[b]Servants of Sobek - A Tale of Kosey[/b] ~ by Amethystine, a commission for MouseHawk

~

WARNING / DISCLAIMER: This story contains subjects of a strange nature. Do not read of you are made uncomfortable by slightly violent, transformation-related material. The author takes no responsibility for any offence or unease caused by the material found within, you have been warned. 

~~~


Near the bank of a great river you may know as the Nile, there once lay expansive marshlands, long ago.

Little more than reeds and thrushes growing amid sandy, muddy soil, it was nevertheless home to a great many creatures.

Said animals all made way for the procession that tromped through the shallow waters, though.

A caravan of crocodilian figures that existed to surround a small selection of prisoners had been cutting its way forth, through the shallowly submerged land that suited them so well.

But, in this particular moment, the parade of potential slaves and their captors had halted. 

From far away, one could hear the fiercely snarled hisses from the animalistic guards, which were directed at the captive who had stepped out of line. The big scaly brutes were otherwise mute, but were smart enough to have seen the brown and tawny-furred prisoner straying farther into the shallows than he should have.

The similarly sibilant and growling voice of the even larger, more intelligent captain of the crocodile-men crashed down upon the strange being. "Where do you think you're going, little freak?" The huge, clawed hand of the commander grasped the vaguely leonine, furry neck-scruff belonging to his disobedient prisoner and hoisted him clean off his black, cloven hooves.

Even if the chimera could have spoken, he may not have opted to respond to his scaly captor. His disdain for the brute was clear in his golden eyes and the way he held up his four-horned, lion-maned head, even while held nearly high enough to have his digitigrade legs out of the murky water below.

The young mute amalgamation of species, who had seemed somewhat cowardly as he had slunk away from the main group of captives and with how he had cowered before the crocodile-captain's approach, suddenly shifted in demeanour. Going from craven to courageous with a baring of teeth and a roll of shoulders set with spikes similar to the horns adorning his head, the captured creature lashed his thick reptilian tail and kicked his hooves forward, roaring.

The dark, dense, bone-like material of the semi-split hooves buried itself in the softest part of the croc's streamlined underbelly; a region of particular sensitivity, where males are concerned. Nothing could be seen on the outside of the off-yellow grid of scales, but the noise that the kick's recipient generated made it clear that the hidden, twin orb-like storehouses of his virility had been considerably crushed.

All nearby birds took flight, such was the volume and sharpness of his tortured cry.

Not merely intending to injure his jailor's jewels, the chimera's attack was also allowing him to push off from the massive body and thick thigh of the croc-captain. All at once, the reptile was releasing the lion-headed lad and the boy was spring-boarding away from the head guard and his bellows of pain.

A careful choice of where to be grabbed led the lizard-tailed semi-mammal to land his risky leap upon a bit of dry land, deftly escaping from the movement-slowing marsh through which he and his compatriots had been made to trudge. The thick silt and sludge they had walked within had kept them all firmly in the clutches of the crocodilians.

Landing on the sandy mound of dry dirt, the chimera was instantly bounding from one to the next, out of the marsh, then running alongside the almost sheer ridge that blocked him from simply dashing directly into the desert.

The more simple saurians were stunned into inaction, seeing their leader brought low. The commander, having fallen to one knee, realizing his underlings were not giving chase, shouted with a hissing snarl, "After him, you imbecilesss!"

Nearly all of the guards moved to run the chimera down, diving forward amid thrashing tails and claws to swim swiftly across the marsh and crawl quickly up onto the dry earth where the escapee was beginning to navigate a cliffside path.

This necessitated further orders from the beleaguered captain, through still-stinging pain. Only two guards were sent, the rest had to continue to escort the other prisoners. In the confusion, though, still more captives took flight.

Those who escaped thanked the chimera in their minds, and would later remember him in their prayers to the gods, even if they did not know his name.

~

His name was Kosey, and the bravado he had displayed in his daring flight from captivity was entirely gone from his features, which now displayed worry within his frowning maw, his drooped ears, and his constant looks backward, over his spike-tipped shoulder.

Despite what he had just accomplished, he was not exactly a particularly courageous chimera, nor was he truly a chimera; not from birth, in any case.

He had been a human, a novice in service of Horus. He was still clad in the skirt-like ceremonial garment that was a constant reminder of those days, long past. Years ago, he had been 'blessed' with his somewhat bestial form by a holy relic he had saved from destruction, and thereafter protected with his life.

