A Thrust into Darkness

The wind swept the shores of Torment Lake on a blindingly bright day for the middle of autumn. A festival had been prepared for the Night of the Dead, Sowayn, and the sa'necari would celebrate it with death and dark rites. King Waejonan had insisted that I attend with my wife and son. I had learned the lessons of my father. I had tried to harden my heart to grief, to all emotion, but it was difficult since I had been raised to love.

I watched the soldiers setting out the bleeding tables on the beach for mortgiefan and raising the scaffolds for more impalements. The numbers of my uncle's sa'necari cult were growing. They ruled through terror and cannibalism. I had learned the rites, but always found a means to side-step participation in them. My uncle was losing patience with me. Had I held any hope of escaping to another land, I would have taken my family and fled. But all who tried to escape died on the poles with their families. I had tried discreetly for ten years to find my other two sisters and failed.

"Nighthand." Waejonan walked up and slapped me on the back.

I turned and acknowledged him pleasantly, knowing that anything else would be punished. "Uncle Waejonan, it was nice of you to invite us to observe the festival in the capitol."

"I have many special treats prepared for you before the day is out, Nighthand."

I forced a smile, forced my hands not to tighten into fists of frustration and distress at my sides, as Waejonan directed me down among the bleeding tables. I realized that this day I must take a life in the rites of rape and death called mortgiefan or die myself in them.

A crowd of onlookers had begun to gather. Soldiers moved them back from the area around the bleeding tables where only the participants would stand. A scream rent the air and I looked up with a shudder. The first impalements had begun. My stomach soured and, as always, the image of my father dying like that flashed through my mind. Waejonan had forced me to watch it as an object lesson in obedience.

They stopped at a bleeding table where a young mon was secured nude. She could not have been more than twenty, yet she looked haggard and worn. I guessed that she was a castoff from one of the military brothels. I refused to allow myself to feel anything as I looked down at her.

"That one is yours," Waejonan said.

My stomach tightened and I made one last attempt at refusal. "My uncle, I am not ready…"

Waejonan snarled. "You are more than ready. You have been ready for years." Then he pointed at a nearby table where a small nude child of five lay belly-down and bound tightly. "You will do her now, or I will do your son… I did Brandrahoon's children … every single one of them."

I swayed in shock as if someone had slammed me in the head. "Tobrin?"

The bound child whimpered, "Daddy…"

I wanted with all my heart to go to my child, but dared not tempt Waejonan with anything that might be considered weakness or defiance�depending on how his uncle chose to interpret it. Only utter obedience would save them both. Without another word, I disrobed for the rite. Acolytes came forward and drew obscene runes upon my body with scented oils mixed with black pigments. The staccato pounding of my heart grew loud in my ears. Part of me wanted to scream in outrage and another wished to cower. They led me to my place between the sacrificial victim's legs. Waejonan placed a death-runed blade in my hand, folding my fingers over it. My member remained soft and I prayed it would not rise. Waejonan seized my cock, awakening it with a touch of his sensuality. I cried out in a mix of pleasure and anguish. Waejonan guided me into the victim and withdrew to watch. My balls tightened and my cock ached with need as I began to move inside her, arching my back to take myself deep. Chanting rose around me, drawing me into their rhythm, forcing me to match it with my thrusts. Her weeping became a counterpoint song to the chanting. My blade hovered above her body. I felt my awareness of my surroundings fading, narrowing to the center, which was the young mon into whose body I plunged and moved.

"Now stick her," Waejonan whispered.

I brought the blade down into her belly with a twist. She screamed, yet I barely heard it through the trance state.

"Again, higher," Waejonan commanded.

I shoved the blade into her chest. I could feel my loins gathering pressure to spill my seed into her dying body.

Waejonan grasped my hand, moving the blade over to the other breast, preparing me to slip it into her heart. "Finish!"

I exploded inside the mon and drove the blade into her heart in the same moment. Her soul shattered. I felt myself sucking up pieces of it in a rush of fire through my being. Giddiness enveloped me. I had never felt so powerful before, so lifted. Now I understood the hunger of the sa'necari. My eyes lost their whites, irises, and pupils, becoming a single featureless blood-violet orb. Fangs descended from my gums to prick my lower lip. I was no longer human. I lowered the knife, trembling with reaction. Waejonan took the blade and an acolyte placed a chalice of blood in my hands. I raised the chalice to his lips and drank, finding it rich and good.

"More," I said, surprising himself. The acolyte refilled the chalice with human blood. I drank it down in a single draught. It filled me with a sense of well-being. "Who was she?" I asked out of idle curiosity.

Waejonan sneered as if a trap had just been sprung. "Your little sister, Risha. I heard you had been making inquiries. They were both here, Risha and Soreeh. But by now, Soreeh is dead as well."

"Oh gods," I gasped, reeling away from the table where the body of my sister lay violated. I snatched up my blades from the ground and reached the table where my son lay bound. I cut the boy free and held him desperately tight against the horrors of my uncle.

"You will no longer fight me when I order you to share in the rites, nephew," Waejonan said. "Now take your son and leave."

"I will obey."

GODWAR CENTRAL

A Thrust into Darkness