#nosgoth war

Then it was as if a spell was broken, fear tore all strategy and rational cunning aside to hurl all ammunition upon one of the Leech-Kings. All hope to cut one of the Fathers of their species’ blight once and for all.

Grenades, bolts and bullets came hurtling, only to be smacking against an invisible wall. The energy rebuking the assault with the ghastly whines of eldritch magic. All the while, the Shieldbearer in his stunned state finally blinked when the scarlet eyes drifted over him with talons held out to deny the humans their victory.

Roaring out in defiance, his legs finally gained the merit to pull him forward with shield forward and ax at the ready to cleave the Beast in twine. However, these masked bodyguards were already on him. The larger of the present dozen snapped his steel spear to handle the charge with a mild stumble at the wild force.The ax swung in the air, but the cold feeling of steel slipped at his wrist. Pain was quick and surprising meager.

Blood flew free...as did his weapon and its tightly clenched hand. Blades plunged into his body, one after another with armored hands pushing them off their Lord’s platform.The dying man’s tunneling eye watched his weapon whirled end over end towards his nemesis’ head. At that least, hope was the last thing in his glazing eyes. Perhaps the One God’s little mercy, to not let him see the Vampire Lord’s closer hand snatch the kama out of the air. The fatal point a tear away from his armored scalp.

Rahab looked at the weapon and its ragged craftsmanship, twisting it side to side in wonder of how many vampires died to such a weapon. The curved blade was enough to dig through the ribs and cleave the heart. Allowing his shield to drop when his guards were rejoining the fight.

“Monster!” A voice cried, ripping Rahab from his distraction to see a Hunter with its hateful mask scolding at him. Bolts were sent flying, but two of his Hands were instinctive to bat them out of the air with the whirl of their weapons. A few of the heavy projectiles shot into one of their gut and shoulders, making the Lord bristle. Before the brave man could take the first step, a telekinetically hurled kama nearly cleaved his head in two.

“Back, I will take to this battle,” Rahab commanded, stepping over the wounded with talons grasping a long jaded hilt and drawn the near claymore-long scimitar from its ebony sheath. “Tend to him...” “Yes, milord.” A Hand whispered, already moving to do so without thought.

The battle was dying as it is, but there was still a good amount for the Lord to stretch his limbs. With a coil of his legs, the clothed scales and powerful muscles tightened before sending Rahab into a savage jump. The Dumahim actually gaped in surprised awe to the fact, watching his large frame hurtling on the screaming rank of slave-rebels and their last vanguard. With a twisting whirl, the Vampire Lord relieve a good six of the rabble of their heads in one clean swipe before his cloven feet touched the ground.

A clever twin line of shieldbearers smacked and stalked towards the sedan with their fellows hard-pressed into battling the Leeches and their unnatural affinity to kill. It was distracting enough for their approach. “We have ye now, Fish.” One of them snarled, a rotten smile crept behind his mask and flourished his kama.

However, the moment their boots stamped on the serpentine body coiling at the drapery, something chilling halted their approach.

“Open.”

“Wat-” Another warned, jumping just in time where a majority of the others failed. Spears of the most menacing clarity and steel perfection ripped through the curtains, impaling the open chests and meager plating of these Dead Men. Their screams broke the battles around to eyes upon their lifting bodies.The tips twisted and dug deeper, skewering before ripping away to allow the Shieldbearers to fall into a rolling recline.

“Alchemists!” One of the Dead Men cried out to the women already spent into keeping the vampires from advancing on them. However, a voice shrilled in dark command that made even these hardened killers shudder. “Silence.”

The curtains pulled asunder to allow all to see the figures of draped azure and steel masks to their armor to march out, armed with bloodied spears and sinister blades. In their protection,a great being rose from his throne of shaped gold and gemstones. Not just great in the fact of his plated armor shaped of the sea’s favour nor the stoic mask of a helmet crowned by sweeping crest and chitinous legs curled in hateful clench to the hood apart of his mantle. Stepping out into the light of the mountain’s spewing fires and black smokes - an eternal dusk - was a being larger than even the Turelims’ imposing form.

Calm orbs of blood rubies slowly edged their sneering slits upon the chaos around him. His very presence demanded a halt to behold his majesty. The majesty of evolution made physical. Dark divinity of the Lord of the Sea that have only be rumors, frightful sailor’s tales, and Fledgling whispers for the past two centuries.

Rahab the Fourth Lieutenant of Kain’s Court has returned to Nosgoth.

Rahab sat in his palace’s audience chamber, swelling the tip of his talon along the gilded rim of a silver chalice. The answering ring vibrating subtle ripples at the half-filling of carefully cultivated blood from a Turelim blood brood. 