Such things are part of a tale for another day, though.

For now, Kosey was quickly climbing the rough, zig-zagging path that was either naturally formed or somehow trod into existence by nearby villagers. The chimera hoped that such a theory was true, that there could be a settlement somewhere up the cliff and around the ridge of the rocky bluff, and that the evidence of this was the path. He imagined that the town's people had the habit of descending the cliff to reach the marsh, to hunt or fish for food, and that he himself was following in their footsteps as they would ascend with their catch, and return home for the evening meal.

His stomach growled, he was so very hungry. No wonder he was having daydreams of happy families supping together, in the midst of his desperate escape.

The crocodilians had been slower in their crossing of the small section of dry land that Kosey had swiftly sprinted across on his hooves, but now he found that they could skip over whole sections of his slow ascent. They did so by digging their claws into the craggy cliff-face and crawling up onto new ledges below him.

Finally, Kosey reached a proper ledge that led away from the ridge that overlooked the marsh. With the crocodile guards not far behind, he shimmied quickly around the curving front of the bluff.

Little by little, the lion-like lad lengthened his lead on the large lunks who chased him. Their size was something of an impediment on the narrow ledge, making them slowly fall behind. More and more, Kosey slipped out of the two crocodiles' sightlines by virtue of the gentle curving rockface they all pressed tightly against.

Looking behind and below himself, past his long tail lined with little black spikes and ebony stripes, Kosey saw a lazy, winding stream that fed into the marshlands he had left behind.

His mind was filled with half-imagined thoughts of how he could possibly tumble down the cliff-face and meet his end on the rocky banks of the aforementioned miniscule rivulet. He tried to plan how he might be able to aim for the deepest part of the diminutive waterway, and have the liquid soften what, by that point, would have been a tremendous, treacherous fall. He knew such things were likely impossible, though.

Nevertheless, he was putting too much focus on what lay below and ahead on the ledge and too little on the rockface he leant inward against. The chimera didn't notice how there was an upcoming, rather suspect looking vertical section of stone. One could almost describe it as a large, indistinct crack, though the observer would have had to have been some distance away, in midair, to truly detect such a countenance.

Pressing, as ever, in against the sure-to-be-utterly-solid wall of rock in front of himself, Kosey's head was turned entirely to the side, watchful of the ongoing path. He did not see that which he pressed himself into.

A distinctive crunching and clacking of stone on stone foretold tragedy, and made the bottom of the chimera's stomach drop away, becoming a cold pit gripped by fear. This was only a split second before he truly did experience a frightful descent into a dark, chilled space.

All around him, rocks rushed and tumbled along with him, his chaotic view of the sliver of light from which he came constantly obscured by further falling debris. He had dislodged a loose assemblage of earthy detritus and was falling, rolling, scraping his way down a rough-hewn tunnel of sorts, while even more soil and stone slid down over where he had been standing, and where he had broken through. Much of this chased after him, for it seemed to be his fate to be pursued.

Although, just as much of the rockslide cascaded down on the exterior of the cliff, which was seen by the pair of crocodilians. The simple-minded brutes looked down over the tiny river, far below, believing their prey to have plunged into the perilous paltriness of said small stream. There was no trace of him anywhere, so only [i]in[/i] the water seemed a viable option, no matter how small the odds.

They could not be sure if the chimera's dive was by choice or by chance, nor did they waste time pondering such unimportant details. Quickly, one of them clambered earthward along the cliff face, claws digging into dirt or between rocks, while the other moved back along the path to descend once more in proper view of the marsh, for their target could have slipped, underwater, back into the semi-submerged stretch of low-lying land.

In truth, Kosey tumbled painfully to the bottom of his hidden, darkened passage, and was nearly knocked unconscious. A confluence of gravity and momentum conspired to have Kosey's head strike mightily against the hard, stoney ground at the moment of his landing.

For a fraction of a second, he clung to awareness, his form straining toward righting itself out of the prone position it had flopped into. But, in that infinitesimal moment, some far-off knowledge in the back of his mind, the idea of having lost those who were hunting him, told the rest of his exhausted form that it was now safe to rest, to succumb - if only momentarily - to his fatigue and his pain.

His form went slack and he lapsed into the dreamless sleep of the dead.


~~~


Awaking some time later, Kosey became hazily aware of muffled, far-off voices, somewhere in the darkness.

