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

with his blighted handiwork,
    And rested in smug content with his idiot labor.
    Several louts began to beat on the table in protest to the eerie, unintelligible song.
    In time this fool's creation multiplied all through the land, And disgusted those before them with their drivel,
    Content to live a wormlike existence for the pleasure of their god,
    Who in his mindless conceit only giggled with his dolls.
    Yet in one there rose rebellion with this crawling in cosmic dung-
    No maggot hot a serpent was this son of divinity's folly.
    And in his hellish fury at the crooning lies of that creator,
    He chose to be his own master and defied this nameless god,
    And with his hands he slew his brother--choicest plaything.
    Now despair racked the broken mind of this insane elder god,
    For he saw the flaws within his cherished children
    And recognized himself as the author of that image.
    This rebel he cursed in rage to bleak, eternal wandering,
    And gave him eyes of a killer, so all know the Mark of Kane.
    "Damn your pale hide, minstrel!" bellowed the drunken soldier. "I said give us something we all know!" He lurched to his feet and stumbled over to Evingolis, interrupting the ancient song. "Now let's hear something else!" He tossed his mug of ale in the minstrel's face and roared with laughter. His fellows joined in.
    In Evingolis's face there flashed a look of white, hot anger. He laid the lute aside and wiped his burning eyes. Then with a movement too swift to follow, his hand lashed out and struck the soldier's laughing face. As if kicked by a horse the drunkard shot backwards onto the stone floor. He did not get up. Shocked silence caught the audience; they had considered the lean albino a weakling.
    "Sonofabitch!" gasped Troylin in awe. "Shows you not to pick a fight if you can't hold your brew! Must have hit the floor on his head or something. Somebody get him out of here."
    Sneering at the startled crowd, Evingolis picked up his lute and stalked out of the hall.
    "Just as well!" the baron observed. "He's going to goad those guys a little too far with his superior airs one of these days--they won't stand for it in a minstrel. May not get off a lucky punch next time." He chuckled. "Quite a character, isn't he though? Sure can sing the strangest stuff I've ever heard. Make any sense of that one, Kane?"
    Kane looked after the departing minstrel in calculation. "Some little," he murmured, and fell to brooding. His eyes looked into the dancing flames, and none could say what he saw there.
VI. A Man Not Man
    It crouched in the shadow of the wall, watching the sleeping manor in silent hatred. The cold wind ruffled its white coat, and its panting breath raised small puffs of steam. Yet the creature felt not the cold, only conscious of a burning hunger that shrieked to be satiated. With its inhuman sight it regarded the quiet out-building which housed the baron's off duty men-at-arms; in the darkness all objects stood clearly in varying shades of light tan and brown. Within that lodge there would be soft human bodies--hairless weakling ape creatures now sleeping without care. Their tender flesh would be warm with seething blood. The creature trembled in unspeakable anticipation, lips drawn back over champing fangs.
    From the nighted forest, dark shapes were loping across the snow and silently gathering outside the gate of the enclosure. The creature felt their presence with its mind and welcomed them. Many of its brothers had answered its voiceless call. They too sensed the many hated man creatures inside the castle walls, and their feral minds rejoiced in the scenes of slaughter drawn for them by their leader.
    More than thirty lean, gray forms now were waiting beyond the gate. It was enough, decided the creature. Once more its mind reached out to its brothers, impressing upon them the plan they must follow. No opposition was encountered. This was the wolf leader; they must obey his summons, must carry through his commands. It had been