He nodded to her analysis. "I suspect all the lives taken in the area at nearly the same time supplied the life energy. Though it might also have been the brotherhood mage that had been riding her, he actually stopped screaming halfway to the ground, and was merely twitching when I finished him off. If it was the mage, I find the irony that was included there particularly delicious.<br/><br/>As for the Brotherhood, I am of two thoughts about why they were in the area.<br/><br/>One was that it was pure coincidence. They saw a chance to get a sizable number of undead for their future endeavors, and didn't realize that the Summer Court was sending an expedition, much less the Summer Knight. I believe that was mostly likely based upon circumstantial evidence, in that they only put one mage in the diplomat group. He first tried to eliminate me, and then would have turned back and finished off the diplomats, ensuring a full war between the two nations, and they could harvest whatever they wanted from the resulting chaos.<br/><br/>Two is that they knew I was there, and were working with the Winter Court to eliminate a mostly unknown variable from the power balance between the two courts. However, this idea is insidious in that it suggests we have an active traitor, or at very least an information broker, in our own ranks, as I was assigned at the last minute to the mission."<br/><br/>He paused, gathering his thoughts, before shaking his head. "I suspect I am missing too much information to make a more reasonable or accurate guess to their motives, and that my only recent inclusion into the mysteries of the arcane mean that they have other motives and means for their actions that I am unaware of. I will include them in my future information gatherings, and will report whatever is discovered during said endeavors."