Page 6 - Microsoft Word - FANG EMPIRE - NOVEL.docx

was the color of aged parchment. If it could have contained written words they would have been

words of wisdom. He wore a strange, leather neck-protector strapped from the base of his

collarbone up his neck to the middle of his cheek, a vampire hunter’s precaution. He knelt down

beside the pace cat and rubbed his hand across the bizarre three-hole puncture wound. He looked

over at the armored cat, its fate sealed by the same royal signet. Zuba knew this bite mark, this

fangmata.

“Sygnosis . . . ,” Zuba said quietly, almost reverently. Then he spoke to the lead rider as he

dismounted. “Their necks are broken.”

“How long?” asked the leader.

“Four hours, maybe five.” Zuba’s expression was one of frustration. They were late once

again. “We’ll never catch her.”

The leader, Prince Omar Khan, removed his facial sash. He was a tall and striking man, a

rare combination of beauty and authority that summoned desire in women and commanded respect

from men. He too was wearing the leather neck-protector.

“These animals are bloodless,” said Zuba.

As Omar examined the long canine teeth and unfastened his neck-protector, another rider,

an Indian named Cane, dismounted. He had deep-set eyes and a silver ring piercing his left nostril.

There was an ethnically vague quality to his face that served him in the culturally diverse Sahara

region.

“Sabutan saber-tooths,” Cane said, “bred for their gladiator games.”

“How do they create such beasts?” Omar asked.

“I have heard the Sabutan leader, Status Crow, is a sorcerer,” Cane said as he removed four

waist-high torches from his saddle.

“Nonsense,” Omar said, as he stroked his hand over the armored cat’s magnificent body

mail. “Look at this metalwork.”

Cane mounted the torches in the sand and lit them with an inventive hand pump that