This story is protected under international and Pan-American copyright conventions. Please remember to donate to Nifty if you're financially able to do so.
MY WEBSITE: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/books.html
My email: kavrik@hotmail.com
Pictures of the characters in this story: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/my-artwork.html
Full story chapters and discussion: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/discussion-board-for.html
For those of you who can't wait for new chapters, please visit my forum where I'm a couple weeks ahead.
The chapters are bigger there than they are on Nifty. To see for yourself please go to
http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/discussion-board-for.html
and find the folder that says "The Orb of Winter" and then open that up to view the chapters. Please note that the chapter order here will differ from my forum because I cut the chapters into smaller chunks for Nifty's audience. Also, if you aren't on my mailing list and want to be, please shoot me an email.
Please check out my books on my website.
Chapter Six
Henna chanted mystical words and held her right hand above Ser Ephram's wound. Green light swirled around her fingertips, producing vine-like tendrils that bloomed with phantom flowers and leaves. A strange thread of emerald magic connected the distance between Ephram's wound and her fingertips. Slowly, the skin knitted together right in front of Kian's eyes.
"Remarkable," he said from behind his helmet.
"So was what you did out there," Ephram said through clenched teeth. He held himself still during the procedure. "You saved my life. In fact, you saved all our lives."
On Ephram's far side, Fiver sat warming his paws by placing them close to the stove. "Can you heal somethin's been chopped off?"
"No," Henna replied.
The hare-foot looked wistfully at the stub of his tail but said nothing further.
Outside the tent, the wind howled. Kian had tied the Timeron knight to a stake sunk six feet into the ground. He'd also taken the knight's cloak and sword and tossed them into the sea. Broken and weaponless, their prisoner sat there on the ground and yet made no sound to acknowledge the pain his destroyed leg caused him. A dwarven warrior named Jareck stood guard, an axe in one hand and a shield in the other.
It's like he doesn't feel pain, Kian thought. Our party numbers ten now: Akagi, Tomoluk, Fiver, Henna, Jareck, Salina, Shae, Dallin, Annie and Brunhilda. Ten out of thirty; eleven if you count me. We've lost two-thirds of those we set out with months ago. We lose much more, and my mission may be in jeopardy. Kian looked to Captain Ephram who struggled to sit up, still feeling soreness from the pink skin on his left side. Henna, having completed her spell, immediately went to tend to Tomoluk. The minotaur couldn't walk in his condition and just lay on a pallet by the stove howling in agony. After the battle, Kian had carried him back almost unaided, but the five-hundred pound warrior made even Kian's strong legs buckle more than once. As it was, the minotaur had been unconscious the entire time, and Kian kinda wished Tomoluk had stayed that way. What a pussy.
None of this was turning out like Kian had envisioned things would go with Ephram in charge. Originally, the Crimson Guard had inspired much more confidence. That, and Ephram was easy on the eyes.
"Explain your mission," Ephram said to him when they first met.
"To serve and protect you utterly," Kian had replied. At first, Ephram had snorted derisively at needing any kind of bodyguard. Kian felt that the knight's opinion had maybe altered a bit now that he'd saved Ephram's life. It gave Kian a kind of smug satisfaction because knights, good and evil, all seemed to be a little full of themselves around the edges.
And the answer Kian had given about his mission wasn't entirely true, but the second rule of assassination is that assassins oftentimes lie. Luminara had given Kian another mission...a secret mission: "Get into Zanda anyway you know how. Avoid entering by harbor. If the hell hounds and the Blades Acuuarum don't spot you, then the All-Seeing eye of Zandine will. The artifact is aimed at the sea...always. Find a way to cross the Bone Wall. Once inside, enter the palace and kill Kahket. If that proves impossible, find out her plans at all cost. Find out what she's doing, and send this knowledge back to me using your prayer ring."
He was sure very few noticed, but Kian wore a small gold band on the pinky of his left hand. He had to be careful, because this prayer ring also held a tiny silver rose. To someone untrained, it meant nothing. But any ring thus engraved could be used to discipline a black dragon assassin. It was a safeguard against those with formidable powers who might use them to usurp control of the church.
A ring with a silver rose on it and a special code word could circumvent all of my powers and force me to obey.
In church lingo, the act was called "invoking the scourge." Once a priest uttered the code word, all that remained was to clench their fist. The scourge would do everything else because Tethyr had bound the black dragon assassins via their neck tattoos into bondage to his religion forever.
