The steppe was a broad flat expanse of land with amber-colored grass and stunted, wind-sculpted trees. It was late in the evening, the light slanting in low from an overcast sky. The nomads saw the giant from a distance and, intrigued by the solitary figure, decided to investigate.
Bhorg planted the head of his massive stone hammer on the ground in front of him, folded his hands over the end of the handle, and waited.
“Who goes there?” the leader of the nomads called when they had come within shouting distance of one another.
“I am called Bhorg!” Bhorg shouted back.
The men consulted one another, then ventured nearer. They held their weapons at the ready, wary of the giant and his unusual behavior.
“Why do you stand there in the middle of the grasslands?” one of the men asked after they’d drawn closer. He was a short, muscular man with narrow, suspicious eyes and long, curly black hair. He was dressed in a parka made of reindeer skin, very similar to the anorak of modern Inuit tribes. He had a thin mustache and beard. “Are you waiting for the mammoth to come to you?” he asked with a smile. “If so, I’m afraid you may be waiting for a long time. We have not seen a mammoth in many moons. Hunger and death, yes, but no mammoth.”
“I have no interest in hunting mammoths,” Bhorg replied. “I am a hunter of men.”
The nomads tightened their grips on their spears, faces hardening.
“You hunt men?” their leader repeated. “To what purpose do you hunt men? For food or for sport?”
“I hunt men to make them into gods,” Bhorg answered. “I and my tribe make war on the God King of Uroboros. We need men to help us fight this war.”
“We are hunters, not warriors,” the other man said. “We have no fight with the God King, so long as his raiders leave our group in peace. And what use would we be in this war you wish to make? The gods of Uroboros would swat us like gnats. Only gods can make war on gods. That is a thing even a child would know.”
“Join us and I will make you into gods,” Bhorg replied. He smiled then, showing the men his eyeteeth. “This is in my power to do. So tell me: who among you wants to live forever?”
6
Ah, the lure of immortality!
How many mortal men have been suckered by that bait? It is a big, juicy worm dangling in the murky waters of our mortal existence. Who can resist it? Not the miserable. More than anything else, the miserable desire an escape from their suffering. Not the pious, either, for faith is but a promise where our permanence is a demonstrable fact. What of the happy, the joyous, those lucky, prosperous few? As for those men, I can assure you, even the happiest men fear death. Sometimes the happiest men fear death most of all!
I often wonder if I could have resisted such an offer myself. I like to think I could have, if my life had been different, if I had been given the choice, but that presupposes some understanding of immortality’s true cost, and that only comes with time and experience.
Perhaps, out of love for my mortal family, I might have declined Bhorg’s offer, but I can never be quite certain of that. Even I, happy as I was, feared death when I was a living man. The truth of the matter is, I probably would have convinced myself that I could protect my loved ones better, look after them more capably, if I had an immortal’s strength.
Hammon and his small band of hunters were not happy men. In fact, they were worse than unhappy. They were starved, lonely, miserable, and Bhorg’s offer, war or no war, must have seemed like a prayer answered.
To live forever!
To be gods!
Hammon had not survived so long by acting without thought. He conferred with his companions again, then returned to Bhorg. Grinning up at the giant, one eye squinted, he said, “We would hear more of your offer before we give you our decision.”
“What more would you have me tell you?” Bhorg demanded. He sighed, “A small band of my fellow blood gods are encamped on the other side of those mountains. Perhaps you would like to meet them. They can tell you more of this war we wage on Khronos.”
“How far away is this camp? How many days journey from here?”
Bhorg shrugged. “For me, less than half a night. For you, several days.”
“And how do we know you are truly a god? Big teeth do not a god make.”
Bhorg moved to the rear of the group faster than their mortal eyes could follow. To them, it was as if he had melted into thin air. They cried out, shouting the names of whatever deities they revered. Before they turned around and realized he had merely moved very quickly, he returned to his original position, taking up the same pose that he had momentarily vacated.
“What more evidence would you have?” Bhorg asked.
