With a grunt, the hirsute giant headed to the back. Kalena and the human cautiously walked up the stairs. The wooden-frame structure protested, but did not give way.
At the top, Brom indicated that he would take the left, she the right. Each had two rooms to check. Kalena took some comfort in knowing that Brom would be within easy earshot, but she still drew her short sword. Unlike him, she wore only a thin, cloth hunting outfit under her voluminous travel cloak. Among her own kind, Kalena would have been barely clothed, but humans insisted on cumbersome garments, so she had made the best compromise. Even still, the low-cut top and slitted pant legs garnered the attention of many males.
The darkness seemed to close in around her as she stepped away from Brom. Forcing herself to focus ahead, Kalena reluctantly entered the first room.
A rueful smile spread across her full mouth. The torch immediately revealed nothing more than a dust-filled, cobweb-covered room bare of even a stick of furniture. No ghosts, no goblins. Holding the torch before her, she peered at the corners, but found absolutely nothing.
Feeling more and more foolish about her earlier misgivings, Kalena stepped out of the first room. Just one more to check and then she could rejoin Brom.
But whereas the previous chamber had been full of webs, the second was oddly clear, almost as if it had been constantly swept. It also contained the first furniture that the cat woman had seen in the entire keep. A tall, antique dress cabinet stood at the far end of the room. Scrollwork framed the polished images of rearing horses and handles made of what looked like gold.
The gold enticed her forward, as did the prospect that something of greater value might wait inside. Brom had regaled her with tales of smugglers and treasure hunters who had found valuables in the oddest of places. Why not here? At the very least, perhaps some antique object worth selling remained.
The gold handle moved readily when she turned it. The condition of the cabinet almost made her pause, but anticipation of what she might find inside made Kalena forge ahead.
But when she eyed the contents, her hand shook so much that she dropped the torch on the stone floor.
Kalena could not scream. All she could do was step back, her eyes unable at first to tear away from the monstrous sight dangling before her.
The faces…
Born of a race of hunters, Kalena nonetheless turned and fled. She raced down the broken staircase without thinking. At the bottom, some of her sense returned and she looked around for the Gnor. Even more than Brom, the Gnor would keep her safe now.
Only one of the two downstairs doors was open and from within came a flicker of torchlight. With a relieved gasp, Kalena rushed inside. Guilt that she had chosen the Gnor before Brom washed over her, but the cat woman knew that in this case Brom would understand.
But barely within the chamber, Kalena screamed.
The Gnor-or what remained of him-lay sprawled in the middle of the chamber. She knew it to be the Gnor only because of the general shape and the ax that lay nearby. The blood-soaked body itself was almost unrecognizable, for something had, with utter precision, completely skinned the giant.
“Not possible…” she muttered. “Not possible…”
She backed out of the chamber… and into a pair of arms.
Before Kalena could speak, she heard a voice whisper, “Don’t scream. It’s only me.”
Although neither held a torch, her superior vision enabled her to make out Brom’s welcome face. The bearded human gazed solemnly at his companion.
“Brom! Brom… the Gnor! He’s… he’s…”
“It’s all right. I’m here.”
She felt some comfort in his arms, but still the image of the goliath’s corpse remained burnt in her memory. “Brom, let’s get away from here! Whatever killed the Gnor must still be here! We can’t stay!”
Despite his cool demeanor, he must have been almost as worried as her, for his body was covered in sweat, so much so that Kalena’s hands came away wet and sticky where she had touched him near the throat and shoulders.
A sound from the direction of the room where the Gnor had perished made them both pause. Kalena could not be certain, but she thought it a faint moan. Could it be possible that after suffering such horror their companion might still be alive? Gnor were said to be hard to kill, but still…
Disengaging himself from her, Brom headed toward the other room. “Stay here,” he ordered, drawing his sword. “I’ll see to it.”
As he vanished inside, the cat woman wiped her brow. As she did, for the first time Kalena noted a lingering scent. It smelled of Brom, but of something else. She sniffed her hands where she had touched him, then anxiously touched her tongue to one palm.
Blood. She knew the taste well. Her kind practically ate their meals raw.
Staring at her open hands, Kalena shook. What she had taken for sweat was instead blood… so much of it that her hands were covered. Her panic had made her not notice it earlier.
Brom’s had been covered in blood… but with such a wound, he could hardly have stood, much less be so calm.
Then Kalena thought of the Gnor and what she had discovered upstairs.
“By the Dream Lands!” she gasped.
Whirling, she fled out of the keep and into the starless night. The branches of the trees nearby seemed to clutch at her, hold her. From her fingers erupted sharp claws, which she used to slash her way through. The region was silent save her own frantic breathing. Kalena did not look back, fearful that what had taken the Gnor was right behind her.
Fearful that it would still wear the face of Brom.
II
“This place gives me a chill,” Leonin grumbled. The wiry human rubbed his runny nose on his sleeve. “The battlefield was more inviting.”
“Always complaints, complaints always,” returned the red-feathered avian warrior riding beside him. Wide, pupilless eyes took in the dour landscape. “But this time agree.”
Ahead of them, Morgis hissed, his forked tongue darting in and out between sharp teeth. “You both had the chance to turn back. I told you I’d go alone.”
“And miss the reward for a live keeper?” sniffed Leonin.
Morgis hissed again, this time under his breath. He did not like being reminded of their quarry, one he felt responsible for letting pass. The Gryphon would have never made such an error. The Gryphon had been more than just a warrior… he had been a tactician and leader, the reason for the downfall of the Aramites.
And Morgis had ever been by his side. They had journeyed to this subjugated continent in secret, one a creature of myth-part man, part lion, part bird-and the other a drake warrior of the Blue clan, the son of the Dragon King who ruled from Irillian By the Sea. They had come as wary allies on a mission of discovery for the Gryphon and had become, through crisis and battle, comrades and friends.
But the Gryphon, his task nearly complete, had returned home to deal with other matters. Morgis, on the other hand, had found a purpose here among people and creatures who saw him as a savior.
To all appearances, he resembled a towering knight in green scale armor tinted with sea blue. The armor covered him from toe to shoulder, even down to gauntlets. Upon his head he wore a huge helm atop which a very lifelike dragon’s visage acted as crest. Through the curved opening of the helm a visage both reptilian and human could be glimpsed. Like his armor, Morgis’s skin was green in scale with hints of blue. His eyes were fiery red orbs and for a nose he had two meager slits.
Yet, all this was illusion, magic. The armor, the face, everything was false. What passed for mail was in truth skin, the skin of a dragon. The terrifying visage atop the helm was the true face of Morgis in his birth form. As a drake warrior, he wore two shapes. One was the almost-but-not-quite human one he now used… the other that of an immense, fire-breathing dragon.