“You fucking bastards!” the woman shouted, her eyes wide, lips drawn back over her teeth.
A naked Leksi Helios lay on his belly, strapped to a low iron table, his wrists and ankles circled with wide, heavy bands. His back was a mass of red and black savagely abused flesh with deep cuts from the whip and seared flesh from the pinchers. The upper portion of his thighs had been given the same brutal treatment and the soles of his feet were deeply blistered.
Krull turned his head from the pitiful sight of his captain and looked into the amused eyes of King Abalam Robeus.
“Did you come to take a look at our Pretty Boy, Milord Krull?” the king asked with a smirk. “I can guarantee you he is no longer as tight as he once was.”
One of the torturers dared to try to stop the woman from getting to the king. That man met his end when the woman’s hand thrust into his chest and the very heart was pulled from his body. At that sight, the second torturer’s eyes rolled up in his head and he crumpled to the floor like an overcooked noodle. He did not feel the foot that came down hard on his throat to crush his windpipe.
As the Lord High Commander would later remember, it was the sounds that followed which disturbed him the most. Not the sight of a vengeful woman rushing at the king with hands arched into claws or the sight of her snapping off the head of the remaining torturer who dared stand in her way. Nor was it the sight of that bodiless head being tossed away as though a piece of refuse. It was the sound that would linger in Konan Krull’s mind and wake him on dark, bitter nights and propel him to a sitting position, sweat dripping from his handsome brow.
Popping. Creaking. Rasping. Scraping. The sinewy squeal of flesh and cartilage moving—bones breaking and elongating. Jawbones thrusting in a shriek that made the flesh crawl and the hairs stand up on the arms. Fingernails growing at an alarming rate only to become thick, horny plates curved with viciousness and as sharp as a dagger’s blade. Bristling fur popping out in squeals of expansion that moved in waves down a body dropped to all fours. Legs shortening, hips and shoulders re-jointing until there was no longer anything even vaguely human about what now stood in the woman’s place. With sharp fangs glistening with dripping saliva and red eyes glowing with unspeakable cruelty, the low growl would forever remain in Konan Krull’s nightmares to underscore all the sounds that came before.
King Abalam Robeus stared at the transformed woman, his eyes glazed, and his lips trembling. Slowly, he pushed himself from the chair. He took a step to the side and when the beastess did not spring, he braved another. Then another. A faint glimmer lit the king’s steady gaze. His chin came up.
“Nice wolfie,” the king whispered. “You don’t want to hurt Abbie.”
Krull switched his attention from the king to the beastess hunched a few feet away. The hackles on the creature’s back were standing straight up. Her head was lowered, glaring at the king from under thick, bushy brows. Another low growl came from deep within the wide, furry chest.
“No, you don’t want to hurt me,” the king repeated. He took another few steps. He jerked his eyes toward a battle-ax hanging upon the torture room wall then looked back at the beastess.
Krull, too, glanced toward the battle-ax but made no move to go after it to keep it out of the king’s hands. Instinct had warned him that he would distract the creature from its objective should he move so he stood where he was, drawing in quick, shallow breaths, his hands flexing at his side.
“Nice, nice wolf,” the king said. Then he turned to lunge for the battle-ax.
The beastess sprang up on her hind legs and propelled herself forward. Her front legs closed around the king’s hips and brought him down—a foot away from the protection of the weapon hanging on the wall.
Backing away from what he thought was about to happen, Krull realized his captain was awake and, with his head turned toward the scene about to unfold before him, smiling weakly.
With infinite care so as not to mar the flesh, the beastess ripped at the clothing of the king and bared his backside. His plump ass lifted into the air as he scrambled to break free. Screaming with fear—his dirt-packed fingernails scraping the stone floor in an attempt to gain purchase—Abalam Robeus was striving to move away from the danger behind him.
