Barb Hendee, J. C. Hendee

Child of a Dead God

CHAPTER ONE

Chane stood in the hidden mountain gorge amid the Crown Range. Light snow drifted down around him as Welstiel's mad shout rose into the night sky.

"No more! I am finished with you! Go back to where you hide. Find another toy… to cheat!"

Chane lifted his eyes to the dark expanse. The winter storm's cloud cover left the sky black but for one small space that exposed the stars.

Welstiel stared upward, his eyes filled with hate. His disheveled dark hair almost hid the white patches at his temples. Finally he lowered his head, and Chane followed his manic gaze to a switchback path leading up along the gorge wall.

One lone building stood halfway up, cut straight into the ancient stone. A small flicker of light traveled up the path's last leg, and then a figure stepped out of the structure's narrow door. Dressed in a pale blue tabard over a dark robe and full cowl, it lifted a torch high to greet two similarly attired figures ascending the path. All three went inside.

"Lock them all in," Welstiel whispered. "Feed if you must, but leave them alive… for now."

For too many days, Chane had fed only from Welstiel's life-conjuring cup. At the promise of fresh blood, he dropped his baggage and trotted toward the switchback path.

As he rounded the last turn, dim light spilled from the crack beneath the weathered front door. He slowed and crept quietly up to listen.

More than three voices sounded within. At first he couldn't follow the words, then realized they spoke Stravinan-of which he knew enough to understand simple conversations. Only the smell of life beyond the door mattered, and he gripped the cold door latch, senses widening. In one fluid move he squeezed it and shoved the door in. It clattered against the inside wall.

Three men and one woman in dark robes and blue tabards stood before a narrow hearth within a small room. All stared dumbly at him. One more elderly woman sat upon a long bench to the left, frozen halfway through pulling off her soiled boots. They took in the sight of him, tall and long limbed, with red-brown hair beneath a hooded wool cloak, and a longsword's sheath tip peeking from beneath its soiled hem. He was clearly no mountain dweller.

Chane rushed them before he even distinguished their faces and lashed out with both fists.

A woman and a man went down before anyone could flee, and he found himself toe-to-toe with a cowled old man. Tufts of cropped gray-white hair stuck out above a deeply lined face. Then the last of the standing four darted for a stairwell.

Chane had not seen these steps from the entrance. He lunged after the slight figure, grabbing the robe between the shoulders as the man cried out.

"Help! Bandits are upon us!"

Chane braced a foot on the second step and jerked back hard.

The frail young man shot across the entry room. His head and shoulders struck the far wall among cloaks and coats hanging from wooden pegs. He slid down and tumbled off the bench, flopping motionless upon the stone floor. The elderly woman who had been sitting there was gone.

Chane twisted around the stairwell's partition wall.

Welstiel stood inside the open front door, holding the woman by her throat. His eyes roamed the entry room. Clipped choking sounds rose from the woman's gaping mouth as she fought for air. She pulled at Welstiel's grip, but he didn't notice. She grew weaker with each incomplete gasp, until her hands dropped limply to her sides.

As she sagged in Welstiel's grip, he released her. She fell, and her head smacked sharply against the stone floor. Chane turned back to the elderly man.

The old priest, monk, whatever he was, watched him with horrified fascination and lifted shaking fingers to his mouth. Chane realized what the old man was truly looking at, and stretched open his jaws, displaying sharpened teeth and elongated fangs.

The old man stiffened, eyes round in his wrinkled face as the scent of fear thickened in the room. It smelled so good that Chane almost felt it on his skin.

"Lock them up," Welstiel said quietly.

Chane whipped around. "I… you… said I could feed!" he rasped.

"Too late, too slow," Welstiel whispered. "You wasted your chance."

Chane took a quick step toward Welstiel. Pounding footfalls echoed down the stairs from above.

A crowd of people in dusky robes and blue tabards gathered at the top of the steps. One young man backpedaled at the sight of Chane, and then tripped and fell against two others behind him. A clattering of wood filled the entry room as Welstiel slammed the front door shut.

"Finish this!" he snapped, and kicked the crumpled old woman.

The impact lifted her from the floor. She landed across the room atop the bodies of her unconscious companions, and the old man backed away.

Chane looked up the stairwell. He could not count how many were huddled there. When he lunged upward, the tangled mob fled amid panicked cries. Chane crested the stairs before the last one bolted beyond his reach.

Old wooden doors lined the upper passage, each opening into a small stone chamber. He drove the shrieking robed figures before him, and though they struggled to escape, not one struck at him. These mortal cattle would not even fight him for their lives, and Chane grew more spiteful and brutal with each one. He wrenched and flung them into the small cells, their fear-scent making him nearly manic to be finished.

All he could think of was the taste of terror-seasoned blood tingling down his throat to fill him with euphoria. Not for release from hunger but for the pleasure of feeding.

He heard Welstiel's footfalls behind him, and the cracking of wood. When he pulled the last door shut, and shoved back a figure trying to emerge from the previous door, he was shaking with a wild appetite.

Welstiel carried shards of thick wood in his hands. He shoved one through each door's iron handle and braced its end against the stone frame. Anyone who tried to pull a door inward would need enormous brute strength. Welstiel passed his gaze over each door along the passage's sides.

"Seventeen candidates," he muttered, absorbed in thought. "Adequate… since we had no opportunity for a more studied selection." He lowered his head. "There are several still below, incapacitated. Drag them up and lock them away."

Chane wanted to snarl, but didn't. Instead, he pushed past Welstiel for the stairs, numbly following orders.

By his second trip down, only two priests remained in the entry room- the elderly woman and the young man Chane had thrown aside. Welstiel knelt on the floor by the latter, unpacking his little brass cup.

"Take the woman," he said. "Leave the man."

Welstiel refused to feed directly on blood, preferring his arcane methods to draw concentrated life force. He began chanting softly.

Chane snatched up the woman, dragging her limp body up the stairs.

By the time he returned, Welstiel had finished. The young priest was a desiccated husk, and the cup brimmed with red liquid so dark it looked black in the entry room's low hearth light. But Welstiel did not drink. He poured the cup's contents into a brown glass bottle and pressed a cork soundly into its neck.

"You will remain here, out of my way," he said.

Welstiel headed for the stairs, but he paused at the first step. A shiver ran through his back. He lifted his head, staring up the dark stone staircase for a long moment, and then resumed his ascent.