Stirring and disturbing the fine layer of rock-dust and pebbles that had settled upon his furred form, the chimera drew his arms under himself to press up from the cool, smooth ground.

With his hands upon it, he realized, even in the almost total darkness, that the 'ground' was really more of a floor, too flat and level and flawless to be natural. Looking around, even his feline eyes struggled in the pitch black abyss that was the strange cave with the man-made floor.

Spying a hint of illumination faintly on a far-away craggy wall, he crawled his way toward it.

Slowly, he slid himself through the inky space, crawling to be quiet, and due to the sense he had of there not being much in the way of room above his head. Such an impression may have only been due to the crushing darkness bearing down on him, though.

With his approach toward the minute light, he found - around a curve - a long passage that he could only barely make out. The dimness of it was intense, but was also many times better than the eternal night of the prior segment in his unplanned spelunking.

As he got farther along the tight, confined path he was required to take, he found it to be possessed of the same smooth floor, with bare, natural cave walls very close above his belly-slithering form. It was as if it was an unfinished construction of some hidden temple, or a place made for creatures much smaller than him.

He reached the end of the tight tunnel, and it opened out into a wide open space - though with a low ceiling - possessing further manufactured elements. There were many tiny columns, so numerous were they, and in such regimented, grid-like placements, that they seemed as though they would obstruct any people using the room for any number of functions or gatherings. The pillars were also plain, unadorned by carvings of gods or myths, or even the sort of simple decorations one saw basically everywhere in proper architecture.

There was space for the caravan escapee to stand, though the mid-sized room had too low a roof for most people. Kosey's smaller stature allowed him to straighten up, though his horns nearly scraped the natural cavern ceiling.

The light that had dimly illuminated the tiny side passage he had come through and which lit the strange pillar-filled space, came up from a square hole in the floor.

Carefully approaching the hole, Kosey saw and realized many things at once.

The space below was absolutely immense, and the chimera realized he was not in a proper room at all. Rather, he was within the rafters and ventilation pass-way of a grand ceremonial chamber.

What lay below what he had perceived to be the floor was quite the sight to behold.

All the while, the voices that had accompanied his awakening had grown more distinct. As he had approached the hole in the 'floor,' he had been able to hear the clear, stentorian, authoritative tones of a male human proclaiming the guilt of some unknown party. Looking down, he had found that the judgemental pronouncements came from a priest that stood upon a dias at the head of a vast rectangular pit in the grand chamber's floor. The size of it took up most of the room's floor space.

What really caught one's eye first, though, was what lay within the pit: a human man of middle age, strapped down upon an slab-like altar that was the lone feature of the otherwise empty lower space.

The man's wrists and ankles were tied with ropes that were themselves tied to covert anchor-points within the sides of the altar, near the floor of the pit. The stone platform upon which the condemned man writhed in vain was aligned with the pit itself, a smaller rectangular shape within the much larger, four-sided, deep oblong recession within the gargantuan chamber's floor.

The altar lay almost directly below Kosey's vantage point, which was nearly in the exact centre of the ceiling. Hot air and diffuse smoke from the fires that lit the sunless, cavernous room flowed up and out through the crawl-space Kosey occupied. At one corner of the square opening, he peeked down, while what little smoke there was from the nearly clean-burning flames below mostly wound its way up and out through the corner opposite from him.

Kosey observed that the grand ceremonial chamber itself was lined with seven shining statues of Sobek, the crocodile-headed god. The massive statues were at least 30 feet tall, and their arms, carved to demonstrate the god's strength, were lifted to 'support' the ceiling above their long-snouted visages. Their torsos were bare, once again putting Sobek's godly physique on proud display, the detail of His musculature more lovingly crafted and adoringly defined than anywhere else Kosey had ever seen it. The flames that lit the room in numerous torch-braziers also illuminated the identical icons' toned forms.

Similarly, the massive pit itself was lined with matching, smaller statues. There were three along each side of the room, and along each side of the pit, though the set in the pit were around 20 feet tall, and their arms, still thick with brawn, were crossed. They each clasped a crook in one hand and a dagger in the other, the weapons of appropriate size for the massive figures. At the head of the pit below the priest's dais, as with the back of the room behind the loudly proclaiming human, was the seventh of each set of Sobek statues.

