The Black Tower Read Free Page A

sent them back, but there were more.  The creatures poured from the shadows, a swarm of claws and teeth sheathed in smoking midnight fur.  An entire pack was making its way into the courtyard – their shifting forms appeared as little more than silhouettes in the dusk light, and their razor growls peeled the air apart. 
    Kruje looked around for something that could be used as a weapon other than that damn rock, but there was nothing in sight.
    Blasts of Veilcrafted fire went wide.  The Razorcats were wary of the man’s attacks and used their ability to melt into darkness to their advantage.  The cloaked man blasted left and right with an impressive barrage of firepower, but none of his attacks connected with anything more than the crumbling stone walls.  Chunks of broken rock flew through the air. 
    The Razorcats are playing with them. 
    The predators jumped close and circled about.  They cut the Bloodspeaker off just before he reached his companion.  Claws raked at him and sent him to the ground.  Four of the creatures surrounded the woman, and their spined tails lashed at her body as they slowly closed in.  She fumbled for her battle stave but it was well out of reach.
    Damn it.
    Kruje let Kar-Kalled take him.  He breathed in deep and let the rage burn through the walls of his soul. 
    Without another thought the Voss ran forward with a furious war cry.  The stone left his hands and struck the Razorcat closest to the woman, smashing its skull and dropping its body to the ground.  Kruje charged the three remaining beasts.  They turned as he approached and tore at him with impossible speed.  His fists shattered teeth as claws raked his arms and torso, the cuts so sharp he didn’t even feel them.
    A blast of white ice tore out of the darkness and engulfed two of the Razorcats in a wave of numbing frost.  Their bodies turned brittle and sank, slowly cracking apart.  Kruje grabbed another Razorcat by its massive jaws as it tried to clamp its teeth down around his face.  Muscles tensed to the point of breaking and fingers throbbing with pain, he held the mouth wide and stared into a maw filled with dagger teeth and a lashing red tongue.  Claws tore into his stomach. 
    He kept his focus, locked his shoulders tight.  The beast thrashed and tried to pull away, and just as the razor tail moved to wrap around his throat Kruje howled and ripped the jaws open.  Blood soaked him as ruined bone fell from his hands, and the beast sank to the ground.
    More of them came from out of the darkness, a wave of moon-colored fangs and burning eyes. 
    A blast of fire took the approaching beasts.  Kruje fell back and shielded his eyes.  The roars of the Razorcats turned to pitiful mewling as the air filled with the stink of burning skin. 
    Kruje’s body was raw with cuts, and as Kar-Kalled faded the pain of the battle rushed in at him, along with an icy sense of fear.  Heat rolled over him like a burning cloak.  Kruje pulled his arms over his head as the flames drew close.
    And then, just as suddenly as they’d come, the flames were gone.  Silence blanketed the city. 
    Kruje opened his eyes and found himself blinded by thick clouds of body smoke and heat haze.  He slowly pulled himself to his feet, thankful his injuries were healing and that the blood had stopped draining from his wounds.  His fingers were brittle with pain.  He stood still there in the smoke, breathed deep and waited for something to happen.
    The fumes slowly cleared, and he found himself face to face with the two Bloodspeakers.  They were both bruised and bloodied but still alive, and they regarded him with the same sense of fear and revulsion he was accustomed to receiving from humans.
    “ You’re welcome ,” he said in a near growl, and to his great surprise the woman answered in his own tongue.
    “ We would have said ‘Thank you’, given the chance,” she snapped.   She regarded him with a wry, almost sarcastic expression.  “