02 - Lords of Destruction

by James Silke - (ebook by Undead)

  His drab tunic was torn and filthy, and his body was blistered and heaving with exhaustion. He had obviously raced from En Sakalda to meet with her just as she had ordered him to via carrier eagle.

  Without speaking to him, she glanced at a nearby group of prostrate, fearful bat soldiers.

  Spotting the officer in charge, she shouted, “Get up, Captain.” He jumped up, and she added, “I want armed patrols guarding every trail to Pyram! And I want every caravan, every traveler, stopped! No matter what their credentials. If this Death Dealer is spotted among them, do not attack him, but report back to me here. Immediately! Everyone else is to be killed. Do you understand? No traveler is to reach Pyram alive. And strip the women so Schraak here,” she pointed with a booted foot, “can inspect them. I am not taking any more risks. Now send out your patrols!”

  The captain saluted and ran about shouting orders. The sergeants instantly repeated them, and the depot burst into noise and action. In moments patrols were riding off in all directions. When they were gone, only the small depot garrison remained and the area became quiet, motionless. All eyes watched the young queen.

  She turned back to Schraak. “So, the girl not only eludes me again, but this time her protector kills Lord Baskt. How did this happen, worm?”

  “He… he was stronger,” Schraak said hesitantly.

  “What?” Tiyy snapped. “Don’t talk like a fool! Get up! Look at me and tell me what happened.” He struggled up. “They… they fought. With sword and axe. And the Barbarian was truly Lord Baskt’s equal. It was evident to everyone. But when he put on the horned helmet, he was stronger.”

  “Stronger?” Her tone was incredulous.

  “Yes! It’s true. I swear it!”

  She nodded. “This Barbarian is proving to be almost as interesting as the girl. What else have you learned?”

  “Cobra rides with them.”

  “Cobra?” Her large, sloping eyes were suddenly alarmed. “She’s alive? Are you certain? Why didn’t your message mention this?”

  “I wasn’t sure at first. She seemed different. Older. But just before they rode off, I heard her speak and knew it was her.”

  “So,” said Tiyy quietly, feeling a sudden new threat and relishing the rush of excitement that came with it, “Cobra is alive… and has somehow allied herself with this brute she had sworn to destroy.” She put her eyes on Schraak. “And you say she looked older?”

  “Yes. By ten years easily.”

  Tiyy smiled with churlish malevolence. “Then she’s lost her powers! Become a mere woman again! And a foolish, desperate one, at that.” Schraak frowned in confusion, and she chuckled. “It is finally making sense why the girl has come here to hide in my domain. Somehow Cobra is controlling her, as well as this Death Dealer, and leading them to Pyram.”

  “But that would be madness,” protested Schraak. “For anyone else, yes,” she said, “but not for the Queen of Serpents. She has always had far more cunning than anyone is entitled to. And with her powers gone, I doubt if there is anything she won’t risk.” Tiyy smiled knowingly. “She is going to try and steal the jewels. There can be no other answer. It’s the only way the slithering bitch can regain her powers now.”

  “But she could never reach Pyram!”

  “Couldn’t she?” Tiyy asked mockingly. “If you believe that, then you know nothing about the woman you once served.” She looked out over the endless landscape of rounded hills. “She knows every trail in these mountains, even in the dark. So they’ll travel at night to avoid my patrols.” She turned on the small man. “And if she reaches Pyram, she’ll find a way into the castle. She knows of tunnels in the rocks even I have not explored. And the castle garrison is weak, perhaps even too weak to stop this Death Dealer.” She nodded to herself. “He must be destroyed! And here! In these mountains. Tonight!” She smiled ruefully at the dark foreboding entrance of the largest cave. “And he will be. Get a torch and follow me.”

  Schraak hurriedly found a torch, rejoined Tiyy at the mouth of the largest cave and led her inside holding the flaming light in front of him.

  Muffled fluttering greeted them and thousands of small eyes peered out of the hovering shadows of the huge cathedral-like cave. Schraak hesitated nervously, and the guttering torch cast moving light over row upon row of bats hanging from the rimstone ledges, stalactites and pillars, knobs and warts. Recruits for the nymph’s army of bat soldiers awaiting induction and transformation.

