“Every warrior at his command!” Sekhem thundered and lashed out at the only remaining drapery panel hanging from a dangling, broken rod. His claws pierced the silken fabric and dragged down its length, the ripping sound loud as he demolished the material. The rod, hanging only by a single nail, came crashing to the carpet with a clank.
“T…The Brothers outnumber us, Your Grace,” Lord Sepat dared to remind his prince.
Rounding on his Minister of the Military, Sekhem stopped pacing long enough to glare at the rail-thin man. “Do you not think I know, Sepat?” the prince screamed.
Lord Sepat lowered his head at the admonishment, but he kept his keen eyes riveted upon his prince. “My apologies, Your Grace. Of course, you know.”
“They could never defeat us,” Sekhem snapped as he recommenced his agitated pacing. He thrust a hand through his thick hair. “But they could decimate our forces enough to cause us trouble.”
Wisely, Lord Sepat refrained from agreeing. He was tracking his prince as the man moved, gazing up at him through shaggy brows.
“They want him back, they say,” Sekhem continued. “They will leave us alone if we but send him back.” He paused, his crimson eyes narrowed. “Unharmed, they say.” Once more he plowed a hand through his hair. “As if that were even possible!”
Until now Lord Khnum had not spoken but he cleared his throat in way of asking for permission and when his prince turned his glower to the elderly man, Khnum’s voice was calm. “Lady Neith will not want to part with her toy,” he said.
“The decision is not hers to make!” the prince shouted.
“Nay, it is not, Your Grace,” Khnum agreed.
“Then why mention it?”
Khnum steeled himself against the thunderous yell that had caused a wrecked painting to fall from the wall.
“Dagan Kiel has yet to fully recover his senses,” Khnum answered. “The last I heard, Neith had not given him Sustenance. Until she does, he will not begin the True Thirst that will make it necessary for me to introduce the parasite to his flesh.”
Sekhem thrust out an explosive breath, spraying spittle as he did. His hands clenched into fists at his side. “Tell me something I do not already know, fool!” he demanded.
“Without the Sustenance,” Khnum said calmly. “The warrior will die. She all but drained him dry upon the battlefield. She injected enough venom into his veins that he is in excruciating pain. Unless he is fed, he will die in agony and our race will know the full might of the Brothers of the Conclave.” At his prince’s roar, the elderly man held up a restraining hand. “Nay, they will not defeat us, but as you say, they will slay many of our warriors, forcing us to make more. That will take time and I fear we will be running for our lives as we do.”
“So what is it you suggest?” Sekhem screamed at the top of his lungs.
Lord Sepat slid down the wall, the fury of his prince causing him to cover his head with his arms.
Khnum ignored the cowardly Minster of the Military and made a mental note to find a replacement for Sepat Fortu.
“Turn the warrior over to me now. Let me introduce the parasite to his flesh this very eve. I will give him the Sustenance needed to complete his rebirth and it will be to me he will owe his allegiance and not the Lady Neith,” Khnum replied.
“The warrior is mine!”
Prince Sekhem turned his glower to the doorway where Neith stood, her anger flashing in piercing blue-gray eyes. He took a step toward her but when she did not slink back, did not lower her gaze to him; he stopped, impressed—if not happy—with her defiance. He narrowed his gaze. “You would go against my orders, Wench?” he snarled.
“I will defend what is mine,” Neith answered. “If I need to joust for the right, I am ready to do so.”
One dark brow slanted into the tousled mess that was Sekhem’s hair. “You feel that strongly about this warrior?” he asked.
Neith nodded and swung her attention to Khnum. “He,” she said, pointing a finger at the old man, “wants to make a warrior who could defeat you.”
“Not so,” Khnum said quietly. “Our prince knows where my loyalty lies.”
“No man can defeat me!” Sekhem scoffed though he glanced at Khnum, no doubt attempting to gauge the man’s reaction.
“May I make a suggestion of my own, Your Grace?” Neith asked, coming slowly into the room.