But the avenging creature pinning him had no intention of letting him go. With one savage swipe of its mouth, she tore off both the king’s nether cheeks. The agonized shriek that followed reverberated through the torture room and a sickening stench wafted through the air as the lower intestine pulled free of the man’s body along with his flesh.
“Gave new meaning to ripping him a new one,” Krull would later joke.
Aye, Krull thought as he watched the unbelievable spectacle playing itself out—it was the sounds that would forever remain in his consciousness.
The yowls of agony ripping from the throat of Abalam Robeus, the snarls of the beastess as it devoured the thrashing man.
The smacking. The crunching. The wet sloshing noises that turned the stomach. The resonance of veins snapping and heart snatched from a splintered rib cage.
When the last agonized scream had faded and what was left of the king lay oozing upon the floor, it was the loud, piercing howl of conquest that broke from the creature’s throat that would become the stuff of nightmares for the Lord High Commander of the Venturian Forces.
And it would be many years before he could free himself of the sight of woman turning to beast then turning back again in the blink of an eye. As he stared at her, Kynthia transformed. Hunkered down before him—naked as the day she had been born and covered in the blood and gore of her vanquished enemy—she turned her head and looked up at Krull.
As brave as any man to walk the face of the earth, Konan Krull knew the only moment of sheer terror he had ever experienced as he stared into the brutal eyes of Leksi’s woman.
“Is…he…alive?” she managed to say, for the fangs had not yet retracted into her mouth.
Krull shifted his gaze from her to Leksi. “I think so,” he whispered.
Wearily, she got to her feet and padded over to her lover. She knew before she ever laid hands to him that he was dying. His eyes were open but were fixed, the pupils dilated.
“Come here, warrior,” she told Krull.
The Lord High Commander swallowed hard before taking a few steps toward her. When she glanced back at him with impatience, he felt his bowels threaten to loosen.
“Come here!” she ordered.
He would later tell his beloved Isabell that it wasn’t fear that propelled him forward as though shot from a cannon. It was the look in the woman’s eye.
“Take up that dagger,” she said, “and make a cut here.” She put her hand on Leksi’s back. “Not too deep. About half an inch.”
“What?” Krull questioned, his forehead creased.
“Just do it, fool!” she thundered.
Stooping to pick up the dagger one of the torturers had been using on Leksi, he took a quick look at the warrior and knew he was beyond help. Nevertheless, he did as he was ordered though cutting Helios hurt Krull’s heart.
Astounding Krull further, the woman stretched out on the floor on her belly. “Now cut me in the same place, but deeper.”
His mouth open, eyebrows raised, Krull was about to protest but again the look she shot him stopped him. He squatted down beside her and used the blade on her smooth back, wincing as she flinched from the pain.
“Spread the flesh apart until you can get your fingers inside the cut.”
Krull would later tell Kratos that he thought the woman had lost her mind. He would have balked at her demand if she had not been glaring up at him with eyes that dared him to disobey so he did as he was told. He told Kratos—
“I had to make the incision wider to get my hand inside. I knew I was hurting her but it was what she wanted, what she demanded I do. She instructed me on how to pull the flesh apart and what to look for inside her. When I found that grayish-green honeycomb of wriggling bodies neste
d inside her, I had to turn away and throw up.”
“Pull one out and be quick about it, Krull. He’s dying!”
The writhing thing he drew up from the woman’s body was the most disgusting, hideous thing he had ever seen. It lashed against his hand—its spiked tail slashing at his flesh—and the triangular head whipped back and forth. The slit of a mouth with its fierce rows of tiny teeth tried to bite him.
“Drop it on the warrior’s back,” she ordered. “Now!”
Krull did not give himself time to question that order. He wanted to get rid of the thing in his hand so he took a quick step to the table upon which Leksi lay bound and practically threw the loathsome creature onto the dying warrior’s back.
Staring with shocked eyes as wide as saucers, Krull watched the beast lift the upper portion of its body then dive into the warrior’s back, disappearing quickly.
“Is it in?” she asked weakly.
