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AUTHOR'S NOTE
Many thanks to Guyon for supplying the idea and characters. This is the introduction to a sexy little computer game he's working on.
Enjoy!
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The knight cut a dashing figure. The strong lines of his jaw gave him a heroic aspect. His long blond hair billowed out behind him in the breeze. It was the kind of face that had the village girls clambering over each other for a glimpse and set them swooning when they finally got it.
At the knight's feet lay the foul body of a demon from Hades. Its leathery wings were sliced to ribbons, black ichor still oozed from a multitude of mortal wounds and its fiery red eyes were clouded over.
The knight wiped the demon's black blood from his sword until the blade shone again like the finest silver. He acknowledged the villagers' cheers before climbing back on his horse and riding off down the road. His work here was done.
"Buggery and damnation!" a harsh voice snarled.
The demon Tenjeth smashed a fist into the stone table, causing the crystal ball to wobble and smoke to obscure the image revealed within.
He immediately regretted his action as pain shot up his arm and aggravated his aching scars.
"Can none of you rid me of this accursed pup!" he roared.
Nervous silence followed as the demons up on the balcony slinked back into the shadows.
"Poor Tenjeth. Always trying to solve problems by hitting them with your fists," a voice, sweetly seductive, said from behind him.
Tendrils of strong perfume tickled Tenjeth's nostrils. He snorted in annoyance.
"What are you doing here, succubus?" he growled.
"Why, I've come to help, my Lord," the succubus replied, running soft hands along his muscular arms. "I can kill your little nuisance."
Tenjeth snarled and snatched up the demoness by the back of her neck. He examined her feminine form with his one remaining good eye. Soft and weak, he thought with disgust. Good only for pleasure.
"Help me?" Tenjeth said in a low growl. "Take a look at your foe first, little demon." Tenjeth tapped the crystal ball with a black talon and forced the succubus to look into the depths.
Smoke swirled and billowed. The knight appeared again. This time his muscular body was marred with cuts and bruises. He roared with fury as he cleaved a giant serpent's head with one savage strike of his gleaming sword.
"Mmm, yummy," the succubus said.
The scene switched. The knight fought a one-eyed abomination at the top of a waterfall. The demon tried to swat him with an uprooted tree, but the smaller human was too agile. He ducked and rolled under the makeshift club. With the grace of a dancer he skipped behind the monster and slid his sword right into its black heart.
"Ooh, isn't he dreamy," the succubus said.
Tenjeth stared at her with his baleful red eye. A snarl twisted the corner of his scarred mouth, revealing the cracked and jagged stump of what had once been an impressive incisor. He pushed her right up against the ball, enjoying her little squeal of pain as her cheek ground up against the glass.
"This mortal has killed over a dozen of my strongest, most fearsome minions. This," he spat the word, "human even had the audacity to cripple me, an overlord of Hades!"
His rage triggered the magic of the crystal and the smoke cleared to reveal a new scene, one painfully familiar to Tenjeth. The knight was on the floor, his body battered and bloody. Fires raged in the castle around him. The Tenjeth in the ball turned and stalked contemptuously away. Back then the knight was just another weak human, nothing more than a nuisance like all the others. The Tenjeth in the ball had other matters on his mind, like the delicious scent of the virgins he was about to ravage.
In the ball the knight rose, unsteadily, to his feet. A steely glint of determination flashed in his eyes and then he'd charged the unsuspecting demon. Up until then the mortals' blades had been nothing more than annoying stings to Tenjeth. So it had come as a real shock when the knight had run him through with a blade that burned with icy enchantments.
Tenjeth had known then that these wounds would be hard to heal, but he'd not anticipated receiving so many of them. The knight had been fury incarnate, his enchanted blade a blur as it hacked and sliced at Tenjeth's toughened flesh.
Tenjeth had fallen, blood oozing from too many wounds to count, half his face staved in. He'd watched through his one remaining good eye as the knight had advanced on him with a sword raised and grim purpose carved into his features. That final image would forever be burned into Tenjeth's mind. Only a hastily whispered spell to port himself back to Hades had saved him from meeting his end at the tip of that knight's sword.
Tenjeth's wounds still ached with the memory of his defeat.
Soft moans from the end of his arm returned his attentions to the present. He looked over and noticed the succubus's cheeks were flushed. The reason for that -- and her moans -- became apparent when Tenjeth looked down and saw she was pleasuring herself with her tail.
Pleasuring herself... At images of his most shameful defeat...
Tenjeth roared and, with a mighty throw, sent the wanton little demon skittering across the obsidian floor.
"You try my patience succubus!" he yelled. "You, a creature built only for pleasure and sin, have the insolence to think you can succeed where even I have failed. Go back to the flesh pits. I might call on you... when I have need of a whore to warm my bed."
"I can beat him," the succubus said.
She picked herself back up and stared defiantly back at a Tenjeth. Blood trickled from her split lip. She lapped it up with a pink tongue, savouring the taste.
"He won't know how to fight me," she said, her eyes glowing with a feral gleam.
*****
Elan stared at the tower as it poked up above the trees of the dark forest. This was an ill-omened place. Dark things stalked these woods. Elan felt no fear though; he had killed enough of those dark things that the rest knew to leave him well alone.