This is the price Kian paid for his abilities: eternal youth, the quantum sidestep, and a complete immunity to psionics.
Kian had never felt the scourge, and he never wanted to either. But he knew his code word, as did every cleric from the disciple on down to the most humble of friars. If he ever disobeyed the order of a cleric of Tethyr, they were authorized to use the scourge on him (provided they had a ring with a silver rose on it in hand). If Kian ever decided to go against the orders of a priest of Tethyr, he'd be sure to chop their hands off when they least expected it. It was either that, or cut out their tongues so they couldn't say shit.
"The pain's all but gone," Ephram said standing. Near them, the druid finished healing Tomoluk's leg.
"Stay off it for the night," Henna ordered.
"Thank you, druidess," Tomoluk said, voice much more humble than at the council meeting a few hours earlier.
Akagi walked in from the cold with Annie right beside him, and the braziers inside the tent sputtered in the wind. "I managed to get his name," Akagi said. "Zakkith Marr. Mean anything to you?"
Annie rushed over to Ephram and put her arms behind his back. "I'm here my love. I'm here to support you. Is there anything you need?" The young girl's hair hung down over her creamy skin like strips of fabric still wet with red dye. Kian half expected the color to start leaving bloody trails down Ephram's skin.
"I'm okay, really," he told her. Annie French kissed him.
After a long awkward silence, Ephram broke from her and cleared his throat, before saying, "I'd heard it a few times bantered around our tables back at the military college. He's a Darkglory in training, but hadn't quite gotten the experience to justify a promotion. He does have a sponsor...some well-to-do duke in Noremost...the name escapes me...that gave him command of a legion of his own troops. He must have been stationed at the Keep of Anghul. Question is why?"
"Let's go ask him," Hunter said. He walked outside and started heading over to the prisoner.
"Hunter!" Ephram shouted, and it made Kian pause midstep. "Get back here!"
Kian spun on his heels and walked back into the tent. "What?"
"What, sir?" That's how you should address your commanding officer. I'm in charge here," Ephram said. "I'll say when it's okay to interrogate the prisoner." Next to him, Annie puffed out her bosom, barely restrained by the green dress she'd chosen to wear despite the near blizzard conditions outside.
"You should be so lucky to serve a knight of Thomas," Annie said.
Kian dismissed her and peered at Ephram through his helmet thinking, Have you gone barmy? Are we seriously pulling rank here? The incredulity pouring from his body language made everyone uneasy. Well, everyone except Annie.
"Don't give me that look," Ephram warned, standing up, and leaning on the redhead that was probably a foot shorter than Kian even with stiletto heels on her small feet.
"How the fuck do you know what look I'm even givin' you...sir?" Kian replied.
Annie slapped Kian across the jaw, but the blow didn't even move his helmet to one side. In the next instant, she recoiled, holding her hand delicately and tears streaming into her eyes. "Ow! He broke my hand," she said, whimpering. "Honey...he hurt me."
Ephram clenched his jaw. "Did you plan on just asking him? Or wait...did you even have a plan?"
"Of course I did," Kian said.
"He's shrugged off the pain that ruined leg of his has caused. Infection will be spreading soon. But he doesn't seem to care," Akagi said. "Seems to me that torture might not work."
"How did you get his name out of him?" Ephram asked.
Annie, feeling ignored, sat on Ephram's cot and cried into a handkerchief.
Akagi shrugged and went over their exchange. "I asked him. He said Zakkith Marr. Remember that you swine so that you may tell Githius when he asks you, by whose hands did you die?' Or something like that. I responded with nifty.'"
"So our enemy wants to kill us. I could have told you that," Fiver said.
"What were you going to do?" Ephram asked Hunter. "Let's hear the plan."
Kian stared at his boots for a moment. The cold had gotten to him more than he'd expected and Ephram had lent him a pair of size eleven boots that actually fit quite nicely over his corobidian-shod feet. However, the leather was soaked through with snow melt. He stomped his heels a moment, trying to come up with something good.
"I'm waiting," Ephram said.
I know you're bloody waiting, Kian thought. Then it all came to him. "He's awfully confident that he's going to get away," Hunter said.
"An easy enough bluff to make," Ephram replied.
