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CHAPTER FOUR - THE HEAT OF BLOOD
"Enough," Nkem said, and the vampire slowly, reluctantly, uncoiled from the barbarian youth's body. Xol-Toh wiped his mouth and then pushed Nkem to his knees.
Seeing the youth submit to him so easily, so completely, brought a smile to Xon-Tah's face. His red eyes gleamed in satisfaction as he stroked Nkem's head, looking deep into the youth's upturned gaze, letting himself extend his will into those wide golden eyes, the eyes of a beast. A jackal.
He reached, long spidery fingers stroking the boy's chin scruff, then teasing that soft, sweet mouth. You are mine, stripling, he said wordlessly to the barbarian. You belong to me. You desire me. Xon-Tah felt the hot cum running down his stomach and he drew Nkem close.
"Drink," he said softly.
Not understanding why he did so, Nkem bent to lick his cum from the man's stomach until it was clean once more, then he rose and wiped his mouth. That... was deeply confusing. He liked the taste of his own seed, but this... something was wrong. He dropped one hand to stroke his steel-hard cock, then felt it slowly soften in his grip. The hot wave of arousal and need was passing.
"Enough, for now," the vampire said. "I am restored, at least."
Nkem rubbed his neck but felt only a spot of heat and a slight bit of the vampire's spittle on his skin. He felt weak, and he leaned against the wall for a bit.
"It will pass," Xol-Toh said, his words silken honey to Nkem's ears. "You are young and strong; you will feel fine in a few minutes."
Xol-Tah watched the dark youth straighten up and lead the way again. His hands shook with the effort not to kill the boy right now, but he needed him, need his youthful power and strength. Once he was free and in a town once more, then there would be a final feeding. His hands stilled as the warmth of Nkem's life spread through his body as they walked, lending him speed and strength now almost a rival to the boy's own.
"How do you plan to free us?" Xon-Tah asked.
"Grab one of the lizardmen through the bars, strangle him to death, repeat," Nkem said. It took Xon-Tah several steps to realize the young man was joking.
"Maybe not so much like that," the youth admitted. "But strangling is high on the list right now. I'm eager to have a sword in my hand once more."
They returned to the main room, then Nkem went to the gate. Several lizardmen growled at his approach, and two took up their spears to threaten him through the bars. One jabbed at him; Nkem stepped aside, grabbed the spear, and jerked hard. The lizardman slammed against the bars, stunned, and Nkem reached through them to break his neck with a swift, savage crunch.
The others hissed and whistled in their odd language and thrust spears through the bars at him as the dead lizardman slumped to the ground. He grabbed another spear and its owner quicky let it go.
Now he had a weapon.
He reversed it in his grip and drove the stone spearpoint though the eye of the nearest guard, then opened the throat of another before they fell back.
"Hah, the Sons of Sathas are just weak and stupid children like the tales all say!" Nkem said, which drove the lizardmen into a frenzy. The bar holding the door shot back and they scrambled over each other for the honor of first kill.
Nkem killed the first two through the door until the spear was torn from his grip. He punched one aside, took his sword, and drove the blade into the next. Two faced him where five had stood, but they were maddened beyond reason. They advanced into the room, forgoing weapons, falling back on their teeth and claws in their frenzy.
Nkem took a raking cut across his chest and pushed his sword through the back of the lizardman's head even as its fellow screamed and leapt at him. He went down under the slender, writhing reptile, its fangs snapping inches from his face. He grabbed hold, rolled it over, pinned it, and held on while he strangled the life from the monster. When it stopped struggling, he broke its neck.
Nkem stood, blood streaming from cuts and scrapes, and rolled his broad shoulders.
"Told you there would be strangling," Nkem said, then felt a weight settle on his back, and fangs slide deep into his neck.
Xon-Tah, maddened by the bloody spectacle, was upon him.
Nkem was paralyzed by the bite and fell to his knees as the vampire suckled at his neck, growling like an animal. There was none of the intense sexual arousal he'd felt before, just pain and weakness as the thing sucked the life from him. He wanted this, wanted his master to take his life, wanted to submit to him. He groaned softly as Xon-Tah clawed his chest, hands turned into talons.
Long seconds passed as the vampire drained him and Nkem felt his heart thudding in his deep chest. With a last effort he twisted and wrenched Xon-Tah from his body and tossed the slender man across the room to crack hard against the stone that had once bound him.
