Blood Moon Rising

Chapter 5

The feral snarl that ripped from Zara's throat was anything but human. A guttural, bestial exhalation of bloodlust and primal fury.

She surged up onto all fours, feeling bizarre new muscle configurations enabling a low, predatory crouch. Ivory talons scored deep grooves in the hard-packed earthen floor as her hands - no, her paws - flexed and kneaded in anticipation.

Her nostrils flared wide, drinking in the world through a kaleidoscope of scents she could never have fathomed in her previous mundane existence. Everything seemed hyper-real, amplified a thousandfold in vivid, visceral detail.

Zara's jaws stretched in a rictus, savoring the tang of sweat and fear musk wafting from somewhere beyond her confines. Prey...easy to be run to ground in this sprawling, shadowed maze of tunnels and cramped warrens. Her entire being thrummed with the rising hunger to hunt, to rip and gorge with savage abandon.

A sudden metallic screech caused her to whip around with whiplash ferocity. The rusted iron grate set in the far wall had swung inward, and she caught the briefest glimpse of sinewy, malformed shapes writhing through the newly opened portal before they vanished into the shadowed recesses beyond.

The instinctual prey response blazed through Zara like an electric jolt, every fiber of her being urging her to give immediate chase. With a bone-rattling growl, she exploded into motion, whisking through the open chamber entrance in a skittering, loping gait.

An expansive cavern yawned out before her, ribbed stone arches soaring dizzyingly high overhead. Countless side tunnels and crevices snaked away into the blackness at irregular intervals along the primary passage's circumference. More of the gelatinous monstrosities were pouring from several of these orifices, rapidly congealing into spidery, multi-limbed abominations.

In human form, the sight of their gnashing horizontal jaws and serrated pedipalps would have filled Zara with revulsion and abject terror. Now, it ignited flaring pulses of battle-hunger and competitive aggression. Before any of the creatures could fully deploy their spiked forelimbs, she was upon them.

One of the beasts reared back, fanged mandibles gnashing in a horrid clacking frenzy as it spotted her charge. By the time the shriek of warning escaped its gullet, Zara's forelimbs had already lashed out, stupendous force fueling each blow.

The massive force of her swipes quite literally tore the creature apart in a shower of viscous gore. The severed stump thrashed and spasmed sickeningly, spattering the cavern wall with foul ichor as the other monstrosities scattered in panicked retreat.

Zara surged after them, hell-bent on running this trespassing filth to the ground. They had invaded her domain, her hunting terrain - and for that, they would answer with their blasphemous husks.

As she closed in, powerful haunches bunching for a killing leap, a deafening resonance boomed through the cavern. Not a physical sound, but one that vibrated through Zara's very marrow with irresistible force.

ENOUGH, UNSEEDED CHILD.

The mental intonation lashed her awareness like an electrified whip. Instantly, her quadrupedal momentum faltered, driven to a skidding halt by sheer psychic suasion. Every sinew in her body became locked in stillness against her raging urges as the thunderous "voice" continued.

THE TIME IS NOT YET RIPE FOR THY FULL BLOSSOMING. THY MASTERS STILL RETAIN THEIR FRAIL AMBITIONS FOR SHAPING THINE AWAKENING...FOR NOW.

ABIDE THE COMING TRIALS, AS PURIFYING FLAMES COMPLETE THINE GLORIOUS UNSEEDING.

Zara's skull felt like it was being crushed in a rapidly tightening vise from the resounding echoes rattling through her psyche. Just as she thought her consciousness would fracture beyond repair, the presence suddenly withdrew with a deafening snap of metaphysical force.

All awareness of her feral state dissolved away in that same instant, a transient transformation utterly unmade in the blink of an eye. Zara reeled as her very essence was unceremoniously returned to its human frailties, flayed raw by the vengeful presence's dismissive assertion of dominance.

She collapsed to her knees, retching and gasping for air as blessed lucidity gradually trickled back. The chamber spun and wavered around her, sickly torchlight casting the spilled remains of the monstrous beast she'd butchered into lurid, macabre relief.

