Legacy Pt. 02

"That is why I love you," he finished.

**

They reached the village of Maulanga before dusk. At Nandi's suggestion, they passed through the ancestral stones and the center of the village before turning north, crossing and following a creek Dumisane knew. Nandi hoped they might throw trackers off of their scent. At night, they made camp along the creek.

Only then did Nandi dare to hope that they might actually escape Lulathe's reach.

Far to the north, she knew, lay the kingdom of Bezi, nestled in the mountains. Bezites produced the finest steel, along with gold and diamonds. Their ruling family procured slaves and prisoners from across the known world to toil and die in the mines.

"What will we do," she said, "once we are safe?" She lay in his arms, his seed warming in her cunt and belly from their rutting. She listened to the babble of the creek.

"Our skills with animals will fetch a price anywhere," Dumisane said. "We will learn a new language, build a new home - whatever we need do, with no one to tell us otherwise. No tethers."

Nandi nurtured that nascent dream, just as she hoped that she nurtured Dumisane's child in her womb. For the first time, she began to imagine a life free from the clan.

In the morning, the rain began to fall.

"A good sign," Dumisane said. "The rain will wash away our scent."

Nandi believed it, until the orange feral began to bark.

At first she thought the dog was only reacting to the rain. But then she spotted the hyena to the east, matching them along a distant ridge on the far side of the creek.

Nandi sensed the focused intent of the predator. Where there was one hyena, there would be more.

"Dumisane," she said, pointing.

"They may think we are easy prey," he said, spotting it. "We aren't. Cattle-posts are built less than a day's travel from each other. We can reach one by nightfall, though it may be abandoned."

Rain began to saturate the earth, softening mud and creating streams that swelled into the creek. Within an hour, another hyena appeared, this one pacing them to the west. The long necked creature was close enough that the whooping sound it made rang out above the hiss of rain. Nandi and Dumisane moved as fast as they dared, Nandi almost running with the basket on her head.

"Can you make them leave us alone?" Dumisane said.

"No," Nandi replied. "They are determined. There is something else guiding them." Something demonic, she did not say. "They are not hunting us for food."

By afternoon, there were more visible trotting behind the couple, edging closer than the first two, whooping to each other over distance.

"We need something at our backs," Dumisane urged. "The cattle-post is not far. Can you run?"

Nandi kicked off her sandals. She jogged with him, years of practice allowing her to keep the basket balanced, her witch-blood boosting her endurance. Dumisane ran with her, glancing back to check their pursuers. Several times, he raised a spear to throw, but drew his weapon back.

The post came into view in the mist. Like Setnayo's Murutse post, ancestral stones were built into the stockade walls, buttressing the timbers and rising up over them along the perimeter, like tiny towers. With luck, the stones were well maintained and intact. Nandi hoped to see cattlemen pouring out to help them, but the gates stayed shut.

"Run!" Dumisane cried, unslinging his shield.

Nandi could sense them all now, feel their drive to hunt, to chase, to kill. She ran full out, rain blurring her vision. The cackle howled and bleated behind them, eerie calls that seemed created to mock men. The beasts were frighteningly close.

They weren't going to make it.

Dumisane whirled. Nandi let the basket drop and drew the club. Dumisane knocked a lunging hyena aside with his shield. Nandi swung at it, but it scampered away. The creatures snapped and snarled at Dumisane from all sides. The orange feral barked and snapped at the hyenas' backsides, darting away when they turned on it.

Nandi charged another. It turned its stunted rump and raced away.

"Stay at my back!" Dumisane shouted.

She backed up against him. The hyenas avoided her, concentrating on Dumisane. One whined as his spearpoint caught flesh, but it scattered, veering wide away from Nandi.

As they turned together, Nandi could see behind them in the distance. Four figures ran at them from the south. Upright figures.

Demons.

"Dumisane! We can't stay here!"

"I know!" he gasped as he fought.

"We'll fight our way to the gate. I'll protect your back. Go!" she said.

Nandi grabbed the strap of her basket, dragging it. It had the kukuru summoning stone - she couldn't leave it behind. She backed up against him as he pushed forward, swinging at any hyena that got too close. The cackle snickered and growled around them, but couldn't get past Dumisane's shield or lashing spear.

The demons came on fast.

Dumisane reached the gate. Nandi heard him fumbling with the bolt of the gate, one that slid straight down into a hole in the muddy earth.