All fourteen of the statues were painted to resemble the real deity, and adorned with real gold necklaces and armbands which glimmered in the light of the many small fires that lined the chamber. The smaller set even had authentic, well-crafted and valuable versions of the tools permanently clutched in their stone hands, rather than the implements merely being further carvings.

The walls betwixt the statues were adorned with murals depicting the myths of Sobek's glories and triumphs, and none of his short-comings or less-than-honourable moments.

Despite the fiery illumination of it all and the well-maintained pristine nature of the statues, it seemed to be a dark place, overflowing with unsavoury import. Kosey wrinkled his nose at it, narrowing his eyes, an ill wind blowing through his soul.

Clearly, this was a temple to the crocodile-headed god, for Kosey had never seen Him so obviously and gaudily venerated anywhere else. It also provided a simple explanation as to where the croc-men had been dragging their captives. The chimera could see that this had always been the caravan's final destination, for he recognized the bound man upon the altar as one of his former fellow prisoners. There were six croc-men that were either very similar to the guards he had eluded, or were the very same ones. They rested on bended knee in front of each of the larger statues on either side of the room.

And, Kosey was certainly familiar with the stoic, scaly captain of the guards that stood with arms crossed, behind and to one side of the priest.

With a smile, the chimera noted how the crocodilian male subtly shifted in the midst of the ceremony to rub at a spot hidden by his loincloth, grimacing - clearly still sore from the hoof-tipped kick that had landed thereabouts.

Such a creature was a living, breathing idol to Sobek, and an obvious acolyte as well.

Looking closer at the priest, Kosey could see he was also adorned in many things that linked him to the god he so clearly served. A large, fake crocodile snout (or rather, the upper half of one) rested down over the front of his waist-covering garment, made from shiny green stones that simulated the scales. The edges of the upper jaw were lined with pronounced teeth that stuck outward at a right angle from the simulated snout.

His headdress and cowl were covered in a scale-mimicking design meant to give the human's head at least an outward acknowledgement to Sobek. Under the neck and shoulders covering cowl, and upon his wrists, he wore a golden necklace and armbands that matched those same articles upon the room-lining statues.

The preaching condemnation of the bound man upon the altar was finally coming to an end, with the verdict.

"...And so, for all the reasons I have just enumerated, and your prolonged lack of respect for our great and powerful Lord of the Marshlands, you are sentenced to serve him for the rest of your life. You will soon learn that this is not truly a punishment, but a blessing."

With that, he rose his hands, and a thundering pair of *ca-clunk* noises reverberated through the chamber. As soon as they were heard, the altar began to rise toward the upper reaches of the pit.

Simultaneously, the twin staircases that mirrored one another within the pit, withdrew into the walls, cutting off any escape from the wide area of lower floor. This was of no concern to the prisoner tied to the ascending stone slab, given his inability to move from the cold, flat surface he was tied to. He struggled more than he had at any prior point that Kosey had been witness to.

Even while the stairs vanished into the walls of the pit, the great crocodilian mouths of the statues lining that lower space opened wide. One could see that even their teeth and tongues had been carved from stone, and painted appropriately. The paint had been washed away somewhat, and the reason for that became immediately clear as thick, murky grey water came rushing out from the 'divine' reptilian maws.

Out flowed the opaque liquid, forever streaming from the seven gullets of the stern-looking god, steadily filling the pit below the raised altar.

The priest chanted something that Kosey didn't understand, either due to the loud rushing of the tainted water, or thanks to it being truly not anything he could ever have comprehended. The septet sluicing sources of sickly liquid only intensified, the grey stuff all but spraying out from the crocodile jaws that nearly surrounded the thick rectangular column that the risen altar had become.

A loud, ominous *thud* signalled the beginning of the bound captive's descent upon the ceremonial platform. He wailed unintelligibly and Kosey wished he could do something, but the room was lined with the kneeling, reverent forms of the brutish, mute grunts that made up the croc-captain's cadre. The chimera counted himself lucky their bowed heads kept them from spotting him spying on their secret ritual of judgement and sentencing.

Then again, even if they hadn't all dipped their snouts and shut their eyes upon the sight of their own clasped-together claws, Kosey imagined all eyes would be upon the condemned, especially as he and the altar sank toward the rising level of cloudy water.

Rising over the sound of the rushing water, the priest's chanting shouts were accompanied by a lifting of his arms, as if evoking the infinite, calling upon external powers. He called for aid from Sobek himself, drawing his hands back, beckoning the god, before gesturing outward, down at the pit that was becoming a massive pool.

