Free I Know Not (The Story of Fox Crow) by James Daniel Ross Page A

only be mistaken for human in a pitch black room. Three more had gained the far side of the bridge and clawed feet were pounding onto the stone with fierce anticipation.
          Their skin was gray and knobby, and it was draped in loose folds despite the obvious power inside of their thick, stunted limbs. Their faces were things of horror, heads melding almost completely into their chests, joined at a massive jaw line that even now opened to expose numerous rows of razor sharp teeth. They yawned wider and wider, spittle flying in gobbets as they gave inhuman voice to alien battle cries. Their mouths were toothed pits large enough to swallow a thigh whole. Their massive manes of white hair were slicked back and stained black with old blood. It dripped down onto crude white leather clothing. They were things of nightmare, and men tried to tame them by giving them names: goblins, orcs, or redcaps, but nothing could capture the truly inhuman nature of these scavengers. Now they had come for me. Deep inside I always knew they would.
          Everything became crystal clear as fear continued to fuel my rage. Their cries were cobbled together of the death rattles of a hundred corpses, backed by the screams of a thousand mourning women. My answer was a roar of all life and the living screaming at death itself. My scalp suddenly felt too tight for my skull. I cradled the Angel in my hands, letting the cold metal of the Phantom’s robes flow into me as they came closer. The Fog released images, smells, thoughts and impressions. In a strange way, I remembered their kind, but I remembered them much taller, much bigger. As I glanced down to their brother, who even now was gurgling messily at my feet, the specter in my brain whispered that they can die, and death was my one, true calling.
          I leapt back and then planted my feet in preparation. Redcaps are powerful, far stronger than a man though shorter. Inside my head a foreign flavored voice whispered tantalizingly: Be the wind, untouchable and supple. Power is only good if you bring it to a target, strength is only worthwhile if it is concentrated . My hand tightened upon my sword, then loosened as I took a deep breath. Between one heartbeat and the next, I plotted a bladed course through the three of them.
          That’s when the Beast erupted inside my chest and began the butchery.
          The one on my left came straight on as the one to the right moved behind him to avoid the thrashing redcap. The last came more slowly, allowing the others first crack at the dirty work of murdering me. It turned three into one for a brief instant. The first pulled back his heavy sharpened bar in a blow that could cleave me in half from shoulder to hip, if I let it.
          I did not.
          It cocked its cleaver in a four fingered hand, but I sprang forward diving under the swing even before it was made, slapping the sharp edge of the Angel against the redcap’s spine. The thing recoiled as the blade slid along its shoulder, severing vessels and unleashing a torrent of black blood leaving it dying quickly behind me. No time for congratulations, because my second attacker was already here and now my sword tip was pointing directly away from the thing’s heart.
          The next foul faerie thing was already starting a double handed overhead chop of his own, but I sprang at it, grappling desperately. Well, to tell the truth my Left hand grabbed at his wrist, but that nasty bastard Right slammed the pommel of the Angel into the pouchy throat of the second redcap with the full force of our bodies meeting. Though shorter by a head, the redcap’s dense weight brought me to a dead stop, but not before I felt the grinding, popping vibrations of its throat muscles collapsing. Its crude weapon slid from nerveless fingers as it tore hard nails into its own throat, fighting for air. I had to gasp myself, but with more success as I brought the beast in a harsh embrace,