Qarakh bared his teeth. “Nothing could ever convince me to ally with you for any reason, Ventrue. I have come to know you too well.”
“Pity, but then I can’t say as I blame you.” Alexander looked around at the knights and pagans trapped in the grayish-brown soup, many of whom continued to try to kill one another, despite the fact that they could barely move.
Qarakh recalled something Grandfather had said during a kuriltai: Cut off the head and the body will die.
“I have a proposition,” Qarakh said.
Alexander turned to him and raised an eyebrow.
“We continue this fight, just the two of us. And whichever one survives shall be declared the victor of this battle.”
“An intriguing notion, as well as an amusing one. But regardless of the outcome, how can we be sure our respective armies will abide by the result?”
“I do not think they will have a choice,” Qarakh said. “For whatever reason, it seems that the two of us are destined to decide the outcome of this battle. Why else would we still be standing on dry ground?”
“Far be it from me to defy destiny.” So saying, Alexander lunged forward and swung his sword in a vicious arc, the blow clearly aimed at Qarakh’s neck.
The Mongol moved to block the strike and then—
—found himself elsewhere.
He stood in a grove of trees draped in shadow, and he no longer held his saber. The sky above was a dull, featureless gray, and the air was still and stagnant. He sniffed and smelled the stink of decaying flesh mingled with the acrid odor of burning wood and the tang of hot metal.
“What sorcery is this?” His voice was muffled by the dead air, almost as if he had spoken the words underwater.
“Mine.” A robed figured emerged from the shadows between two trees. Deverra.
Despite the strangeness of the situation, Qarakh was glad to see her at first, until he remembered: the battlefield… the bog… Alexander… “I do not care what this place is or why you have brought me here. You must send me back at once! I was—”
“About to face Alexander in single combat,” Deverra finished for him. She walked over to Qarakh, reached out and took his hand. He surprised himself by letting her. She smiled. “Who do you think arranged it?”
“Then the bog was created by Telyavic magic.”
Deverra nodded. “It’s a spell we use to help draw water to a farmer’s field in times of drought or famine. We don’t usually try to concentrate so much water in one place, though.”
“Why would you work such an enchantment on the battlefield?”
“Because if I didn’t, the tribe was going to be defeated by Alexander, and you…” She squeezed his hand but didn’t complete the thought, not that she needed to. “It was shown to me.”
Qarakh wanted to ask by whom, but instead he asked, “Why did you leave the camp?” Why did you leave me?
“If you were to defeat Alexander, there were certain preparations that needed to be made. That is why I have brought your spirit here, to the Grove of Shadows.”
Qarakh’s eyes had adjusted to the dimness of the grove—though if he was a spirit here, then he didn’t have physical eyes that needed to adjust, did he?—and he could more clearly make out the trees around them. They were not trees of wood, but instead formed of intertwining coils of intestines and other organs, splintered lengths of bleached bone and sharp-edged leaves that appeared to have been made from blue-gray steel. He looked down at the ground and saw it was formed not of earth, but rather taut skin inlaid with runes of metal that resembled intricate tattoos. Beneath his feet, he felt a slight rise and fall, and he realized that the ground was breathing.
Despite his earlier assertion to himself that he would not, he asked, “Where is this place?”
“As I said, the Grove of Shadows. I have brought you here to talk to someone. Someone who can help you defeat Alexander.”
This was disconcerting but not wholly unheard of. Deverra was a shaman and part of the shaman’s lot was to travel the spirit realms. Still, this charnel grove felt wrong to Qarakh.
“But what is happening to my body while my spirit is here? Is it not defenseless against Alexander?”
“This is a place of the soul and the mind. No time shall pass in the physical world while you are here.”
Qarakh didn’t see how such a thing was possible, but if Deverra said it was so, then he believed her. “Take me to this person I am to meet, then.”
There was a sadness in Deverra’s eyes as she nodded. She led him by the hand deeper into the Grove.
They walked without stopping for what seemed at once a period of days and only a few moments, moving across the breathing ground and between the meat, bone and metal trees. Eventually Qarakh became aware of two separate and distinct sounds: a hammer clanging on an anvil and the susurration of waves breaking upon a shore. And then he saw a pinpoint of light in the distance, a yellowish orange glow that grew larger as they approached, until Qarakh could see that it was the light from a fire. He was mildly surprised to find that he felt no aversion to the flames. Evidently his spirit did not possess the same undead weaknesses as his body. He wondered if it also lacked his physical strengths.
He realized something then. Not only hadn’t his Beast made itself known since Deverra had brought him here, he couldn’t sense it at all. For the first time in years, he was free. It was an exhilarating sensation, and he nearly laughed out loud from the joy of it.
They drew close to the fire. A man stood next to it, bent over an iron anvil mounted upon an old tree stump. He held something steady with a pair