Hunter stared Ephram in the eyes. "He doesn't need to bluff. He's got allies. Those shadow demons I saw. They weren't in the battle. They're probably waiting for us to go to bed so that they can cut him free of the stake."
"Githius's beard," Akagi swore. "I hate to say it, but he's right."
Ephram shook his head, "So your plan was to...find the knight's shadow demon and kill it in front of him, making him lose all hope of escaping, and then interrogate him?"
Kian swallowed and thought, Sure let's go with that. "Yes."
"Gotta admit," Fiver said, nodding. "That's fuckin' brill."
"It's stupid," Annie said, drying her tears.
"Why's it stupid?" Kian asked her.
"Because you came up with it, and you're stupid," she responded.
Kian just sighed. "I really don't like you."
"I don't like you either," Annie said. "And you're ugly too. I don't like ugly boys."
"You've never seen me," Kian responded.
"I don't have to. I know you're ugly," Annie said.
"With logic like that, I can see why you brought her," Kian said. "Excellent decision, fearless leader."
"Shut up," Ephram said. The captain always got this peculiar frown whenever he mentally chewed on something, and Kian saw he was doing that now. "Fuck it. I can't handle this right now. So, please go and interrogate the prisoner," he said, after half a minute.
"Wow. That seemed like it was difficult to say," Hunter said. "Do you just want to acknowledge right now that I'm always right? It would save you trouble in the future."
Fiver giggled.
Ephram squinted and asked, "How old are you in that thing?" He almost reached up and tapped on Hunter's glass visor, but resisted at the last moment.
"I'm fifty," Kian said.
Fiver and Akagi snorted.
"Fifteen maybe," Ephram replied. "So we'll do it your way. But Hunter, remember that if you fuck this up, it's on you."
"Thank you...sir," Hunter said, giving him a slight bow. He glanced over at Henna, who mopped the sweat from her brow. Tomoluk breathed heavily, lids closed, and the deep gash to his hamstring looked repaired. Henna stood on wobbly legs and Akagi rushed to her side, slipping under her left arm so she could lean on him. He did graze the side of her breast with his hand, but she didn't seem to notice.
I hate to ask her for anything, Kian thought, but it can't be helped. I need a little magic. "Henna, can you make light? I've traveled with a wizard before and she could make a ball of light and send it out in front of us to illuminate a room."
"I'm exhausted, Hunter," Henna said. "Can't you just use a torch?"
Kian shook his head. "I need something brighter. Daylight might be nice, but I don't think we can wait all night for this."
"Mondath is full tonight," Fiver stated. ". Druid magic uses the elements, and enhances what's already there to begin with rather than starting from scratch. At least, that's my understanding of it."
"In case you didn't notice," Ephram said, kicking the tent with his foot, "We've got a storm out there. The moon's not visible through the clouds and the snow flurries."
"That doesn't matter," Henna said. "Fiver's right, I can work with the moonlight above the clouds. A full moon is powerful. It's possible I can get it to pierce the clouds by casting a moonbeam spell."
"Is that difficult?" Akagi asked. "I could stay by your side and support you. Or perhaps I could give you a massage in your tent. If so, you should get out of these bloody things so I can do it properly."
Henna glared at him, "I'm fine, thank you." She looked at Kian directly. "Do you absolutely need me to cast the spell?"
Kian hesitated only a second and then nodded yes. "As soon as possible. Fill the entire camp if you can, and make it bright."
"I can't vary the brightness of the light," Henna said. "It is what it is. Where do you want it centered?"
"On the knight Zakkith Marr. Wait until I'm talking with him to cast it," Kian replied. Then he walked out of the tent once more.
Kian strode up to Ser Zakkith Marr, and Jareck lowered his axe and shield and stepped slightly to the left to give them space. The dwarf wore mithril armor and his helmet bore two feathered wings that looked embossed with intricate gold leaf. Stout and strong, the dwarf held aloft an axe Kian knew as "The Howl of Night." Crafted of cold iron and double-bladed, the axe had a shaft that looked made of ivory. The top of it bore a wolf's head that made an audible "howl" as the dwarf swung it around. If the axe drew blood, then blood dripped from the fangs inside that wolf's head until the weapon was cleaned.
"What the fuck do you want?" Zakkith asked Hunter. "I won't tell you nothin'."
