04 - Rise of the Lycans Read Free Page A

brute with bad teeth—lumbering up behind him.
    A backward kick sent Bad Teeth flying off the drawbridge. A startled yelp
ended abruptly as he crashed down into the rocky slopes below, which were
studded with jagged boulders. A high-pitched shriek gave way to agonized groans
as the man was impaled upon a granite outcropping. He would have been better off
breaking his neck instead.
    Two down, one to go, Lucian thought. He spun around to confront the third
man, who had attempted to waylay Lucian from the right. A one-eyed stonemason
who wore a leather patch over the empty socket, this one appeared both larger
and cagier than his more impetuous cohorts. Swollen veins bulged atop his meaty
thews. A mermaid tattoo suggested that he had once gone to sea. Daunted by the
preternatural speed with which Lucian had dispatched his fellows, the cyclops took his time attacking.
“Demon!” he hissed at the boy as they circled each other warily. “I’ll send you
back to hell where you belong!”
    Lucian growled in response. He bared his teeth.
    The stonemason’s face blanched, and, for a second, Lucian thought he might
turn tail. The man crossed himself fearfully but did not back down. Mustering
his courage, he let out a ferocious whoop and raced at Lucian with his club held
high. His boots pounded against the wooden planks of the drawbridge, but,
compared to the boy’s inhuman reflexes, he might as well have been slogging
through heavy mud. Grinning wolfishly Lucian sprang from the ground and leapt
over the mortal’s head, landing nimbly behind his foe. He spun around quickly,
before the startled cyclops even realized what had happened, and kicked the
man’s legs out from under him. The man fell forward onto his knees. His club
slipped from his fingers and rolled away from him. He frantically scrambled for
his weapon, but it was already too late. Clasping his hands together, Lucian
clubbed the man across the back of his head with both fists. Bone cracked and
the stonemason collapsed face-first onto the hard wooden planks. Blood and
brains spilled across the drawbridge.
    So much for those ruffians!
    In a matter of moments, the melee was over. Lucian stood triumphantly over
the fallen bodies of his assailants. He wasn’t even breathing hard.
    Before he could fully savor his victory, however, the boy’s keen ears alerted
him to another threat. Something came whistling through the sky behind him and he whirled around just in
time to pluck a speeding crossbow bolt from the air, only inches from his face.
The silver glare of the arrowhead hurt his eyes, so he tossed the offending
missile away. It rattled harmlessly onto the floor of the drawbridge.
    A smattering of light applause came from the castle. Lucian looked up proudly
to see Viktor and a small group of vampire courtiers and ladies gazing down at
him from the grand balcony upon the central keep. The aristocratic vampires were
clad in all their finery, wearing elegant gowns and robes of the darkest silk
and velvet. Legend had it that the bite of a bat had transformed Marcus into a
vampire; the flowing black raiment of his kind draped over their slender forms
like folded wings. Viktor lowered the crossbow. He nodded in approval, plainly
pleased by Lucian’s prowess.
    Of course, Lucian thought, as the reason for the mortals’ unwarranted
attack upon him became clear. It was another of Viktor’s tests.
    The regal Elder had taken much interest in the young man over the years,
despite (or perhaps because of) his bestial origins. Lucian sometime wondered
why so powerful a monarch concerned himself with the bastard child of a dead
werewolf, but he was grateful for the Elder’s patronage—and for the fact that he
had not been put to death at birth. He knew that many in the castle wished
otherwise; they made little effort to disguise their contempt and suspicion when
they passed him in the drafty corridors of the ancient fortress. Nor could he
blame