"Robert E. Vardeman & Geo W. Proctor - The Swords of Raemllyn 1 - To Demons Bound" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vardeman Robert E)

To Demons Bound
by Robert E. Vardeman and Geo. W. Proctor

Scanned by BW-SciFi
TO DEMONS BOUND
An Ace Fantasy Book / published by arrangement with the authors
PRINTING HISTORY
Ace Original/March 1985
All rights reserved. Copyright ┬й 1985 by Robert E. Vardeman and Geo. W. Proctor
Cover art by Royo
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part,
by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.
For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.
ISBN: 0-441-81464-6
Ace Fantasy Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
For Kerry who has given me the best of all things and
the worst, too... Bob
For Mike Presley who weaves the spectrum with a brush
... Geo.

1
Chapter
black qar, god of death, favored the night's shad-ows that veiled the streets of Raemllyn's cities. No
more than an icy chill that wove within an unseasonably warm late autumn's eve, the Great Destroyer
entered the av-enues of Bistonia. She... he... itтАФQar's sex was as varied as the profanities spat into the
Death God's face by those whose lives the Black One claimedтАФhungered.
Outstretching an invisible finger of ice, Qar tapped the unblemished forehead of a young mother with
child suckling at breast, then passed on.
The gently smiling woman tightened the arm cradling the frail bundle at her bosom. Her hand,
supporting a tiny head too weak to lift its mouth to a nourishing nipple, worked inward with a steady and
increasing pressure. With a motherly smile, she watched the red face of her infant daughter disappear in
the whiteness of her milk-swollen pap. She hummed a soft, crooning lullaby until the miniature arms and
legs wrapped within the warm constraint of a woolen blanket lay still and lifeless ... then the horror of her
act penetrated the icy numbness of her brain.
A mother's wail of anguish echoed through Bistonia's streets.
Qar smiled, appetite whetted. The Black One ex-tended another finger.
Garrid of Salim, twenty years Bistonia's finest cob-bler, eased from the cozy warmth of his wife's
side to walk from their bed to his workbench. There he hefted a wooden mallet used for preparing uncured
hides. Pleased with its weight, he returned to the bed. For a moment he stood above his wife. The mallet
rose.
And fell.
Garrid the cobbler was hard pressed to explain the bloody hammer in his hands and the bodies of his
wife and seven children when he was discovered by the city guards the next morning.
Qar moved on, once more lifting a finger. This time Death's frigid touch tapped the nape of the neck
of Aylrah the Fleet, a minor purse-snatch in Bistonia's network of thieves, while he stood in the blackness
of an alley near the Inn of the Winged Ram.
Aylrah had spent the better part of the eve trailing a young newcomer to the city, maneuvering,
scheming. The rich weave of the young man's deep wine-red silk brocade vest, the full, unsoiled sleeves of