  The pair moved deeper and deeper into the meandering cave, tromping on a dark brown powder, millions of years of bat guano many feet deep. The cave grew smaller and smaller, and at the deepest point they crossed over a natural bridge of rock, spanning a stream, and entered a low tunnel. They followed it and came to an interior cave over a hundred feet high. It was silent except for the voices of wind passing through unseen flumes and holes.

  Schraak used his torch to light an oil lamp carved out of the rock wall and it guttered to life, casting an orange glow into the cavern. It appeared to be empty. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, but the ground was cleared except for the deep mold of bat manure. At the sides, smaller caves and tunnels opened onto darkness, and at the back, a barred wall caged off a large shadowed gallery.

  A door at the base of the cage wall was chained shut. Inside the cage was a throne large enough to seat a pair of well-endowed elephants. It was carved out of stone and inlaid with colored stones in the shape of cyphers and numerals and signs. Pillows, each of them large enough to serve as a bed for a child of six, were heaped on the seat.

  The pair stopped before the chained door, and Schraak looked uncertainly from the empty throne to his queen. Her dark cheeks had turned hot under their orchid rouge, and her erect breasts looked suddenly untamed, as if a man would be smart to find a whip and stick before getting in bed with them. He hesitated, peering curiously into the cage and asked, “Is someone there?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Lord Menefret.”

  He turned sharply, gasping.

  She smiled. “Yes. The transformation is almost complete. All he needs is one more feeding.”

  “But you’re not strong enough.”

  “I have no choice,” she interrupted, her quarrelsome eyes turning on him. “This Death Dealer must be found and killed tonight.”

  “But what if you weaken? He could drink you dry!”

  “I am aware of that. That’s why you’re here. You know my strength is not what it should be, but the others do not. And they must not know. If,” she hesitated, “if I do weaken, you must take me out of the cage, and not let anyone see me until I have recovered.”

  “But it’s too great a risk.”

  She smiled at that and said, “What you fail to understand, Schraak, is, the greater the risk the greater my pleasure. Now, open it!” Her breathing began to race, and her pointed breasts heaved with budding cruelty. “Open it!”

  Schraak set his torch on a rock, hurriedly ran the chains through the grillwork, tossed them aside and swung the iron gate open with a noisy squeak. Tiyy nimbly slipped under the low arch, and he closed the door behind her with a discordant clang.

  Slowly, he backed up to a fallen stalactite, and trembled. His grey blistered flesh was slick with slimy sweat, and he smelled of fear.

  With swift agile leaps, Tiyy mounted the rocks forming the base of the huge throne and stood facing it. Gasping. Expectant. The front edge was level with her petulant breasts. She took hold of it and muscled her body up, swinging her legs onto the seat. There she stood slowly, peering into the shadows of the gallery. Stretching sensuously, she sprawled on her back among the massive pillows, abandoning herself to their comfort. Against their massive proportions, she looked like a live toy doll.

  Removing her mouth harp from her breechclout, she played a haunting phrase three times, then tucked it back in place and waited. Flushed. Body subtly undulating with anticipation.

  There was no sound but the faint drip of a stalactite somewhere. No movement but gut
tering torchlight too weak to penetrate the deep shadows filling the back of the gallery. Then a speck of light glittered on something wet sixty feet above the throne. A pair of small eyes.

  Tiyy smiled coyly and said huskily, “Yes, Lord Menefret, it’s me at last. Now come down here! Quickly! Today you will feed as I promised you you would feed… and tonight you will have powers like none of my lords has had before.”

  There was a fluttering sound, then the eyes dove forward, and a large bat swooped into the guttering light.

  It darted and dove in the air above the throne, its wings flapping, swimming through the air rather than floating. A faint high-pitched clicking came from it, and grew louder and louder as the sound echoed around the cave. It swept through narrow crevices and small loops of hanging stone, passing within inches of jagged rocks in a display of aerial acrobatics. Strong. Proud. Grotesquely beautiful. Then it dove at Tiyy and came to a hovering stop in front of the throne.

  A vampire bat.

