Deverra knelt on the ground beside the other Telyavs. The enchantment they had just worked had never been tried in this way before. It had been designed only to spur crops to lush growth, but it had succeeded. The horse blood drained by the surrogate tendrils (which in her mind Deverra referred to as snakes in the grass) had needed to go somewhere, though, and that somewhere was into the bodies of the Telyavs themselves. They were now suffused with blood, swollen and bloated with it, their purplish skin stretched tight and shiny. Deverra could feel equine blood pooled at the back of her throat, as if she was a well nearly full to overflowing after a long, hard rain. The sensations were strange—a warm, pleasant drowsiness combined with an uncomfortable feeling of pressure and a slight tinge of nausea from ingesting so much animal blood. It would take some time for the Telyavs’ bodies to completely absorb what they had taken in, hours for certain, perhaps even a night or two, but in the end—
“Hurts… so much…”
The voice was distorted, wet and gurgling, but Deverra could tell it belonged to Sturla. Weak as she was, the high priestess crawled on fleshy knees and sausage-thick fingers toward the acolyte. He lay on his back, staring up at the dark sky. Clouds now hid the stars, and Deverra knew it would soon rain again. The fabric of Sturla’s robe was stretched tight across a body swollen to grotesque proportions—easily twice that of the other Telyavs, Deverra’s included. Blood trickled from both nostrils, bubbled over his lips, dripped from his ears and ran from the corners of his eyes like viscous red tears. Worse, tiny beads of crimson welled up from the pores in his skin, as if his body was unable to retain the vast amount of blood he’d absorbed.
“Couldn’t stop… knew… I should, but… couldn’t.” Sturla coughed, and a gout of brackish blood poured out of his mouth.
Deverra understood what had happened. It was precisely what she had feared might occur. Sturla hadn’t been able to maintain control over his Beast while linked to the surrogate tendrils, and he had drained far more equine blood than he should have. His body was struggling to absorb it all, or failing that, to expel it, but it appeared Sturla wasn’t succeeding in doing either.
A fissure opened on his right cheek, and a stream of blood spewed forth. A second fissure opened on his forehead, then another just beneath his chin.
“Sorry.” His mouth and throat were so clogged with blood that the word was barely understandable. “I’m so…”
Deverra knew there was nothing she could do for the man. She took hold of the edges of Sturla’s hood and brought them together, obscuring his face. The man’s bloated arms and leg wobbled, as if he were trying to get up, and then there was a loud ripping sound, and torrents of blood ran from his sleeves and from under his robe, splashing over Deverra’s sandaled feet and soaking into the earth.
An offering for you, Telyavel, she thought. Perhaps not one freely given, but hopefully one freely taken.
Sturla’s robe began to collapse as his body released what it had stolen, until the fabric—soaked in equine blood—lay in a crumpled wet heap. Nothing remained of Sturla, not even dust.
Deverra let go of the hood, whispered a quick prayer in Livonian, and then hastened to check on the other Telyavs. Though all were barely conscious—thankfully, they hadn’t witnessed Sturla’s death—none were in danger of going the way of their companion, and for that she was both relieved and grateful.
A form emerged from the murk of a nearby shadow. Deverra was startled at first, until she realized it was Malachite. The Nosferatu came silently toward her, moving with a liquid grace that seemed unlikely for one as misshapen as he. Then she remembered what she now looked like; she was hardly one to judge another’s appearance at the moment.
“I am truly sorry for your loss,” he said.
She acknowledged his words with a nod. “It is war,” she said, as if that explained everything. “How goes the battle?”
“Your deception worked well. The vanguard was taken completely by surprise, and the Gangrel are fighting the knights even as we speak. Once the vanguard was engaged, Alessandro brought his cavalry around and returned to harry the remainder of Alexander’s army with flights of arrows. While the battle and rearguard formations appear to be holding, the right and left wings are in disarray, all pretense of military discipline forgotten.”
Deverra smiled in grim satisfaction. The tribe was a long way from winning this war, but it had accomplished an effective first strike.
The other Telyavs were sitting up now, fully conscious but still very weak. She felt a drop of rain strike the back of her swollen left hand—the slight impact surprisingly painful upon her tight skin—and she knew the rain had returned. All to the better, for rain would not hamper the Gangrel’s efforts, nor would it affect Alessandro’s archers unless it came with strong winds. But the change in weather might well prove an impediment for a mounted force as large as Alexander’s. If Qarakh was here, she knew he would thank Father Tengri for his gift.
“And what of Qarakh?” she asked Malachite.
“Your khan led the charge against the vanguard as planned, but for some reason he broke off at the last moment and rode northwest. I assume there was some purpose underlying his actions, yet I confess to being unable to determine it.”
Deverra frowned. It was inconceivable that Qarakh would abandon his people in the midst of a battle, yet she could think of no reason why he would… and then something Malachite had said finally sank in. Northwest. That was where Aajav’s mound lay.
She realized then that the tribe wasn’t alone in knowing how to practice deception. Alexander did too, and he’d had century upon century to become a master of it. Was the
