Creatures in colorful rags crawled and scuttled over the dead and he could hear the greedysounds of their feeding.
Some were human, and among these he recognized many long-vanquished foes, returned now tohaunt his dreams.
Others were twisted, monstrous creatures of revolting form beneath their robes.
And all were feasting on the dead. Swarming across the limp bodies, they hunched like jackalsover their victims, tearing chunks of flesh out with teeth and talons, crunching through bone.
A tall figure emerged from the shadows, its dark cloak revealing nothing of its form.
"Join the feast," it commanded in a voice like wind groaning down the chimney of an abandoned house. Stretching an impossibly long arm into the heap, it tugged a body loose and cast it at his feet.
It was Seregil.
Half of his face had been cruelly gnawed. Both hands were gone and the skin had been flayedfrom his chest.
A moan rose in Nysander's throat as grief paralyzed him.
"Devour him," the specter invited, reaching again into the pile.
Micum was next, chest torn open, both strong arms gone at the shoulder.
Then Alec, robbed of hands and eyes. Blood streaked his face like tears, and matted his softyellow hair.
Others followed, faster and faster. Friends, lords, servants, strangers, thrown about like cord wood until he was ringed in with an ever heightening wall of bodies. Another moment and hewould be immured in a tower of dead flesh.
Battling grief and horror, he summoned the twin lights he still carried to increased brilliance andhurled them before him, charging over the maimed bodies of his companions. The obscene specterswelled in his vision and was gone, taking the awful pile of corpses with it.
Before him stood the possessor of the Voice, and Nysander's grief crystallized into stony terror.The huge figure was shrouded in shadow except where light fell across one perfect, golden-skinned shoulder.
He stared at it, trying to see his foe in spite of his mounting dread. He could feel the cold powerof its eyes upon him; it burned his flesh numb like the water of a winter stream.
Then it raised its hand in greeting and the shining skin of shoulder and arm and hand split likerotten cloth, hanging in dulled shreds from the putrid flesh swelling beneath it.
"Welcome, O Guardian," it said. "You have been most faithful."
Lurching out of the shadows, the thing smashed a fist through the smooth stone wall as if it were a paper screen, reaching into the cavity beyond—
Nysander leapt up from his chair, panting and drenched with sweat. The fire was nearly dead and the room was full of shadows.
"O Illior!" he groaned, pressing a hand over his eyes. "Must I be the one who sees the end of it?"
To Be Continued.
About the Author
Lynn Flewellinggrew up in presque isle, maine. since receiving a degree in english from the University of Maine in 1981, she has studied veterinary medicine at Oregon State, classical Greek at Georgetown University, and worked as a personnel generalist, landlord, teacher, necropsy technician, advertising copywriter, and freelance journalist, more or less in that order. She currently lives in Bangor with her husband, two sons, and other assorted mammals.
About this Title
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Luck in the Shadows n-1 Page 53