  Its fluttering wings were a full two feet wide and made of thin, almost transparent membrane. Its body was a dark grey-brown. Blunt muzzle hung low between pointed ears and flaming-red eyes. A tiny onyx earring dangled from one furry ear, a black triangle with three red circles on it.

  The creature darted off, then back, this time brazenly hovering within inches of the reclining nymph’s face. Mouth spread displaying long fangs. Eyes horrid with hunger.

  Without flinching, Tiyy smiled directly into the ravenous eyes and whispered, “Patience, my lord. Patience.”

  The furry vampire bat clicked excitedly, and its dark tongue shot out. There were tiny grooves on its underside and in the lower lip, drinking straws that ran back down the throat.

  The Nymph Queen’s eyes thinned with desire. Her orchid cheeks pulsed. She stirred languorously beneath the bat, sinking back against a pillow and turning an inviting bare shoulder to its mouth.

  The bat fluttered and dropped onto the fleshy perch, its clawed feet holding the nymph’s sacred flesh without breaking the skin. Its wings spread wide casting deep shade across her heated face, and fingerlike wingtips embraced her, holding her by neck and hair.

  Tiyy moaned slightly, and her lips parted, her breath now coming in sharp gasps.

  The grotesque muzzle opened wide, displaying a dark pink mouth filled with sharp teeth, and the upper incisors buried their razor-sharp tips into her earlobe. Tiyy groaned, and her knees gathered up around a pillow, the pleasure of the brutal kiss so great she could barely bear it. Then the tongue lapped the wound, drinking her blood.

  A warmth flooded through her and she surrendered to its ecstasy. “Yes! Yes! Drink deep. Tonight you must be strong.”

  In reply the vampire bat bit deeper. She gasped with pain and took hold of its chest, holding it in check. She let it drink, then gasped, “All right! That’s enough.” It continued, and she pushed at it, gasping weakly, “Stop. I’m growing faint.”

  The bat let go, then bit her neck, sucking hard. She shrieked in fear and began to beat at it, shouting, “Schraak! Schraak!”

  The small man ran for the gate and fell.

  Tiyy rolled across the throne, the bat clawing up ropes of her blond hair and scratching cheeks and shoulders. “Stop! Stop!” she howled, and finally forced him off.

  He darted into the air, and shot back at her as she sat up, dropping lustily on a thrusting breast. She screamed and fell back beating at him. Her blows had no effect, and his incisors dipped into a lower swell, drinking ravenously.

  “Aahhhhhhhh!” she moaned, and the strength went out of her arms. They fell to her sides like speared birds, and she sank back among the pillows in total surrender. Groaning with pleasure. Thrusting her opulent flesh to the sucking tongue.

  When Schraak came through the gate, the spectacle of the vampire rodent embracing his holy queen stopped him cold. All color was draining from her body. Panicking, he started up the rocks, shouting, “Stop! Stop! He’s murdering you!”

  Tiyy’s eyes snapped open, and she blinked uncertainly, her eyes fogged and vacant. Then they focused on her own shoulder. Its dark walnut flesh was turning white.

  “Arrrrggggh!” she screamed, and viciously thrust the bat away, rolling onto her hands and knees.

  The bat swooped and dropped on her back, driving her forward. She fell off the throne and rolled on the hard ground. When she looked up, Schraak had disappeared. Then he burst back in, thrusting his torch at the bat. It let go of her back, darted aside and up into the blackened shadows, squealing in complaint.

  Tiyy stumbled down the rocks, and Schraak gathered her in his arms, then carried her out, kicking the gate shut behind them.

  He set Tiyy down against a smooth rock, and the two sat gasping for breath. Her head hung limply, and her exhausted body heaved. A loud clicking sound came from the cage, and their heads snapped up, fear tearing at her tyrannical beauty.

  Smoke was swirling high in the gallery, like moving shadows. Flames blazed within their dark embrace, and thunder roared from it, dispersing the greyish-brown clouds. They swirled down over the throne, filling the cage. Gushing sounds and shrieks followed, then the smoke drifted between the bars of the cage, dispersing itself throughout the cave. Slowly, through the thinning smoke, a huge creature could be seen perched on the throne.