7
There were six of them, as I have told you. Hammon was their leader, and then there was his brother and second-in-command, Neolas, a man so like his brother they were almost interchangeable. There was also Petra, Stine, and Morgruss, and finally the two-natured Eris. They followed Bhorg east, toward our refuge in the Ural Mountains, a journey that would take the men four days to complete.
We did not know where Bhorg had gone, and Goro left the day after Bhorg departed, telling us that he was going to look for his people in the lands that lay beyond the God King’s Dominions. He’d had no luck finding his own people so far, but he was determined to keep searching. “I cannot be the last of my kind,” he said, his tone both pleading and resolute, and I could not help but feel some sympathy for him.
Bhorg, we believed, had wandered off in search of human prey. We were not concerned for his safety, or for the safety of our Neanderthal companion, though we did discuss, between the two of us, the danger of Khronos’s men attacking while we were thus divided. How would Bhorg or Goro find us if we were forced to flee?
It could not be helped.
“I do not sense any danger,” Zenzele said, glancing to the west. “But there are some blood gods who can elude my far-sight. My Eye, like the Eye of the God King, is blind to their movements.”
“If only we had such a talent among us,” I said.
“It is a rare gift,” Zenzele replied. She turned to me then, her teeth flashing. “As is this solitude. Let us take advantage of it, beautiful man!”
So we made love. Yes, of course, we did! We hadn’t made love in weeks! Vampires do not crave sex the way that mortal men and women desire it. It is not a biological compulsion, a hormonal imperative, but we desire it all the same. It is nearly as pleasurable as the drinking of blood, and when two vampires Share as their bodies lie entwined, the pleasure of the act is elevated far beyond that of mortal copulation.
We fell to the floor of the cave, our teeth at one another’s necks before we even hit the ground. We were already naked, our clothes worn to threads during our flight from Khronos’s hunters, so we did not have to pause and fumble with our garments. I pressed myself immediately inside her, shivering at the cold tight feel of her, and then sank my fangs into her neck. Zenzele bit into my jugular even as her nails dug into my buttocks, pulling me deeper inside of her.
Even now, 23,000 years later, my loins stir at the memory of her body. Her smooth, glossy black skin, small breasts and cream-colored nipples. Her narrow waist and full round hips. I need only think of her large doe eyes, her voluptuous lips and muscular thighs, to ache as a mortal man aches, to want her beneath me, feel myself inside her, taste her blood and feel her mind in mine.
We made love for hours, my immortal cock spilling again and again inside of her. For vampires, there is no refractory period. We can climax as often as we want. Vehnfear trotted up to see what we were doing halfway through. He snorted at my bum and made a whining noise, then loped away indignantly when I swatted at him. He abandoned us for the rest of the night.
When at last we were satisfied, we hunted.
There were no humans in the Urals at that time, although I probably would have avoided feeding on them anyway. We hunted for animals instead, something big and juicy. We took down a medium-sized mount
ain lion not far from the cave, and then preyed upon a goat not much further than that. We were still very malnourished from our long flight across Europe, but their blood helped to restore us nearer to our full strength.
Still euphoric from our meal, Zenzele said she wanted to climb one of the mountains. She wished to see if the elevation might extend the range of her far-sight. She wanted to see if there were any more T’sukuru in pursuit of us. She was very apprehensive about it.
So we climbed. We climbed the highest peak in sight, a sheer-faced spear of gray and white stone. We climbed until the wind howled around us like an angry spirit, trying to pry us from the mountainside, and the temperature dropped below freezing and turned the moisture on our skin to frost.
I glanced up as we ascended and saw Zenzele’s muscular bottom flexing above me, her dark maidenhood winking between her thighs. I hurried to overtake her, spreading my arms and legs so that her body passed below mine.
“What are you doing?” she laughed, twisting her upper body around.
“I am having my way with you again,” I answered. “Here, in the heavens, high above the world.” And then I pressed the hard length of myself against the icy cleft of her rump.
