Stealer of Flesh - By William King Page 0,1

them when called upon to. There were tales of such creatures hunting in the Mountains of Darkness and those were not too distant. He must be close to the border of Belaria and Valkyria now. Maybe if the blizzard stopped he might even be able to see the peaks. Thinking of the wolves, he reached up to touch the blade that hung over his shoulder. His hands were so numb he felt only its outline in the air, not the texture of the thing.

The wind played strange tricks. It was difficult to tell how close the howling was. Would some huge grey form come loping out of the gloom just ahead or was the pack leagues away on the trail of something else? Almost he would have welcomed the fight. It would warm him up and if death came it would be quick and clean.

What was that? Ahead of him, just for a moment, through the flurries of snow, he thought he caught sight of a light. He told himself he was imagining it, that it was a product of his chilled imagination. There were no lights here. This was a place beyond all hope of human habitation, he was the last man alive on these cold plains. There was no light.

The howling sounded again, coming closer, he was sure. He trudged on, feeling as if he was moving up a rise. It was hard to tell, he had lost all sense of direction and orientation in the storm. From the way his legs felt, from the way he was coming close to stumbling, he was on a slope. Perhaps at the top of one.

There. Again. He saw a light. There was definitely something down there. Was he smelling smoke now or was that a trick of his imagination?

He thought about the wolves. He thought about the lights. It would be a cruel jest if the creatures pulled him down within sight of safety. He felt like laughing. He was assuming too much that he had been trained not to. There was no guarantee that the light represented safety. It could be a fire around which murderers sat or the creation of something far worse, intended to lure lost travellers to their dooms.

And yet would he be worse off if the creatures around the fire turned out to be killers, or things who wanted only to feast on his flesh and perhaps his soul? If they were men, he could fight them and take their fire, and if they were monsters…Well, he had been trained to kill such by those who were expert in the art.

He stumbled on and the light vanished; a cruel will o’ the wisp sent to raise his hopes only to dash them. He kept moving in the direction he thought he had seen the light in, and he still thought he smelled smoke. His horse whinnied as if it too smelled safety. It began to push forward, moving in the same direction as Kormak and that reassured him; he was on the right trail. He let it drag him along in its wake.

The beast had lengthened its stride so that it was difficult for him to keep up. It was as much fleeing the wolves as it was moving towards what it thought might be a safe haven, and there was still the possibility that it might go wrong in the dark. Kormak stumbled and almost fell.

He knew now he was almost too weak to go on, and certainly too weak to face the wolves if they overtook him. He was at the end of his strength. All he could do was try to keep up with the horse and hope that it did not tug him off his feet. He was not sure he would ever rise again if that happened.

Ahead of them something large loomed out of storm and snow and night shadow, and blocked his progress. It took his frozen brain time to realise that it was a massive stone wall. He fumbled with his cold gauntleted hands and found no opening in it, so he started making his way around until he came to a gate. It was a large wooden one and it appeared to be closed. There was no way forward from where he was. He banged on it with his hands and shouted but he doubted there was any way he could be heard over the wind.

He laughed aloud. He had come so far only to be thwarted