Shadow's Witness (10 page)

the creature looked up from its meal, wide eyed and startled. Gale’s stomach roiled. He had expected an animal, not… this.

Strings of flesh clung to the creature’s dirty fangs and inch-long claws. Yellow eyes stared out of a blood soaked, feral face. When those eyes found Cale, they narrowed to ochre slits. A purple tongue half as long as a man’s forearm wormed out of its mouth, swept its lips, and slobbered up the last bits of flesh that clung to its face. It gave a low growl, a sound as savage and merciless as the fiercest animal, yet inexplicably human. It left the corpse and took one step toward him. His stomach fluttered nervously.

It registered in his mind that the creature had eaten the fallen guard. Ghouls, he realized. Ghouls are in the house! He had never before encountered undead, but he had heard enough tales to recognize the warped body of one of the creatures. No wonder the monster’s growl had sounded vaguely human.

The panicked shouting from the feasthall grew louder, increasing in intensity. Men screamed, ghouls snarled—lots of ghouls—and women shrieked in terror. Cale, however, could spare no thought for the events hi the feasthall. The ghoul before him began to prowl across the parlor toward him.

Involuntarily, he backed up a step. He reached for a weapon, patted himself for anything, but quickly realized that he had nothing. He cursed himself an idiot for leaving the kitchen without at least a carving knife. Think before you act, he rebuked himself.

Picking its way through the eclectic collection of furniture, the ghoul stalked closer. It moved in a hunched crouch, a vile, sickly-gray predator ready to pounce. As it approached, it tensed its clawed arms, smacked its lips, and gave a thoughtful snarl. Cale could have sworn it actually leered at him.

It knows I’m unarmed, he thought, and he realized that this savage, flesh-eating monster still retained some intelligence.

What in the Nine Hells is happening? Where’s the house guard?

He knew the answer the moment he thought the question. One of the house guards already lay dead on the parlor floor; the rest were fighting in the feasthall. Judging from all the screaming and breaking dishes, he did not think that Jander and his men were faring too well.

For an instant, he considered making a dash for the kitchen to retrieve a weapon, but dismissed the idea. He could not risk leading the ghoul to Brilla and the kitchen girls.

With his gaze never leaving the yellow eyes of the ghoul, he sidestepped along the wall. As he moved, he tried to keep furniture between himself and the ghoul. It seemed to enjoy his efforts. It playfully circled to cut him off and pawed at the air, content for now merely to toy with him.

Up dose, Gale nearly gagged on the creature’s stench. It stank like the rotted remains of a corpse baking in the sun. He tried to breathe through his mouth to keep from vomiting. With only a high backed wooden chair between them, he got a good look at the creature for the first time.

A spider web tracery of purple veins showed through its gray, leprous skin. A bit of blood from the dead guard still glistened scarlet on its sunken cheeks, and its fanged mouth and feral eyes promised a similar end to Gale. The remains of its befouled clothes hung in tatters from a hunched, twisted body. Its claws, filthy knife blades caked with dirt and gore, clenched and unclenched reflexively while it stalked him. A strange mark on its shoulder caught the candlelight and grabbed Gale’s eye.

He stopped and stared, stupefied.

The ghoul had a tattoo hiked into the flesh of its shoulder, a familiar tattoo, two crossed daggers superimposed over a cracked skull.

A wave of nausea and dizziness washed over Gale. He fought it off and studied the twisted, savage face of the ghoul. The clothes that might once have been the favorite blue cloak of a man Gale had known.

“Krendik,” he whispered in disbelief, the words drawn involuntarily from his constricted throat. He tasted bile and swallowed it down. “Krendik?” he said again, louder this time.

The ghoul stopped snarling and stood upright for a moment, as though hearing Gale say its name recalled the memory of its former humanity. In that instant, the feral gleam in its yellow eyes fell away. Its mouth softened from the rictus of savage hunger and a familiar face revealed itself. Behind the blood, the stink, and the twisted form, Gale recognized with certainty the face of Krendik, once a fellow Night Knife.

“Gods, man,” he breathed. “What happened to you? What has the Righteous Man done?”

Krendik the ghoul crouched low, threw its head back, and snarled into the rafters. All traces of its former humanity vanished. He returned his gaze to Gale, insane eyes narrowed conspiratorially, and hissed, “Maassk.”