“Aye,” Krull replied, the gorge rising in his throat.
“Then leave us,” she said. “You should not be here when he Transitions for the first time.”
“Transitions?” he questioned.
Forcing his eyes from Leksi to the woman pushing herself up from the floor, Krull could not believe what he was seeing. The wide, deep cut he had made into the woman’s back had closed up as though it had never been made. Despite the caked blood around where the wound had been made, her flesh was as unblemished as the rest of her.
“Can’t you do anything you’re told without being browbeaten into it?” she snarled at him as she gained her feet. She reached out to shove him. “Get the hell out of here!”
Krull narrowed his eyes. “You’re a bossy little bitch, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Go,” she said, waving him away. “I can control him—you can’t.”
One look at Leksi Helios told Krull no one would ever control the warrior again. His eyes were open, staring, glazing in death. His chest had ceased to move.
“Wench,” he began but she turned her back on him.
Grief was welling up inside Konan Krull for he loved Leksi like a brother. To have had the warrior die in such a horrible way brought out the berserker in the Lord High Commander.
“I want to kill every last one of them,” he said, tears flooding his eyes.
“Then go do it if you think you can, else stay outside and wait for us. Not even the warrior and I together can slay the lot of the Pleiadesians. It will take the Sisters and your people to help us.”
Krull shrugged away what he thought was a stupid remark. It was true the Venturians would need the help of the Amazeens and Hell Hags as well as the Daughters of the Multitude to crush Abalam’s war troops. In order for that to happen, he and the woman needed to quit Nebul and go back to bring their own forces to bear against the murdering horde.
“I’ll wait outside,” he said listlessly.
Kynthia laid the backs of her fingers on Leksi’s still cheek. “Reaper?” she whispered.
Give the fledgling time to heal him, wench. Your man will survive.
Cainer Cree’s voice was soft and encouraging in her ear. She believed him for he had no reason to lie to her. Bending down, she placed a gentle kiss on Leksi’s brow then set about unshackling his wrists and ankles. When his limbs were free, she knelt down beside him and waited for the Transition she knew would come.
* * * * *
Krull was squatting down with his back to the wall. His forehead was braced on his arms. He had repeated the Litany of the Wind for Leksi twice and had started on the third recitation for the Repose of the Warrior’s Soul when he heard the sounds begin once more in the torture room down the corridor from him.
Tiredly, he lifted his head and listened, his face turned toward those sickening sounds. A part of him wondered if she was devouring Leksi’s body and he knew anger almost as fierce as the one that had caused his grief. Another part of him thought perhaps that was the best way to send Leksi to the Realm of the Wind. Let him forever be a part of the woman he loved so deeply. In a way, the warrior would live on.
At least as long as the she-creature drew breath.
After a while, when the howl of victory came, Krull closed his eyes and lowered his head to his arms once more. He was bone-tired, sick of spirit and his heart ached with a sorrow he knew would never leave him for as long as he lived.
“Never is a long time, my friend.”
Very slowly, the Lord High Commander raised his head, and when he looked up, his eyes grew wide and his face lost its natural ruddy color. His lips parted.
“Let’s get out of here, warrior,” Kynthia demanded. “We should be able to get past the guards easily with the both of us casting fog.”
“Is that like farting, wench?” asked a laughing voice.
Krull could only stare at Leksi Helios. He knew the warrior had died. There was no doubt in his mind.
“Do you see even one little bruise on his body, warrior?” Kynthia asked with an amused snort.
Staring at the man standing before him, Krull could find not one mark upon his naked body. There were no cuts or scrapes, no burns or bruises. There wasn’t even any blood streaking his flesh.
“I laved him with my tongue as any she-wolf would her mate,” the woman remarked as though she had read his mind. “That’s why he’s so clean.”
Krull’s face screwed up with distaste at the remark and he swallowed hard. He gagged, and pushed up to his feet and turned his face away.
“He’s going to heave, wench,” Leksi warned and pushed his lady back.