Kian stared at the bit of exposed bone poking out near the knee. Blood pooled in the mud in which Zakkith squatted. Kian lowered himself onto his haunches and drew his sword. Once again, he felt the tubules insert themselves into his wrist which was still sore from earlier. A little of his blood dripped into the snow.
"Let me feast on his soul," Bloodbane whispered to Kian in his mind. "You let me kill his brother, and for that I'm thankful. So I will not press for this one. But if you rewarded me, Kian, you would not regret it. I can smell the foulness on this one! He deserves to be consumed!"
Kian urged Bloodbane into quiet, and the sword retreated to the familiar corner it occupied in his mind with little resistance.
Zakkith stared at the long straight blade of the runesword in Hunter's grip. The pale red glow looked sinister in the snow flurries.
"What is that thing?" Zakkith asked. "Is it sword or demon?"
"A little of both," Kian replied, "nothing of either. What Bloodbane is depends on your point of view."
Just then, Kian heard Henna chanting from the tent. The words tumbled fluidly over her lips and floated through the snowy yard between them. Her tone warbled high and low in the screech of the wind.
"It's a magical blade," Zakkith Marr said, eyeing Hunter. "Does its name mean anything?"
Henna completed her spell and suddenly, the clouds above the encampment parted allowing silver-hued moonlight to filter down from Mondath, Wywnrayth's first moon. It increased in intensity and the area became almost as bright as day. Kian turned his attention to the screen on the inside of his visor. Readouts measuring temperature and wind speed for his immediate environment as well as any motion found within three-hundred feet displayed themselves in front of his eyes. He spotted an unusual shadow some thirty feet away. It sprouted from the base of a tree, yet faced in the wrong direction of the incoming light.
"It means demon slayer!" Kian yelled.
In a split second, Kian vanished into the quantum sidestep and teleported on top of the shadow thirty feet away. He drove his cibrian cleats down into the snow and mud and an awful scream leapt from underneath his boots. A shadow detached itself from the trunk and transformed from that of a tree into a two-dimensional black creature with skinny arms ending in claws a foot long. It struck at Kian, yet when the claws hit the corobidian skin of his killsuit, they just drew sparks from his armor. However, they left scratches on the black surface.
"Impossible," the shadow demon said. "My claws penetrate any armor!"
"Not a killsuit, apparently," Kian said, grinding his boots down.
The shadow demon screamed in anguish and (because Kian had part of its body pinned) it sank its claws into the snow, gouging the ground as it literally ripped itself apart to get away from him. Hunter swung Bloodbane around and slammed it into the shadow demon's head and the thing's arms stretched out to the right and left, and its whole shadowy body started to violently seize.
"No!" the thing shrieked. "You cannot do this!"
Bloodbane's runes brightened and Kian could feel the sword sucking at the demon's spectral essence. It slurped long and deep, like a giant leech pulling the length of a worm into its belly. Bit by bit the incorporeal horror diminished as its spirit got pulled into the mysterious sword.
As the last of it disappeared, its claws raked the rainbow blade in a futile attempt to prevent it being consumed. Then it was gone.
Kian looked around the glade. Soldiers from the camp had gathered and watched in awe, oblivious to the snow flurries. Kian sheathed his sword and then strutted back over to the Timeron knight whose face now appeared drained of any color. Kian unmercifully stepped on his leg and the knight grimaced, tears now rolling down his cheeks.
"It hurts more now, doesn't it?" Kian asked. "The death of things like hope has a way of taking weasels like you down a notch."
The knight stared at him and clenched his jaw. "I'll tell you nothing."
Kian resumed his interrogation pose by sitting on his haunches in front of the man's splayed legs. Then, he dug the toe of his boot in the mud, thinking of what to say next. The dramatic pause had an unintended effect on the knight. Kian noticed that Zakkith had started to tremble. He's afraid of me. Good, he should be, Kian thought.
"So, Zakkith, this is how this is going to go. You aren't getting rescued. Your shadow demon is dead, and you may think that the other one hasn't abandoned you but trust me, it has. Demons are a cowardly lot and if it was anywhere close when I killed that one back there, and it saw what happened, then you can bet all the quid in the world that it's halfway to Hell right now. So you can play this one of two ways. If you play the tough guy, I'll start cutting things off. You might not miss this leg," Kian tapped on it for measure, making the knight wince in pain, "but there are things on this body of yours that you will miss. I guarantee it."
