04 - Rise of the Lycans by Greg Cox - (ebook by Undead) Read Free Book Online Page A

through the forest by a dozen werewolves than suffer through another
interminable council meeting….
    Why couldn’t her father understand that?
    Instead he stepped forward and cupped her chin in his hand. A little more
warmth crept into his stern voice and gaze.
    “After all,” he reminded her, “without the bonds between us, we are no better
than the beasts at our door.”
     
    Viktor’s ominous warning echoed in Lucian’s mind as he returned to his smithy.
The naked body of the dead werewolf was slung over his shoulder. He was anxious
to dispose of the corpse, if only to remove any reminders of the incident from
the Elder’s sight. Lucian continued to lament his own stupidity; whatever
goodwill he had incurred by coming to Sonja’s rescue had been lost by his
careless behavior in the aftermath of that event. He wondered whether Viktor
would ever truly trust him again.
    I might as well have shot that silver quarrel through my own brow.
    He flung the carcass into the smoldering bed of his forge, then pumped the
bellows to stoke the flames to a roaring blaze. As he somberly watched the
bright orange fire consume the corpse, he had to admit that the burning body
looked disturbingly human. Was it possible that some trace of a soul still
lurked within the savage hearts of the werewolves? Lucian didn’t want to think
so and yet… where did his own mind and spirit come from if not from the
blood and loins of a creature such as this?
    The stench of charred flesh, as well as his own unwanted doubts, drove him to
seek the fresher air of the courtyard outside his smithy. Glancing around, he
saw that, despite the excitement earlier, the castle had fallen back into its
usual nightly routines. Lycan slaves labored to rebuild a watchtower that had
fallen into grievous disrepair. Their dirty bodies drenched in sweat, the men dragged and
pushed massive slabs of granite up steep wooden ramps and ladders. Other slaves
mixed enormous quantities of mortar, which were hauled up onto the scaffolding.
Cranes and pulleys lifted the larger blocks, which dangled ominously over the
courtyard below. Grunting workers manned the ropes and tread wheels.
    Studded leather harnesses were strapped to the slaves’ hairy chests, while
fraying wool trousers satisfied the demands of decency. Moon shackles pricked
their necks, keeping their inner wolves safely caged. The brands upon their arms
bore the initials of one of the three vampire Elders; Marcus and Amelia had
embraced with enthusiasm Viktor’s idea of turning the lycans into slaves, so
that each of them now claimed equal portions of the breed as their personal
property. The slaves’ eyes bore the numbed, hopeless look of men whose futures
held nothing but an eternity of endless toil. Immortality for such as these was
not a blessing but a curse.
    A shaggy blue-eyed laborer, who had been christened Xristo by his masters,
looked near the limits of his endurance. Gasping in exhaustion, he chipped away
at a crumbling wall with a pickax in order to clear a space for the replacement
stones. Perspiration dripped from his light brown bangs and he lowered his pick
long enough to wipe the sweat from his eyes. He leaned his muscular frame up
against a wooden ramp as he paused to catch his breath.
    This did not sit well with Kosta, the sadistic overseer in charge of the project. Unforgiving gray eyes glared at Xristo from
beneath heavy black brows. A long white scar, left over from his mortal days,
ran down one side of his grizzled face, which gave him the look of a mortal in
his late fifties. His stiff gray hair was cropped close to his skull. Jet-black
plate armor added to his intimidating aspect. Frown lines were etched deeply
into his saturnine countenance. The sneer on his lips made it clear that he
despised his lycan charges nearly as much as they hated and feared him.
    His fist tightened on the grip of a thick leather whip. Silver glinted at the
tip of the whip as he