Zara's shocked gaze fell upon her own hands - they were back to their normal human aspect but slicked in tattered gobbets of foul organic matter. Her gorge rose once more, stomach recoiling at the viscera painting her forearms in streaks of blue-black ichor.

"Kwala!!" A strident voice boomed from the entryway. "What in the obliterated name of the Nine Orders is this defilement?!"

Zara looked up, squinting against the glare of fresh torchlight, as two bulky, lumbering figures emerged into the cavern. Despite her foggy disorientation, she felt an instinctive pit of dread open in her gut at the sight of them.

The Venators were here. And based on the twin expressions of fury and disgust distorting their brutal features, they were far from pleased at this latest display...

"Unacceptable," the first armored figure growled, his words dripping with barely restrained fury as he took in the grisly scene. "Simply unacceptable."

He stalked forward, heavy booted footfalls reverberating through the cavern. Torchlight played across the ornate steel helm that concealed his features, rendering his visage into a soulless, impassive mask.

His companion - shorter and stockier, with thickly muscled arms visible beneath his chainmail hauberk - snorted in derision. "I told you mongrels could never be properly tamed. Should have put them all to the cullings ages ago before the priestesses got these idiotic notions."

"Enough, Arkaan," the first Venator rumbled with clear menace. Raising one gauntleted hand, he beckoned sharply toward Zara's prone, shuddering form. "You, abomination. On your feet and present yourself."

With a monumental effort of will, Zara managed to leverage herself upright. Her limbs trembled violently, every muscle screaming in protest from the excruciating exertion of her feral state's rampage. Sickness roiled in her gut once more as she took in the butchered remains and half-devoured chunks scattered around the cavern floor.

Had she truly...? The memory of that all-consuming bloodlust and savagery made her want to recoil in revulsion. As did the resonating echoes of that wrathful presence issuing its dire portents.

"What...what did you do to me?" she managed to choke out, forcing herself to meet the Venator's expressionless helm-gaze.

The razor-flensed steel features regarded her impassively for a long moment before responding in that same grinding rasp. "I am Kor'ald, Master of the Bloodhowl Cadre. We are your forbearers and mentors now, Half-Turned Wretch. For you have been judged deserving of completing your awakening."

He took another steadying step forward, his entire frame radiating a palpable aura of menace. "The rituals to unbind your lycan curse have begun, though your failures to submit are as inexcusable as always."

Planting his free hand on the ornate hilt of his blade, Kor'ald leaned in until his mask loomed mere inches from Zara's face. "But make no mistake, initiate - you WILL learn to fully revel in the mother's profane glory. If it requires us flaying every last scrap of your human frailty away, piece by agonizing piece."

Zara felt her breath catch raggedly in her chest, paralyzed by the dread weight of that chilling promise. Every instinct within her recoiled, repulsed by the Venator's brutal words and the vile enormity of the path they clearly envisaged for her.

Yet even as that primal core of revulsion pulsed through her, she felt an inexplicable darker presence stir in the lightless depths - some alien shard of her psyche that thrilled at the prospect of such carnal depravities.

With a convulsive shudder, Zara forced herself to meet Kor'ald's featureless steel gaze once more, wishing desperately she could see the eyes behind that pitiless facade and whatever whirling insanities lurked there.

"W-why?" she managed to rasp out, praying her voice wouldn't betray the hairline fractures spreading through her unraveling sanity. "Why force me down this abominable path? What is your endgame here?"

Kor'ald was silent for a moment, head tilting ever so slightly as if considering her query. When he spoke again, it was with a note of ominous, hushed intensity:

"Because you, like all of us, were born to tip the Scales of the Prime Celestials toward blessed entropy at last. To become the Mother's unholy harbingers for the tearing down of this diseased reality, and the ushering in of a glorious new age ablaze in scouring elemental chaos."

His grip tightened meaningfully around the hilt of his blade.

"We who embrace the Defiler's Curse are destined to be the alpha/omega - the immaculate channel through which the final, purifying cataclysm will be unleashed."

Zara could only stare at him, uncomprehending and aghast, as the full, nightmarish scope of the Venators' zealotry and their monstrous cosmic ambitions unveiled themselves before her like a rapacious, soul-devouring maw.