Death Angel's Shadow (3 page)

At length consciousness returned to Kane, and with it came the realization that something hovered near his side. Snapping into instant awareness, Kane hurled himself to one side. His corded arm whipped upward and be grasped a shock of white hair, as his other hand came up with the dirk he had strapped to his side.

"Wait! Mercy!" croaked his terrified victim, and Kane halted the disemboweling thrust just short of its mark. He grasped the beard of a stern and elderly face that projected on a thin neck from dark, impressive robes. The robes flopped in extreme agitation, and a pair of scrawny hands clawed in panic at Kane's grip. Kane released the old man, but retained his knife watchfully.

"By the Seven Eyes of Lord Thro'ellet!" choked the elder, massaging his bearded visage. "Damn near rip off my face and slit my gullet, you did! Vicious killer, that's what! A mad dog! What has my good baron taken in?"

"Who the hell are you?" Kane growled.

"I'd warned him about strangers! The stars tell plainly that these are deadly days for us all--but he won't listen! Brings in a demon from the storm and expects me to concern myself with him. I warn you, you low born spawn of a viper! I don't intend to let this near murder go forgotten!''

"Why were you in here?" snarled Kane dangerously.

The elder looked alarmed once more. He judged the distance to the door, decided it was too far, and collected himself. "I am Lystric, Baron Troylin's personal physician and astrologer. You've been snoring away here better than an entire day now, and the baron told me to took in on you." He glared darkly at Kane. "As if a frolic in the storm would bother an ice phantom! I try to examine your injuries, and you half kill me for my concern! Fine gesture! Nice mannered guest! Troylin should have slaughtered you in your sleep!"

"That's been tried before," returned Kane, swinging to his feet. "Count yourself lucky that I recognized you as a harmless old lecher before I spilled your insides out. But as you have seen, I'm quite all right now."

Lystric reddened in anger. "Damn you! I warn you that my wisdom holds secrets that could blast you to ashes, should I see fit to unleash them! Maybe I will! This is no time for Troylin to bring murdering strangers into his hold! There is death in the stars! I have seen it!"

Kane regained his temper with painful effort. "Would you care to examine me now?" he asked innocently.

"Damn your insolent hide!" shrieked Lystric and stamped toward the door, a stately exit which he ruined by glancing behind in apprehension. Halting at the door he glowered back. "The baron directed me to ask you to dine with him shortly, should I find you not too weak to stir!"

"Send my thanks and tell him I accept."

"No doubt! Well, he'll send his men-at-arms to butcher you, if I have my will!"

Kane elaborately drew back his dirk to throw. Lystric departed.

There was a tight atmosphere of uneasiness hanging over the dinner table, and Kane noticed it despite his preoccupation with the board. He ate his first full meal in many days with careful attention, savoring each mouthful. A man who has been on short rations for many days does not bolt his food--it is a novelty to be slowly and thoroughly appreciated. At the same time he watched with interest the others gathered at the long table in the castle dining hall. Baron Troylin and his daughter ate nervously, with a forced lightheartedness that belied an underlying tenseness. Lystric the astrologer, who was also present at the high table, spent part of the time offering Kane dark looks, and the remainder watching anxiously the young man sitting next to him.

The youth Troylin had introduced as his son Henderin. Ignoring Kane's greeting, he had spent the first of the meal glaring stonily at the food set before him. Kane observed that Henderin carried no knife with which to eat, and that the two brawny attendants who stood close behind him seemed to pay an unnecessary amount of attention to their charge's every move. No comment had been offered on the situation, and Kane had discreetly raised no questions, although it was obvious that something was amiss in the household and that the baron's son seemed to be the center of the anxiety. He was a well built and well favored young man--a few years his sister's senior--with the pale blond hair of his family. He bore no signs of ill treatment, although he somehow impressed Kane as a privileged prisoner who was allowed to sit in at his captor's table.

Henderin chose to end his petulant silence by breaking into an anecdote of his father. "This meat is burned!" he intoned hotly. "I specifically told you to bring me nothing but raw flesh!"

