The Curious Quests of Brigadier Ffellowes by Sterling E. Lanier Read Free Book Online Page B

he said. 'Do you dare face him, and perhaps worse?' His voice was as strange as his expression had been to me, being deep and sonorous, with each word carefully chosen, as if he were speaking a language which was somehow not his, but a recently acquired tongue.
     
                  "I could only nod, for somehow speech seemed out of place, or else my tongue simply would not function in my dry mouth.
     
                  "He seemed to understand and laid a hand on my shoulder. 'Then come,' he said, 'Follow and ask no questions for there is no longer time. We must go and face this thing at its lair. What has been summoned must be laid to rest or it will come again and that must not be.'
     
                  "In silence, I followed him down the dark stairs and into the great silent hall. The clouds had parted outside, and through a mullioned window came just enough fitful moonlight to show us the way. The moaning of the wind had risen once more to gale force, but over it we could hear the neighing bray of whatever ranged the night, and ever and anon the sound of its hooves, beating a sinister tattoo as they galloped to and fro in the dark and storm.
     
                  "A patch of moonlight rested on one wall, and one could see the glimmer as it lighted on the various ancestral weapons which hung there. They ranged from trophies of foreign wars in the East, to mementos of Cavalier and Roundhead, and even older things, Lochaber axes, Scottish broadswords and claymores, with naval cutlasses of various times interwoven in the pattern.
     
                  "James moved to the wall and studied it for a moment, then reached up and unhooked a great Scottish broadsword, a thing most men would have needed two hands to swing, though he held it lightly enough in one.
     
                  "He turned to me, his face as grave as before and said, very simply, 'Choose.'
     
                  "As I hesitated, he added in the same slow, stately way, 'We must use fire or steel. The newer things will not help against that which walks the night. The servants and the woman sleep. They cannot face what we must . Choose!'
     
                  "This last was in a tone I could not resist. Nor did the mention of his beloved wife as 'the woman' rouse me to rebellion. Someone else had taken over command, and my business was to obey.
     
                  "I stepped over and peered up at the great wall. My hand went out to a blade as if led, and d'you know, the thing I had grasped almost seemed to leap into my hand. The minute I felt the hilt, I knew what I had, for I had handled the weapon in admiration a day or so earlier. It was a long, straight cut-and-thrust, with a basket hilt, made for some remote Elizabethan ancestor by the great Andrea Ferrara himself. I had been handy enough with the saber at Woolwich and later at Oxford. I could have chosen nothing better.
     
                  " 'A good choice,' rang out the deep voice at my side. 'A noble sword indeed, though lighter than is my use to wield. Now, let us on to the contest . We face the first challenge and perhaps not the lightest!'
     
                  "Grasping the great weapon in his right hand, he strode down the hall and, freeing the bolts, flung open the great oak doors to the storm of wind and to whatever it was I knew waited for us in the night. Out beyond the portico we went, with me three paces behind.
     
                  "Facing the darkness, he called above the storm in a voice like roll-thunder. 'Come and do battle, Hunter! You have no place here now! You and your kind were banished to the hills and under them, far back in the lost ages. You have no power over men of trust . I speak for Christ and defy you and all your pack. No longer should you roam the land and bring fear to the lost and the helpless in the dark! Come out, I command, on that horse I