Dreams That Burn In The Night Read Online Free PDF

opening his
mouth, letting the rain splash upon his face and into his mouth.
    The grass, brown and dead at his feet, burst
into new life, send­ing up rushing green shoots of new life. From the ruined stumps of dead
trees, new shoots sprang up, rushing into the air, into the sun and life.
    "As death kills life, so does life kill death,"
said the old one. The great black demon thing came down at the old man, re­lentlessly falling
like an arrow of death into the rain. Its mouth was agape with wicked teeth, hungry for the taste
of human flesh.
    Natina turned her head, sure that the old one
could not escape. She did not want to see her mysterious protector, her last hope for escape,
die.
    But the raindrops were like drops of fire. The
black one's wings, like great shifting leaves, were burned through and through. The demon spawn,
writhed in agony in the rain of life, burning in the cold fire of spring. It lost control, wings
burned and burning, and came plummeting to the ground, melting, shrieking as it died. It lay
before the old one's feet, shriveling, eroding, the rain tearing it into tiny pieces with each
gentle drop.
    Uhlat screamed in fury. He dragged Natina in
front of him, shielding himself with her slender body. His hand closed around her
throat.
    Natina struggled against his grip, but she could
not break away. The hawk stabbed at Uhlat, but he held Natina far enough away from his body so
that the hawk could not reach him. The hawk screamed in rage and frustration.
    Natina's eyes were wide open with
terror.
    "Before you can breathe the next breath, I shall
end this child's life. Her tiny life is in my fingers." Uhlat's rage burned in bis eyes like the
sun.
    "To he who holds a child's yen to grow life as
the dust beneath his feet, death itself is too swift, too gentle."
    The old man's face was alive with anger. For the
first time, the things that moved him, the great beliefs that moved in his blood and being, were
upon his face. His eyes became the sun on the water, and great pain turned his face into a
mask.
    He spoke one word. It was of a language not of
this world. The word hung in the air like a dragonfly. The air shimmered as if heated by the
force of this strange word.
    Thunder crashed, the earth shook, and then the
ground opened at the old one's feet. A ball of fire rose out of the hole. Flames as hot as lava
rose from the center of the hole. The ball of fire shot straight into the air and then came
arcing down, back into the hole.
    A lizard, green as the grass of summer, arose
out of the flames. It was longer than a deer in its body and had a great armored tail yet as long
again. It had neither mouth nor eyes, yet it moved out of the hole with grace and speed. It raced
across the ground as quick as thought, a green blur, a relentless reptilian wave that swept like
green fire across the ground.
    Its claws rasped against the broken log at
Uhlat's feet, the log broken by magic against Uhlat's medicine stick. Uhlat screamed once and
tried to tighten his grip around Natina's throat, to squeeze the life from her body, but the
lizard, as quick as breath, leaped for the arm that held her.
    Its fierce claws raked the top of his hand, and
Uhlat screamed in mortal agony.
    Natina stumbled and fell away from Uhlat's
injured hand. He could not hold her. His hand, ceremonially painted black, glowed with green
fire. He screamed in pain.
    His hand writhed and distended, clenching and
unclenching without control. The faceless one crouched at the log at Uhlat's feet. Waiting.
Waiting.
    Uhlat held the hand away from his body, as if it
were no longer a part of him.
    The finger bones pushed through his skin, came
leaping out to tumble down on the ground.
    Uhlat screamed and fell to his knees, the skin
collapsing around what once had been his hand. The green reptile shud­dered in anticipation, its
tail lashing across the ground. It lunged forward. It gathered the fallen finger bones up in