Chapter 209 - Uroboros part 10

Our flight from Uroboros was, for the most part, rather anticlimactic, so I shall not bore you by recounting every tiny detail of our escape.

Since Khronos had no method of raising an alarm, we raced through the maze-like corridors of the underground city without being accosted. We knocked a few blood drinkers down in our haste, and drew a few curious stares, but aside from that, little of note occurred aside from a lot of running and some zigging and zagging.

Only the Clan Masters-- true immortals like ourselves-- would have had any chance of catching us, but even if they'd pursued us immediately, we could have easily lost them in such a densely populated metropolis. There were just too many winding corridors, too many abandoned or unoccupied chambers, and the air was too thick with the aroma of their mortal thralls to follow us by scent.

Zenzele knew a neglected route that would take us to the open quickly. It let out onto a sheer drop, she said, but we could climb down by clinging to the surface of the rock.

"Do you know how to do that?" she asked.

"Of course," I said.

We climbed down on the east-facing slope of the volcano, out of view if anyone was watching from the Fen, and well away from the mortal districts below. We leapt the last fifty meters to the treetops, then climbed to the floor of the snow-blanketed forest.

There, in the cover of the forest, I embraced my savior passionately. I put my mouth over hers, pulling her tightly to my body, running my palms across her back, her buttocks. She returned my ardor, her eyes closed. She didn't immediately answer when I asked her why she had risked her life to save me.

"Khronos will not rest now until he has destroyed us both," I said to her.

"I do not care!" she said fiercely. "I would rather die free with you than live forever in service to that monster. When I Shared with you, I saw in your memories the life I might have. I want that, Gon. I want the peace that you had when you lived among the Tanti."

We heard a crashing in the treetops. A moment later, Goro and Bhorg dropped to the earth nearby.

Zenzele pushed away from me. "Tribtoc?" she asked.

Bhorg leaned on the handle of his great stone hammer. "He fell," the giant said. "Khronos himself laid hands on our companion. He pulled the poor bastard apart."

"And what of Palifver?"

The two blood drinkers looked at one another. Almost as one, they shrugged.

"Pity," Zenzele said, her eyes flashing dangerously. "We have unfinished business, he and I."

But she quickly forgot her vengeance when her wolf came bounding through the snow.

"Vehnfear!" she cried, dropping to one knee.

The wolf slid to a stop and let her stroke his back, wagging his tail enthusiastically, and then he trotted over to me.

"Hail, old man," I said, squatting down to embrace him, "you didn't let anyone follow you, did you?"

The animal looked over his shoulder as if he understood my words, ears pricked, but he didn't seem overly concerned. I stood and reached out with my senses, but heard no creature in pursuit of the canine.

"So where do we go now?" Bhorg asked, looking around the group.

"There is a small tribe of my people living in the Eastern Dominions," Goro, the Fat Hand vampire, said. "If this untrained blood drinker can live in peace among his mortal brothers, then perhaps so can this one. I would like to try it, anyway. I miss my own kind. It has been many seasons since I was made into this thing that I am."

"And what of you, Bhorg?" Zenzele asked. "Where do you wish to go?"

"My loyalty has always lain with you, Zenzele. Where you go, I go. If you will have me."

Zenzele glanced toward me.

"I would like to return to the Tanti," I said, "but I am afraid Khronos will expect me to do that. I do not wish to bring down his wrath upon my people. Or my vampire child Ilio. Perhaps we can go east with Goro. For a little while, at least. Draw Khronos's ire away from my mortal descendants."

"And then?" Zenzele asked, her eyebrows drawing together.

"We cannot hide from him forever," I said to her. "When I threw myself at him-- when I tasted his blood-- I saw into his soul. What I saw in your god king's mind, Zenzele… my heart cannot abide it. No, I do not intend to hide from him forever, my love…

"…I intend to raise an army against him."