77 – Gift Horse in the Mouth

If blood had gotten as far as the seat, it implied there might be more blood on Maximilian’s clothes. I’d been distracted by the bandages back then, but it was still a bit surprising that I could have missed something to do with blood.

On that topic, what is the state of laundry for my guests? That was really not something I should have to care about, but asking Mia about the topic sounded more and more appealing. The possibility of getting another snack-to-meal-sized amount of blood out of it was enticing.

Plus, it’s another case of doing my best as a host. I’ll be damned if I give anyone an easy excuse to find fault with me.

Looking the vehicle over, I got a bit of a feeling of incongruence. I’d brushed it off earlier, when I was distracted by the blood, but it was pretty weird that the blood had seeped into the carriage body as much as it had. I seriously doubted that methods for properly waterproofing wood didn’t exist.

Even if the liquid wasn’t wiped away immediately, blood should behave close enough to water that any serious effort to prevent water damage should also inhibit or outright stop stains. The carriage looked like it was covered in a lacquer of some sort. It also felt smooth to the touch, as I would expect. But, if so, then what happened?

As I already discovered from the taste, it was just normal blood. So, what was the most likely explanation? Lower quality craftsmanship? On a noble’s carriage? The likelihood of that being unintentional was… low, in my estimation. Another sign of Lenora being disfavored?

Antagonistic as she and her retinue were, I still had doubts concerning how much of that was her own idea. I really need to try and get her to talk to me. Something to try during the day.

For now, I was done with the carriage. Time to go do other things.

As I was taking a last look around while leaving, my eyes – and nose, now that there was no other blood – lingered on the horses. Wait a moment… I froze mid-step.

All three of the beasts were impressive specimens. Large and well-groomed. Obviously they had a light gray fur color, because what else could be expected from the Steelheart family?

Most importantly, their heartbeats were rather impressive for mere animals. Not surprising for creatures this size that were bred for physical performance. It wasn’t the mere dimensions of the circulatory organs that interested me, though.

No, that would be the blood, of course. It didn’t smell particularly interesting, all things considered, but… the sheer amount of it called to me. Quantity has a quality all to its own, or however that saying goes, right?

What I was considering would definitely be considered a great offense to my guests. All my interactions with the carriage could be argued to be in good faith. Directly harming their mounts was far beyond that line. That only applies if they find out about it, of course…

Walking up to the animals, they really were large. Their backs were about at my head height, with other proportions to match. Typical noble family things, showing off even with their draft animals. Though maybe Maximilian requires such a sturdy mount, if he wants to be effective while on horseback?

Lars had said finding suitable mounts was difficult for knights practicing the Steelheart weight-manipulation technique. With Maximilian appearing to be one of the adopted knights, like my bodyguard, the same should hold for him. His relatively lower power compared to Lars might reduce the burden enough to make a horse more viable. Or he just uses it for transportation and dismounts for combat. Hard to tell.

Anyway, I had walked up to one of the horses. They were asleep, as expected for this late hour. Even this close, the blood still smelled rather bland. Better than the chicken, but worse than literally any person, by far, even the spy’s slightly bitter, maybe drugged blood.

What exactly is it about human blood that makes it so appetizing? It clearly can’t be strength, since these beasts could easily stomp a normal human. Intelligence? But why would that affect blood quality? No idea.

I stepped close to the towering beast. The horse startled a bit when I put a hand on its flank, but some gentle rubbing and patting made it go back to sleep.

My touch confirmed something. There really is a lot of blood in this thing. I licked my lips. My hunger was sated pretty well by the earlier excursion, but more was better.

Getting my meal out was going to be a bit of a chore, because I preferred not to bite into fur. Shaving some of the hair off was also obviously out of the question. Instead, I wet my fingers with some saliva and rubbed that into the skin above a blood vessel before letting it dry. For the moment, I just needed the anesthetic properties, not the healing.

When the site was good and ready, I cut a small opening with a claw and gently pulled at the blood. Faster than reasonable for the size of the wound, blood gushed out and coated my hand. Soon, I had to pause and drink up, before it overflowed.

Hmm, this is far from the most efficient way to do this. With a mental sigh, I put my mouth to the incision. I could only thank my staff that the animal was mostly clean. What small bits of dust and dried sweat remained soon went under in the flow of blood.

As expected from the smell, the horse’s blood was rather bland. Though not bad, per se, it was less palatable than the mana-rich rat blood. Not surprising, really. That didn’t stop me. Far be it from me to look a gift horse in the mouth, ha. I drank greedily. There was some near imperceptible difference in taste compared to my previous, indirect feeding. Not clear enough to identify.

After a minute or so, I was getting a bit annoyed at the slow pace. Yes, the blood flowed faster than it should, but the wound I’d made was pretty small compared to the animal. So, despite my earlier reluctance, I changed my position and bit down properly. In a spot my mouth could sort of fit on the big animal, I could only open it so much.

A bit awkward and a little embarrassing, but I couldn’t care less in the moment. The twin puncture marks truly allowed me to drink deep. Blood flowed like from a tap, leaving me constantly swallowing.

What could only be several minutes and over a dozen liters later, I finally managed to pause. I wanted to continue – there’s still so much left! – but what remained of my rationality convinced the rest that the other horses had even more.

I almost stumbled while walking to my next meal. The animal blood was thin, but the staggering amount I drank added up. It reminded me of cheap beer, in a way. I was almost drunk, a euphoric feeling enveloping me.

On the second beast, I didn’t even hesitate before sinking my teeth in. More blood flowed freely. I made sure not to waste a single drop.

An indeterminable amount of time and blood later, I half-staggered to the third horse and repeated my previous actions.

Only when I started to feel truly bloated did I manage to tear myself away from my meal.

***

I found myself sitting on the floor of the stable, near one of the horses. My recent memory was a bit hazy, but the pleasant weight in my stomach quickly reminded myself what happened.

Assessing the situation, I was relieved to find that none of the horses were dead. Though my self-control had clearly slipped as I went on, the second and especially third animal were drained pretty far. I’d go so far as to call the latter case pretty dangerous.

Survivable, probably. Debilitating, definitely.

Good that no one is planning to use these horses any time soon. At least I hope so. I could only count myself lucky that they had so much blood to begin with. If I hadn’t been full at the end there, I doubted my resolve to stop.

Tallying my gains was exciting enough to overcome those worries, for the moment. I had of course lost track, but estimating by feel and how much blood the animals had lost, this meal amounted to around forty to fifty liters of blood. To be honest, I had no idea where exactly I put all of that. I didn’t feel that much heavier, just as if I’d eaten my fill.

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At least I figured out there was a limit to how much I could drink at once. My body clearly did something to compress or otherwise refine the blood, based on the difference I felt compared to just a few minutes ago. Already, I knew I could go for more. I imagine that only works because of the low ‘density’ of the animal blood.

By volume, that was far and away the largest amount of blood I’d ever consumed. Maybe more than everything else combined, really.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly as outstanding in terms of power, I could tell. In fact, the approximately ten liters I gained from the interviews were significantly more valuable. At the end of the night, it is only animal blood.

I could probably survive indefinitely off just a few large animals, if I paced myself. The image of a vampire living as a livestock farmer was sort of funny. But there was one clear problem I immediately realized.