Xon-Tah twisted bonelessly in mid-air and hit he stone hard – then sprang at the youth like a hunting cat, his mouth red and gaping, his countenance no longer that of a handsome young man but more like a baboon or other beast! Red fangs set into a short muzzle gleaming razor-sharp as it scuttled towards Nkem, its speed almost unbelievable. The eyes held no intelligence, just hunger and lust in equal proportions.
Nkem jumped back and slashed his sword in front of him; Xon-Tah dodged it like he was moving in slow motion, grabbed the blade and tore it from the youth's grip. He flung it back, and it buried itself a foot into the stone pillar. Nkem rolled away from a slashing swipe, ten fell over the corpse of a lizardman.
Xon-Tah hissed and was on him, fangs seeking his throat as Nkem barely held him back. The iron-thewed youth groaned as the beast fought to plunge its fangs into his neck. The only thing that saved him was that Xon-Tah's mind was gone, consumed by the blood-madness. Otherwise, he could have opened Nkem's stomach with his foot-talons, but instead mindlessly bit at his throat. Nkem wrestled the monster across the wide room, its strength easily his equal if not more, barely keeping it at bay.
Shouting his name had no effect, so Nkem rolled them over and pinned the vampire beneath him. It growled and snapped at him as Nkem drove its shoulders into the stone floor; he slammed its head into the stone over and over, to no effect other than hissing growls that might have been laughter.
He got to his feet, threw the thin body as far as he could, and ran for the door. He closed and bolted the barred gate as the vampire slammed into it, then reached through the bars to drag his arm through. The head twisted like a snake's and sank fangs into Nkem's bicep.
All at once, the lethargy returned as the beast battened onto his flesh, draining him. He slumped, and it still drank, sucking greedily at the wound, blood running down his arm.
"No..." Nkem groaned. He was too weak to pull back, and its clawing talons dug into his arm, sought to pull his entire body through the bars. Ruby eyes wide and mad, it fed and fed, throat working audibly as it gulped his thick, hot blood. He felt weaker every second.
Nkem flailed with his other hand and found one of the spears. Eyesight dimming, he shifted his grip and then plunged it through the bars, right though the vampire's chest. The wooden shaft sank deep and came out it's back in a spray of stolen blood.
It screamed and fell back, clawing at the wooden shaft in its chest as smoke and ash swirled around the wound. It rolled and writhed in a terrible boneless dance of pain and death as it flailed on the stone floor, it's shrieks echoing through the halls. Bones showed through the translucent ivory skin, rippling, changing. Wings erupted from its back in a futile attempt to bear it away from the pain. With every passing second, it became more and more inhuman as it shed its guise, the man becoming the monster it really was.
Nkem scrabbled back from the gate and struggled to his feet. No-one was coming down the stairway. By now it was night in the world above and unlike most, the lizardmen dozed during the cool dark hours. Sluggish as they were in darkness, they could be aroused, and Nkem fancied he heard them awakening in the temple above.
Panting and weak from bloodloss, he bound the wounds on his arm and neck, took up a heavy lizardman sword, and made his way slowly up the narrow stairs.
"Thank Isha," he muttered when he emerged into the main temple area. It was empty, dominated by the massive, cracked statue of Sathas, Lord of Serpents. Great emeralds the size of hen's eggs glittered in its eyes. Ordinarily, the youth would have climbed up and pried loose the gems, but he was eager to leave. In the deep halls surrounding the temple floor, he could hear the lizardmen stirring in their warm dens, drawn by the scent of blood and the sounds of combat. It would take them long minutes to emerge, but emerge they would, in their hungry dozens.
He stumbled towards the main entrance. His heavy hook-sword lay where it had fallen, and he took it up again, savoring its weight. Feeling better with his own sword in hand, he strode out into the cool night. Amat the moon rode high and bright, casting her ivory light over the rocks.
His pack with its precious water jugs was where he'd dropped it when he was taken. Of his horse, there was no sign. Likely she resided in the bellies of several lizardmen by now.
No help for it: he shouldered his pack and trudged naked out into the tumbled desert known as the Sea of Stones, determined to put as much distance between himself and the temple as possible before morning.
Behind him, he could still faintly hear the screams of the dying vampire from deep in the catacombs.
END