#99 Heisenberg's Panthers: Knights of the Dark Cougar
"Your Excellency," purred Griddlebone, "do you want us to stay?" The Staßenkatze all stared at her with inscrutable feline eyes.
The Countess hesitated. She did not want to show any kind of weakness, but she must also learn from her previous mistake - the one which had led up to this moment, but which could so easily have proved to be her downfall. "Yes, remain close but unseen."
The three blood-born servants instantly melted silently into the shadows, leaving the slender form of the countess alone among the ancient cairns.
She waited, gazing across the moor which had been her home - her domain indeed - for so very many years. But if the Heisenbergs were to remain the Gravelords of Barfun Moor she and the Count needed to assert themselves as the pack alphas. Bärbel Holzhaus had made that abundantly clear, and they could not risk the dissatisfaction of the Hunt.
Suddenly, beneath her coiffured hair her ears twitched. She could hear hoofbeats, still far off. More than one rider was heading her way. That was good. Well, hopefully.
Inevitably, a memory resurfaced. The memory of a perilous night which she had turned to her great advantage. The night when Countess Heisenberg had been caught off guard on Barfun Moor by two fearsome enemies: Slaves to Darkness, not to the delicious darkness of Death, but to the sickly, putrid darkness of the Ruinous Powers. Two Knights of Chaos had come upon her, the kind who fought for pleasure. Like a cat with a mouse they had toyed with her, drawing her demise out for agonising hours as they charged and withdrew, charged and withdrew on their massive black steeds.
But with the very last of her strength, Zkyla had thrust her blade proboscis straight through the corrupted heart of one of her assailants. Instantly, the blade siphoned away the Chaos Knight's blood and Countess Heisenberg had drunk deep and been revived - completely revived to her full strength. The other knight had stared in astonishment at the sudden restoration of her feline beauty. He had slid languidly from his steed, the manifestation of his desires shifting from combat to a different source of pleasure. The vampire had not resisted him, but had sunk into his terrible embrace - and then sunk her fangs into the pulsing vein of his muscular neck. Once he had been subdued, she had delivered the blood kiss, partly out of desperate self-defence, partly out of admiration for a killer who hunted so like a cat, and partly because she saw an opportunity for significant gain.
Now she stood again upon the Moor, waiting to discover just what gain she had achieved. Tu'co the Chaos Knight turned Blood Knight, had been sent back to his tribe. 'The Dark Panther' she had named him, and she had tasked him with the recruitment of more of his kind into the service of the Heisenbergs.
In the weak, mauve light of dawn seeping up from the horizon she spotted them: Half a dozen or so riders, heavily armoured and swathed in furs. Now that she could see them, the knights seemed to approach more rapidly as she stood her ground upon a granite outcrop. In a moment they were before her. The largest horseman drove his steed a few paces ahead of the others.
"My Dark Cougar," he growled. His head was uncovered and a wild, black mane framed his dark, leonine face. He was beautiful, and terrible. But his fanged mouth was smiling.
"I have brought you gifts, Countess." Tu'co's clawed hand gestured to the other riders. Each hulking brute shared their leader's powerfully feline features. Each knight was clearly a vampire, but not merely a vampire of the Vyrkos line, but of Zkyla's own feline manifestation of the ancient vampiric house.
"But where are the others?" she hissed. He had brought her more blood knights than she could have hoped for, but she could not let him know how pleased she was.
"Those who could not be turned, were killed," replied Tu'co, involuntarily scratching at the dried blood in his whiskers.
Countess Heisenberg smirked. She knew the bloodlust of a newborn Soulblight: Tu'co and his blood knights had spent too long unrestrained by their Chaotic former master to be able to control their new vampiric appetites. No matter, it would make them all the more fearsome on the battlefield.
"You may approach me,” she purred.
With a twitch of his cruel spurs, Tu'co brought his steed within reach of her granite platform. She leaned forward and kissed him. "I name you Kastellan of the Panthers, Blood Knights of House Heisenberg."
Tu'co turned and returned to his place with his men. One of them lifted a black and violet banner and each knight roared with the might of a lion: "We are Heisenberg's Panthers! We are the Knights of the Dark Cougar!"
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