Kormak stripped off the tunic that had belonged to the Wolves. No one had opposed him when he rode out of the valley. The sentries even answered his questions when he put them.
Yes, a girl had ridden through claiming she was a courier sent with instructions to the Wolves. She was heading east, along the main road, bound for Steelriver. Kormak doubled back and took the path to where his horse waited with what remained of his gear. It was a delay but some of the things in his saddlebags would prove useful and a second steed would do no harm in the pursuit. He knew where Razhak was going now. He knew what his present form looked like. He would follow and he would kill the demon and he would take revenge for Petra and her brother and the others it had killed.
It would not escape him, even if he had to follow it to the edge of the world.
THE FLESH STEALER
“Be very still, stranger,” said a voice from behind Kormak. The beam of a lantern fell on him, illuminating the hideously decomposing corpse he had been inspecting.
The highlander glanced up from the body of the murdered man, squinted down the alley, towards the light. There were two men there, wearing the conical helmets of the Vandemar city night watch. He said, “I am not the one you are looking for.”
“We’ll be the judge of that,” said one of the watchmen. He was tall, almost as tall as Kormak and even broader although most his weight was fat. His massive form blocked one exit of the narrow alley.
He held a crossbow with the negligent ease of a man who knew how to use it and the bolt was pointed at Kormak’s heart. Kormak doubted that even his mail shirt, forged by dwarves in the ancient days before they departed the surface world, would be able to stop it at this close range. He was in no hurry to find out. He had no intention of dying in this dark alley between the massive tenements of Vandemar if he could help it. He still had work to do.
“Step away from the body, stranger,” said the big man’s partner, the one holding the lantern. He was small and wiry and looked the smarter of the two by far. He rang his hand-bell loudly. “Keep your hands away from your sword. You have the look of a man who is quick with his hands but believe me you’re not as fast as a crossbow-bolt. No one is.”
Kormak did as he was told. He kept his hands out from his sides and he made no sudden moves. “I tell you, you are making a mistake. There’s not much time before the killer strikes again.”
The weasel faced man grinned appreciatively. “It’s good that you are so co-operative. Not many of those we pick up are. But I doubt the killer will be doing much killing while we have you here though.”
“Look at the body then tell me that,” said Kormak.
“Take a few steps back and I will do just that thing.” He kept ringing the damn bell and Kormak knew it was only a matter of time before more watchmen came, even in this dingy run down part of the city.
Kormak backed away. The guard’s eyes did not leave him. “What happened here, anyway?” he asked. “You and Ana come to some sort of arrangement? She lure this poor bastard up here and you knock him off? It won’t be the first time but it’ll be the first time she’s been caught. You’ll both swing for this.”
“Ana?” Kormak asked.
“Don’t play innocent. You know her. Red-haired trollop. This alley is her patch, has been for years. You her new pimp?”
Kormak grinned a wolfish grin. “I am a Guardian.”
The guards laughed. “Sure and I am Our Lady of the Moon,” said the bigger one of the two.
“You picked a strange place to step out of the old stories,” said the smaller one. “I thought I had heard them all but this is a new one. Wait till we tell the lads down at the watch-house.”
“I don’t have time to argue,” said Kormak. “Take a look at the body and then tell me that a mortal man did that.”
The weasel faced man shrugged and squatted down by the body. He looked at it, looked up and then turned and bent double. The sound told Kormak that he was being sick.
“What did you do to him?” the small guard asked when he had finished dumping the contents of his stomach on a pile of offal. He stood up straight and began to jerk his warning bell frantically. Its loud clangour rang out through the alley, scaring even the rats that had started to gather for their feast.
“I did nothing,” said Kormak. “The Ghul did it.”
“A Guardian and a Ghul,” said the big man. He was still chuckling. He had not inspected the body as closely as his companion. “This is an interesting tale for the lads.”
His companion did not look amused now. He looked scared. “You a wizard, big man?” he asked. “You know some sort of Shadow magic?”
“No-I hunt those who do.”
“Yeah and next you’ll be telling us you kill the Children of the Moon as well.”
“Not always,” said Kormak. “Only when they break the Law and will not repent it.”
“That’s crazy talk,” said the bigger guardsman. “It’s the bedlam lockup for you, my friend.”
“Look at the body then tell me I am crazy,” said Kormak. He spoke slowly. He was starting to lose his patience. The big man kept laughing but the crossbow did not waver. His companion leaned forward and whispered something in his ear. He looked down then and he stopped laughing. As soon as their eyes were off him, Kormak sprang forward, lithe as a panther.
The crossbow swivelled. Kormak struck the side of it with his fist. The bolt flickered off down the alley, clattering against the wall. Kormak punched the big guard in his ample stomach, dropping him. A second blow sent the smaller man spinning into the wall. Kormak grabbed him, smashed his head against the wall until he fell. The big man was groaning and trying to unsling the club from his belt. Kormak kicked him in the head then raced off down the alley. He jumped a midden heap, vaulted over a low wall of crumbling brick and turned left, racing under ancient balconies and the wooden walkways that ran between the upper stories of the tenements.
The alleys were dark and dingy but he kept moving, knowing with every minute that passed his task was getting harder. It had been little more than luck he had found the body. A passing trader had described Razhak’s last victim heading this way with a red-haired girl. Kormak had not been sure whether to believe him at the time but it was the only lead he had got so he took it and found the familiar looking corpse.
Razhak had stolen the form of pedlar called Nial after he had abandoned the form of the girl, Petra. Now, unless Kormak was greatly mistaken, the Ghul was wearing the body that had once belonged to Ana. He knew he had only a few hours before it stole another and left behind a hideously decomposing corpse.
Or it would if it was sensible. It knew Kormak was after it. He had almost caught it in Steelriver and in an inn along the Holy Road. It would want to make at least one more shift, to a body for which it would be much harder to find a description. That would make the task of finding it much more difficult, and the watch would be after him now and Kormak would be out of time.
He should have killed the watchmen. He would have bought himself some time by slitting the watchmen’s throats. It was what Razhak would have done. The Ghul would leave no witnesses. He could not do that. The men had done him no harm. They were not his enemies. They were not creatures he was hunting. It was no part of his duty to kill men who were just doing theirs.
It was going to cost him though. Soon the watchmen would wake up with a grudge, and they would know what he looked like and what he sounded like. They might even be able to spot him by the way he wore his blade. He had told them he was a Guardian, after all, in the slight hope that they might aid him. Well, there was one thing he could do about that. He unbuckled the sword belt from around his chest, where it supported the scabbard at his left shoulder. He buckled it around his waist. He forced himself to walk more slowly as he approached the torchlit shambles of the Mall. He slouched his shoulders, and assumed a drunken, stumbling walk.