The Stone of Farewell by Tad Williams Read Free Book Online

I saw him caught by them, back at Naglimund.” He felt the pikeman’s shoulder quiver beneath his touch, heard the man’s breath whistling in and out. “Aedon, how he must have suffered.”
    Ostrael’s eyes turned up to his, yellow and glazed even in the dim light. The mouth opened again in the dark-crusted face. “Help ...” The voice was painfully slow, as though each heavy word were being hoisted up his throat to his mouth before tumbling out into the air. “It ... hurts me,” he wheezed. “Hollow.”
    “God’s Tree, what can possibly be done for him?” Isorn groaned. “We are all hurting.”
    Ostrael’s mouth gaped. He stared up with blind eyes.
    “We can bandage his wounds.” Isorn’s mother Gutrun was recovering her considerable poise. “We can get him a cloak. If he lives until the morning, we can do more then.”
    Josua had turned back to look at the young pikeman again. “The duchess is right, as usual. Father Strangyeard, see if you can find a cloak. Perhaps one of the less injured can spare theirs...”
    “No!” Einskaldir growled. “I do not like this!”
    A confused silence fell on the gathering.
    “Surely you do not begrudge...” Deornoth began, then gasped as Einskaldir leaped past him and seized the panting Ostrael by the shoulders, throwing him roughly to the ground. Einskaldir squatted on the young pikeman’s chest. The bearded Rimmersman’s long knife appeared from nowhere to lie against Ostrael’s blood-smeared neck like a glinting smile.
    “Einskaldir!” Josua’s face was pale. “What is this madness?”
    The Rimmersman looked over his shoulder, a strange grin slashing his bearded face. “This is no true man! I do not care where you think you have seen him before!”
    Deornoth reached a hand toward Einskaldir, but drew it back quickly when the Rimmersman’s knife whickered past his outstretched fingers.
    “Fools! Look!” Einskaldir pointed with his hilt toward the fire.
    Ostrael’s bare foot lay among the embers at the edge of the firepit. The flesh was being consumed, blackening and smoking, yet the pikeman himself lay almost placidly beneath Einskaldir, his lungs fluting as he forced breath in and out.
    There was a moment of silence. A smothering, bone-chilling fog seemed to settle over the clearing. The moment had become as horribly strange yet inalterable as a nightmare. Fleeing the ruin of Naglimund, they might have wandered into the trackless lands of madness.
    “Perhaps his wounds...” Isorn began.
    “Idiot! He feels no fire,” Einskaldir snarled. “And he has a slash in his throat that would kill any man. Look! See!” He forced back Ostrael’s head until those gathered around could see the ragged, fluttering edges of the wound, which stretched from one angle of his jaw to the other. Father Strangyeard, who had been leaning close, made a choking noise and turned away.
    “Tell me he is not some ghost...” the Rimmersman continued, then was almost thrown to the ground as the body of the pikeman began to thrash beneath him. “Hold him down!” Einskaldir shouted, trying to keep his face away from Ostrael’s head, which whipped from side to side, the teeth snapping shut on empty air.
    Deornoth dove forward and clutched at one of the slender arms; it was cold and hard as stone, but still horribly flexible. Isorn, Strangyeard, and Josua were also struggling to find handholds on the wriggling, lunging form. The half-darkness was rich with panicky curses. When Sangfugol came forward and wrapped himself around the last unprisoned foot, hanging on with both arms, the body became quiescent for a moment. Deornoth could still feel the muscles moving beneath the skin, tightening and relaxing, mustering strength for another try. Air hissed in and out of the pikeman’s distended, idiot-mouth.
    Ostrael’s head craned out on his uplifted neck, his blackened face swinging to look at each of them in turn. Then, with terrifying suddenness, the staring eyes seemed to