The taste of the last knight’s blood lingered bitter in his mouth. He leaned his head back, opened his mouth to catch some rain, swished the water around and then spat into the grass.
Once beneath the shelter of a large pine, Qarakh tied the horses to one of the branches before seeing to Aajav. He knew he should have examined his torpid blood brother right away, but he had been too afraid of what he might find. Now a quick once-over convinced him that while Aajav remained in torpor, he had suffered no injuries at the hands of his abductors. Relieved, Qarakh untied Aajav and carried him over to the trunk of the pine tree. Qarakh sat with his back against the pine’s rough bark and cradled Aajav in his lap as if he were but a child.
“Alexander will pay for this insult, my brother. I swear it.”
Aajav didn’t react. Qarakh hadn’t expected him to.
“That invading prince abandoned all thought of alliance and attacked us. If it hadn’t been for the Telyavs’ wards, we might not have known he was coming at all.” Qarakh continued speaking, telling Aajav of all that had happened since Deverra had announced that Alexander’s army was upon them.
When he was finished, Qarakh leaned his cheek against the smooth skin of his brother’s head. “We are a great distance away from those two Mongolian boys who used to complete at archery and wrestling and anything else they could think of, eh, my brother? A very great distance in far too many ways.”
He felt motion then, and with a start he realized that Aajav had moved. Not much, just a slight turn of the head, but it was the most he had moved in five years. Qarakh shifted Aajav around to look at his face. His brother’s eyes remained closed, but his lips quivered as if trying to form words. Qarakh leaned down close to Aajav’s face so he could better hear whatever words his brother might say after so long a silence.
“Take… me…” The words were little more than exhaled breath, and Qarakh wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined them.
“What, my brother?”
Aajav repeated the words, louder this time but still barely more than a whisper.
“Take me.”
Qarakh frowned. “Take you where? Back to your mound? I shall do so as soon as the rain stops.”
“No. Need… strength to fight… Alexander. Take… mine.”
Qarakh understood then what his brother was telling him. He was asking Qarakh to drink his vitae—all of it—and add Aajav’s strength to his own. Deverra called it diablerie and said it was the consumption not only of blood, but of the very soul.
“I cannot! Do not ask me again!”
Silence for a moment, and then, “You… must.”
Qarakh remembered then what the ancient Cainite he’d encountered outside the Obertus monastery had told him: Victory is in the blood. Qarakh shook his head. “Defeating this Christian is not worth that.”
“To protect… tribe.”
“No!”
“Alexander… too strong. You… must let me fight… with you.”
“I will not! And nothing you can say will change my mind!”
Another silence, longer this time. Then Aajav spoke a single word.
“Please.”
In that one word, Qarakh heard a desperate longing for the lost pleasures of a mortal life on the steppe—riding the plain, hunting, being a mortal man among other mortal men… Qarakh understood then that Aajav would never come out of torpor, even if he should continue to exist beyond the end of the world. Drinking his heart’s blood would be a mercy—if only Qarakh could bring himself to do it.
He looked down upon the face of the man who was both his brother and his sire in darkness. Did he love this man enough to slay him?
Of course he did.
He kissed Aajav’s forehead and then, red-tinged tears brimming in his eyes, he fastened his mouth to Aajav’s neck and began to drink. For once, his Beast was blessedly silent.
Only an hour remained until sunrise by the time Qarakh returned to the battlefield, riding the gelding that Aajav had been lashed to. His own mare hadn’t survived his feeding.
The storm had passed, though its energy lingered in the cool, still air, making it feel as if the world had been born anew. The sensation clashed with the reality of the battle’s aftermath. Bodies lay scattered across the ground—knights and tribesmen, Cainites, ghouls and mortals, as well as quite a few horses. The dead had met various ends--some pierced by steel, others mutilated by claws. Arrows protruded from many of the corpses, especially the horses. A quick survey of the battlefield revealed that the bodies of more knights littered the ground than tribesmen, and Qarakh knew that his people had been the victors this night. He should have felt triumph and pride, but while his body was on fire from adding Aajav’s essence to his own, his heart felt dead and cold.
Members of the tribe were gathering the bodies of their dead and laying them across the backs of horses or stacking them like firewood in wagons. The Christians were left where they had fallen, the Cainites to be greeted by the morning sun, the ghouls and mortals left for whatever scavengers might find them.
“Qarakh!”
He turned to see Deverra hurrying across the battlefield toward him, Alessandro following behind. Qarakh didn’t feel like talking to anyone right now—especially Deverra—and he was tempted to ride off before they could reach him. But he remained where he was. Alessandro looked none the worse for wear, but Deverra’s flesh was puffy and discolored, as if she had been bruised all over. Had she been involved in the actual fighting or was her condition an aftereffect of her sorcery? Most likely the latter, he decided. Deverra was many things, but a swordswoman wasn’t one of them.
When she reached his side, she looked up at him with eyes full of sadness. “Aajav?”
“My brother is no more.”
For an instant, it appeared that Deverra might question him further, but all she said was, “I’m sorry.”
“As am I, my khan,”