A hyena leapt high for Dumisane's throat. He threw up his shield at the last moment. His attacker scrabbled, balanced upon the plane of the shield for an instant, snapping jaws that could crush bone with ease. Dumisane tossed the creature to the side. It careened against the stockade gate. As it stumbled back to its feet, Nandi smashed the knob of the club against its skull and it collapsed there. She kicked at another that cut in to try to reach Dumisane's exposed back.

The demons had slowed now, as they came within the searing range of the warding stones. Nandi had never actually seen a bajari.

Each of the four demons stood as high as a tall man, thick muscle on the backs of their necks and shoulders giving them a hunched appearance. They wore pieces of hide and metal harness and carried ikwa spears with long, edged blades. Masks of skin barely concealed hyenoid faces.

Dumisane pulled up the bolt, and swung the gate door outward. The orange feral, agile and quick, raced in, squeezing between them. It turned in the yard and snarled at the hyenas. The couple backed inside and shut the gate, barring it to the snickers and growls of the frustrated cackle. Dumisane sagged against the gate. Blood trickled down his legs, but the scratches looked shallow. Nandi embraced him tightly, and helped him to stand.

"Those are demons outside," she said. "Bajari. But they can't get near the wards and the hyenas can't open the gate."

The stockade was empty. The walls were only a bit higher than a man's length - but high enough that the hyenas couldn't climb or leap over them. They tried, nonetheless, whining as they leapt and scratched upon the outside of the walls.

A quick survey revealed barren granaries and few weapons or tools. It looked as if the cattle-post had been unused for months or even years, but the summoning stones were unmarked and appeared whole. The cistern was full, and door-less huts stood along the north wall, for shelter. Nandi and Dumisane made certain the rear gate was secure, and climbed the footholds along the wall, poking their heads over to see their besiegers.

The cackle of hyenas ranged around the stockade, but the four demons clustered some distance from the front gate. Their eyes glowed with pale intensity in the dusky light.

"The only bow on the racks is warped, and I'm not that good a shot," Dumisane said, as they watched the demons. "We're safe for now, but eventually we'll run out of food. And I don't want to be here when your kin show up."

"I doubt they will," Nandi said. "But four demons..."

The only reason Lulathe would have sent so many was because she knew Nandi had the kukuru stone. Nandi eyed their attackers for a few minutes, and then dropped to the ground.

"I have something to tell you," she said to Dumisane.

**

"So your great-aunt has summoned these creatures," Dumisane said, as they sat in one of the huts near the gate. The rainstorm had strengthened, churning the yard of the stockade into a muddy stew. Fortunately, as in Nandi's home, the huts had raised brick floors that, thus far, remained dry. The couple kept a close eye on the gate. Outside, the cackle of hyenas whooped and giggled in the downpour.

"I've never fought a demon," he went on. He nodded grimly at the throwing spears propped near the hut's entrance. "But there is a first for all things."

"There is more. Much more," Nandi said, softly. "I can summon a demon as well. The kukuru is Lulathe's personal guard and enforcer. It is stronger than these bajari. But four of them... and the cackle as well..." she shook her head in dismay. "Lulathe knows I stole her summoning stone. She sent enough power to overwhelm us, even with the kukuru."

"Then we must even the odds."

"And if we summon the demon here, it will be trapped in the stockade," Nandi added. "Just as the bajari are held outside."

"Can you summon it outside?" he asked. "As we break free? How difficult is this summoning?"

Nandi cast her eyes to the floor. She crawled over to the grass wall of the hut, where her basket was, and drew out the massive, phallus shaped figurine.

"The demon is summoned when I come on the stone," she said.

"Ah." Dumisane said. "Not so easy in the midst of battle."

"No. And once the demon is summoned, we will need to bargain with it before it serves us. Serves me."

"Bargain...?"

"Only one desire drives demons," Nandi continued, determined to tell him the rest. "The need to breed. And these that we summon seek to breed with humans."

"Can you banish it?"

"With a word, yes."

"Then we can cheat the creature. Summon it, and after the fight, send it away without paying."

Nandi shook her head, sadly. She met his gaze. "It will demand to rut, and it will do nothing for us until it gets what it wants."

Dumisane frowned. He stared at the gate, lost in thought.