"Or?"
"Or what?" Kian asked, cocking his head thoughtfully to the right.
The Timeron knight swallowed nervously. "You said there were two ways I could play this. What's the other way?"
"You answer my questions, we patch you up, and we let you go."
Zakkith Marr stared at him with incredulity. "I can't believe that. You're a killer. Killers don't keep their word."
"Ephram," Kian called out. "Have I kept my word to you?"
The knight stood in the tent flap, obviously favoring one side. Annie had her arm around his waist, and Kian noted she had two fresh love bites. "He has," Ephram responded.
Kian shrugged his shoulders. "There you have it. The word of a Crimson Guard even. You may be at odds with them, but there are a few similarities between Valions and Timerons."
"Please," Zakkith said. "They're not even in the same league. But he, at least, has honor enough not to take a cheap shot in battle."
"That's the spirit," Kian said. "So my first question is, `Where did you get the huge skeleton warriors? You've got no necromancers with you. Where did you get them?"
Above the encampment, Henna's moonbeam spell ended. The knight looked around, snow pelting his face, and smiled as the clouds once again swallowed the moon. "No light lasts long against the call of darkness," he said. "Even now, my demon queen shows her power."
"Taleta, Queen of Demons? We aren't here to talk theology," Kian said. "And it's dark because its night. Not because some deity is coming to your rescue."
"You've got a nice shape," Zakkith said. "In a different time, and in a different place, I'd love to lick your asshole, boy. Have you ever had your cunt licked? It feels so good." The Timeron knight stuck out his tongue and ran it along his lips in a lewd fashion.
Kian, quick as a mongoose, reached out with his fingers and snatched the knight's tongue between thumb and forefinger. He squeezed so hard it drew blood and made Zakkith's eyes bulge. Then Kian let him go.
"Ow! Fuck!" Zakkith exclaimed.
"Answer my question, please," Kian said, extending the double blades on his left wrist. He used the sides to tap on the inside of Zakkith's left thigh. "I'd hate for me to slip with these."
"We each had a pouch of teeth," Zakkith uttered, eyeing the cibrian knives. "There's a few left. He motioned down to his waist where Kian spotted a pouch dangling just to the right of his belt buckle.
One flick of the wrist cut the pouch free. Kian peered inside and counted three strange looking sharp teeth about as long as his middle finger. He looked over his shoulder at Henna, who stood under a canvas awning with arms folded across her chest. Kian held the pouch up and wiggled it to catch her attention, and then he tossed it to her. "What are those?" he asked. "Any clue?"
Henna snatched the bag out of the air and then opened it up. After a moment, she closed the bag and then walked out into the snow to join him. Akagi and Fiver walked on her left and right.
"Where did you get these?" Henna asked the knight as she walked up to where Kian crouched in the snow.
"From the headmaster of the Girl's Academy of Lianon Pard," Zakkith said.
"These are very rare," Henna said. "Why would the headmaster part with them?"
"Because the order to do so came from the Dreaded Irtemara herself?" Zakkith asked.
"You mean Kahket?" Kian clarified.
The knight nodded. "We each had a pouch. She told us a party led by a Crimson Guard had come to the shores of Zanda. We were to kill all of you and bring him back. He has something valuable that she wants."
"Any idea what that is?" Hunter asked.
"No idea," the knight replied.
Henna sighed and looked at Kian. "Mr. Hunter, these are the teeth of the Golden Hydra," she said. "They come from the Dragon's Graveyard, which is a legendary place talked about in the Book of Sheila, goddess of dragons."
Kian thought about this for a moment, then asked, "Where is it?"
Henna shrugged. "That's just it. No one but Sheila knows, and it's not like the dragon goddess tells anyone. But these teeth look ancient. Maybe someone found them long ago...perhaps some extraordinarily powerful necromancer discovered a way to enter the Dragon's Graveyard."
"So you're saying that someone in Zanda went and killed the hydra and took its teeth," Fiver said to Henna.
She shook her head. "No, but they could have found the way into the graveyard, fought the Golden Hydra, and escaped with the teeth from one head, or just found these on the ground."
Kian shook his head, not understanding. "That doesn't make sense. Why not kill this Golden Hydra and take all its teeth?"
Henna laughed. "You truly don't understand, do you? The Golden Hydra is a titan of the old world, a creature put there to stand guard over a great treasure inside a huge temple said to be filled with the light of the gods of good."
