Chapter 256 - Blood Gods in Exile part 1

I had tasted the God King's blood during our battle in the depths of Fen'Dagher. Slashed his flesh with my nails and brought the blood to my mouth. And with that blood I had seen into his soul. I had seen his life as a mortal man, brutal leader of a clan of ice age cannibals, and how he was transformed by the alien Strix into a god-- the very god he'd sworn once to destroy. The god of death. And I had seen something else as well. I had seen the future. The fate that lay in wait for all of us, mortal and immortal alike, if the God King's reign went unchallenged: a world overrun by ravenous blood drinkers. If left to his own devices, Khronos would expand his terrible empire until the whole world was a reflection of his kingdom here at the foot of Fen'Dagher. It was inevitable, as a spot of rot expands to ruin the fruit, and so I swore to stop him. There in the forest on the eastern slope of the God King's mountain, I swore to raise an army against him.

But there were only five of us, and before we could ever hope to challenge the God King, we would have to escape him, not just from the Fen, the subterranean lair of the God King's perverse followers, but from his kingdom completely. Beyond Uroboros. Beyond the Dominions. Beyond the God King's influence.

Out there, perhaps, in undiscovered lands untainted by his lust, in lands his conqueror's fist had not yet crushed, we might have hope of raising an army to oppose him.

But we would have to get there first. And that undiscovered country seemed very far away right then.

We huddled there in the ice-locked forest, too shocked by our unlikely victory, temporary as it might be, to do ought but blink at one another in disbelief. Only five were left: my beloved Zenzele, the giant warrior Bhorg, the Neanderthal Goro, the vampire wolf Vehnfear and myself. Tribtoc, who had stood with us against the God King, had been destroyed during our escape. Khronos himself had laid hands on the blood drinker and ripped the poor fellow apart.

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

It seemed a rather foolish thing to say, in light of our numbers. We had barely escaped from the tunnels of Uroboros. It was sheer luck that we'd even made it this far. I felt like an impotent braggart, shaking my fists at the heavens and shouting, "You will fall!"

Zenzele turned to look toward the mountain, her eyes narrowing in thought. I could only imagine what she was thinking. She had just betrayed her god king, made an exile of herself and her companions to save me, and now I was asking her to make war on her own people. To help me destroy them!

Even though I meant them, I wanted to reach out and snatch my words from the air.

Embarrassed, I ran my fingers through the vampire wolf's coarse fur. Vehnfear lapped my cheek with his icy tongue, golden eyes gleaming. I wondered if he, too, thought I was a fool.

Finally, Bhorg laughed.

"Well, we're not likely to find your army here, little man," he said. He swung his great stone hammer to rest across his shoulder. "Not unless you have one hidden in the snow. We should get going before Khronos figures out where we are. We'll worry about making war on the cock-biter later, when we're not outnumbered a thousand to one."

I could not help myself. I laughed. And then, a moment later, Zenzele joined me.

Even Vehnfear wagged his tail in amusement.

We started away from the mountain, headed east through the cold and silent forest. Goro took the lead and the rest of us fell into step behind him. He was the only one in our group who had an actual objective. He meant to find his people, a tribe of Neanderthals who dwelled beyond the Eastern Dominions, and live among them, as I had lived among the Tanti. For lack of a better plan, we followed.

The land rose and fell in a series of rocky ridges. We moved at a steady pace, not quite a run, as there were no sign of pursuit just yet.

Even at the peaks of the jagged hills we could not see the three-tiered city, though we constantly turned to look as we retreated. Uroboros was on the southern face of the mountain so we could not tell if there was much activity in the city of the blood drinkers, but I imagined the blood gods boiling out of their aerie like angry hornets, crawling down the face of the mountain to look for us in the lower sections of the city.

The smell of the Shol came to me then—a mélange of blood and decay, burning flesh and human waste—and my resolve to destroy the God King hardened. I imagined my loved ones in that terrible pit of human misery, condemned to a brief life of pain and degradation, hard labor and humiliation, before being consumed by their vampire masters.

How many of my mortal descendants had that terrible city devoured? How many Tanti had been captured by the God King's ruthless raiders? Marched without pity to an ignominious death in the pits of Uroboros?

It didn't matter. I could not allow it to continue. I could not live in a world where that awful place existed. But I could nothing about it. Not now. Not alone. I could only flee. Flee from the city, and from the God King who had built it.

"What did you see, my love?" Zenzele asked softly, coming up behind me. I felt her hands on my shoulders, her thin form pressed against my back. "What did you see in his blood?"

"I saw the world consumed," I answered. "I saw the world overrun by T'sukuru, and all mortal men enslaved by them. I saw misery and horror without end. The world dying, shriveling like a fruit on the ground."

Goro and Bhorg had turned to listen. Goro did not seem much disturbed, but Bhorg scowled at me, then gazed toward the mountain with a thoughtful expression on his face.

Vehnfear was up ahead, sniffing at the trunk of a pine tree. He hiked his leg as any canine would do.

I turned on Zenzele suddenly, grabbing her by the shoulders. She tried to jerk away from me, frightened for a moment, then angry, her eyes flashing. "How could you stand it?" I demanded. "Have you forgotten your mortal life? Did you not love the woman who birthed to you? Would you condemn your father to that hell? Your brothers and sisters? How could you breathe with the stench of those pits rising to your quarters?"

Bhorg and Goro started toward me, coming to Zenzele's defense, but I released her and stepped away. I meant their mistress no harm.

Zenzele stroked her upper arms. She looked angry and hurt at the same time.

"It wasn't like that at first," she said. "There weren't so many of us then. And, yes, we did raid the villages of the mortals. We brought them back to Uroboros to feed on. We are predators. It is our nature. It was only later, as the city grew, and the mortals came to worship us, that we began to keep them like slave animals. We even bred them. We had to. There weren't enough mortals for everyone to feed on. The T'sukuru began to starve. We fought amongst ourselves. We even preyed upon our own kind, until the God King forbid it. Some went mad with hunger and threw themselves from the mountain. You know this, Gon. You have Shared my memories. I did what I had to do. Uroboros was my home."

I felt ashamed of myself then. I was not a blameless man. "I'm sorry, my love," I whispered fiercely. "That was unkind of me. I have also done things I am not proud of."

"It has become an awful place," Zenzele admitted, looking to the mountain. "That is why I became a slaver. Uroboros was my home, but in the end, I could not endure the suffering there. Out here, roaming the Dominions, was the only time I had peace. You are right, my love. I have not forgotten my mortal life. I have not forgotten the mortal woman who birthed me. That is why I fought for you. That is why I—" She stiffened then, her face going slack. "He has found us!" she gasped. "The Eye of Khronos turns in our direction!"

She spoke, of course, of the strange intuition she shared with the God King, the invisible tendrils she sent out with her mind. They allowed her to see things from a distance, hear the thoughts of others. It was how she had touched me that night at the lake, after Ilio left me and I was half-mad with loneliness and loss. I thought a ghost had reached out to me, that a disembodied spirit had briefly brushed my soul. It was no revenant. It was Zenzele. Her spirit calling out to me from afar. Solitude had drawn us together.

The God King possessed the same invisible Eye, and he had found us with it.

It was much sooner than I had expected.

Zenzele began to tremble. Staring toward Fen'Dagher, eyes blank except for fear, Zenzele whispered, "He is sending his warriors after us! They are racing through the tunnels even now!" She dragged her gaze from the mountain and hissed, "We have to run, my love! They mean to tear us apart!"