On Grandfather’s right sat Alessandro de Garcia, sometimes referred to as the Hound of Iberia. Not a Gangrel at all, Alessandro was a handsome man with short black hair and a small thatch of beard beneath his lower lip. He wore a simple black shirt and pants, a red sash around his waist, and a pair of highly polished black boots. An Iberian whose blood ran to the Brujah line, he appeared to be in his midthirties and had been a soldier and mercenary during his mortal life. He remained a skilled fighter, but was also a philosopher who sought a more complete understanding of the Beast. He served as Qarakh’s second-in-command, running the camp and the tribe’s training sessions whenever the khan was away.
Only one of his inner circle was missing. “Where is Wilhelmina?” Qarakh asked.
“She left a week ago to patrol the western territory,” Alessandro said, speaking Livonian with a slight Iberian accent. “There have been rumors of trespassing Cainites preying on the mortals there, and she went to determine if they were true. We have had no word from her since.”
Qarakh grunted. A week was not long to be away, and Wilhelmina was a Viking warrior-maid as well as a savage huntress. She could take care of herself. And it was possible the interlopers were tied to this boy prince. Anything she might learn about them would prove valuable to the tribe.
Qarakh was about to begin the kuriltai in earnest when his male ghoul—whose name was Sasha—came over, leading two other servants with him. All of them held clay goblets filled with blood.
“My khan, please forgive the intrusion, but I thought you might hunger.” He lowered his head and held out a goblet toward his master.
Qarakh looked over his shoulder at the celebrating villagers. The lower-ranking Cainites in the camp—about a dozen in all—were moving among the humans, drinking first from this one, then from that. Some were bleeding the mortals into drinking vessels, while others partook straight from the vein. The mortals closed their eyes and drew in sudden hisses of breath, lost in the throes of ecstasy. Qarakh approved—the Beast must be fed, after all. He only hoped his people would be careful not to bleed too many of the villagers dry, for the continued health the herd.
He was surprised to see that one of the more enthusiastic Cainites—a man on the verge of completely draining a small female child—was Rikard, the incompetent sentry whose throat he had cut last night. So the man had survived to make it back to the camp after all. Perhaps he was made of sterner stuff than Qarakh had given him credit for. Rikard’s complexion was ivory white from loss of blood, and his throat was an ugly mass of scar tissue. The tribe had strict rules about slaying children, but the man had earned a reward for making it back to camp. Qarakh knew the sweetness of a child’s blood and let Rikard be.
The khan’s mouth was watering as he turned back to Sasha. “You may serve us.”
Sasha and the two others gave Qarakh and the elders mugs full of blood. They bowed one last time, then turned to go, but Qarakh said, “Hold for a moment, Sasha.” The mortal did so, motioning for the other two humans to continue on.
He turned to face his master once more. “Yes, my khan?”
“Last night…” Now that he had started, Qarakh wasn’t sure how to phrase what he had to say.
“I saw Pavla when I brought your saddle and tack inside the ger,” Sasha said, voice and face expressionless. “You had already retired for the day by then. I would’ve taken her body from the tent, but I wasn’t certain you were finished with it. With your permission, I’ll remove the corpse after the feast.”
“Of course.” Qarakh felt a vestigial twinge of an emotion he hadn’t experienced much even during his mortal life: guilt. Sasha had lain with Pavla last night, as he had many nights before, but now all she was to him was the corpse, trash to be removed from his master’s ger and disposed of. And he had become this thing—this ghoul—because Qarakh had made him so.
Sasha bowed one last time before departing.
“It’s never good for a Cainite to become too attached to his own ghouls,” Grandfather said, as if sensing Qarakh’s thoughts. “If a butcher begins to love cattle, how can he wield a cleaver?”
Arnulf took a gulp from his mug, then lowered it, leaving his black beard and mustache smeared with crimson. “You should kill the mortal as soon as you get the chance, so that you might extinguish whatever feelings you have for him.” He drained the rest of his blood in a single draught, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Never had much use for ghouls anyway. They make you weak.”
Qarakh had been about to take a drink, but now he lowered his mug and gave the Goth warrior a hard look. “What do you mean by weak?” His voice held a dangerous edge.
Deverra laid a hand on the Mongol’s arm. “Pay it no mind, Qarakh. We have far more important matters to discuss this night.”
But it was the Telyav’s words that Qarakh chose to ignore. He shrugged off her hand then stood. “Answer me, Arnulf.”
The Goth’s eyes seemed to take on the same shade of red as the blood smeared on his mouth. He made a fist, and his mug shattered into clay shards that fell to the grass. “Take care, Mongol.” He spoke through gritted teeth, voice low in his throat.
Grandfather smiled, clearly amused. “So priestess, do you have a spell for calming two belligerent Gangrel?”
“This isn’t funny,” Deverra said.
“No, but it may well prove instructive,” Alessandro put in. “Arnulf is eldest and thus nominally the