They watched the Lord High Commander relieve his gut of whatever was left in it then gently took his arms in their hands.
“I’ve of a mind to get out of here, Your Grace,” Kynthia said as they ushered Krull down the hall, one to either side of him. “How ‘bout you?”
“I’d like to find at least a pair of britches first, wench,” Leksi said, his face burning.
“I like you well enough naked, milord,” Kynthia responded with a giggle.
“Aye, well, my dangly is cold,” Leksi complained.
“Oh, my!” came a gasp.
The trio looked back to see Princess Clea standing like a statue, a hand to her mouth. Her eyes were wide as she stared at Leksi’s unclothed body.
“Wench, do something!” Leksi whined.
Shrugging—her face stretched with a wide grin—Kynthia lifted her arm and mist rose up from the floor, obscuring them from Clea’s shocked stare.
“She’ll think she dreamed it,” Kynthia said as they walked quickly past the woman.
Leksi looked back over his shoulder at Clea as the Princess fanned the thick mist in a concerted effort to clear away the obstruction.
“She’s trying to get another look at your dangly, warrior,” Kynthia laughed.
“I need britches!” Leksi stated, his eyes flashing amber fire. “My cock is cold!”
“Take matters into your own hands, then, and shut the hell up,” Konan hissed.
It took the trio but a few extra moments to find a guard room and allow Leksi and Kynthia time to find clothing and dress. All the while, Clea was stumbling down the corridor, her arms windmilling in front of her as she tried to find her way through the thick mist.
* * * * *
Cainer Cree stretched out on the cliff overlooking Achasán Island. He was lying on his belly, staring at The Levant, the airship that had brought him to this accursed land, his chin propped in the cup of his hands. His youngest Reaper was safe with her mate and riding alongside the one called Krull on their way to the Amazeen lands.
The Reaper sighed. His work with Kynthia was over. Like any good parent, Cree knew he needed to cut the apron strings so he made a vow not to answer Kynthia should she seek him out again unless it was vitally important. It would be up to her to teach Leksi Helios what he needed to know about being a Reaper.
As he had with almost all the other seekers whom he had made into creatures like him, he felt sadness at the severing
of the parental bonds. He would miss the interaction and would once more know the bitter loneliness of his position until the next seeker came to ask his help.
“You would not know such loneliness if you had not denied me, my sweet deargs dul.”
The voice was sultry with a deep tone that made his staff move.
“Have you brought me another seeker?” he asked, not looking up at the goddess who had stepped down from the vastness of the heavens to torment him.
Morrigunia, Goddess of Life, Death and War came to sit beside her prisoner. She wore a voluminous gown shot through with delicate silver threads. In her long blonde hair, she wore a circlet of pale pink flowers knotted amongst ivy.
“There is one waiting but it will be a while before I send him your way,” his wardeness replied. “He’s not ready yet.” She cocked her head to one side. “What think you of the female Reaper you made?”
“No more women,” he vowed. “Not from my body, anyway.”
“Not directly from your body, perhaps,” she said. “But there is another, made just this week, I believe.”
“Khnum’s doing,” the Reaper said with distaste. “Her name is Neith.”
“Ah, yes. Neith. She is one to be watched.”
“Khnum needs killing,” he told her.
“He was the first one you made, wasn’t he?” she asked.
“Aye,” he replied, his teeth grinding. “You brought him to me before I even knew what all this was about and he has made an entire race of Reapers.”
“The Ordonese,” she sighed. “That was a mistake on my part to allow that to happen, but all will be set to rights eventually. That tribe will die out.”
There was a long silence between them then Morrigunia turned to look out at the flying ship.
“Are you still writing in your journal, my beloved?”
The Reaper cast her a hateful look. “How could I when you took it from me long ago, Morrigunia?” He narrowed his eyes. “What did you do with it, anyway?”
She shrugged. “It is safe for now. When it is needed, it will surface.”
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