"Stephanie!" Grant called to her, his voice rising above the howl of the dogs.
The wind began to whip anew in an eerie, dark swirl of fog and night. The baying increased.
And then the demon dogs came rushing through the throngs of hors.e.m.e.n and foot soldiers that flanked Francois and his troops.
And Stephanie.
The first animal leapt upon him. His horse staggered. Grant looked at the thing in amazement. It was a dog, and not a dog, huge in size... but not a wolf. Its teeth were those of a great cat, a tiger in the night.
It was a corpse. Not dog, wolf, or great cat. It was a corpse, summoned from the grave with the unholy power of a sorceress...
Stephanie?
No!
Corpse or not, it was vicious and powerful. Its shoulder muscles were gigantic, and its ma.s.sive paws held great, tearing, catlike claws. The sheer power and size of it was so great that it knocked over his horse, and unseated him.
The head! Sever the head!
With a ma.s.sive blow, he did so.
But looking up, he saw that they were coming in waves.
Near his side, Lucien was slashing away at the creatures with a practiced fury. Lucien glanced at him.
"Call out to her-call out to Stephanie! She can order them back to h.e.l.l."
"Stephanie didn"t call these foul beasts from the dead!" Grant shouted back.
"Whether she did or didn"t, she can send them back to h.e.l.l!"
He paused, shouting as loudly as he could, "Stephanie! Stephanie, for the love of G.o.d, you can do it! Send them back!"
Screams rose around Grant. But it seemed that they were pushing forward. He went to swipe at the head of a devil dog and then froze where he stood.
He never slashed into the neck. The thing, just suddenly, in mid-leap, turned into a pack of dust and bones and fell harmlessly to the earth.
"Forward!" He heard himself rage out the command.He turned back to see his haphazard army ready to obey. There... just feet from him, locked in battle, he saw Drew and Doug.
"Ah, come on, buddy, put down the sword!" Drew pleaded.
Grant saw the fierce twist of Doug"s lips as he formed them into a snarl. Doug raised his ma.s.sive, blood-drenched sword, ready to strike with a vengeance.
"s.h.i.t!" Drew cried.
And he rose, with tears in his eyes, and made a clean swipe with his weapon that sliced right through Doug.
He fell.
Someone lunged against Grant"s back. Someone in full armor. He nearly fell, then staggered, gained his balance, and turned back. His opponent was fierce, driving him to defensive measures as onslaught after onslaught came his way.
He swung the great, double-handed blade with all his strength and agility, catching his opponent just under the neck.
The helmet flew from the fighter.
And he paused.
Catching at her throat, trying to stanch the flow of blood, was Valeria.
And for a moment, past images flooded into his vision. Valeria... beautiful, laughing at his side, long ago...
When she had been young.
Innocent...
And he hesitated.
She"d had a daughter. She"d ridden with Francois... because he had threatened the girl. The daughter had lived... and the centuries had gone by...
And now, she screamed in rage, rising, catching her sword from the ground, and flying after him again. Her sword caught him such a blow against the chest that he went down.
Her arms stretched out to the heavens. Lightning cracked against the sky. The wind roared, and he heard again the baying of the demon dogs...
"No!" he roared.
He grabbed the cross he wore around his neck, rolled when her sword would have rent him into pieces. Staggering, he found his feet again. He didn"t try to collect his weapon, but charged at her with the huge cross held high in his hands. He slammed against her, pressing the cross hard to her forehead and face.
She screamed with rage and pain that rose above the howling.
She fell to her knees.
Looked up at him...
And he knew. He saw her just as he had seen her centuries ago. He saw the snarl of triumph, the vicious snarl she had given him before...
Francois had not been all that had driven her to evil. She had found power, and she had loved it. And he had saved her life long enough for the earth to tear and crumble...
And crush all her enemies beneath it. And since then, she had been waiting.
He caught up his sword, and prepared to deal the death blow.
"Conan!"
The cry caused him to pause. Then, he saw again the change begin to take place in her eyes, in her features...
A smile...
That faded.
He heard the whoosh of the sword. For a moment, Valeria remained, frozen in time with that smile on her face.
Then... her head fell to her side.
"Move! He went to Valeria to fight his arm-to-arm combat this time!" Lucien told him. And he pointed.
The precipice was not what it had been before. It barely jutted from the cliff. But Francois had dragged Stephanie there. She was openly fighting him now, but he had her by the hair.
And there was Arturo, ready to help him, dragging Stephanie down, down by the shoulders, forcing her to her knees.
"No!"
Again, his cry rose to the night sky, to the darkness, to heaven, and beyond. He bounded upward, catching tree limbs, branches, anything to hurry his a.s.sent.
"She is Valeria!" Someone shouted. "She is the evil!"
They were mad; they were insane. They had ridden with him, and they knew...
Or did they? They only knew that evil had been dug from the past, from the ground, and that it was living among them again.
Above the roar, he could hear the rise of Francois"s laughter.
With a desperate, mighty push, he thrust himself from the trail, jumping up on the edge where too many people struggled desperately.
He caught Arturo first, sending the man over the edge with a ma.s.sive right to the jaw. Freed, Stephanie leapt up.
"Get behind me!" he ordered her.
"Grant! He"s a vampire. You... you... haven"t..."
Grant swung the sword. He knew he had a perfect and sure shot at the man"s neck.
But Francois disappeared, and all he could hear was laughter."Stephanie, get away!" he urged her. He couldn"t fight Francois, and hold off the people who were slowly but steadily making their way up the trail.
"I can"t... I can make you see him. Grant!"
He turned just in time. Leering, furious, all but frothing at the mouth, Francois was at him again. Grant deflected the blow, and started to swing.
Again, the man started to disappear.
"No!" Stephanie shouted.
The image of the man wavered, but remained.
Grant swung.
The head of the man went flying.
Stephanie fell, first to her knees... and then, to the earth.
The wind ceased instantly.
The clang of steel was hushed.
The baying of the demon dogs had long since quieted.
"Stephanie!"
Grant screamed her name, falling down beside her.
And then, the noise began. A trembling that shook the earth. It was deep, horrible, a rumble that seemed to shake all the world...
From below, someone, it sounded like Carlo Ponti, shouted, "Quake!"
Stephanie was out cold. He could barely reach her, the earth was so volatile. He stretched out his arms... caught her, drew her to him.
It was going to go. The little piece of precipice that remained. He was bogged down in armor, so heavy laden. Still, he got her into his arms... he began to run.
Behind each footstep, more of the earth gave.
He hit the trail.
The ground jolted.
He fell himself... fell... flew.
They rolled...
Downward, downward, downward...
And the world was black.The quake that struck the area was not nearly as bad as several that had devastated the region before.
Sadly, there was a death toll.
These were things Grant learned when he awakened, days later.
He woke feeling strange. Very strange. He"d been... out... for several days. But he awoke with a savage hunger, and a strange sense of power.
He awoke, in Stephanie"s bed, at the resort.
And when he started to rise, he felt her at his side.
He stared at her a long moment. Her eyes were on his, more violet than ever. Her hair was like a cloak around her...
She was naked. And she smiled as he looked at her.
"h.e.l.lo."
"h.e.l.lo."