The window he indicated was easily out of the reach of men without the use of ladders. With their vast strength, the demons could probably break down the heavy door, but even if they succeeded, it would alert the master and lady of the keep, and that was something Mazrel wanted to avoid until they were ready. Mircea and Eupraxia Bătrân had taken many of their kind over the centuries, and despite his superior force, the hunter and huntress were not a threat to be taken lightly. Though the hunters eventual defeat was certain, it was unlikely they would all survive the night.
"Sylrel, see what it opens to," Mazrel whispered.
With a nod, the demon backed well up, and then with a running start, leapt, his huge muscles twisting with effort. Despite his incredible strength, the window was out of his reach. He thudded against the wall a person length below the window before crashing back to the ground. Mazrel jerked his head and Jilinys joined him as they positioned themselves slightly away from the wall, crouched, and then interlaced their fingers. Sylrel backed up, and again charged the wall, this time jumping first into the locked hands of his companions before leaping will his strength as succubus and incubus heaved him upward. Stretching, he caught the window ledge with the fingertips of one hand, and then after hanging a moment to ensure his grip would hold, he swung his other hand up to grasp the sill before slowly drawing himself up. Holding himself in place by an arm wedged into the narrow opening, he used his free hand to slowly push aside the heavy tapestry to peer inside. The window opened onto a bedchamber. He squirmed higher and silently wormed his way into the room, his deeply muscled chest almost too wide to fit through the slender opening.
Dropping noiselessly to the floor, he crept to the figure sleeping in the small bed. It was an older woman, probably the handmaid of the huntress. He considered invading her sleep to take her light but resisted the urge to feed. Quickly placing his hand over the woman's mouth and nose to stifle any scream of warning or fear, he seized her neck and squeezed. The woman came instantly awake. As she thrashed, he settled over her, sitting on her chest to reduce any noise she might make by hampering her struggles with his weight. His cock hardening with his excitement, he waited as the woman's writhing gradually slowed until she was still. Releasing her throat, he took her into a death kiss to quickly take the last of her light.
After the barest taste, he left the woman in the bed and returned to the window where he leaned out and held his hand down in invitation. Jilinys was next, leaping high with Mazrel's help to grip Sylrel's hand. She too had trouble squeezing through the opening, her massive breasts wedged tightly against the thick stone walls before she managed to squirm her way inside. Pristoria was next, also assisted by Mazrel, to wriggle herself through the opening and into the room. After Mazrel's two failed attempts to reach Sylrel's outstretched hand, Sylrel leaned farther out of the window while Pristoria and Jilinys braced against the wall and held his legs, allowing Mazrel to grab his extended hand before climbing up his body and into the room. After Mazrel had wormed his way through the window, Pristoria and Jilinys tugged Sylrel back through the narrow opening.
"Pristoria, you're with me. Jilinys, go with Sylrel. Abundant harvest," Mazrel murmured, ignoring the woman in the bed, her dead body explaining Sylrel's delay in returning to the window.
"Recoltă abundentă,"
Abundant harvest,
Jilinys, Pristoria, and Sylrel all murmured in the traditional farewell as they moved off in pairs, each eager to face their mortal enemy.
Normally, incubi and succubi hunted inside their territories alone, jealously protecting their hunting grounds from other demons. Until tonight, battles between hunters and demons were fought one on one, or in rare cases, two on one. If a hamlet or town reported a rise in unexplained deaths, a hunter would arrive to stalk the demon. If the demon was powerful, and their territory was large, two or more hunters might work together during the hunt. Once discovered and trapped, there was no retreat as demon and hunter fought until one was undead.
That was way it had always been... until tonight. Mazrel and Harelyra were the leaders of a new faction in the underworld, a small coalition dedicated to eradicating the hunters so that incubi and succubi could assume their rightful place in the world.
During the past nineteen thousand days, Mazrel and Harelyra had tried every means to convince the other denizens of the underworld to join them in their quest, but to no avail. Other than his three companions, and Harelyra, the other inhabitants of the underworld preferred lurking in the shadows like frightened mice while being hunted... rather than ruling over the humans as was their right and destiny. With only five members, out of thousands, the other denizens thought it safe to ignore their argument. Soon the rest of the underworld would discover their error. Never before had a group of demons so brazenly attacked a hunter, and a fter tonight, the remaining demons would have no choice but to join them... or perish.
