The Book of Kane (26 page)

Then the red mists of rage parted, and Kane rose from his gory work. From the black trees he heard another man scream once and break off. Under the dark pines, shadows rustled to close on the echo of death. Kane coughed and shook his head. As the killing rage left him, awareness of his danger returned.

Had Pleddis heard the cries, the fury of Kane’s attack? Had someone escaped to warn him of Kane’s presence? The problems seemed only of minor importance; Kane knew a far deadlier menace was closing about him. He stared defiantly at the ridge before him.

There before the red moon rose Raven’s Knob. Andthis trail climbed toward it. Ahead was Ionor with the child—
but how far ahead?

Kane paused only to snatch up and recock Stundorn’s arbalest—for the steel-bowed weapon was accurate tokill at over one hundred fifty yards, and he might still get close enough…

Throwing his last strength into his stride, Kane pounded up the trail to Raven’s Knob. His sense of hideous danger all but drowned the agony that shrieked through his frame with every step.

Klesst suddenly stopped and tugged at Ionor’s cloak. “Mother, let’s not walk any farther. I’m tired now.”

“Come on, Klesst. It isn’t much farther. If you don’t stop this whining, I’ll slap you.”

Mother’s slaps stung all the worse because the girl sensed the anger in her blow. “But Mother, I’m frightened out here. The soldiers are way behind us.”

“I said, come on!” Ionor jerked her arm forward, then released her hand once Klesst started to follow. She had always tried to keep from touching her… It was betterthat way.

“Mother, I think I remember this place.”

“Surely you’ve played near here often before.”

“Never. The other children are afraid to come here, and I don’t like to be alone so far in the woods.”

Ionor walked resolutely on, impatiently slackening herquick stride to let the child stay beside her. It was not as if Klesst were hers. She was Kane’s—and a stolen part ofher own flesh. Stolen. Raped and shamed and stolen.Klesst wasn’t her daughter—she had been determined onthat from the first. She was a cancer which Kane had implanted within her body, and in pain she had beenpurged of the cancer. Almost. The child was something apartfrom her. If there had ever been love this would be different, but there had never been love; there never would be love. She would feel no more guilt for Klesstthan for a cancer that a surgeon excised and destroyed.

It would be over in another few minutes. Seven years of hate. Klesst would not suffer. Not like she had…

“Mother, I think this is the place in my dream.”

“Hush, Klesst.”

“No, Mother! I know it’s the same place. That great big rock up there is where the black dog first appears, and the black man who walks behind him.” Klesst’s voice rose in sharp fear.

Ionor frowned at the girl. She had hoped to avoid physical contact—
physical force—
with the child, though she had a length of cord under her cloak if she needed it “Don’t be afraid, Klesst. When you get to that big rock and see that there’s no black hound and his master, then you won’t have those silly nightmares any more.”

“I’m still scared,” Klesst whispered, her eyes round and frightened.

“Come on, quickly now.”

Klesst walked slowly on. She did not want to anger Mother. She used to think that if she never made Mother angry again, then Mother might forget the awful thing she once had done—although what this crime might have been, she never understood. Of late Klesst had lost hope of making Mother ever forget.

Then her owl-like eyes stared at the barren spur of rock. Ionor had forgotten—if she ever knew—how well Klesst could see in the dark.

“Mother!” screamed Klesst, breaking away. “I can see them! It’s the black dog and the black man! They’re waiting in the shadow of those big rocks up ahead! Mother! The black dog sees me, too! Can’t you see how red his eyes glow?”

“Come here, damn you!” shouted Ionor, reaching for the cord. In her urgent need to catch the terrified girl, she lunged and stumbled over a root. “Come here!” she yelled, as she sprawled after the retreating child.

It was the last fragment of horror for Klesst. She whirled and dashed back down the trail, utter panic lending horrible impetus to her childish stride.

Ionor called once more, then saved her breath for overtaking Klesst. The girl could not stay ahead of her for very long.

But terror gave her strength, so that Klesst flew headlong down the path, running faster than she ever had. She could hear Ionor’s boots drawing closer from behind, and in her mind Mother, the black hound, and its master all merged into one onrushing phantom of dread.

A giant, diseased apple tree overhung the trail. The last of a blighted orchard that once had stood along thisslope, the huge tree reached over the path with grotesque and nightmarish limbs. The sick-sweet odor of rotting apples hung under its shadow like the smell of state flowers in a graveyard. It had frightened Klesst when first they passed beneath its clutching branches.

Now as she rushed past it, her feet skidded on the rotted fruit. Klesst howled and pitched flying onto the decay-strewn ground. The jar of her fall left her no breath to cry out.

Desperately she tried to scramble back up to run. Too late. A frenzy of motion in the darkness, and Ionor’s cold hand knotted in her disordered hair. Still trying to draw breath, Klesst was yanked to her feet.

Ionor slapped her, hard. “Now I’ll show you what good it is to run!” she panted. And she drew the girl’s wrists together, fumbled with the cord.

Klesst watched mutely as her hands were tied, still tooterrified to grasp what was happening to her. She wondered if Mother meant to whip her like once she did Sele .

There was a scuff of boot on stone, then another silhouette joined the apple tree’s contorted shadow.

It’s the black man,thought Klesst.
He’s come with his hound. Mother will give me to him…

“Kane!” snarled Ionor, leaping up in fury.