"What's the treasure?" Kian asked rather hastily. Hey I'm a thief after all, he thought.
"It's the Halo of Thomas," Ephram said, walking out into the snow. As he did so, Ephram's bare skin turned white and then became transparent as glass. Kian shook his head, at first thinking that what he saw was a mistake. But instead of solidifying, the rest of Ephram vanished. Only his footsteps got left behind, and Ephram walked right up to Kian's side. "It's the Halo of my god...the god of war, wolves, and winter."
"Uh...," Kian paused, extending one index finger. "Eph, how exactly are you doing that?"
"Doing what? Oh," he said. Then Ephram solidified once more before his eyes, melted snow glistening across his well-formed pecs and six-pack abs. "All Valion knights have this gift called the Skin of Thomas.' It gives us immunity to cold and we can disappear in snowstorms. It's the whole winter' thing. We can also shapechange into wolves, but it means we have to take off our armor."
"That's a neat trick," Kian said.
"No neater than yours," Ephram replied.
It's like we're measuring dicks here, Kian thought. He's no idea but I'd win that contest hands down.
"So what does this `Halo of Thomas' do?" Fiver asked Ephram. But it was Zakkith Marr that answered the question.
"It's the key to releasing my goddess," Zakkith said. "If tossed within the Pool of Arcanos, she shall be free of her imprisonment within Hell to walk the earth once more."
"Okay," Kian said, "that sounds like the worst idea I've heard today."
"Which is precisely the reason why we know that the Golden Hydra is still alive. Honestly, I doubt anything could kill it," Henna said. "The legends say an army of two-thousand men went up against it and the Golden Hydra destroyed them all."
"Legends tend to exaggerate," Kian said.
"Not this one," Henna replied.
Kian held up his hands. "All right...so we know now what his interest in all of this is...the Timeron knights are helping Kahket because she's obviously promised them something they want very much. It's the reason why the Zandans and the Noremarians are in bed with each other, right? But why do they want you, Eph? What's so special about you? And how did they know you were here?"
Ephram shrugged. "I'm not sure. Perhaps they want my military knowledge of Citadel Raven. It could be any number of things really."
"So our element of surprise is ruined then," Akagi said, wiping water from his face. "The Zandans know we're coming."
Hunter turned and grabbed hold of the Timeron knight by the throat. Zakkith gagged, but it didn't deter Kian one bit. He extended the twin cibrian blades so that they gave him two small cuts under his chin. "How will the Zandans know you're successful? That you've killed us all?"
"I report back to a guard post stationed just on their side of the wall about the place where we came through. I take him with me," he said nodding at Ephram. "No one else. I make up some story about how Tragar got killed and then we go back to Zanda with the Crimson Guard in chains."
Ephram swore. "I'm not going to be someone's prisoner. No way will I trust my hands being bound by the likes of you, much less escorted into Zanda." The Crimson Guard turned to Akagi. "Kill him. He's told us enough."
Zakkith's eyes bulged, "You gave me your word!" he screamed at Kian.
Kian shrugged, standing up and stepping out of the way. "I guess you should have verified that I was in charge."
"Give the Queen of Demons our best, would you?" Akagi asked, not really expecting an answer. He snatched the kanabo from his back and with one mighty swing, caved-in Zakkith Marr's skull. Blood and brains pelted Kian's killsuit even from ten feet away.
"That plan might have worked," Fiver accused, grabbing Ephram's attention.
But the captain shook his head. "Never trust a Timeron knight. They're rapists and murderers. Tomorrow, Kian, you'll lead us to within a league of where you first spotted those two knights. That's where we climb over the Bone Wall. Once we get to the other side, we take out that outpost. Kahket may know we're in Zanda, but the Mythgol peninsula's a big place. She'll have an even harder time finding us if we kill every foot soldier of hers that we find."
"And what of him?" Kian asked, kicking the dead knight's boots. "Shall we give him a proper burial?"
Ephram shook his head. "Leave him for the wolves to feast on. My brothers need to eat."
"As you wish, sir," Kian said, and then he vanished into the night leaving only snowflakes to swirl in his wake.
As usual, there's more on my website at http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/discussion-board-for.html under the label "Chapter Five" if you care to read ahead. Please comment on the forum. I'd love to hear what you think and maybe get a discussion going.