There came a shift to the sound of the flowing rivers of murky water that issued from the massive mouths of the statues. One by one, the thick streams of fluid momentarily changed colour. It appeared as though, each in turn, the seven statues were dispassionately vomiting naught but ink for a moment. Thick, gushing black ooze sprayed out, seemingly alive amidst the lifeless grey water that came before and quickly again thereafter.

It was too fast to perceive much more than a twisting pocket of midnight amongst the opaque output of the stone snouts, the dark material disappearing into the rising surface of the pool. One might have imagined that could have been the extent of the strange blackness, but soon enough, there were more hints of the pitch-like shapes.

Faint shadowy ghosts moved as long trails of smoke within the already dark water, barely there, seemingly only seen in the corner of the eye, after they had begun to vanish. Kosey could only catch glimpses of them, always as they disappeared, never able to see one welling up from the murk, only perceiving their return to the depths... or their wispy dissolving back into nothingness.

He spied maybe one or two at a time, though he was fairly certain there were at least seven, one from each of the statues. The shadows had seemed so large upon their rapid, water-assisted entrances into the pool. The chimera's blood ran cold, imagining the imminent fate of the bound man on the altar.

The stone slab was inches away from meeting the lifting level of liquid, the rim of Sobekian decorations along its upper edge sinking into the pool. The water began to churn much more than the seven streams of incoming liquid had ever caused it to. The four ropes that held down the prisoner began to be wrenched into increased, limb-stretching tautness here and there, making the man grunt in pain and wail his despair.

In another few seconds, the altar and its occupant were vanishing into the pit's vast reservoir of obscuring water.

For a long moment, his panicked shifting could seen via the ebb and flow of water that lay just above him, a faint shadow that was the prisoner fading quickly with the altar's continued descent and the water's continual rise.

All at once, there was an eerie silence as the grinding of the lowering ceremonial platform came to a stop, the priest's invocations of Sobek ended, and the seven snouts' streams ended and they slammed shut.

The grey water did not have time to fully settle before there was a new cacophonous calamity rising up from within the pit.

A sudden chaos of heavy splashes caused by the unseen thrashing of shadows, and the water-muffled cries of the condemned met the ear. Kosey drew back, instinctively, his heart in his throat. A constant undertone was an unearthly, unsettling collection of heavy snapping noises, vaguely discernible amongst the sound of tossing, twisting water.

Darkness congregated where the condemned man had vanished into the water, a writhing mass of inky night settling above the sunken altar, clearly ravaging the one who had been bound there. Occasionally, an unclear shape would dive down in the midst of the others, more seen via the water it took with it, pouring down toward what had to be the chest of the trapped, besieged man.

Kosey held a hand over his mouth, stifling his inclination to cry out in shock, and containing his urge to expel that which he last ate.

Everything was heavily obscured by the water and the inky shadows therein, but it seemed - in every way the chimera possessed to perceive it - that the prisoner must have been ripped apart and summarily devoured by the monstrous, ill defined shapes that had been let loose from the statues.

Once more, the priest's booming voice took to the air, proclaiming the ceremony to be a grand and divinely joyous one, exalting his lord and master, thanking Him for answering his call to action. A distant mechanical grinding signalled another shift in the altar's height and the commencement of the water's slow draining.

Up the altar rose, and a large, unmoving shadow in the water was seen to be upon it. Unlike the inky spectres that had come before and had now apparently vacated the pool, the immobile shade was revealed to be entirely corporeal. Its darkness was uncovered by the grey water and shown to be the deep green scaled hide of a crocodile, hunched over, on bended knee. The mighty, spiked tail was wound tight around his kneeling legs, not yet in use.

Upon the altar and its slowly revealing sides, the ropes that had bound the man were torn and shredded. Scraps of violently destroyed clothing were strewn about atop the altar, and floated in the murky liquid all around.

The priest signalled to his six servants, and the croc-men stood and advanced into the pool. Four of them climbed onto the four corners of the altar-platform, surrounding the newly created crocodile.

All the while, the unclothed, hunched-over monster remained still.

Nevertheless, the priest looked wary. Despite his power and his command of these creatures, was he worried that the newest member of his little cult would rebel and lash out? He had his underlings take all the risk in assuring the newly converted was loyal and obedient.

"Rise, new servant of Sobek! Accept your role as protector of all that He represents, upholder of His virtues! Hold out your arms and let your new form be sealed and your servitude be assured."

