Free Nightbringer by James Byron Huggins

slaves—it would be his doom.
    Long he had lived, and the empires that he had once ruled were still unknown to these ... humans—as if human knowledge were enough, in itself, to measure. But he could, indeed, remember the kings who had come against him, the warriors he had torn into dead shreds of meat and bone. He remembered battles of sprawling hundreds of thousands—battles he had commanded and always won. Yes, that he had always won until the Hebrew dog rose and took the throne of Israel.
    But he had escaped the wrath of mighty David—he that slew his tens of thousands on tens of thousands. Yes, had escaped the fierce, bearded Hebrew and joined his own might with the expendable Persians, the effete Greeks and, finally, Jerusalem itself.
    He laughed.
    Yes, always the Hebrews invited their own destruction. They were like fools returning to folly, dogs returning to vomit. For just as one generation was led by their king to honor their God, the next generation would dishonor Him. And then they would not trust their God to deliver them but would put their faith in the strength of their own right arm, devices of deception, engines of destruction. And the land would be taken from them once again.
    But it was not truly their land. It had never been their land. No, for when the Hebrews arrived, Palestine was already inhabited by mighty nations that had stood for a thousand years. Nor were they quick to recognize the bold boast of a wandering tribe of Egyptian slaves. But war had decided the right to claim what could be claimed, and Israel had won in the end.
    Yet he had almost undone it all when he led Tiberius' endless legions beneath the secret tunnels of the southern wall. For even Tiberius, upon seeing the great walls of Jerusalem, admitted that the City of the King would never fall unless it was betrayed from within. And so he had orchestrated the betrayal—nor had it been difficult, playing those who believed the Nazarene was the Messiah against those who so violently refused to believe—and such was the fall of it that not one stone stood upon another when the day was done.
    He smiled, remembering how—
    Sound ...
    He froze before the statue of the centurion. But the sound did not come again and he bent his head. His breathing ceased and his heart slowed and slowed more until it barely beat beneath the huge twin shields of muscle mantling his massive chest. Hairs along his head and neck and forearms bristled.
    Nothing …
    What had made the sound had not moved again.
    White lips separating to reveal fangs thickly set and saber-like, he turned in the direction of the noise. He gazed over the honeycomb of corridors that led upstairs to the rooms of the guests. Yes, the man was inside the corridors. But he was not moving, was not emerging from behind the walls.
    So, you've come at last.
    He laughed silently.
    I always knew you would ....
    With three monstrous strides—there was no cause for deceit if he was certain of the identity of his foe—he selected a passageway at random, expecting to hear the faintest step in another direction. He moved with increasing speed, hoping to catch the warrior unaware for even the warrior could not hear as a wolf could hear—as he could hear. He walked in and out and across and across again and still he did not find his foe. Then he froze in place, head bent, listening. But there was nothing.
    He snarled.
    Fool ... do you truly think you can escape me?
    He moved faster through the corridors, poised to catch the faintest sound in the gray shadows—a glimpse of a silhouette. Nor did he expect more than a glimpse, for the man was the purest warrior and possessed all the greatness of a hunter— patience, purpose, knowledge, skill, strength, and will. He would make few, if any, mistakes.
    He listened as he moved, eyes roaming.
    Nothing, nothing, nothing...
    Nothing !
    Fangs exposed, he bent and listened long, and longer, waiting with inhuman patience—with a millennium of patience. He