We were so high that the river below was a line etched in sand. The clouds were so much closer. Had I the power, I would have dragged them down and spread them across us like a gray fur.
“We’ll fall,” Zenzele protested.
“We might,” I admitted, “but I have fallen farther and lived to tell the tale.”
“I know you have,” she said, and then she twisted around beneath me so that I was supporting all of our weight. The only thing that prevented us from falling was my outré ability to adhere to porous surfaces with the pads of my fingers and toes. I willed my fingers to cling more tightly, although I doubted that would actually work. I was suddenly quite aware of how far up we were, and how easily my fingers slip when I am clinging, spider-like, to vertical surfaces. “All right, heavenly cock, have your way with me!” she said, a challenge in her eyes, and then she wrapped her muscular thighs around my hips and impaled herself upon me.
She moved as I held us to the rock face, rotating her hips in quickening circles. We did not Share, not so high above the world, where a moment of carelessness might send us plunging to the earth. Instead, we stared into one another’s eyes as our bodies glided together, the wind shrieking and trying to rip us from the sheer escarpment.
“Don’t slip!” Zenzele said, rocking her pelvis against mine.
“Not so hard,” I gasped. My right foot skidded loose, and for a moment I thought we were going to fall. I could feel our weight testing the limits of my grasp. I shoved my toe into a crevice and set my hands wider, one at a time, and managed to hold on.
“That was close,” Zenzele laughed.
“You are a madwoman!” I snarled, baring my teeth at her. I bent my head so that I could slide the tips of my fangs roughly across the flesh of her neck. Oh, I wanted so badly to bite her!
“Oh, my Gon!” she cried, and then her sex began to throb rhythmically around me.
It was more than I could stand.
Later, at the summit of the jagged peak, as the wind continued to lash us, Zenzele stepped to the edge of the drop and reached out with her invisible Eye. I squatted in the snow, my hair billowing, and admired her slim dark body. She stood, back arched, arms out to her sides, and searched for our enemies. I did not interrupt her, though I was ready to descend. The cold could not harm us, but it did not feel pleasant. In fact, it hurt. It made my bones ache like a mortal arthritic.
It was still night. Even with my enhanced senses, I could not see beyond the mountains. I wondered what it was like for Zenzele, to reach out with her far-sight. I could sense it, that invisible “eye”, straining out from her like a tentacle, shifting this way and that, how it thinned as it receded. Did she actually see as I saw with my own eyes, or was it like fumbling through a dark chamber, finding your way with your hands? I could delve into the memories she had Shared with me, see for myself, but it seemed wrong to be so cavalier with them. Rude. Like watching someone when they were unaware you were observing them. I would ask her when we had descended.
Zenzele cried: “Gon!”
I leapt up at the distress in her voice. The muscles of her upper back and arms stood out. Her whole body had gone as hard as stone. She made a croaking sound, like she was being strangled, and then she toppled forward toward the precipice.
I rushed to her, caught her before she fell.
“What is it?” I demanded. “What happened?”
“It was Him!” she gasped. Her body remained tense in my arms for a moment, and then she went limp, as if she had swooned. I carried her from the precipice, moved so that my body protected her from the wind. She roused slowly, blinked up at me, touched her brow with a trembling hand. “Khronos… he sensed me from afar. I didn’t think he could reach me at such a distance,” she said. “His thoughts swam out of the dark at me. Ensnared me for a moment. Tried to wrest me from the mountain.”
“Are you all right now?” I asked, looking angrily toward the west. “Do you still feel him?”
“No,” she said, her eyelids fluttering. “He is gone now.” Her face hardened then. She pushed away from me and said with a sneer, “I think his assault was nearly as taxing for him as it was for me. His Eye has withdrawn, returned to Fen’Dagher. I don’t think he will try that again soon.”
“All the same, take care when you use your Eye the next time,” I said. “I have his memories. I assure you, he will try to hone this skill in the future. He will try to harm us any way he can.”