"I'm sorry, my love. I didn't want to use it. I hoped we wouldn't need to. And," she added hastily, "we cannot summon it. There is no way out of this trap. Even with the kukuru, we are hopelessly outmatched."

"We can win free," Dumisane said, musing. "We need only be cunning."

"Surrender me," Nandi urged. "Bargain with the bajari for your freedom. There is no need for us both to die, and for you to be... shamed in this way. Lulathe wants me most of all."

"I want you, most of all." Dumisane said, with a bitter smile. "But what you suggest... that gives me an idea."

**

Nandi's toes curled as she spread her legs wide on their cowhide mat. When Dumisane had begun licking her, her gaze kept straying to the gate, fearing that somehow their pursuers would break through. But before long, she surrendered to his tender caresses. She lay her head back, writhing as his lips and tongue explored every crevice inside her drooling slit.

Nandi moaned, floating on gentle waves of bliss that emanated from her core. She ran her fingers through Dumisane's damp hair. She wished she could be here, in this place forever, riding her lover to peak after peak. As she shuddered through a slow, pleasing climax, she was able to forget their predicament.

Dumisane sat up. He reached for the summoning stone. "Are you certain?" he said, holding up the thick length of polished clay. "Once we let the bull loose from the kraal, there may be no bringing it back."

Just now, Nandi's throbbing cunt was so hungry, she would rut just about anything. But she only nodded solemnly. "Let it loose, my love. I trust you."

He nodded, gazing upon her with something that bordered on both awe and terror. He bent to lick her engorged little nub. As Nandi lay her head back again, she felt the massive head of the stone nuzzle against her nether lips.

She played with her nipples, plucking them tenderly with her fingers. Dumisane raised his head, and pressed the stone deeper. Nandi moaned as she felt her slit open and stretch around the cap of the head.

Dumisane twisted the phallus as she relaxed around it. Her inner walls clung to every marking and braided ridge of the stone's surface. She spread her slender legs as wide as she could.

"By the ancestors!" she gasped. She felt like she was going to come, and he hadn't even begun to rut her.

"You're nearly there," Dumisane coaxed.

Nandi felt fuller than she had ever been. The stone seemed to warm inside her, and her body trembled with the ripples of heat that seemed to course through her veins.

"There," he said, as the clay cock hit bottom. Then he began to rut her.

She looked down in awe. Dumisane held the end of the massive stone, and gently thrust it into her core. Every time it sunk into her depths and he dragged it out, she convulsed. Then, with his other hand, he began to tease her love button.

Nandi's vision exploded in the white blaze of a powerful orgasm. She threw her head back on the soft cowhide, screaming with pleasure. Every thought was gone as her mind was rocked with spasms that pulsed against it, like an ocean tide against the shore.

When she opened her eyes again, still feeling the aftershocks, she looked up longingly at Dumisane.

She had never felt this way. She wanted to be rutted, stuffed to the brim until she came again. Her cunt still twitched with excitement. She followed his gaze to her right, where the hulking kukuru stood.

The demon was all corded muscle, its deep brown flesh not unlike the glossy hide of the sable antelope. Its ears were pointed and transfixed with sharpened, needle-like studs.

It was said that on a dark night, a kukuru could pass for a very large human. Indeed, it seemed true. Excepting the elongated face, the ears, and the deadly black horns that brushed the ceiling, the thing could have been human.

Nandi followed the line of the demon's form down, taking in the massive axe it held, with its beak-shaped blade, the tunic of black hide that it wore, and the shaft of a long, thick cock that peeked out beneath the tunic's hem, lengthening along the demon's powerful thigh.

The beast regarded her with a pitiless gaze, from eyes like burning coals. Nandi whimpered, her hand finding its way between her legs to rub her slick cunt. Terrified and eager all at once, she swallowed and spun herself towards the kukuru.

"I know your name," she managed to say.

Dumisane stood, facing the demon, even though it towered over him. He told the kukuru their plan.

"It is agreed," the demon said, in a voice so deep it sent tremors through Nandi. Its eyes never left her.

The demon tossed aside its axe. Dumisane stepped back, and the kukuru knelt between Nandi's legs. It reached under her ass and lifted her, lowering her onto its stiff shaft until her butt rested on its thighs. Nandi let loose an enraptured sob as she was filled once again. The demon's cock seemed to be making its own room within her stuffed cunt, and she could see her belly swell as it touched her very core.