The two croc-men in front of the new one held out bracers that were clearly meant for the recently re-created man. All other crocodiles wore the same dull brassy lower arm-bands.

Slowly, the former prisoner's tail unwound and he shifted onto his clawed feet, standing and extending his arms. The two attendants before him moved up and clasped the bracers into place, which shimmered with magic, the two halves fusing permanently shut around his scaly flesh.

The two crocs behind the new inductee drew up and clothed their brother in the same type of loincloth they all wore.

"Escort him to the barracks for his immediate assignment."

Kosey could not believe his eyes; this power-mad priest was twisting the very bodies and souls of innocent citizens into mindless, voiceless scale-skinned slaves to his whims, in the name of Sobek!

The chimera remained transfixed as the six crocodile-men and their new seventh slid into the water. He had been unable to do anything but watch the pool for quite some time.

Finally, he peeled his gaze away and scanned around the room at large.

Something seemed amiss, though he couldn't put his finger on it.

"No one escapes me for long," came a hissing voice, overflowing with malice.

Kosey did not have time to look up and see the sneering crocodile-commander, nor could he have done anything about the thick wooden club that was already crashing into his head, swung mightily by the scaly brute.

If there had been a moment for the young lion-headed male to consider the unfortunate turn of events, he would have surmised that the captain had spotted him at some point during the ceremony and had crept out of the massive chamber when Kosey's distraction was at its height. It would have been (and truly was) a simple matter of picking up any old remnant of the temple's construction to use as a club and ducking into the crawlspace to creep up behind the awestruck chimera.

Of course, the poor, stripe-furred fellow would not get to make any such deductions for quite some time, as his mind went blank within his sharply struck skull. His body followed his aggressively redirected snout as it sped downward, out through the square hole in the immense chamber's ceiling.

The poor unconscious chimera plummeted from the ceremony-chamber's highest reaches, heading for the lowest, falling toward the still draining water of the pool and its many crocodilian inhabitants.

"Seize him!" came the cry of the priest as Kosey crashed into the grey murk, his unguided trajectory only narrowly avoiding the altar.


~~~


Regaining consciousness, Kosey found himself to be wet, his fur matted down.

Groggily, he tried to turn onto his side, tried to lift his hands to his head. He wanted to clutch his throbbing skull and perhaps massage away some of the pain that still permeated his cranium.

None of this could come to pass, for he was tightly tied, at five separate points. Both his arms and his legs were lashed down at the wrists and ankles, and his tail was also secured at roughly its halfway point.

With a groan, he tried to look around, realizing that he was in the vast pit, which had entirely drained by then.

An almost involuntary growl rumbled up his throat when he caught sight of the sneering head guard-croc of which he had an upside-down view. It was hard to tell on the long, toothy reptilian snout, and with it being inverted, but Kosey could make out the self-satisfied smugness that oozed off of the scaly brute.

To his side, the chimera saw the priest, deep in thought, observing the altar-bound captive.

Locking eyes with the human caused them both to blink, and the untied one to murmur, "What [i]are[/i] you..?"

When Kosey didn't respond, the Sobek-worshipper repeated himself more forcefully. "What are you?! A great magic lives within you, what is it?"

Unable to speak the language of men even while he understood it, Kosey merely struggled against his bindings.

"It is as I said; he is little more than a beast," hissed the commander-croc.

The priest nodded to his minion, walking to the top of the altar, just behind Kosey's head, waving the captain away.

"I see. No matter. I shall reach in and pry open his body with our Master's power. There shall be no secrets from Sobek, not here in His most hallowed of temples." He spoke calmly, but with an undercurrent of unnerving zeal for that which he threatened - at least from Kosey's point of view.

"Will he still be able to serve, when you are done, sire?" asked the commander, retreating toward the pit's stairs.

"Do you expect a beast to live once its heart hath been torn free from its chest? His power lies in his core, and I shall have it, for Sobek's glory. Worry not over the fate of a mere single soldier to serve in your ranks. You are dismissed," he hissed, all but ordering the crocodile-man to leave with the tone of his voice and the glare from under his head-dress.

In obedient silence, the large reptilian slunk away up the stairs and out of the vast chamber.

"Now then..." muttered the priest, lifting his hands above Kosey's head.

For a split-second, the chimera could see an unnatural glowing green light.

Then, there was only pain.


~


End of Chapter