Humans were little more than animals, fit only for harvesting, and why the hunters risked becoming undead to protect them was beyond Mazrel's understanding. Even the hunters fed on humans when they couldn't feed on his kind, but unlike the hunters, incubi and succubi had no alternate food source. Demons had no option other than harvesting the inner-light of humans, what the creatures called their souls, in order to survive... but that was becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous.
The hunters were becoming ever stronger. If they weren't stopped, and soon, they'd have the power to hunt the underworld to extinction. Even at his relatively young age, Alexandru Bătrân was as powerful as his father. Unless he was stopped, he would easily surpass Mircea in power... and it was accepted as fact that Radu would eventually become more powerful still. In another millennia, maybe less, the underworld wouldn't be able to summon the strength to defeat the hunters, and their fate would be certain. The demons were slowly losing the war to the hunters, and it seemed that only he, and his four likeminded incubi and succubi, realized it.
To that end, tonight they were striking the head of the beast. As Harelyra, perhaps the strongest succubus to ever exist, took the challenge of harvesting Doamna and Radu, Alexandru's wife and son, his party had the difficult task of harvesting Alexandru's parents. Mircea and Eupraxia were the head of the Bătrân, and two of its most experienced and powerful hunters. By killing Mircea, Alexandru, and Radu, they were eliminating the most powerful line of the Bătrân before it became too strong.
The four demons moved silently through the keep as they searched for their prey, each knowing any of them could become undead tonight. As a demon could harvest a human, so they could harvest a hunter... but only at great risk. A human could be harvested in their sleep without danger or fear, their taking leaving no evidence to suggest what had caused the human's death. On the rare occasion when a human was harvested with a forced taking, the cause of death was easily determined by the condition of the body. Humans were fragile creatures, easily killed, and during a forced taking, they often died from their injuries before being fully consumed.
Hunters, though once human, were different. They couldn't be harvested in their sleep, and because of their huge size, and amazing strength and healing abilities, they could only be killed by decapitation or a forced taking. In addition to their amazing resilience and strength, hunters also possessed another ability humans didn't... the ability to harvest a succubus or incubus in return during a taking.
Few hunters were killed by decapitation. The method was uncertain at best, requiring a single clean stroke to succeed because of the hunters' ability to heal, but even when successful, for most demons it was an unsatisfying victory as decapitation deprived the demon of the ability to harvest the hunter's inner-light. Harvesting a hunter's light increased a demon's strength, and sustained them far longer, than harvesting any human did.
Attempting a forced harvest of a hunter, however, wasn't without risks. To fail during a harvest was terrifying for both demon and hunter, for being vanquished during a taking didn't mean death, it meant becoming undead. Hovering between death and life, the undead existed for months as the body slowly starved. Once undead, there was no return, and even an incubus or succubus fucking a hunter until they raptured, and then feeding the hunters light to the undead in a death kiss, had no effect. Worst of all, the undead couldn't be killed to end their misery. Just as demons could heal from any physical injury during life, so they did when undead. The underworld punished failure severely to spur them in their war against the hunters.
Jilinys and Sylrel paused at another door before slowly opening it. Inside was a woman, her face relaxed and her breasts slowly rising and falling in slumber. Hunters were the peak of human beauty and fitness, made so by the curse that gave them their abilities. Women were graced with large breasts that never sagged with age, beautiful faces, flawless skin, hair, and teeth, graceful, muscular limbs, and taut stomachs. Eupraxia was no exception. Her long dark hair, arrayed on the pillow like a crown, glowed with cleanliness and health in the pale starlight filtering into the room. Though the huntress was nearly nine hundred years old, she appeared no older than a maiden in her twenties.
Sylrel silently gestured for Jilinys to continue. He'd handle Eupraxia alone. With a nod, the succubus quickly moved to the next door with silent grace and power. He watched, waiting for her to get into position. Like a huntress, a succubus was amazingly desirable by human standards, with large firm breasts, slim, muscular body, and a beautiful face. Because a succubus appeared as the type of woman to make men's hearts race and their cocks harden, it allowed her to get close to her victims without difficulty so she could touch them to establish the link that would allow his later harvesting.
He began loosening the ties of his clothing, his cock again hardening as his body prepared for battle. Tonight, he'd take Eupraxia in an abundance of light like few incubi had ever experienced, and he'd be forever known as the demon who'd harvested the strongest huntress to ever exist.