The kukuru began to slide her up and down its shaft. Nandi wailed as the demon rutted her, reaming out her insides. She let her head hang back, allowing the beast to lift and lower her like a plaything, slowly climbing to another peak.

The demon stared down at her like nothing else in the world mattered to it. But its imperious gaze was not one of love. To it, she was nothing more than a bauble, an attractive vessel for its seed. One that it was determined to fill.

But the kukuru did not rush. It rutted Nandi until her mind began to turn to mush, and her body was racked with another shuddering climax.

The demon lifted her, its stiff shaft bobbing free, smeared with her cream. The kukuru rolled her over on her hands and knees, facing away. Nandi, trembling through her orgasm, shoved her ass back towards it. She gasped as the demon's cock swiftly filled her with one smooth thrust.

Nandi screamed as another orgasm hit her, right on the heels of the last. The steady strokes of the demon became more forceful. It gripped the cheeks of her ass with powerful hands and drove deep inside her gaping cunt.

Nandi grunted with every thrust. All thought left her mind. Dimly, she was aware of Dumisane, watching her, his face slack with both wonder and fear. She saw the stiff bulge of his cock, tenting his kilt. Her senses were overwhelmed with the demonic scent of charcoal, and her own pungent sex.

Something in her eyes must have beckoned him. Nandi had long since lost the power to form words. Dumisane unbuckled his kilt, letting it drop to the floor. He pulled aside his loincloth and approached her, baring his thick, turgid cock.

Dumisane fell to his knees before her. As she was rocked back and forth by the powerful demon, nearing another orgasm, her lover grabbed her head and pulled it onto his cock.

Nandi was buffeted back and forth, between demon and man. Her eyes rolled back in her head as Dumisane stuffed her mouth full. She greedily sucked on his veiny shaft.

The kukuru rumbled as it thrust deeper than ever inside her cunt and held her there. Nandi gagged on Dumisane's cock, but she didn't care. She came, her body convulsing as the head of her lover's cock butted against the entrance of her throat. Her cunt clutched at the cock inside it, and she felt warmth spreading within her. She heard the spatter of fluid on the mat beneath her knees as semen gushed from her insides. But even after its climax, the probing member of the kukuru remained solid as a hot iron rod.

Wetness slicked her thighs as the demon began, slowly to rut her once more. Dumisane gripped her head with both hands, his fingers nestled in her short braids. His hips rocked, thrusting into her gullet. He shouted as he came, his seed shooting directly into her throat. She reflexively swallowed it down, feeling the witch-blood course through her.

Dumisane released her head, and Nandi let it drop to the mat, raising her ass and letting the demon take her well-used cunt. Her thighs were already slick with its seed. Dumisane's cock, half-hard and slimy with her saliva and his spend, lay in her hair.

Nandi shuddered through yet another orgasm, her cunt spasming around the immense cock that invaded it. As her body shook once more with bliss, she lost consciousness.

**

The next morning, the rain still hadn't let up. Nandi watched as Dumisane ventured out into the deluge, crossing the yard to the wall near the front gate and climbing until he could see over.

"I wish to surrender!" he shouted to the bajari. "I have the woman! I will give her to you. Just let me go free!"

Nandi heard the growling response. "Open the gate."

"Send away those ancestor-cursed hyenas," Dumisane said. "And I will do as you say."

"No. Open the gates!"

Dumisane fell silent for a time. Finally he shook his head. "I can stay here for a long time. The granary is full. I have shelter. Within a month, cattlemen will bring another herd to this post," he said. "How long can you wait? Just send those rabid hyenas away, to show I can trust you."

Dumisane waited. A whoop sounded. Then more. Nandi heard the giggle of the hyenas as they gathered near the gate. Then the calls faded. Dumisane's fist, hanging at his side, closed, signaling that the hyenas were leaving.

He waited longer, seeming to peer into the distance, then he came down.

Nandi glanced at the kukuru, where it waited in the hut, axe in hand, gazing at her without emotion. She emerged from the rut, feeling the cool rain pelt her skin. She was still naked, her cunt still deliciously sore from what seemed like hours of rutting. The water washed away dried semen that caked her thighs and face. She wrapped sisal rope loosely around her wrists, and sat down in the mud in front of the gate, but some distance from it. Not far from the entrance to their hut. The orange dog watched them from another hut, its pink tongue hanging out.