Red Magic - Jean Rabe [80]
Galvin turned for an instant toward Amruthar to see the city's wall crowded with guards and onlookers. Wondering if the city would open its gates to him as a hero, he returned to the grisly task of slaying the remaining undead. Then his optimism quickly vanished.
The druid's vision was superior even to his usual keen sight in this animal form and allowed him to see beyond the jujus to the next wave of zombies. And to a pair of men. Although Galvin couldn't see them clearly, there was something about them, some palpable evil perhaps, a quality he could not identify. But it was something that made him shiver.
The two who stood at the rear of the zombie reinforcements were pasty-faced and gaunt, draped in black-as-night cloaks that hung nearly to the grass. Unlike most free people in this country, these two had hair. One's blond tresses fell nearly to his shoulders, yet neither of them had the bearing or appearance of a slave. They stood like statues. Galvin couldn't tell if they breathed, and he wondered if they were Red Wizards wearing something other than their traditional garb.
With a simple gesture, one of the mysterious men directed the jujus to lumber toward the city.
Galvin sprang forward, pushing over the largest of the oncoming jujus. His massive paws planted firmly on the zombie's chest, he ripped out its throat with his sharp teeth. As he finished slaying the thing, he felt something brush up against him. It was cold, but his keen feline eyes saw nothing. He ignored it and proceeded to attack another target.
The merchants continued to cheer as Brenna and Wynter fought their own undead opponents. They realized they were finally winning the struggle, and they pushed the undead farther away from the city-until the centaur felt the cold touch of something he could not see.
Wynter cringed at the rake of cold, black hands. His legs buckled as he felt his strength drain away, and he watched helplessly as deep gashes appeared on his equine body. The centaur's human torso swiveled back and forth as he cast about, looking for the source of his pain, but all he saw was blackness. Shadowy hands clawed him repeatedly, while zombies moved in to bludgeon him. The centaur fell to the ground under the weight of a swarm of undead.
Galvin whirled and raced to his friend's side, only to find himself stopped inches from the fallen Wynter by a cold, black force. The druid charged against it, finding something solid yet unseeable in the darkness. He batted out with a paw, then gored the air futilely until his back legs crumpled from the force of an invisible aggressor. It was as if the very night was fighting him.
Galvin jerked his head back and forth, catching glimpses of fleeing and falling merchants and Wynter being pummeled by the zombies and something he could not see. The centaur's side heaved, and his legs kicked out spasmodically.
Then, out of the corner of Galvin's eye, he saw the two white-faced men moving closer and recognized them for what they really were-vampires. One had Brenna cradled in his arms; the druid couldn't tell if she was alive. The other stared at Galvin in his tiger form, his red eyes knifing through the darkness and mesmerizing him.
The druid flinched. In all his travels, he had never met one of the lords of darkness, but he had heard enough about vampires to know that the power they commanded was unearthly. Eyes that he would never forget dug into his brain, commanding him to stop fighting, to surrender. Galvin felt helpless, powerless, and was compelled to follow the vampire's mental instructions. The eyes became his world and moved closer, commanding him again. And the druid responded, shedding his tiger skin and transforming back to his human shape. He became oblivious to his surroundings, to Wynter's condition, to the mass of peddlers streaming toward Amruthar's gate. He knew only the eyes.
Then he felt himself being lifted by tangible, man-shaped shadows, the same shadows