Kadin and the Noble's Daughter by Michael E. Shea (good ebook reader .TXT) ๐
They rode hard that night and into the late morning. Sweat poured over Kadin's face and down his braids to his back. Every step his horse took was a new lesson in pain. He passed out at least twice but Lenda's cry woke him before he fell from his mount. If he had fallen, he would have died.
At high sun, when the red orb burned hottest spotted the ragged peaks of their destination, Ava Tog Kar. The ruins looked the same as they had when he had stumbled on them three years earlier. As far as he knew, no one knew of the ruins but him.
Two of the four stone towers tapering from their wide bases to the sharp tips, had crumbled to dust. The northern wall, built of huge sandstone bricks, stood with the remaining two towers. Kadin and Lenda rode around the wall and through a path of sinister granite statues. Each was shaped either as a naked man or wom
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They made love under the red moon. She sat atop him, head back and crying within waves of pleasure. He smiled at her as she lay atop him. She smiled back.
โAgain, desert rat.โ
Kadin survived his twenty eight years by hearing and seeing everything. He saw birds in flight from miles away and tracked starving rogues across the desert in sandstorms. Yet he heard and saw nothing when the vampire entered the ruins and stepped into their camp.
The red moon lay low, half hidden past the dunes. The darkness of the sky faded into deep violet.
The vampire stood on a stone block twenty feet from where Kadin and Lenda lay naked. Kadin opened his eyes and stared, knowing the creature saw him awake but unable to react.
The being stood tall, wrapped in black cloth. His black eyes pierced into Kadinโs own. A scarf of black covered the vampireโs mouth and fluttered behind him in the chilled morning winds. He stood on the black stone above the well.
Kadin could almost see the world twisting around the vampire. He was a force of power in a dead world. He was alien, a creature of dread might and unfathomable cruelty.
Kadin stood slowly and picked up his black knife. He tightened his muscles and relaxed, knees bent and resting on the balls of his feet. He felt the heft of his knife in his hand. Though naked, he felt far from vulnerable.
Then the vampireโs mind crashed in on him. It felt heavy, pulling him down and inward. He felt black fingers closing in. He heard the vampireโs voice, deep, soothing, and horrible, speaking in a language of dark and terrifying words.
โOh sweet mother, wash us till the end of days.โ
Kadin whispered the words again and again. He forced the black tendrils out of his mind and focused on visualizing a single movement. He pushed this vision back from his consciousness, into the instinct of wild animals chased by predators.
โCome.โ The vampireโs black voice spoke huge in his mind. Kadin stepped towards him on legs that were not his own. His knife was slack in his hand. The black tentacles drove deeper. Kadin saw visions of dark sacrifice and dreadful ritual. He saw the vampire, once a man, laying upon the very stone alter upon which he now stood. His chest was ripped opened and a nightmarish horror vomited black blood onto his beating heart.
Around him, the statues came alive, twisting and screaming in pleasure and pain.
โOh sweet mother, wash us till the end of days.โ
He whispered but the vampire was strong. Each push and Kadinโs mind fell more and more into madness.
Kadin stepped in front of the vampire and looked into the infinite black eyes under the cowls of cloth whipping and twisting in the air like serpents. The vampire reached out to him with long sharp-nailed fingers covered in red blood.
Kadinโs mind fell but the animal in him triggered. The vision he pushed deep down became reality.
Kadin swept his black blade across, through the black cloth, and split open the white skin underneath. Black blood flowed down the vampireโs throat and chest. His black eyes went wide. The vampire ripped aside his cowl and tried to scream but only blood came from his mouth. Kadin felt the weight on his mind free.
Kadin kicked hard into the vampireโs chest. The vampire fell backwards and into the open mouth of the well. Tendrils of his black cloak and scarf writhed around him as he fell into the blackness.
Kadin stood on the wellโs lip, naked and holding his knife in a black blood soaked hand.
Lenda awoke and stood, holding a wool blanket in front of her ivory breasts.
โI had a bad dream.โ
They left the accursed well at dawn and rode two more days before crossing between the two huge bulls of stone and gold that guarded the gates of Gazu Bedel. The domes of the cityโs ancient temples towered over the sandstone and clay buildings. All around them merchants and slaves rushed during the afternoonโs business. The priests of the god kings, dressed in blue cowls, strode past them. Pleasure slaves cooed and let their sheer clothing slip as crowds rode past.
Lenda slipped off his horse like a swath of silk. He turned and looked at her. Her eyes swam and she smiled at him. He felt her smile all over. Without a word she slipped into the crowd and disappeared.
An hour later Kadin dismounted in front of a cheap but modestly safe house of rest. He found it when he reached back into his saddle pack. He took it out and watched the sunlight reflect in the shining gem. As the red light shined in his eyes, Kadin reconsidered his accommodations.
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