'Inspired by' The Sorceress of Kordesh-Shan

The Sorceress of Kordesh-Shan

There is a city in the desert. It is made of sandstone and mud and straw bricks. Its temples litter the dunes dedicated to dark chthonic gods.

The people of this nefarious city worship a woman. She is said to be the greatest beauty in the world. Her skin is as white as milk, her hair as black as panther hide, her eyes as blue as lapis lazuli, her lips as full and succulent as sweet nectarines. Her curves are as alluring as the ever-changing sand dunes, her breasts as ripe as melon fruit.

She however, is not just some simple beauty... No! She is the Sorceress of Kordesh-Shan...

Her mind is as sharp as the headsman’s axe, her demeanour as cruel and crawling as a black cave spider... They say she has no heart. They say, she has removed it from her breast, using dark arcane rituals. They say, she keeps that blood-red ruby heart in a locked chest, deep beneath one of the city’s temples, guarded by a great ape-man, more ferocious than a lion, who eats human flesh and uses the bones of its victims to make windpipes, composing disturbing and madness-inducing compositions... down there in the dark.

They say, that the greatest treasures of the world lie in mountainous heaps, sparkling golden and silver. And even with the threat of becoming a meal for the Ape creature, or worse, becoming a mind-numbed thrall to the sorceress, has not dissuaded foolish, greedy men from sneaking into those dusty temples, and crawling through the darkness. Hungering for the glimpse of the treasures that lie down there. Treasure enough for a common thief to buy their own Kingdoms and armies to defend their borders...

Yet all who have been foolish enough to enter those stygian temples, none have ever walked out with a single coin in their greedy grasping hands.

None, until now...

He clung to the temple walls like a shadow. He moved in sinuous strides like a sand lizard. His muscles rippled beneath his sun-tanned skin. His sword was wrapped in fur, so as not to make any clanking sounds. A curved dagger hung at his hip, its ivory handle yellowed with age and use.

His boots were made of the softest elk hide, making his footfalls ghostly and silent. His eyes were dark slits. His tawny hair brushed his shoulders.

He moved on the balls of his feet, like a stalking leopard. Watching the priests come and go about their business. Unaware of the phantom moving unseen amongst them. Their cotton white kilts flapped around their waists. Their leather sandals slapped on the stone floor, and held oil lamps spit out yellow light, illuminating their way through the sandstone corridors, their walls etched in strange hieroglyphs that he could not read...

He came to a spiral stone stairway leading down deep into the earth. He made his descent. There was no turning back. The draw of treasure burned in his breast, and only the glimmer of gold would quench that fire that drove him on this fool's quest...

The heat of the desert night was left behind as he descended into the blackness of the underworld... Slowly, steadily he made his way down. Every step was carefully placed in the blind dark. His back scraped against the cold stone wall. Finally, his feet touched the level ground. He fumbled in a pouch hanging from his belt and knelt down in the dark... moments later after several spark flashes had lit the darkness a flame was given birth and grew, casting out a warm orange spluttering light from his handheld torch. He stood at the beginning of a manmade tunnel, chisel marks could be seen on the rock walls. The Thief licked his lips and followed the tunnel...

Every one hundred paces he marked the walls with an arrow pointing back where he had just come, for these tunnels were a labyrinth, playing tricks on his mind and disorientating him. His eyes throbbed, his muscles twitched, and then his ears pricked up. There, ahead in the darkness, a soft whistling sound drifted down the tunnel... It was a disturbing sound, musical yet discord in composition, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He drew his broadsword, took a deep breath, and headed toward the strange mesmerizing tune that whistled ever louder in his ears...

A stench wafted down the tunnel. With every step the stink grew more intense, it was rotten like decaying flesh and bodily waste... he gagged and swallowed down the bile threatening to spew from his gut...

A dim light ahead crept out of the dark, flickering. With grim determination, the thief advanced coming to the entrance of a large chamber...

He stopped... his eyes widened, his guts tightened and his heart throbbed... A nervous sweat broke out on his brow...

Sitting on a high-backed stone-carved throne was a blasphemous creation. Neither man nor beast, but a melange of both. Sorcery was its birth mother. The thief saw hints of animals and man in that sickening monster. Its head was simian, its tusks were hippo-like. Its body was that of a great black gorilla. Its legs were bowed and thick with muscle. It had leopard's paws for feet. Its arms too long and hairless, knuckle dragged the stone floor, and seemed to be stitched to its shoulders with thick twine. 