  Its body was thirty feet high. A monstrous vampire bat with wing thumbs as long as Tiyy’s legs, and as thick as sapling oaks. A predator descended from the primordial past, a creature of ten thousand years of breeding and dark magic.

  A Lord of Destruction who was also Lord of the Night.

  The monster whipped his wings wide, bowing subserviently to the savage nymph, and the force of the wind they created made Tiyy and Schraak gasp for breath. When the wind subsided, Schraak looked fearfully at the creature in the cage, then at Tiyy. Her color was back, and she was smiling.

  “This Barbarian cannot protect her now,” she whispered.

  Thirty-Three

  SLAUGHTER

  Gath climbed silently down a gash in the side of the cliff. Shadows filled it, hiding his movements except for pins of orange fire thrusting from the helmet’s eye slits. Wild fire held in check by the pride of a man. Twice his chain mail tinkled on the night’s silence, then he reached the shelf of earth overlooking the lower road and squatted there. Listening. Watching.

  He did not hear a sound, or see a sign of anything that was alive on the road. But still he waited. Murder rode the night the way the winter wind rides through the forest canopy.

  He was in the middle of the towering Breasts of Veshta. Far above him, beyond the boulders lining the shadowy crest of the cliff, his four companions hid as they awaited his return. The troupe had crossed the plain and, following Cobra along almost undetectable goat paths, moved high into the mountains without incident. Then the white eye of the full moon came out from behind the cloud cover and cast its cold light on a frightening sight on the road below, and they decided to hide while Gath investigated.

  Still hearing and seeing nothing, Gath crawled to the edge of the shelf and looked down at the road. Slowly the light went out of his eyes.

  What lay silent on the road was not like any caravan he had seen before, or hoped to see again. There was something disturbingly unnatural about it, something out of place.

  Dead horses, baskets and overturned wagons were strewn for fifty yards up and down the road, as if the caravan had panicked and fled in both directions. The gear on the animals had not been removed, and the baskets and wagons had not been pillaged. The dead bodies of the travelers were lying in two neat rows at the center of the debris, as if lined up for inspection. The men were of mixed races, and also did not appear to have been robbed. A few wore robes and turbans, the others wore rags and chains. But they were not separated. Slaver was lying beside slave. The women, however, were set apart, and had been stripped naked. All wore chains, and were healthy and attractive, the kind who normally survive a long trail. Their bodies were bloody, and wore dark wound
s.

  Gath studied the gruesome scene carefully. As horrible as it was, it was still just a scene of slaughter, and he could not detect what made it appear so unnatural.

  He stood, intending to descend to the road, but hesitated, hearing someone descending the gash in the cliff above him. A figure landed quietly on the shelf, and Jakar stepped into the moonlight, nodding in greeting. He held his loaded crossbow with his splinted broken arm. Robin had rebandaged it, and it now served him nearly as well as his good one. Whispering, he explained his presence.

  “Brown John told me to take a look… in case I might see something you might miss.”

  Gath took no exception and nodded down at the road. Jakar moved to the edge of the shelf and studied the scene. After a moment, he whispered, “Uh-oh! I saw this kind of madness once before. It seems to amuse certain kinds of savages… the heads are on the wrong bodies.”

  Gath looked back at the caravan, finally understanding where the unnaturalness came from, and they moved silently down to the road. There they advanced to the bodies, and Jakar grunted in shock, “Mother of Death!”

  The heads were indeed on the wrong bodies, but that was not where the cruel joke ended. The legs, arms, feet and torsos of the men had been hacked and torn apart, and then reassembled with no effort at getting the arrangement correct. On the contrary, a skillful and successful effort had been made to make the dead men appear as preposterous freaks. Whoever had done the work had had a sense of humor, but it was not the kind that would make a normal man laugh.

  A less imaginative effort had been given the women. They were only partially dismembered. Head matched neck, leg matched hip, and arms belonged to the shoulders. The women had been healthy, young and attractive, and in death were cruelly beautiful.

  Jakar moved away, and was sick in a shadow. When he rejoined Gath, the Barbarian was squatting beside one of the women, holding her severed arm. It was almost white. He used it to point out to Jakar that each of the women also had one severed white arm, then handed the arm to Jakar.