Gale stared, dumbfounded. Mask? He did not understand. He knew that the Righteous Man was trying to convert everyone in the guild to the worship of Mask but that didn’t explain this.

Teed,” Krendik mouthed, and a foul brown slaver dripped from between its filthy fangs. “Feed.”

The ghoul lunged at him.

Gale shoved the rocking chair into Krendik and

frantically backpedaled. His eyes scanned the parlor for a weapon. Nothing! Gale scooted to his right.

Krendik bounded nimbly over the toppled chair and lashed out with a filthy daw.

Gale stumbled backward. Inadvertently, he crashed into one of the suits of armor-and nearly tripped over the display pedestal. Unthinking, he grabbed at the armor to steady himself. It toppled. He flailed to keep his balance while the mail crashed to the floor and sent bits of armor skittering across the floor.

The ghoul pounced on him.

Krendik crashed into him like a battering ram, claws flailing maniacally. The force of the charge drove Gale backward into the wall and blew the breath from his lungs. Snarls rang in his ears. The stink of rotted flesh and fetid breath filled his nostrils. Claws tore through his clothes and raked agfin and again at his unprotected flesh.

Reeling, and with no weapon at hand, he tried to pull it close and throttle it with his bare hands. The squirming ghoul pulled him off balance and the two tumbled to the armor-strewn floor in a chaotic pile of limbs, fangs, and claws.

Surging with adrenaline, Gale used his greater size and strength to roll atop the snarling beast and slam a knee into its abdomen. It squealed in pain and slashed at his chest and shoulders. Filthy claws tore gashes through his doublet and into his flesh. Warm blood ran down his arms. The ghoul sank its teeth into Gale’s bicep and shook its head to rip his flesh open.

Through the pain, Gale felt his muscles begin to grow thick. The snarls of the ghoul became distant. His vision began to blur. Some kind of venom …

If his body did not resist it, he would be immobilized and the ghoul would eat him alive. He tried to punch

at the squirming thing but with sluggish muscles he managed only a few feeble blows. Fight it, godsdammit! Fight!

The ghoul took advantage of his weakness and squirmed loose. Once free, it tore into his flesh with a manic flurry of raking daws. Gale awkwardly rose to his feet, stumbled backward, and tried to fend off the blows with his limbs. The ghoul ripped into him without mercy. His blood dribbled from the ghoul’s filthy fangs now. Snarling, slashing, and biting, Krendik tore into Gale’s body. Stinking, brown saliva pelted Gale’s face and drove him backward. He felt himself growing weaker. Stubbornly, he tried to fight back, but he knew his efforts to be futile. He was too weak. Soon he would not be able to move at all.

Distantly, he noticed that the chaotic noise from the feasthall had grown to a fever pitch. It sounded as though every dish in Stormweather was being shattered and an army was fighting on the dance floor. He had a sudden vision of the entire house guard slain and rampant ghouls feasting at leisure upon paralyzed victims. Thazienne! Thamalon! Shamur! In his mind’s eye, he saw his family being devoured alive, like him, ,

No! Anger heated his blood into a bonfire. A flood of rage washed away the ghoul’s paralyzing poison like a cleansing rain.

“No!” he shouted into the ghoul’s face, mere inches from its shark-toothed mouth. He caught it by the wrists and forced them out wide.

“No!” He pulled it toward him and at the same time kicked the ghoul square in the chest. Bone cracked and it squealed in agony. Its jaws snapped reflexively and brown spittle flew. Still holding it by the wrists, Gale threw it to the ground and landed on top of it, knees first. More cracking bones; more pain-filled squeals.

He released the ghoul’s arms, endured repeated retaliatory claw rakes, and dosed both his hands around its throat. Blood flowed freely down Gale’s sides but he did not feel it. He felt only hot rage.

“No!” he shouted again. Gagging, the ghoul left off tearing at his sides and aimed for his forearms. Cale endured the pain and only tightened his grip.

With a grunt, he jerked the ghoul’s head forward and promptly slammed it back against the hardwood floor. Tkttd. Stunned, its eyes rolled backward for a moment. -

“No!”

Its tongue lolled from its mouth and lay between its fangs. Cale released its throat only long enough to slam his palm under its lower jaw. Impaled between rows of fangs, the tongue exploded hi a spray of stinking purple blood. The ghoul squealed in agony, squirmed desperately, but Cale held it pinned. Spit foamed between its teeth and blood continued to pour from its tongue. In desperation, it slashed into Gale’s ribs, but he maintained his hold.

