“Very well.” And he began. He spoke of the parley with Alexander, Malachite accompanying them back to the campsite, the kuriltai, the fight with Arnulf and the Goth’s leaving, the return of tribesmen and the coming of allies. The only thing he did not tell his blood brother about was his increasing… closeness with Deverra. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps because he didn’t quite know how to put it in words, or perhaps because he feared that Aajav might be jealous. Maybe a little of both.
When he was finished, Qarakh waited for Aajav’s response, but there was only silence. He began to fear that Aajav’s attention had wandered—even with the enchantment Deverra had worked upon the soil of the mound, maintaining a connection between his mind and Aajav’s wasn’t always easy—and so he thrust his entire hand into the earth and redoubled his concentration. There! He sensed a tendril of Aajav’s awareness. Ethereal, elusive… He reached out for it with his thoughts—
“Are you certain that I will be welcome?”
Aajav shook his head with mock disgust. “How many times must I repeat it to you, brother? The Anda told me to bring you to their next kuriltai—which, as you can see by the fullness of the moon, is tonight.”
Qarakh and Aajav rode side by side, their hardy steppe ponies made even hardier by periodic sips of their masters’ blood. The animals could run at a full gallop all night without tiring appreciably. There were many benefits to this new state of being, and Qarakh was grateful once again that his blood brother had possessed the courage to Embrace him despite the objection of the Anda vampires. They rode across the moon-splashed plain toward the sacred Onan River. It was there on the riverbank, within a circle of huge stones no mortal man could lift, that the Anda held council.
“Forgive me for doubting, my brother, but I find it difficult to believe that the Anda have changed their minds about my being remade.” As Qarakh understood it, the Anda controlled who upon the steppe was Embraced and who wasn’t. Aajav they accepted, after a fashion, because he had been Embraced by a wandering Gangrel who had not sought the Anda’s permission before turning the Mongol warrior. But Aajav had asked permission to Embrace Qarakh, and the Anda had denied it. Aajav had given the dark gift to his blood brother anyway, arousing the Anda’s ire. The Anda dealt harshly—and permanently—with anyone who broke their laws. But now, nearly two years after Qarakh’s Embrace, it seemed that all was forgiven. The operative word being seemed, as far as Qarakh was concerned.
“The Anda who delivered the news unto me said that their change of heart was primarily a matter of practicality,” Aajav explained. “The demons from the south have been growing bolder in recent months, attacking the Anda more often, more savagely and in greater numbers than ever before. If they are to defeat the demons, they need the sword of every warrior they can get.”
Qarakh had heard this explanation before, of course, but it still didn’t ring true to him. While the Ten Thousand Demons were a continual threat on the steppe, he hadn’t noticed any appreciable change in the frequency or intensity of their attacks.
“Even if they do accept us for the time being, what is to prevent them from turning on us after the demons have been repelled?’ Qarakh asked.
“It is true that they have summoned us out of their own need,” Aajav admitted. “And I grant that there is a chance they will attempt to slay us once our usefulness has ended. But there also is a chance that if we distinguish ourselves in battle, we will gain the Anda’s respect, and perhaps even their admiration. If so, we shall be able to earn a place within their clan.”
Even if it occurred just as Aajav said, Qarakh wasn’t certain that he wanted to be a part of the Anda’s clan. He liked the way his new existence had been during the last two years—just Aajav and he, riding and hunting upon the steppe together. Still, he had to admit that it would be a relief not to have to avoid the Anda anymore, let alone fight them. Perhaps Aajav was right. Going to the kuriltai might be a risk, but it was a risk worth taking.
They rode in silence for the next several hours, but it was a comfortable silence. Mongols were used to riding great distances and saw no need to make irrelevant conversation, and so they let time pass in whatever manner it saw fit. The night was more than half over, but dawn was still hours away when they drew near the Onan. Qarakh heard the whisper-rush of water and smelled strong, clean river scent.
As the stone circle came into view, Aajav turned and gave Qarakh an eager grin. It was at this moment that Qarakh understood how much the Anda’s acceptance meant to Aajav, though he would never have admitted it. In mortal life, Aajav had always enjoyed the camaraderie of other hunters and warriors, took pleasure in sitting around a fire, eating meat he had helped kill, drinking qumis and swapping lies. Qarakh had liked those things as well, but he’d never needed them the same way Aajav had. To Aajav, solitude was something to be stoically endured—like the bite of winter wind, or a season when game was scarce—but Qarakh preferred it. In solitude, in the quiet and the open spaces of the steppe, he came as close to yostoi as he ever had. Qarakh didn’t need to be completely alone, not all the time. He loved Aajav and felt incomplete when they weren’t together. There was no man, living or undead, that he’d rather ride with or share a tent with.
But the rest of it—the fire, the qumis, the tall tales, the laughter of an incredulous and appreciative audience for his stories—none of these things were