Sekhem waved a hand in permission.
“Send word to the warriors poised on our border that we will bring Lord Dagan to them within the fortnight. Tell them he was gravely wounded in the fighting but we are nursing him back to health. Tell them we spared his life because we knew he was the brother of the Grand Master.”
“They will not believe such a lie,” Khnum said with a snort.
“Nay, they will not,” Sekhem agreed. “The tales our own warriors have spread will have damned us to the Conclave!”
“And when they see the bodies of their countrymen lying sprawled on the killing field, they will know a portion of those tales are true.”
“Aye,” Neith acknowledged. “They have long suspected us of being Blood Drinkers but they have no notion of the true beings we are.”
Sekhem cocked his head to one side. “That is true.”
“Give me a fortnight with Dagan Kiel. Let me bind him to me and then allow Khnum to introduce the parasite to his flesh. Within that fortnight, I will have what I seek and Dagan Kiel will be One of us.” She smiled. “Such is a winning situation for us.”
“She plans to try her parlor trick upon Kiel’s useless staff and…” Khnum began but Neith’s laughter interrupted him. “You dare laugh at me, Wench?” he forgot himself and shouted.
“I have already plied my suggestions on his useless staff as you named it and he rose to the occasion to give me great pleasure. Once the parasite…”
“Enough!” Sekhem snapped.
Neith bowed her head elegantly, clasping her hands at her waist as she knew submissive females should.
“Do what you want with the warrior,” Sekhem grated. “I will send word he will be returned to the Brothers. You had better pray they listen and do not attack. If they do, Dagan Kiel will feel the steel of my fangs ripping out his heart!”
A muscle ground in Khnum’s withered jaw. He dug his fingernails into the flesh of his palm but remained silent. His hatred of the woman pulsed from his beady eyes as he watched her bow then leave the room.
“I will have her heart in my hand when this is all done,” Sekhem swore. He turned to Khnum. “Get out and have your operatory ready. I want this over and done with long before the fortnight she asked for arrives!”
When Khnum had excused himself, the prince flung himself down on his disheveled bed and stared up at the ceiling. “I am thirsty. Come here, Sepat,” he ordered and grinned nastily when he heard the other man’s whimper of fear.
* * * * *
Neith barred the door to her room. She did not trust either Khnum or her prince. As she had hurried toward her quarters, she had snatched both men’s thoughts from the ether and knew her days were numbered if she did not plan otherwise.
Dagan Kiel was lying bound to the bed, his unseeing eyes wide. Though he thrashed about now and again, his movements were slowing, growing weaker, and she knew if he did not take Sustenance within the hour, he would die. She could barely hear his heartbeat and when she probed his thoughts, knew he had resigned himself to death.
She picked up the goblet her slave had brought earlier and carried it to the bed. Placing her free hand under Dagan’s neck, she lifted his head and placed the rim of the golden goblet to his lips.
“Drink, warrior,” she commanded.
Still wandering in the agonizing void that crippled his body and plundered his soul, Dagan clamped his lips shut, instinct taking over to control him.
“Drink,” Neith said more forcefully. She tilted the goblet so that a single drop touched Dagan’s upper lip.
As though being scalded with lava, the warrior recoiled against the feel of the thick fluid touching him but Neith would not allow it. She lifted the goblet higher and the liquid splashed over the crease of Dagan’s lips, clinging to the dry, cracked flesh. She straightened, careful of the fullness within the goblet.
He fought it for a moment, his head thrashing from side to side but then she watched as her captive stilled. A puzzled look entered his fever-glazed eyes for a moment then the tip of his tongue slipped out to taste the fluid upon his lips. Sighing with relief, Neith saw that tentative taste become a slow lick across an upper lip then a stronger lap against the lower. The warrior’s mouth opened—a dying man sensing salvation was but a swallow away.
“Aye,” she said, bringing the goblet to the warrior’s mouth once more. “It is nectar from the Dark Gods, my beloved. It is the Sustenance of our race.”