It was a meek flavor, heavy of iron and a tinge of notable minerals. This is an obvious Turelim diet to build the body to their brutish stage in their evolutionary path. After the past couple generations, Rahab managed to tone the thickness to a less cloggy swallowing. Fruits and some vegetables from his isle’s plantation and export from his coastal colony beyond the sea with interbreeding with his own slaves.

Prized Melchahim slaves were often given a partial duty that help perfect their physical pleasantries, only to be flayed by the careful knives of their master. However, their blood was a tad thick from similar mineral treatment. If he was correct on what his Alukae have reported in, their bodies were cannibalized just as terribly as their flesh was. On that meek thought, Rahab shook his head in pity for his younger brother. 

Dumahim blood wasn’t the best but it had the needed quantities in their countless slaves to feed their legions and keep moving. Dumah never had the finesse nor patience for the careful breeding. As long as there was a controlled interbreeding among the population, he could care less. Ever decade or so, he would trade for other clans’ slaves.

Now, the one brother he could be appluad for in this lining of cultivation is Zephon. He treated his slaves remarkably better than the others, at least he used to. Rahab tightened his lips in the last visit to his immediate younger brother’s sanctum. He still have that urgent letter among the other that he always keep like precious jewels and heirlooms.

Zephonim slaves were more regulated and tolerated, even if they were rightully kept low in the food chain. Their bloods has a subtle difference between castes. The priesthood had a more sweetness to it, the sacrifical tributes they give. While he didn’t care much for catching some of his younger brother’s spies crawling in his territories, Rahab traded with him happily enough.

With these thoughts of blood cultivation, the Clan Lord inhaled softly to take another sip of his chalice. Drinking in deep to the last drop, each gulp sounding more gratifying than the last. “A good bounty.” He mused with a tongued trace of his rows of teeth.

“More, milord?” A tender voice inquired. Rahab didn’t need to look who it was, he knew every servant in his court and rose them like his own children. “Yes, Michael.” He answered, dipping his hand down to present his bejeweled cup to the tall, well-shaped Aquarius for the next filling. Nineteen winters old if the Elder vampire recalled, remarkably feathery chestnut hair, and that boyish charmed face equipped with the features of a slave from Raziel’s and his own original shared slave bloodlines.

The toned arms retreated their blood vessel when the chalice was at its long-stained amount and bright jade eyes gleamed at the practiced perfection. Seeing it, Rahab chuckles lightly in his throat and sipped once. The freshness glided at his slick throat.”Very good.” 

With his great webbed talons stroking through the soft waves of his vessel carriers hair, Rahab smiles benevolently as a father of these sheep should before redirecting his red eyes upon the rabid ram that graces his chamber. 

A sailor caught by the spring monsoon, the last of his crew from a ship of old Meridian design. The cargo was a shipment of weapons, powerful armaments that Rahab has never seen. Having just been reveled the tales of the war in his Father’s once stable empire, Rahab was both amused and inwardly furious in disappointment for both sides. He already received a letter from Turel about this.

Staring at the eviscerated man hanging over the moat by his ankles between the great court filled with mostly evolved vampires sitting along the crescent moon-shaped mosaic by three elevated rows at either of his heightened platform and himself resting by the stained glass depicting himself mimicking the clan symbol with a moon in talons. Heavy drapes pulled asunder to let the radiance of this deified artwork shine in the afternoon’s covered sky.

“As you can see, your race is perfectly safe and content under my rule.” The Patriarch finally addressed. Even with his grown snout, the culture and elegance still seethed through his words. “It is shameful to hear my brothers’ bickering couldn’t keep your anxiety and misplaced beliefs in check. Just know...I will correct that as my Father would have.”

Maneuvering through the Dumahim maze, a respectful adoption from Turel’s hunting arena, the Lord brushed his mighty shoulders along the smooth walls. A cruel thing to make sure every twist and turn looked the same to both hunters and hunted. Each armored step heralded only one vampire, his body has grown since his last Change. 

Taller than any man, more so even now. The juggernaut was proudly bare besides a signil-carved plackart wrapped around his powerful belly by thick leather straps, serving as a long purple-dyed loincloth over his leather trousers. Shaped greaves and gauntlets over limbs, Dumah found this to be of a casual outfit - complete with his half-cape curled around a thick bicep.

An amused gleam in his eyes, to finally see the whelp that have been giving his young warriors such trouble in the past month. “So this is him?” He questioned, more to himself. His own painted face sneered before laughing without mercy. The might sound billowed through his maze and flexed his green-tinged muscles in short clenches, provoking a couple to join him.