Read Online The Legions of Fire by David Drake - Free Book Online Page B

dividers which mimicked lathe-turned rods. It fluttered its wings. With another peevish cry, the little creature flew off the plaster and circled upward.
    Instead of a molded ceiling, there was open sky. Storm clouds flashed lightning across it.
    Alphena stood and took a step forward. The look on her brother’s face stopped her. His eyes were bright with a wild malevolence which she’d never seen before. The figure shredding the lovingly prepared scroll
wasn’t
Varus; it wasn’t anything human.
    â€œSurtr’s legions will feed on the flesh of fallen men!”
shouted her brother’s mouth.
“Their blood will dim the summer sky forevermore!”
    Alphena stumbled forward, crying with the effort. Lightning as red as banked coals flashed. That and the glow where the floor should have been were the only light in the room.
    Men shouted; benches toppled over. Alphena supposed the audience was trying to escape. Did the door to the courtyard still exist? All she could see over her shoulder was blackness.
    â€œVarus!” she said. Something tangled her feet. The fetid light from below was getting brighter; she could see things moving in the depths. “Brother, you have to stop this!”
    â€œFrom the Iron Woods comes the Wolf’s brood!”
thundered the speaker.
    Pandareus gripped Varus by the forearm. “Lord Varus, attend to me!” he said in a voice of command.
    Alphena reached them. The dais seemed a steep wall, but she forced herself up it. The shapes in the greenish light were crawling upward.
    Circling the terrified audience, skeletally thin figures danced in the shadows. Almost visible, they leered in the darkness.
    â€œIn Hel’s dark hall the horror spreads!”
shrieked the white-faced youth. Alphena slapped him with all the strength of her right arm.
    There was a thunderclap. Varus staggered; he would have fallen if Pandareus hadn’t held him upright. There was no storm; the triple lamp stands seemed brighter for the hell-lit dimness which Alphena had imagined a moment before.
    Her palm stung. Her brother’s cheek was crimson and already swelling around the imprint of her hand; that much at least was real.
    Varus blinked in dull wonder. He held something, but she couldn’t see it properly.
    Corylus joined them on the dais. He clasped his friend warmly, but Varus could only mumble in reply.
    Alphena looked over her shoulder. The audience milled in confusion, bleating. The freedmen were afraid to go or stay, despite the sudden return to normalcy.
    Saxa and the wizard Nemastes stood in the doorway. The Senator looked puzzled, but naked fury blazed on the Hyperborean’s face. He stared at Corylus.
    Nemastes turned and rushed from the scene, drawing Saxa with him. They would have trampled Hedia in their haste if Lenatus and Corylus’s servant Pulto hadn’t put themselves in the way.
    Alphena met her stepmother’s eyes. Hedia looked calm and very cold; as cold as the blade of a dagger.

CHAPTER III
    A lphena hugged herself. When the light returned to normal, the hall had again become warm and muggy; she shuddered from reaction to what had just happened. Whatever that was.
    The members of the audience had rushed out as soon as they saw the sunlit courtyard again. Alphena smiled despite herself: if her brother had wanted his reading to be talked about, then he’d succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
    The smile slipped. She didn’t want to think about dreams. She was afraid she’d see—she’d feel—this afternoon’s events every time she closed her eyes for the rest of her life.
    Varus and Corylus were still clinging to each other; they looked stunned, as though they’d been pulled from the water when they were on the verge of drowning. Their teacher, Pandareus of Athens, seemed unaffected by the visions. He frowned and said, “We should get out of this room, even though it seems to be all right now. Lord