A Cat Of Silvery Hue by Robert Adams Page B

gone almost unremarked—since he had been careful never to strike the same domain twice in a row and had ranged over most of the Duchy of Morguhn and parts of the two duchies to the south and east—and his murderous role had never been suspected. Throughout the intervening years, many a bear or treecat or boar or wolf had been slain as bloodprice for Danos’ twisted sex drives.
    The thoughts of those pleasurable deeds aroused Danos to an unbearable pitch of passion, so that when once more he found his traitorous hand straying toward commission of unforgiveable sin, he sat up, laced on a pair of sandals and donned a soft doeskin kilt. Leaving his door ajar, he crept past the rooms of the upper servants and ascended the narrow stairs to the roof, then headed along the wallwalk toward the barrack, thinking to borrow a woman from one of the guardsmen, take her someplace apart and hurt her enough to gain such reaction as he knew he required for his sexual release.
    But he had taken only a few steps along the wall when there was the twanging of a bowstring somewhere near the barrack and a blazing arrow arched high into the starry sky. What in hell, he pondered, are those drunken whoresons up to now? Aren’t dice enough to gamble with that they must waste good arrows? And they could fire the corn or the hay, as well!
    Lips set grimly, Danos strode purposefully toward the south tower. Dawn would see those thoughtless, wasteful rogues well striped for this night’s lark. But in the shadow of the tower, only a few steps from the door, his foot struck something which sent him sprawling, all but tumbling into the courtyard twelve feet below.
    On his knees, he made out the dim shape of a helmeted guardsman, stretched motionless across the walk, legs dangling over the edge. Snarling, he grasped the obviously drunken man’s shoulders and shook him mercilessly…without result. Then he became conscious of warm, sticky wetness on the miscreant’s tunic. He thought at first that, in his drunken stupor, the sentry had puked down his front. But some atavistic sense sent his hands exploring.
    His nape bristled as his trembling fingers penetrated the still-warm gash gaping under the guardsman’s chin. Leaping up, his blood-gummy hand sought the hilt of the sword he had left in his room and his mouth was opened, his lungs filling to shout an alarm.
    Then came the creaking protest of the gate’s hinges, whereupon a dozen or more shadowy, wraithlike figures poured from the entry passage and trotted across the deserted courtyard toward the hall. And Danos’ throat choked off that shout. Shakily, he stepped over the dead man and tiptoed through the tower, thence into the deathly still barrack.
    What he found there imbued him with such panic that he only took time to arm himself with belt and dagger, bow and case of arrows, ere he stole back through the tower, dropped from the wall and ran for the forest like a hunted beast.

CHAPTER SIX
    Sleep finally had claimed Mairee, but the throbbing of her feet made it a light slumber at best, and when the arms slipped under her body and the lips pressed down on hers, she instantly came to full, shuddering wakefulness. All that she could see of the face above her was as black as the hair. Then she became aware that those lips on hers were surrounded by a beard, a full beard! And she
knew
the feel of that beard…and those arms and those warm, tender lips. And she knew also that she was certainly dreaming. The knowledge that she could not live on and on forever in that blessed dreamworld, but must soon waken to the horror of her real existence, wrenched a groan from the depths of her being and flooded her eyes with hot, salt tears.
    Beside her the snoring suddenly broke off, the bed shook to the lady’s ponderous movements. Then her strident voice shrilled, “
A man!
A dirty
man
! What are you doing in my bedchamber, you pig? Get your filthy hands off my girl!”
    Ehrik’s deep bass rumble answered