Chapter 193 - Zenzele, My Love part 12

I come to with a start, the pain still boiling between my thighs. I try to move my legs without thinking, and the agony that bolts through my body elicits a howl. I grit my teeth, trying to bite back any further sounds of pain. Breathing deeply, trying to master the agony pulsing in my crotch, I shift my body slowly until I am half-sitting. Propped against the crumbly bank of the ravine, I survey my surroundings. To my left, Atswaan and Ghinini lie unconscious, breathing softly. It is dark, the moon riding low in the branches of the surrounding trees, and their bindings are black with blood. The only sounds are the soft crackle of our fire and the whisper of the wind in the branches of the acacias.

My stomach trembles. My heart is racing. I sense something malevolent nearby. I know I am not imagining the threat because the night is too silent. Even the insects have fallen still.

Cry out if any beasts comes sniffing after the blood, the medicine woman said. Her words echo in my mind. She would not have said it if the beasts do not come, I reason.

Eyes bulging, I scan the boughs of the surrounding trees. I hear an echoing snap-- a broken branch-- and draw a breath to shout to the women who guard us from the path.

"Zenzele? What is it?" Atswaan whimpers beside me.

"Shh! Something is moving in the trees," I whisper.

"What?" Atswaan rolls over and a guttural groan escapes her lips.

"Quiet!"

Before I can say anything more, a dark shape races through the upper branches of the encircling trees. I try to follow it with my eyes, but it is swift. It circles around, and then it leaps to the bank and slithers down into the ravine.

Even as my body jerks involuntarily with surprise, the creature stands upright.

It is a man!

But he is like no man I have ever seen. He is on the other side of our guttering fire, and the low red light gleams off his flesh, which is dark and smooth and strangely glossy. It is like his whole body has been anointed in oil.

He is tall, with a heavy-boned and thickly muscled form. He has powerful slabs of muscle for his chest. Rippling arms as big around as my waist. A flat belly banded with muscle, and a face that seems carved out of some dense and impermeable stone. He is completely naked, his male organ hanging gravidly between his legs, and as he appraises the three of us-- three helpless women, bound and injured-- his bulging eyes catch the flickering orange and red light of our fire and encapsulate it so that it appears as if there is a fire burning inside his head, its light glinting out at us through the sockets of his skull.

 "A demon!" Ghinini cries, and his head jerks in her direction. He smiles, and bright white fangs show between his thick and sensual lips-- fangs as long and dreadfully sharp as the eyeteeth of the great predatory cats that roam the savannah.

I am too frightened to cry out. I have forgotten, in my terror, that we have protectors just a short distance away.

I watch as the ferocious creature inclines his head toward Ghinini, and then his nostrils flare. He sniffs loudly, his eyelids closing, then opening. Slowly. As if he is beguiled by the stench of the blood and urine soaked into the earth beneath our bodies. His face softens with pleasure, and his fingers curl-- and then he is gone!

No! Not gone! Moved, only faster than my eyes could follow.

Ghinini cries out as he crouches over her. I roll over, ignoring the pain between my legs, and watch the terrible creature dip his head into the crook of Ghinini's neck. There is a horrible crunching sound as he bites into her flesh, and Ghinini wails. He slurps at the blood gushing from her flesh as she pushes helplessly against his thick shoulders.

"AAIIIEEE!" Atswaan screams. "Big Mothers! Help us!"

The giant male's head snaps toward Atswaan, blood dripping from his chin, and then he pounces upon her.

"No! No!" Atswaan howls, battering him with her fists.

I try to aid her, but my legs are bound. I can only wriggle on the ground like a worm.

"Get away from her!" I snarl. "Sister! No! Fight him!" I grab clods of dirt and throw them at the monster.

He pays no attention to the little rain of dirt I cast in his direction. He grabs Atswaan's flailing wrists and presses her arms to the ground, and then he bites into her neck as well.

Atswaan's face is turned in my direction, and I look into her eyes as he slurps her blood. Her eyes glitter with terror and pain as he gulps greedily from her spraying arteries. They lose focus, as if she is confused, and then the life flees from them.

"No, Sister, don't go!" I sob, heaving myself across the ground toward her.

I hear cries of surprise and fear from the edge of the ravine. The Big Mothers have arrived to answer our calls for help. The demon-man raises up from Atswaan, his lips and chin and cheeks slathered with her blood, his male organ jutting out stiffly from his lower abdomen. One of the Big Mothers lobs a spear in his direction and he catches the weapon in midair. He ducks the next one, laughing, and then, quick as a snake, he lunges toward me.

He scoops me up as more spears fall upon the place where he was kneeling only moments before-- one of them driving into the meat of poor Atswaan's thigh-- and then he leaps into the air with me, moving so fast, so hard, that I am dizzied by the force of his sudden acceleration. The trees rush up to envelope us, and then we are whooshing through the twisted branches like a wind, flying so fast that I can scarcely see more than a blur of limb and leaf. He holds me to him with one arm. His flesh is so cold and hard it is like being embraced by stone, and then he leaps clear of the grove and bounds with me into the starry heavens.