Death Angel's Shadow by Karl Edward Wagner Read Free Book Online

down. So I shouted and yelled hoping someone would come by from the hunt and hear me. And that's what you did," she concluded.
Kane was amazed at the girl's coolness. Most women would have been too panic stricken, too stupid, too weak. Yet Breenanin had survived and seemingly was relatively calm once again. It was unbelievable.
    He rode into the clearing and saw with relief that Troylin and his party were waiting there. Intact and complete with elk. They shouted an exuberant greeting, then fell into mystified silence at the bloody rider along with his prize.
    "Kane! What the hell!" gasped Troylin in amazement.
    "Here's your daughter--safe enough," Kane said. "The rest are back with the elk. They won't be following us."
V. Tales on a Winter Evening
    The hunting banquet was a rather dismal affair. These chases often had their fill of danger, and casualties of the hunt were frequently toasted to in memoriam. But five corpses were too many. Men drank their ale too seriously for fun, and in place of the usual raucous horseplay small groups spoke of the weird attack in quiet, anxious tones. The behavior of the wolves was decidedly unnatural, and not a few old legends were retold in the gloomy shadows of the dining hall.
    At the high table the diners were in a no more festive mood. Breenanin was still shaken from her experience and did not pursue her accustomed banter with her father. The baron had been so thankful for her safety, that he had forgotten to punish her. Henderin's place was empty, and his two wardens were absent as well. The crazed youth had slipped away from his keepers that day and eluded them for several hours of frantic searching, before he was recaptured scrambling over the outer wall. He had been violent, and Lystric had been forced to place him under restraint until the spell passed. Lystric himself was no different from usual. The long-bearded astrologer sullenly gobbled his meal, while favoring the others with a baleful look.
    Baron Troylin had just listened to Kane's retelling of the massacre in the ravine. He had asked him to repeat it three times now, and each time he had shaken his head at the conclusion and made the same comments about the uncanny behavior of the wolves. He was trying to fix the details in his thick head, in the vague hope that somewhere in Kane's narrative would lie the explanation for it all.
    He caught sight of Evingolis, who was sitting in the shadows as usual, watching the diners while he gnawed a rib of venison. "Minstrel!" he rumbled. "This place has less life than a wake. Let's have some music to liven things a little." A raucous cheer went up from the diners in anticipation. The albino strolled from his perch and collected his lute. Playing over the strings a moment, he raised mocking eyes to Kane and announced, "Here's a tune perhaps our guest will recognize."
    His clear voice began the song, and Kane barely repressed a start. The minstrel's song was in archaic Ashertiri--a tongue Kane doubted if another man within days of travel could understand! The song was the work of the long dead and ill famed poet Clem Ginech of ancient Ashertiri, whose efforts had left those of his age uncertain whether he was a poet turned sorcerer or the reverse.
    Within an endless mirror of my spirit's infinite soul,
    I reach back into timeless ages beginning or unbegan;
    And see a crystal pattern, fluctuating panorama,
    Forgotten by the gods, but unveiled to inward sight.
    "Let's have something in Carrasahli!" roared a drunken soldier.
    An insane elder god, in his madness sought to build,
    A race of mortal creatures in the image of divine.
    In foolish egomania, fatal folly, the artist had conspired
    Within this mortal image godlike perfection to contain;
    Blindly had forgotten that an image so conceived,
    Must embody the very madness of its deluded parent.
    Great cataclysmic toil, cyclopean effort, did he make;
    To the taunting laughter of his fellows, amused to see a fool,
    He cluttered all the earth