Free Kormak 01 - Stealer of Flesh by William King Page B

you?” Kormak asked.
    “Your horse woke me. There’s something out there. Maybe the bear has come back.”
    “Maybe,” Kormak said. He sniffed the air. There was an odd scent to it, of fur and something else. It was not the rotten smell he would have associated with Razhak’s walking corpse.
    Something big emerged from the shadows. Kormak turned to face it. He did not draw his sword despite feeling an almost overpowering urge to do so. The creature was bigger than he was and covered in fur but it was not a bear. It walked upright like a man and its body resembled that of a man save for being broader and more stooped. The arms were longer and the hands ended in claws. It had a wolf’s head although the brow was higher and the eyes wider, and there was an odd intelligence in them. Around its neck was a choker of night-metal like the other wolf-men had worn.
    “It’s one of Massimo’s Wolves,” said Petra.
    “I worked that out all by myself,” Kormak said, not taking his eyes from the creature.
    “Are you going to kill it?”
    “Not unless it attacks us,” said Kormak loud enough so the wolf-man could hear what he was saying. Looking at those huge pointed ears he suspected it would have been able to do that even if he whispered. It opened its muzzle and let its tongue loll out, almost as if it was laughing. Kormak took a slow step closer. He wanted it to understand he was not afraid of it either. It looked at him with those fierce, red, miserable eyes. Kormak could see its muscles tense, as if it were about to spring.
    “I would not do that if I were you,” he said. “Not unless I wanted to die.”
    That seemed to be all the trigger it took. The wolf-man sprang, an avalanche of fur and muscle and rage slammed into Kormak. Its weight knocked him over but already it was ceasing to struggle.
    “I don’t believe it,” said Petra. “You drew your sword and put it through the wolf-man’s chest in a heartbeat.”
    Kormak pushed the heavy corpse off him. “Yes,” he said sourly.
    Kormak looked down at the wolf-man. It was already beginning to change. A pinkish-grey pus was leaking from its flesh as it lost mass and began to revert to something more human. In a few heartbeats a tall man clad in what looked like rags was lying there. He was still alive despite the fact that Kormak’s sword was embedded in his abdomen. Kormak had no intention of taking it out until he was certain the man was dead.
    “Thank you,” said the man. It was not exactly what Kormak had expected.
    He hunkered down beside the man. “Why?”
    “You have freed me, freed my soul. The demon in me is gone. It could not stand your sword. It burned.”
    “Massimo bound something into your body?”
    The dying man nodded. “When Massimo brought Jaro back from the dead, he called for volunteers. He said Massimo would work magic, that would make us invincible, let us take back what was ours from the Sunlanders. He showed us what had been done to him, how the wolf spirit had been bound into him and made him mighty. I stepped forward.”
    “Kill the moondog bastard,” said Petra. “He’s slaughtered hundreds.”
    “I want to hear what he has to say.”
    The man’s lips quirked in a sour smile. “She’s right. I did. Men, women, children. It was not what I expected. Not what I was told. He put a demon in me, Massimo did. At first I thought I could control it, use its power but over the months it grew stronger. It fed on the rage and hate and pain. In the end it controlled me. It made me want to kill everything within reach…”
    “Typical moondog bastard, always giving excuses when they are caught, when it doesn’t matter. Tell the folks you killed you’re sorry!”
    “I am not sorry I killed most of them,” the wolf-man said. “You came here and stole our land and you raised your false god. You persecuted those who followed the Old Ways and you were always so righteous about it. We showed you that Our Lady still has power.”
    Petra