Free In The Shadow Of The Beast by Harlan H Howard Page A

castle when his parent’s were
wed.
    He studied her as she continued to move
about the room making things as comfortable as she might for her
charge. There was something in her manner that betrayed a fear,
hidden deeply within her. She had barely looked up since Sigourd
had spoken of his near fatal encounter in the bowels of the
palace.
    Finally she turned to him, her eyes cast at
the floor. ‘Is there anything else before I take my leave,
lord?’
    ‘ Only that you tell me what
has scared you so, Mathilde.’
    The maids face flushed, her thin skin
reddening at the prospect of answering Sigourd’s question.
    ‘ I don’t know what you mean
my lord.’
    ‘ I saw how disturbed you
were when I spoke of my attacker. If you know something then I beg
you to tell me of it.’
    ‘ Lord, I was merely shocked
by the things you described. They sounded frightful to my old
ears.’
    Sigourd sat up in his bed, taking hold of
the tray of soup and bread before him he struggled to lift it from
his lap, the old maid moved quickly to assist him, she settled the
try upon the small table beside the bed.
    ‘ You must eat to restore
your strength, lord,’ she said, eager to divert his
attention.
    Sigourd took her hand, looked into her eyes,
‘Tell me what you know Mathilde. The life of someone very precious
to me may well depend upon it.’
    She hesitated, her eyes darting again to the
floor, ‘I daren’t speak of it lord, for fear of my life.’
    ‘ You have my word that none
of what passes between us will ever leave this room. I swear it
upon my own life,’ he said.
    ‘ Your account reminds me
terribly of something I heard many years ago,’ said the
maid.
    She settled herself on the edge of Sigourd’s
bed, took a moment to compose her thoughts before continuing.
    ‘ When I worked in the
household of The Baron, shortly before your birth, I had a girl
named Beth that worked under me. She’d spoken to me quietly of an
intruder in the castle that had attacked the lady Veronique. She
described him much as you did, a beast that walked as a man but
moved with inhuman quickness.’
    The maid’s face tightened as she recalled
the memory, ‘Beth was bloody useless when it came to dinner
service, but she never suffered from an overactive imagination as
far as I could tell.’
    Sigourd was quiet for a moment, considering
this information.
    ‘ Where is Beth, I would
speak to her,’ he asked.
    The maid’s expression dropped, sadness
dragging at her features, ‘She died lord. Shortly after the
incident she was taken by a sickness. We never learned what the
malady exactly was, but it took her awful sudden.’
    Sigourd was downcast at the realization that
this one clue to Isolde’s whereabouts had disappeared as quickly as
it presented itself.
    The old maid could see the despondency in
the face of her charge, and after a momentary hesitation she spoke
again.
    ‘ There was another who
witnessed the break in that night. A guardsman named Brodus
Klay.’
    ‘ Where is he, I beg you not
to tell me that he too has passed on!’ said Sigourd, hope returning
to him suddenly. The maid leaned back, fixing Sigourd with a
measuring stare, ‘No, he lives. But I don’t think you’d wish to
find him.’
    ‘ I wish it more than
anything.’
    She paused before continuing, seeming to
measure the honesty of Sigourd’s claim, ‘he’s resides in the
Eastern Fringes. He’s been out there for many years wandering those
dark places.’
    Of all things, Sigourd had not expected to
hear this. The Eastern Fringes were an unexplored territory beyond
the vast mountain ranges of the Ash’harad. They were a place that
held much fear in the hearts of mortal men, where foul sorcery and
dark magics were concentrated. There, creatures of an otherworldly
design roamed unmolested to maraud down from the mountain ranges
into the dwellings of menfolk, crusading abroad for blood and
slaughter. They said that to cross over the Ash’harad was to
journey into