“No!” He slammed its head against the floor.

It shrieked and clawed like an angry cat, but Cale had long passed the point, where he felt pain.

“No!” Thud. Again and again, he slammed its head into the floor. “By …” Thud. Its squeals of pain gave way to stunned whimpers. “.•.. the …” Thud.

Incoherent, it clawed weakly at his chest and arms. He pounded it mercilessly.

“… gods .. •ť Thud.

Its head cracked open like a Yule nut. Reeking gore poured from its broken skull and formed a puddle of wet stink on the parlor floor.

Gasping, weakened from blood loss, Cale collapsed on top of the corpse. The rush of rage fled his body as fast as it had come, and the vacuum left him quivering

and exhausted. Blood and putrescence covered him but he hardly noticed. As his lungs heaved for air, he tried to gather himself.

The desperate shouts coming from the feasthall gave
“
” no time to rest. The terrible sounds pulled him to his feet and refueled his anger. Thazienne! Nearly slipping in the ghoul’s brains, he bounded over the corpse and sprinted for the feasthall.

He stopped cold in the double doorway. Perivel’s birthday celebration had been transformed into a chaotic melee of blood, screams, and death. Cale took it hi, horrified.

Near him, the oak feast table and most of the dinner chairs lay overturned. Broken dishes lay scattered across the floor. Toppled candles and spilled oil lamps had started a few scattered fires. Cale watched Shamur’s tablecloths burn and the plush velvet curtains smolder. Wispy clouds of black smoke filled the room and gave the whole scene the look of some surreal vision from a nightmare. From everywhere, a horrid cacophony of terrified screams, hungry growls, and angry shouts filled his ears. Smears of blood stained everything red.

A pack of at least ten ghouls rampaged freely amidst the chaos. They bounded haphazardly through the clutter, attacking anything that came within their reach. Many guests were already paralyzed. He winced when he saw the wounds torn hi their bodies. The ghouls had devoured hunks of their bodies while they stood helpless. His eyes moved frantically from victim to victim, looking for the members of his family. He didn’t see them.

Corpses lay scattered about the floor amidst the dishes and dining furniture, their bodies desiccated and unrecognizable. Not ghoul work, Cale realized, but he had no time to give it further thought.

He saw that the ghouls had herded most of the surviving guests to the far side of the feasthall, away from the double doors. Away from any means of escape. Though a few guests had tried to break the large, leaded glass windows, the beautifully crafted metal veins that depicted dragons in flight and men in battle imprisoned the guests as effectively as a jailer’s cell. Outside, the safety of the patio and gardens tantalizingly beckoned, just out of reach. Inside, the slaughter continued.

Here and there about the feasthall, groups of cornered noblemen fought the ghouls as best they could. The men pushed the women behind them and used table knives or heavy platters as makeshift weapons and shields. Gale watched transfixed as a ghoul leaped past the feeble weapons wielded by one elderly nobleman, knocked him to the floor, and began to feed. The man’s pathetic screams ended when the ghoul tore open his throat.

The three old women the elderly nobleman had beea trying to protect screamed in terror and tried to flee. Two other ghouls bounded after them, pulled them down from behind, and began to feast.

Cale pushed aside his nausea and fear and looked frantically through the smoke for his family. Where are they, dammit?

At last he spotted them, across the hall standing behind a protective screen of the surviving house guards. Jander Orvist and the rest of his blue uniformed men had backed the family and many of the guests against the back wall and formed a semi-circle of flesh and steel around them. Each house guard brandished along sword and stout buckler. They made no move to attack but lashed out at any ghouls that came near.

Through the smoke, Cale could make out Shamur

J ‘i’

and Thamalon. The pair were struggling to get free of the ring to return and protect the rest of their friends, but Jander personally held them back.

Good man, Cale thought. The only safe place on that side of the feasthall was right where they were, behind Jander’s men.

He saw that Tamlin, too, stood within the ring near his parents. He looked pale from fear, but still held his ground near the perimeter of the ring shielding two young women. Vox, Tamlin’s huge, hairy bodyguard, had somehow produced a wide-bladed short sword and now stood alongside the guards, a grim scowl on his face. Many of the house guards, their uniforms stained black with blood, had already fallen to the ghoub’^claw8.The ghouls now looked to be keeping their distance. Captain Orvist was waiting for an opportune moment to make a run for the double doors.