Chapter 268 - Blood Gods in Exile part 13

The others did not fare so well as the hermaphrodite, though none of them shared the grisly fate of poor Stine. Hammon was made into a powerful blood drinker (probably near to your strength, Lukas). His brother, Neolas, a lesser but impressive fiend. The one named Morgruss was middling in strength but looked very… enduring, I suppose you could say. Obdurate. Dense, like granite. The skinny one named Petra was hardly more than human, his fangs small and blunt, his flesh plump and soft. He would live only a few generations, I reckoned, if he were not killed by some other, stronger blood drinker first (and he was).

Petra was the last to rise from his transformative agonies. This was near to dawn, as the rest of us sat nearby, waiting for the living blood to finish transforming his flesh.

Panting, limbs weak, he stumbled from his bedding, clutching his stomach. "Is it done?" he asked. "Have I been made into a blood god?" And then he soiled himself. Rank, runny feces spattered the ground between his feet.

"A god of excrement, perhaps," Hammon said, curling his nose at the odor. "Go bathe yourself in the river, Petra, as did we all. Wash away that mortal stench."

The others laughed as he stumbled away.

I should note, as well, that there was a very curious thing about Morgruss. His eyeteeth had come in differently than the rest of us. They had sprouted from his lower jaw, like tusks.

As far as I knew, only Neanderthals were fanged in such a manner. Morgruss must have had a Fat Hand ancestor. I thought Goro would be quite intrigued when he returned, if he still had not found any of his kind.

If he returned…!

It was possible he would not. He was not as devoted to Zenzele as Bhorg and I were.

And now Eris, I noted.

The hermaphrodite sat near to Zenzele. The two had been conversing most of the night, speaking in low voices, their conversation punctuated with soft laughter. Eris was quite taken with my beloved. His eyes returned again and again to her face, like a hummingbird to a flower. He insisted on calling her Mother, the name of their creator goddess. Each time he called her Mother was a declaration of devotion, but I was not jealous. It was not a romantic love. I think he saw in Zenzele-- a powerful and self-possessed woman-- a kindred spirit, someone to model himself on.

We were speaking of the war party that Khronos had sent after us. Zenzele sensed them crossing the steppes, and we were debating what we should do now. Should we flee from them once again, or stand and meet them in battle? Bhorg, Hammon and his brother thought we should stand and fight, and I leaned in that direction myself. There were eight of us now, and nearly half that number were Eternals. There would be nine if Goro returned.

"And what if they have more true immortals in their party?" Zenzele asked. "You are powerful, my love. More powerful than you know, but there are blood drinkers in Khronos's command who are more powerful. Many of them. We should flee again, and enlist more mortals to our cause."

Her logic was unassailable.

Still, we were men, and so we discussed how we might fight them if we did decide to make a stand here in the mountains. We debated strategies, and the trickeries we might employ against our enemies, until Hammon curled forward, clutching his belly, and said that he could not bear the gnawing in his belly any longer.

"It is just as you said. The hunger is tormenting."

Petra was returning from the river. I rose and said that we should hunt. "It will be day soon," I said, squinting into the lightening sky. "We should feed before the sun drives us underground."

We fed, and then we sought the darkness.