The two retainers behind him stood poised. Breenanin halted her cup before her mouth and froze in anticipation, while Troylin nervously glanced toward Lystric. The astrologer spoke in soothing tones, "Of course--the cooks must have forgotten. I'll personally speak to them about this. But since all the rest of us are eating, why don't you have a little cooked meat too. It's still nice and red, you see--all the fire did was warm it for you."

"I said I wanted raw flesh!" Henderin exploded. "Not burned dead by the fire, but still warm and bleeding! Bring it to me!"

Lystric went on hurriedly. "But there isn't any meat left that hasn't been cooked. So why not eat just a bite..."

Henderin screamed an oath and hurled his plate onto the floor. Behind him the two attendants rushed in, but Lystric waved them to a halt. Several hounds had sprung from the corners of the hall and had fallen upon the scattered meat. Henderin watched enthralled as they greedily fought over the scraps. With a wild smile he snatched a large joint of meat from a tray, pulled it to him, and buried his muzzle into it. He tore the flesh in large chunks, devouring it with gusto. From time to time he gave a low growl.

For the others the meal proceeded with relative quiet.

With the business of eating completed, the dinner began to gather steam. Servants cleared away the debris and settled down to the more serious duty of keeping their master and his guest well supplied with ale. Kane prepared himself for a long evening of drinking and conversation, aware that Troylin expected him to repay the baron's hospitality by entertaining him. It appeared to be developing into a most comfortable evening. At the lower tables, the baron's retainers and men-at-arms were making a lusty charter, serving wenches made free with the ale, and the great fire was blazing. Even Henderin was quiet, for the moment slowly drawing pictures on the table with an ale dipped finger. In the shadow of a column close by the high table a tall man toyed with a lute.

Kane had asked few questions during the meal, and to his relief neither had Troylin. The baron seemed content to accept Kane's story at face value, and merely listened with interest to his guest's anecdotes. To his delight, he found Kane an entertaining and informed conversationalist, with a fantastic variety of material to draw upon. Deeming it none of his concern, he showed no interest in Kane's business in this region.

Judging it not altogether indiscreet, Kane at length asked, "How is it that you are wintering here in Marsarovj? Even Carrasahl must be warmer and more congenial than this wilderness."

Troylin laughed depreciatively and replied readily, "Well, I got tired of civilized winters after a while. So I thought it would be a nice change to spend the winter here in the provinces. My family has maintained this old castle for years--it's really a fortified manor from the Empire days--and I thought it would make a snug, rustic spot to spend the winter. Hunting is excellent too--all year around."

He lowered his voice and added uneasily, "Also I'd hoped the atmosphere would be good for Henderin. The boy's a little unsettled, you've noticed no doubt. Lystric assures me though that this is just the thing for him."

Kane nodded and changed the subject to the matter of hunting. Marsarovj, he knew, was a province rife with subarctic game.

He became conscious of all unpleasant sensation of scrutiny after a while and looked for the source. In the shadows slouched a figure with a lute, a lean man whose eyes gleamed a startling red in the firelight.

Following Katie's gaze, Troylin caught sight of its object and called out, "Ah, Evingolis! There you are! Wondered where you were lurking tonight. Come over and give as a tune! We've been jabbering too hard to do any serious drinking." Turning to Kane he said, "This is Evingolis, the most accomplished minstrel you'll ever have the pleasure of hearing. I had the fortune of attaching him to my patronage this summer, and he's a delight to have around on these winter nights." He went on to describe the many virtues of the minstrel.

The object of the baron's praise strode silently from the shadows and took a vantage point by the fire. Moving his long fingers over the lute strings with fluid grace, he sang in crystalline tones of a blind princess and her demon lover. One of the Opyros Cycle, Kane recognized, and he recalled the bizarre fate of that blighted poet. The minstrel was himself an unusual figure. He was an albino, with the characteristic pale skin, white hair and pink eyes. Kane could hazard no guess as to his nationality, having found the singer's accent unlike any he could place. In height Evingolis was several inches taller than Kane, and although he was thinly built, there was no hint of softness or weakness to him. His features were finely molded, but sharp rather than effeminate. His thin hair he wore cut short; his face cleanshaven. As he sang, his pink eyes stared into infinity--perhaps seeing the strange events of which he told. Kane noticed that Henderin watched the minstrel with rapt attention, seemingly magically charmed by the tale.