There was fury in Kane’s eyes.

The arbalest in his arms shuddered.

Ionorshrieked in clawing agony as the iron-barbedquarrel tore into her belly and flung her back against thetree. She should have fallen then; instead she hung there,writhing in torment. At point-blank range the quarrel haddrilled through her spine and sunk into the gnarled trunk.

She struggled frantically to break free, but her strength suddenly failed. Hate was slower to desert her, and shespat curses through her bubbling lips as she died. And finally there was an end even to her hate. Her slumped figure hung limply from the apple tree, impaled on the spike like a shrike’s prey on a thorn.

Clumsily—for his chest pounded with agony, and scarlet mists blurred his vision—Kane gathered up his sobbing childand wrapped her in his wolfskin cloak. “Well played. Kane!” came sardonic congratulations. “I had thought the game won.”

Klesst buried her face in Kane’s shoulder. Kane warily shifted his burden away from swordhilt. The Demonlord and his hound stoodbefore him on the trail.

“Do you still say I’m your pawn?” he growled. “There stands your pawn. Your pact is forfeit, and you’ll have to play at my game if you think to claim this prize!”

“Your game, Kane?” mocked Sathonys. “I think not. And perhaps I was wrong to call you a pawn. We’ll play the game another day, and then we’llsee whether Kane is truly master of his fate, or simply fool of luck.

“Still, I won’t say this outcome displeases me. Our souls are like matched blades fired in the same forge, Kane. After all thesecenturies, I believe I’d miss you, and you’veserved me well so many times.”

Kane’seyes blazed in anger.

“As an ally, of course,” the Demonlord amended, with a sarcastic salute.

He touched the hound’s misshapenedhead . “Come,Serberys. The moon is growing old, and our friend Kane has led so many souls into our domain tonight. We must not delay our hunt any longer, as Isee my creatures have become quite hungry.”

Serberys opened his slavering jaws in a baying note of horror.

Hound and master vanished into the night.

Kane almost found pity for those who had dared to pursue him beneath the Demonlord’s Moon. But pity was too rare in Kane to bestow upon his enemies.
Through the throbbing haze of pain, Weed felt himself lowered to the floor. He waited blindly for the torture to take some new direction, only thankful that the agony of his wrenched shoulders had let up. Then a knife sheared through his bonds.

He opened his swolleneyes. It was Kane, although it took a moment to be sure. The outlaw leader was a grisly sight to see this side of Hell.

Kane pushed a bottle of brandy into his mouth. Weed tried to take it in his hands but found them too numb to respond. The brandy was fire on his torn lips and broken teeth, but he swallowed greedily as Kane tipped the flask.

In a moment he had come to himself enough to note the torn bodies of his guards strewn about the room. Kane had descended on them in a murderous rush of fury, but Weed had hung unconscious through it all.

“Can you ride?” Kane demanded.

Weed glanced at Kane’s face, then quickly looked away. “I guess so,” he grunted, feeling cracked ribs as be struggled to stand. “I guess so. Give me a minute to get my breath.”

“There’re horses saddled and ready in the stable,” Kane told him. “The guards won’t bother you.”

“Thoem! What’shappened?” muttered Weed, swaying for balance. “Where’s Pleddis and all his men? They all went out to look for you…”

A chilling howl stirred the night winds. It sounded like the bay of a hound as he closes on his quarry. It was not pleasant to hear.

“I think they found other hunters already out there,” said Kane.

He thrust a bulging scrip into Weed’s hands. It was heavy, but the weight of gold was one that Weed’s tingling fingersfound strength to close upon. “Here’s gold,” Kane told him. “Use it as you need it. When you’re strong enough to ride, take Klesst here and go. Dawnwill soon break, and you’ll be safe enough—besides, Sathonys owes me for a game. Take Klesst with you to Obray’s Station—that’s well north of the Combine’s authority, and no one will follow. Take good care of thegirl, and when I join you shortly, I’ll share my cachewith you. I know that interests you.”

Weed wiped the blood from his face, not realizing untillater that Kane had known his designs. “Sure, Kane. Whatever you say. But what about you? Pleddis is going to return any minute now…”

“I’ll see to my end,” Kane grimly vowed. “You makedamn certain about yours.”

Dawn was greying the skies, the Demonlord’s Moon had plunged beneath the black ridges, when Pleddis pushed open the door of Raven’s Eyrie. He staggered into a common room, his garments ragged and bloody, his face more colorless than ever. His limbs trembled, and there was gore on his sword no human veins had spilled. He lost his laugh.

“Demons!” he blurted out with a choked voice. In a dazed stupor, he lurched across the center of the room. “Devils from the hills! Vaul! The things were everywhere! Snapping, clawing, leaping out on you from the trees and the shadows and the rocks! Too many—reaching out from all around us! Couldn’t make a stand!”

His eyes still shone with horror. “And that hound! That hideous black hound! I saw it drag Eriall down as he ran! Vaul! I can still hear its baying! Drove me like a hunted fox across the ridges—but I outran it, made it back alive!”

He paused for breath, and awareness of his surroundings came to him. The huge inn lay in total silence.

“Where—where is everyone?” Pleddis called out.

“I’m right here,” said Kane, rising out of the shadow.