Chapter 169 - The Vampire Thief part 3

Pudhu and Emoch's mother screamed shrilly at the sight of us, which is completely understandable, as we were moving at full speed, and it must have looked to her as if we'd suddenly melted from the darkness. Worse, we were buck naked and splattered in pig's blood. We were lucky the Tanti men, who were working themselves into a fury, did not start chucking their spears at us immediately. If not for Valas, they probably would have.

"It's him! It's him!" the boys' mother wailed, a trembling finger pointed our direction. Her eyes rolled in the torchlight, empty of all thought save for her children.

"Calm yourself, mother!" Valas snapped. "It is only Thest and Ilio!"

Priss was standing nearby, her stepmother Yorda fretting at her shoulder. Ilio ran to his wife and grasped her upper arms. "Are the girls safe?" he demanded, and when she nodded he closed his eyes in relief.

As did I.

"What has happened, Valas?" I asked, after the spears and bows and knives pointed toward me had lowered.

Before Valas could answer, Iltep, the boys' father, shouted, "You fucking T'sukuru stole my babies, that's what happened! From my very hearth!" His voice cracked as he shouted at me. His cheeks were wet with tears. Several men had taken hold of his arms-- to restrain him from chasing after the blood drinker, I assume. "Let me go, you cocklickers!" he snarled at them, twisting his body back and forth. "We can still save them!"

"There is nothing you can do, Iltep! You know it!" one of the men restraining him said, not without sympathy, and Iltep railed against him, cursing profusely.

"No man can prevail against the T'sukuru, but we are not all men here," Valas said. All eyes turned to him, and then, when his meaning was understood, toward me. Valas squinted at me. "Will you aid us against your kindred, Thest? Will you help us to save Iltep's children?"

"Of course, Brother," I said. "I told you before. I've told you all before! I have no allegiance to these blood drinkers from the east. They are no kin of mine."

Valas nodded, smiling grimly, while Iltep and his wife looked at one another in sudden hope. They all knew of my prodigious speed and strength, if not the full extent of my powers.

"Then let us be after this craven fiend, before he does harm to good Iltep's sons!" Valas declared. He hesitated, glanced down, then leered back up at me. "You might want to put some breeches on first."