Yes, Khronos was quite single-minded when it came to his enemies. He would not rest until he had conquered us, even Zenzele, whom he had loved at one time. She was his enemy now, and he would destroy her, and he would hesitate no more in her destruction than he would in mine. In fact, he might take more satisfaction in her destruction than in mine, as he would feel that her betrayal was the greater one. There is no treachery more painful than the treachery of one who was loved.
I told her as much, and she nodded distractedly. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I know. I will be careful.”
“Are there any blood drinkers in pursuit of us?” I asked.
“No, but he will send them again. Tonight, I’d wager. We will have to flee from here as soon as Bhorg and Goro return.”
“I’m sure you are right.”
“And there is one other thing.”
“What?”
“Bhorg is returning from the flatlands to the west,” she said, a single eyebrow arched. “And with a group of mortal hunters!”
8
As we descended:
“You stole his memories during our battle in Fen’Dagher.”
“Yes. I have them in my mind.”
“Perhaps you could use them to help us win this war. He is the oldest living T’sukuru. He is the First of Us. Perhaps he knows some way to destroy an Eternal. Some secret we might use against him.”
“You do not have his memories? I thought you would have taken them when I Shared with you.”
“I have them, but they are very dim in my mind. They are like old dreams. That is how it is when you do not Share directly. The memories grow dimmer with each passing. And when I try to look within them, some aspect of the God King’s awareness pushes me away.”
“That is strange,” I said. “I sense his presence in my mind, but it does not have the power to turn away my thoughts. He has no power over me at all.”
“The Sharing is different for each of us,” Zenzele said, her hands and feet moving assuredly over the rocks. “Some blood gods cannot Share at all. Or they take without giving. Or give without receiving. I have always felt the presence of those that I have Shared with. It is as if a piece of their spirit resides within my mind. Sometimes they fight me when I try to go inside their memories. Males are usually the most resistant.”
I was curious. “And what
of my memories? Do you feel my presence in your mind?”
“Yes.”
“Am I… combative?”
Zenzele laughed. “No. Your awareness is usually quite amorous.”
“Ah! But it would be!”
We had come down near the forest at the foot of the mountain. Zenzele leapt toward the treetops and I followed. We dropped down through the canopy of the wood and made our way toward the river.
“When we hunt tomorrow night, we should skin the animals. Tan them and make some new garments,” Zenzele said.
“Why? Our bodies need no protection from the elements. My people often went naked during the warm season.”
“As did mine,” Zenzele said. “But the peoples of this region are not so accustomed to nudity. They might be offended by our nakedness. If you plan to enlist them to your cause, it might be best if we clothe ourselves in mortal raiment.”
I nodded. “I’m sure you’re right. It might frighten some of the mortals if they see this bounding toward them.”
Zenzele laughed. She had a beautiful laugh, throaty and purring. “I wish I had been born among your people, my love,” she said wistfully. “You have their easy way. It is nice to laugh and be carefree. My mortal life was much more perilous than yours.”
“It was not so bad as that,” I said. “You laughed when you were a child. You had time for play.”
“Yes, we laughed. But always with an eye cast over our shoulders. I wonder if you would be so caring of the mortal world if you had grown up as I did. If you were stolen away from your family. If you were treated as property. If you were mutilated. Raped. If your mortal life had not been so pleasant.”
“I would be as I am. That is all I can be.”
“Protector-god of mortal men?” she said. “Traitor to your own kind?”
“Our own kind? What we are is not a natural thing, my love. This… creature that dwells within us, the black blood, the ebu potashu, is not of this world. I have seen it in Khronos’s memories. It will consume everything if we do not oppose it. Though it has made us into gods, we must act to safeguard the race we were once a part of. If we do not, we will betray the very men and women who gave birth to us, and that is a thing I cannot do. I was raised to revere my ancestors. I will never be welcome among their spirits if I turn my back on my people.”
The Oldest Living Vampire Betrayed (The Oldest Living Vampire Saga Book 4) Page 12