She held the goblet as he drank greedily of the thick substance. Her own mouth watered though she would never be able to drink of that fluid, herself. As her captive devoured the liquid, draining every drop within, she felt her veins tighten for it was her own blood that now coursed thickly down the throat of Dagan Kiel.
Chapter Fourteen
“What does it say?” Lord Qasim, the Minister of Justice, asked. He was watching the Grand Master’s face, worried at the pallor that had overtaken it.
“It says they will return him to us within the fortnight,” Hagan Kiel replied. He looked up. “They say he was gravelly wounded and is being nursed back to health.”
“Do you believe them?” Qasim queried.
The Grand Master shook his head. “They are demons,” he replied. “My Lady-wife fears they have already turned my brother into one of them.”
“But what does that mean?”
“She is not sure but fears the old tales are true.”
Qasim sighed heavily. “I don’t believe the Ordonese are undead,” he said. “Perhaps they have magical abilities. I have heard of men changing to wolves, even bats, but I have yet to see one. I doubt me I ever will.”
“She wants a special room built for Dagan. She says he will need it when he changes.” Slumping in his rolling chair, the Grand Master put his head in his hands. “By the gods I wish I had the use of my legs! I would ride to that hellhole where my brother is being held and free him with my bare hands!”
“We are your hands and legs, Your Grace,” Qasim said. “We will free him for you.”
The Grand Master raised his head and his Minister of Justice was shocked to see tears streaking that pallid face.
“It was because of me that our father mutilated Dagan. Had I known what was going to happen, I would have found a way to stop it.” More tears flooded the Grand Master’s eyes. “All his life, my brother has suffered for being my kin. Now, he may be suffering more because of it.”
“Do not think such a thing, Your Grace,” Qasim said, coming to hunker down before his Master. “You were a boy, yourself, and could have done nothing to prevent what happened. If Lord Dagan were not your kin, he would not be alive and mending. The Ordonese would have taken his life as they took the life of his troop.”
Sobbing as though his heart would break, the Grand Master leaned forward, burying his head against his useless legs. He barely felt the soft touch that wound its way over his shoulders but he heard the soft whispers of support from the lips of his wife. He reached up to grasp her hand and hold it.
“Milady, you…” Qasim began but the Grand Master’s consort turned her gaze to him. What he saw in those lovely green eyes stunned him as much as the tears in his Master’s.
“Lord Dagan will be returned to us,” Jameela Kiel said firmly. “He will be changed but he will be alive. Keep your men at the border. Bid them not to cross over lest they give their lives uselessly. When we have our warrior back, we will close that border so the demons will never cross it again.”
“How?” Qasim questioned. “They have raided our lands for as long as I can remember. Even in my father’s father’s time they have taken our herds.”
“They’ll come raiding no more once the borders are sealed,” Jameela said.
“Listen to her,” the Grand Master said, his voice rife with pain. “She had another dream and in it, she found the way to protect us.” He straightened up in the rolling chair, turned his head and placed a kiss on his wife’s wrist.
Qasim doubted there was any way to protect themselves from the Ordonese raiding parties. He distrusted women and women’s intuitions. Though he had been bidden to respect the Grand Master’s Lady-wife, she was but a woman and a woman unaccustomed to matters of national security.
“How long is the passable border between us?” Jameela asked. She held the Minister of Justice’s gaze.
“Fifteen miles, milady,” he replied.
“And the rest is coastline?”
Qasim nodded. “Ordon is surrounded on three sides by water.”
“Remember you the legend that the Ordonese can not cross running water?” she asked.
Once more Qasim nodded. “I have heard such but that may not be true.”
“But if it is, we only have to worry about fifteen miles of borderland. Is that true?”
“Aye.”
“Then go now and fetch your Minister of Agriculture and your Minister of Artisans. We will need them.”
Qasim’s brow furrowed. “I don’t see…”
“We will build two walls down the length of the border,” Jameela told him. “An inner wall and an outer wall separated by a canal.”