She wished there was some way that she could go to Qarakh’s aid, but she had no horse, and even if she did, she was in no physical condition to ride. All she could do was see to the recovery of the surviving Telyavs and pray to their dark god to grant her khan strength and keep him safe.
She then tried to put all thoughts of Qarakh out of her mind as she knelt next to the Telyav closest to her and got to work.
By the time Qarakh reached Aajav’s mound, the rain had returned. It fell heavier now, and Qarakh was soaked to the skin. He barely noticed, let alone cared. Though she was a ghoul and stronger than a normal horse, his mare was breathing heavily, and heat radiated off her lather-coated body in waves.
Qarakh saw the wolves first—or rather, what was left of them. The raiders’ swords had done their work all too well. The mound itself also had been violated; soil lay scattered, cast aside as the raiders had dug. Qarakh sniffed the air. The only blood he smelled belonged to the wolves. The raiders hadn’t slain his brother. They had abducted him--for Alexander to use as a bargaining chip? Or perhaps merely to enrage Qarakh to such a degree that he was incapable of leading his tribe. Knowing Alexander, Qarakh bet on both possibilities.
He dismounted then, but he did not immediately rush up to the mound to confirm with his eyes what his nose had already told him. Doing so would be a waste of time, and he had already taken too long to get here as it was. The blood within him was burning with the exertions of interring himself and his steed in the woods and with the boiling need for battle. His muscles were swollen and straining and it had been all he could do to resist taking the wolf form on the way here. The extra speed might well have driven him into a feeding frenzy, and he still would not have arrived. Now he was here, and there was no longer any need to resist. But before he hunted, he needed to feed.
He stroked the mare’s muzzle. “I’ll take only what I need,” he promised. Then he bent his head to the horse’s neck, bit into her flesh, and began to drink.
Drain her dry! the Beast shouted. She’s your ghoul, and you’ve fed her much vitae. It’s time she gave it back!
Qarakh was still drinking when the mare collapsed to the ground. He didn’t waste time to check if she would survive; either she would or she wouldn’t. He turned away from the horse and ran toward the mound, exchanging his human shape for his wolfish one as he went. Once atop the excavated mound, he lowered his nose and inhaled, trying to pick up the raiders’ trail. The rain didn’t help, but it hadn’t washed away the scent completely. He found it with little trouble and leaped from the mound and bounded across the plain.
The hunt had begun.
István congratulated himself. The task had gone far more smoothly then he’d imagined. Only the two guards had been present—the Tartar’s ghouls, most likely—and while the wolves had fought ferociously enough, they were no match for three knights of the Black Cross. István didn’t count himself, as he’d not done any of the actual fighting, nor any of the subsequent digging. Rank had its privileges.
Now the four of them—five, he supposed, if one counted the insensate Gangrel—rode at a fast trot across the Livonian plain in the direction of their new campsite, István and the three knights on horses, the Gangrel lying across the back of a fifth mount, lashed to the saddle with strips of leather. A rope was tied to the horse’s bridle, the other end knotted around the pommel of István’s saddle. After all the trouble he’d gone through to get the Gangrel (well, that the knights had gone through) István wasn’t about to lose him.
A bolt of lightning lanced across the sky, followed a moment later by the rumble of thunder. István hoped the rest of the army had already conquered the pagans, even though that would render his mission irrelevant. If the storm grew much worse, the knights might well have to break off their attack and wait for better weather to resume the battle.
But that wasn’t his concern. Alexander had tasked him with a mission, and he’d carried it out. His role in this fight was done, at least for the time being. He considered ordering the knights to slow their horses to a walk—he wasn’t in any hurry to see Alexander again and perhaps be given another mission to carry out—but he doubted the knights would agree. They were too full of their idiotic chivalrous code to take advantage of an opportunity to seize a bit of rest while their fellow knights fought a war. Morons.
The rain picked up. Though he felt no cold, István shuddered and drew his cloak tighter against his body. Then again, the sooner they reached camp, the sooner they could get dry.
His thoughts drifted to a mortal woman he’d had his eye on for a while. She was the wife of one of the blacksmiths, and she’d been growing increasingly frail over the last few weeks as the wasting sickness spread through her. She was in constant pain—István was adept at sensing such things—and he thought her agony had ripened quite nicely. Once they returned to camp and made sure this torpid animal was secured, István thought he would send for the woman and enjoy her pain even as he delivered her from it.
Lost in thoughts of his meal to come,
