided.
Of those thirty Cainites, Qarakh doubted all were equal in power. Much depended on their age, individual skill and experience. Alexander was undoubtedly the most powerful, and the Ventrue would make certain to surround himself with the strongest Cainites that he could. But Alexander was a deposed prince, and because of this most likely had to take whatever warriors he could get. There would be a small inner circle of loyal followers that had accompanied their master into exile—made up primarily of Alexander’s childer, Qarakh guessed—and they would be deadly fighters to a man. But the remaining Cainites, while certainly competent, would not be up to the level of the others. In which case—
He realized that Deverra had just said something. “Yes?”
“I said, don’t you hear it?”
Qarakh listened. “I hear only the normal sounds of a camp: men talking while they tend to armor and weapons, horses whickering restlessly and pawing the ground, eager to be loosed from their fetters.”
Deverra shook her head in annoyance. “No, beneath all that.”
Qarakh listened again, more intently this time, and now he thought he heard something more than camp noises. It was a soft shushing sound, like ocean waves breaking on a distant shore. He gave Deverra a questioning look.
“It’s the wind whispering through the grass,” she said. “And I don’t like what it’s saying.”
“I hear no words.”
“You hear them, but you don’t understand. There are two words, one spoken overtop the other, as if they were one. The first is Alexander’s name.”
“And the second?”
Deverra hesitated a moment before answering. “The second word is ‘death.’”
Qarakh wasn’t certain how to take this, but before he could think more about it, a rider left the camp and headed in their direction.
Qarakh brought his mare to a halt and gestured for Deverra to do the same.
As the rider drew closer, the Telyav priestess stiffened. “Shouldn’t you draw your saber or nock an arrow, just in case he intends to attack?”
“If Alexander wished to kill or capture us, he would’ve sent more than a lone horseman. We are being greeted.”
“So what do we do?” she asked.
“We wait. This is, after all, why we came, is it not?”
Deverra nodded, but she continued to eye the rider warily as he approached. Qarakh wondered if the wind and grass were saying more to her than she admitted.
The rider slowed as he reached them and brought his mount to halt. He addressed the two in a language Qarakh did not understand, but the Mongol thought he could sense an undertone of distaste in the man’s voice. The Christian surely felt it beneath him to be addressing the newcomers as equals.
“He speaks German,” Deverra said. “He bids us welcome on behalf of his highness, Prince Alexander.”
The rider—a knight, Qarakh guessed—was brown-bearded and wore a helmet and a mail hauberk. On his tabard was a black cross, and Qarakh wondered at the significance of the symbol. The knights they had faced in previous years—the Livonian Sword-Brothers—wore a similar tabard but with a red cross and a sword emblazoned upon it. These were of a different order, then.
Qarakh replied in Livonian. “I am Qarakh, and this is the priestess Deverra. We have come to parley with your master.”
Deverra translated and the knight replied in German again. His expression remained neutral for the most part, but his nose wrinkled and his upper lip twitched, and Qarakh knew precisely how he felt about them.
“His name is Brother Rudiger,” Deverra said, “Commander of the Brothers of the Black Cross. He wears the tabard of a mortal order of monkish knights called the Teutonic Order, and I think the Black Cross must be a Cainite part of that order.”
Qarakh heard her words, but another voice imposed itself: Slay him! urged the Beast. The words were accompanied by a mental image of Qarakh plunging taloned fingers into the soft jelly of Rudiger’s eyes. It was tempting, but Qarakh restrained himself.
Then the Black Cross knight turned his mount and began riding back to the camp at a trot.
“He wishes us to follow,” Deverra said to Qarakh, and gave him a questioning glance. He