It held a bone flute to its lips playing a shrill hellish tune that pierced the thief’s ears like daggers...the floor was littered with bones and skulls, some bones belonged to animals others were disturbingly human...

The great man-ape creature stopped its playing, its bulky hairy head turned to the thief. Its brown eyes turned to slits, its lips peeled back revealing its ripping tusks in all of their fury...

It stood up; its swollen potbelly hung down to its bow-legged knees. Its long thick arms dragged the ground, it bellowed and whooped and snatched up a huge spiked club and charged...

The thief hardly had time to react. He ducked... the club whooshed over his head... he jumped back as a heavy fist swung at him... The ape whooped again and leaped into the air gripping the club in its black hairy fists.

The thief side-stepped... The club crashed down a hairsbreadth from him. The ground vibrated from the crushing impact. He snaked his arm up, his sword bit into the side of the Ape-man, a lick of blood escaped the wound...

The creature roared and shoulder charged the thief, knocking him off his feet and sending his sword clattering from his hand and out of reach.

The monster stood astride him. Its lips peeled back, saliva dripped from its curved tusks... it raised its club intent on turning the thief’s skull to red mush.

The thief drew his dagger and stabbed the creature in the foot. The ape roared... The thief came up and spun around behind the monstrosity, drawing his curved knife across its leg, hamstringing it.

The ape stumbled forward. The thief leaped onto its huge back intent on cutting its throat. The ape’s long arms reached behind it and grabbed the thief throwing him over its bulky shoulders...

He crashed to the floor and flung up an arm as those tusks gnashed down toward his throat. The thief cried out as the tusks bit into his forearm ripping his flesh down to the bone... He slashed at the ape-man’s huge belly, ripping bloody flaps into it.

The ape roared releasing his arm...

The thief jumped to his feet and ran for his fallen sword. In one swift motion, he scooped it up and ran for the stone throne leaping up onto its high back, and leaped into the air bringing his sword down onto that thick simian skull. Blood, pink brain, and thick white bone fragments exploded from the killing blow. The ape’s head split in twain it slumped to the floor. The thief rolled over and came up kneeling. He wiped a splash of sticky simian blood from his face, and then his eyes were drawn to a glimmer of multi-coloured gems and yellow metal on the edge of light in the far corner of the room... a smile escaped his bloodstained lips.

He emerged from that dank, dark labyrinth a leather bag slung over his shoulder laden with booty into a brightly lit chamber. A leopard lounged on a marble step, it snarled at his emergence, its tail whipped back and forth.

There, leaning against a stone column she stood. She was a vision of immeasurable beauty. A milky white-skinned goddess... His eyes drank in her loveliness like a thirsty drunkard gulping down ale in choking mouthfuls. A surge of carnal urges welled up inside of him, it was strong and heady and unnatural... Her curvaceous body whispered to him... it promised him delights of the flesh... it promised nights of hot passion the likes he could not imagine...

Her eyes sparkled sapphire bright, full of lusty mischief, her movements were like a Harem dancer... mesmerising and salacious... His loins throbbed and ached for her silken touch...

She walked toward him, her hips swayed from side to side in a rhythmic fashion, her ripe breasts bounced to the beat of his pounding heart... A jewelled dagger gleamed in her soft white hand.

He struggled to breathe for her perfume was intoxicating; it was as fragrant as lotus with the warm musk of Myrrh...

With every step she took closer to him, his head throbbed more, his heart ached more and his loins burned ever greater...

She smiled, her lips were succulent pillows he craved to rest his own mouth upon and taste their tang...

She snaked an arm around his muscular waist, the touch of her fingers sent shivers of ecstasy throughout his body as if he had lightning in his veins...

He was ensorcelled, trapped in her mummery and eldritch power trapped in her web of death...

She pressed her lips against his, her tongue tasted him. His eyes rolled in his head. His heart threatened to burst with pure lusty joy and then he sucked in a sharp painful breath it was excruciating pain, yet orgasmic... He crumbled to his knees and looked up at her, this vision, this demoness... this succubus...

she smiled down at him and in her hand, she held his heart... redraw, blood dripping between her fingers, still beating... And in his death, he felt no pain, just pure love, and longing for her, for this beauteous vision who had stolen his heart... He fell forward prostrate on the ground, his blood pooling beneath him and staining the silken slippers of his killer... just another hapless victim of the Sorceress of Kordesh-Shan...

The End