Read Online Sun Wolf 2 - The Witches Of Wenshar by Barbara Hambly - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Barbara Hambly
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in the dark, liquid eyes—frightened her. She had the feeling of being a child, listening to an adult discussion of smiling hate, a sense of something hideously wrong whose form and nature she could not understand. Though the wavering light penetrated to all corners of the little bedchamber, with its curtained bed and its delicate, jointed shirdar furnishings—though that nervous illumination showed nothing but the three women, with their long black hair and robes of white gauze—she knew they were not there alone.
She woke up sweating, knowing there was something with her in the room.
The moon outside was full. By the angle of the bars of silken light streaming in through the window, she knew it was late in the night. A band of it lay across the bed, palpable as a gauze scarf; she felt that, had she dared move, she could reach across and pluck it up. Beside her, the bed was empty. Sun Wolf would still be with Nanciormis and the King, nursing his beer and telling war lies. She herself had been less interested in getting to know them than she was in going alert on morning duty.
She did not move, but, from where she lay, she could see almost the whole room under the brilliance of the inpouring desert moonlight.
It was empty.
There was something there.
Her eyes touched every black pocket of shadow, every angle of that ghostly radiance, from the spread of the cracks of the floor—like an arcane pattern of unreadable runes—to the hard spark of the buckles on her doublet and jacket, which lay thrown over the room’s single chair. The night cold was icy on her face, the smell of the dry mountains filled her nostrils with a clarity too vivid for dreaming.
She wondered if it was watching her and what movement she could make that might do any good.
Years of war had given her an instinct for danger. Whatever was in the room with her, she had no doubt whatsoever that it was utterly evil.
She lay on the inner side of the wide bed, under a black bearskin and two quilts against the freezing night of the desert foothills. In her fear there was none of the child-terror that wants only to pull the covers over the head, secure in the knowledge that the evil will not violate that sanctuary; her fear was adult. To reach the door, she would have to roll across the width of the bed; to reach the window, she must dive over the foot. The sense of evil strengthened, localized; there should have been a shadow there, crouching just beyond the foot of the bed where the moonlight struck the brightest, but there was none.
Outside in the stables, the dogs began to howl.
She felt a tweak and a jerk and saw the blankets move.
Then clear and distant, she heard Sun Wolf’s voice, like metal scraping in the cold, still night; and Nanciormis’ rich laugh. Nothing moved, nothing changed in that terrible still life of empty moonlight, but she felt the stir and shift of air and heard a sound no louder than the scratch of a cockroach’s hard claws on the granite lump of the threshold. Through the open door, she saw dust swirl in the court outside, though no wind stirred the camel-bush just beyond.
She rolled from the bed, pulling the topmost blanket off and around her body. Automatically, she caught up her sword, knowing it would be useless. The court outside was drenched in liquid-silver moonlight that shadowed every pebble, every stone of the little well-head, every leaf of the camel-thorn and sedges clustering around. Not even an insect moved, but the dogs howled again, desperate, terrified; from the stables, she heard the stamp of frightened hooves. She forced herself still, hidden in the shadows of the door. Across the court, an adobe gate made a pale blur in the shadows surrounding the Hold—across that granite monolith, a line of shuttered windows marked the Hall like a row of sightless eyes. Above them, a balcony ran the length of the building, every arched doorway looking onto it rimmed in the silvery glow of the moon. In the checkered
She woke up sweating, knowing there was something with her in the room.
The moon outside was full. By the angle of the bars of silken light streaming in through the window, she knew it was late in the night. A band of it lay across the bed, palpable as a gauze scarf; she felt that, had she dared move, she could reach across and pluck it up. Beside her, the bed was empty. Sun Wolf would still be with Nanciormis and the King, nursing his beer and telling war lies. She herself had been less interested in getting to know them than she was in going alert on morning duty.
She did not move, but, from where she lay, she could see almost the whole room under the brilliance of the inpouring desert moonlight.
It was empty.
There was something there.
Her eyes touched every black pocket of shadow, every angle of that ghostly radiance, from the spread of the cracks of the floor—like an arcane pattern of unreadable runes—to the hard spark of the buckles on her doublet and jacket, which lay thrown over the room’s single chair. The night cold was icy on her face, the smell of the dry mountains filled her nostrils with a clarity too vivid for dreaming.
She wondered if it was watching her and what movement she could make that might do any good.
Years of war had given her an instinct for danger. Whatever was in the room with her, she had no doubt whatsoever that it was utterly evil.
She lay on the inner side of the wide bed, under a black bearskin and two quilts against the freezing night of the desert foothills. In her fear there was none of the child-terror that wants only to pull the covers over the head, secure in the knowledge that the evil will not violate that sanctuary; her fear was adult. To reach the door, she would have to roll across the width of the bed; to reach the window, she must dive over the foot. The sense of evil strengthened, localized; there should have been a shadow there, crouching just beyond the foot of the bed where the moonlight struck the brightest, but there was none.
Outside in the stables, the dogs began to howl.
She felt a tweak and a jerk and saw the blankets move.
Then clear and distant, she heard Sun Wolf’s voice, like metal scraping in the cold, still night; and Nanciormis’ rich laugh. Nothing moved, nothing changed in that terrible still life of empty moonlight, but she felt the stir and shift of air and heard a sound no louder than the scratch of a cockroach’s hard claws on the granite lump of the threshold. Through the open door, she saw dust swirl in the court outside, though no wind stirred the camel-bush just beyond.
She rolled from the bed, pulling the topmost blanket off and around her body. Automatically, she caught up her sword, knowing it would be useless. The court outside was drenched in liquid-silver moonlight that shadowed every pebble, every stone of the little well-head, every leaf of the camel-thorn and sedges clustering around. Not even an insect moved, but the dogs howled again, desperate, terrified; from the stables, she heard the stamp of frightened hooves. She forced herself still, hidden in the shadows of the door. Across the court, an adobe gate made a pale blur in the shadows surrounding the Hold—across that granite monolith, a line of shuttered windows marked the Hall like a row of sightless eyes. Above them, a balcony ran the length of the building, every arched doorway looking onto it rimmed in the silvery glow of the moon. In the checkered
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