The rising lament that concluded the song died out with a keening moan from the lute. He was an artist, conceded Kane, who could not recall hearing a better performance of that difficult poem. Men shuffled their feet and made uneasy sounds in the stillness following the song. "Excellent!" commended Troylin after a pause. "You always have something now for us, don't you. Ah, how about another, Evingolis. One a bit more rousing for this cold night."

"Of course, milord," spoke the minstrel, accepting a tankard from a scurrying wench. "One moment while I sweeten my throat." He tossed off the ale and broke into a rollicking ballad of a woodsman's five daughters, which moved the baron's men to join in the bawdy chorus.
"A bit morbid in his tastes," confided Troylin, "but if you insist he can be common enough."

"Some hold that true beauty lies only in the uncommon," Kane murmured, watching the firelight's gleam in Breenanin's pale hair. She smiled, wondering if his remark was to compliment her. But Kane, sunken into brooding, noticed only that her teeth shone white and sharp against her red smile.

The baron was involved in an endless anecdote of a winter hunt he had once, enjoyed, and Kane had for some time been making only a taken attempt to pay attention. At the point when some stag was goring a favored hound, several of Troylin's men entered the hall, loudly stamping snow from their gear.

"Well, Tali. Back at last, I see!" Troylin greeted their leader. "What's it like out there?"

"A white hell, milord, it truly is! So cold your spit cracks in midair, now that the sky has cleared. And the snow's piled so damn high, it was almost impossible for us to push through as far as we went. Couldn't even get a sled out in that stuff. We're snowbound for certain until this crusts over solid."

"No matter," said the baron. "We've provisions here to last all winter, and there's plenty of game, I know."

Tali shook his head. "I don't know myself on that one. The area is full of wolves, for some reason. Big, mean fellows--and bold ones too! Saw maybe half a dozen at one time following us along--keeping just out of bowshot! Looked like they'd just as soon rush us, they did! Game must be scarce to bring them out in the open like that.

"And that's not all, milord! We stumbled on something really terrible out there in the snow! Came on it just as we was starting back. Party of dead men, it was, milord!" A horrified rustle went through the listeners. Tali gulped and plunged on. "Looked like eight or nine of them and horses too, but they were so torn up it was hard to say for sure. Wolves got them--ripped them to shreds! My guess is that they were attacked in the storm when they couldn't see what was happening. Must have been a really big pack to attack that many men. All armed too, they was. Course you couldn't tell much, but their gear was strange. Not like anything you see around here. Well, when we saw this, you bet we turned around! Beat it back here fast as we could! Wolves attacking armed parties--I've never heard the like!"

He tossed a gold medallion onto the table. "Saw a couple of these around the bodies."

Baron Troylin frowned. "Well, wolves can't get to us in here," he concluded. Which seemed to strike Henderin as quite amusing.

Kane examined the gold medallion with its familiar circle of elder hieroglyphics. The followers of Sataki would hound him no further.

"Personally I think the baron is crazy to ride to the hunt after what Tali and them told us last night," observed the steward, evidently in a loquacious mood.

"Mmm?" Kane, grunted noncommitally, while he tested the balance of several hunting spears.

"You didn't bear all those things they told to us afterwards. Brrr! When I think about those poor devils they found out there! Not much left but bare bones, they said! All those wolves around, and the baron still says it's a beautiful morning to hunt! I'd think after all you've been through, sir, you'd of had your fill of all that snow."

Kane selected the best spear and felt the edge of its iron head critically. "Ought to do it," he concluded. "I doubt if there'll be any problem with wolves. They probably attacked those others because of the storm. Our party is large enough, and the light of day will keep them hidden probably. And in the woods the snow's thin enough in most places so a horse won't bog down. Problem will be to run down any elk.

"Of course," he went on carefully, "I guess the game around here must be pretty sensational for the baron to drag his household all the way up here in the middle of nothing." He watched the steward fidget nervously, fighting to hold his loose tongue. "Or was there some other reason for this exile?"