“My brother…”
He tried to say, “Go away,” but it came out as an incoherent mumble. He wished Aajav would go back to sleep. It had been a long day of hunting with little to show for it: a single scrawny marmot and a few field mice. He was bone weary and the small amount of meat he’d managed to catch had done little to fill the emptiness in his belly. He wanted nothing more than to sleep and wake up in the morning when hopefully the steppe would prove more generous.
He felt a hand on his shoulder then, and it began to shake him gently.
“You have a visitor, Qarakh. Will you be so rude as to not greet him?”
He came instantly awake then, and sat up in a single smooth motion, dagger in hand. He tried to see who had entered his ger, but the interior of the tent was too dark for him to make out more than a rough outline of the man.
“If you come seeking shelter from the night wind, you are welcome,” Qarakh said. “If you come seeking more than that, you are not.”
The visitor chuckled. “The cold means nothing to me, brother. Not anymore.”
Fully awake now, Qarakh recognized the voice. “Aajav! It is good to hear your words again!” He tucked the dagger back into his belt. “Come, get beneath the blanket and I will start the fire.” Qarakh started to get up, but a hand—stronger than he remembered—gripped his shoulder to stop him.
“There is no need. As I said, the cold doesn’t bother me.”
Even through the cloth of his tunic, Qarakh felt the chill emanating from his blood brother’s hand. “But you feel like ice! Please allow me to—”
“Enough. I said there is no need.” His grip on Qarakh’s shoulder tightened to the point of being painful.
Something else struck Qarakh as odd, though he couldn’t quite… and then he realized what it was: the smell, or rather the lack of it. Mongols smeared sheep fat on their exposed skin as protection against the cold wind. But Qarakh detected no hint of the scent wafting from Aajav.
“Very well,” Qarakh said. He had no wish to argue with a guest seeking shelter in his ger late at night. Besides, Aajav was nothing if not stubborn.
“Good.” Aajav removed his hand and settled into a cross-legged position next to Qarakh’s bed.
Qarakh stared into the darkness and tried to discern his blood brother’s features. Though his eyes had adjusted somewhat, he still could make out only a shadowy figure where Aajav sat. But this didn’t matter. He knew Aajav’s face better than he knew his own: head and chin smooth-shaven, a broad and easy smile, and the unflinching gaze of a warrior born.
Qarakh also assumed a sitting position, but though he was cold and would’ve liked to pull the bearskin blanket around his shoulders, he did not. If the temperature did not bother Aajav, then it did not bother him.
Aajav chuckled softly, as if he knew why Qarakh did not cover himself and found it amusing. But if so, Qarakh took no offense. His brother had always had something of a strange sense of humor, and Qarakh was accustomed to not always understanding why he thought certain things were funny.
“It has been many months since we have sat together like this,” Qarakh said.
In the dark, Aajav nodded. “Nearly a year. Much has happened to me in that time.”
“You must have many good stories to tell. But before that, we should exchange gifts.” It was customary to give and receive presents when someone paid a visit. Often these were mere tokens, the most common being blue scarves that were used in religious ceremonies. Qarakh believed he had one such scarf left… somewhere. He patted his tunic, searching for wherever he had tucked the scarf.
Aajav laid a hand on his wrist, and Qarakh flinched at the touch of his brother’s cold flesh.
“I have a specific gift in mind,” Aajav said. “One to strengthen the bond between us. A sharing of blood.”
Aajav’s request was odd, but Qarakh loved him. “As you will.”
“Good. But first I have a most wondrous story to tell you, my brother.” He grinned, and even in the dark of the ger, Qarakh could see Aajav’s sharp white teeth. “Most wondrous indeed.”
Chapter Three
Qarakh woke to darkness and a feeling of being closed in on all sides. Panic welled up within him. He tried to thrash his arms and legs, but he could not move them. He struggled to draw in a breath, but his lungs felt as if they were full of something thick and heavy.
Aajav had been talking to him just a moment ago… telling him about his encounter with a strange man named Oderic, and the dark gift this man had given him, a gift which he in turn wished to pass on to his beloved brother….
Then Qarakh remembered. That night in the ger with Aajav—when he’d first become Aajav’s ghoul, when he’d taken his first step away from mortality and toward becoming a vampire—was decades gone now. It had been a dream-memory, nothing more. Then again, perhaps the dream had been an omen of sorts, a message from the spirits that he should go speak to his brother and seek his council. Qarakh decided to do so immediately after the kuriltai.
He willed himself to rise from the earth in which he had slept, and a moment later he stood in the center of his ger once again, the ground beneath his feet freshly turned. Lying on the bed was the still form of the female ghoul, the one whose neck he had broken last night when the Beast had gotten the better of him. Her loss was regrettable. A Mongol hunter never killed except for food and fur, and then he killed in the most humane
