Prophet of Moonshae - Douglas Niles [52]
A sound disturbed the brooding lord, and he looked up from his pacing. The Great Hall was empty, its row of beastly heads staring down impassively on the great, black-bearded earl.
"She shall be reborn!"
The voice, a hysterically pitched shriek that was nonetheless projected with resounding power, echoed through the great room, driving through Blackstone like the slash of an ice-bladed knife.
"Where-where are you? Who speaks?" he demanded, spinning in a great circle. Impulsively he ran to the hearth, seizing the great battle-axe mounted above the mantel. He heard commotion throughout the great house as he ground his teeth together, staring around the shadow-cloaked hall.
"Traitor!" The voice came again, but this time a body materialized behind it, moving forward from the high alcove at the door. "Know ye of the earth's vengeance!"
"Where did you come from?" demanded the earl, gaping in shock at the ragged-robed figure who shambled toward him. "How did you get in here? Guards!"
The intruder's hair and beard flowed in snowy cascades across his shoulders, down his chest. The top of his head gleamed, a cap of baldness, and he hobbled as he walked like a very old man.
But it was the eyes that captivated the Earl of Fairheight, for they were the widely staring orbs of a madman, and they seemed to penetrate into the darkest depths of the earl's soul.
"Repent of your evil! It is not too late-or ye shall know the wrath of she who comes again!"
Other doors burst open as several men-at-arms stumbled into the hall, swords drawn or crossbows at the ready. They paused, looking at the intruder with surprise and at their earl with questioning eyes.
"Now… answer my questions!" growled Blackstone, raising the axe menacingly and advancing. "Who sent you? How did you get in here?"
"Hah!" The man threw back his head and cast the mocking shout to the ceiling. "She sends me, who sends hope of the future to us all! I go where I please, and it pleased me to come to you now!"
In the pit of his stomach, Blackstone felt a growing sense of menace from this outwardly frail old man. He remembered the raving lunatic slain by his firstborn son, Currag, and then of Currag's own death, bare hours later. That lunatic, too, had been white-bearded, with a bald circlet atop his pate.
Yet the man had been slain and burned!
"Take him-I want him alive!" the earl shouted, his voice uncharacteristically shrill.
His men lunged forward, sheathing their swords and putting up their bows to grasp at the intruder with their gauntleted hands. But somehow the madman slipped away, darting toward Blackstone with such speed that the earl shrieked aloud. His hands lifted the battle-axe over his head, then brought the keen blade slicing downward in a desperate attempt to drive away this apparition of doom.
He felt the metal edge slice into flesh and bone. Only dimly did he sense the blood spray through the air and see the shocked expressions on the faces of his men as they watched their lord succumb to a berserk frenzy.
When the madness finally passed from him, there was not enough left on the floor to prove that the body had ever been that of a man.
* * * * *
Alicia awakened to the soothing caress of a gentle hand across her brow-no, it was the breeze, washing across her skin. She heard the soft noise of water lapping beside her.
Dimly, then, she remembered her broken arm and the stunning kick that had nearly killed her, and she sat up in wonder. Her arm, her shoulder… all her body was whole! Or had she dreamed the entire episode, the horror that had stalked them? In truth, there was no sign of a great iron giant, though she sat very near the place where it had fallen into the pool, where the twisted form had jutted upward from the shallow water.
Then she looked around, her amazement growing to a sense of wonder that swiftly became awe.
The vale of the Moonwell had come alive around her! Dewy lilies lined the shore of the pool, with their padded leaves floating on the surface, forming a gentle fringe dividing the placid heart of the