In Red Rune Canyon Read Online Free PDF Page A

the creek flowing down the center. Unfortunately, another ghoul lookout, the female with the dangling amber necklace, squatted just inside the entrance. Squinting, the creature had a hood pulled up to shield its head from the sun, but appeared morose and uncomfortable anyway.
    The demon must use the table to help it transform prisoners.
    Kagur stepped out into the open, drew her arrow to her ear, and let it fly. At the same time, the ghoul spotted her and opened its fanged mouth to shout.
    The hurtling arrow plunged into the ghoul’s chest. Its cry silenced before it began, the living corpse flopped backward and lay motionless.
    Kagur peered about to see if the creature’s demise had gone undetected. Seemingly so. She prowled onward to the opening. There she exchanged her bow for her longsword, then skulked into the cave.
    It wasn’t entirely dark inside. Not at first, anyway. The daylight coming in the entryway shined for a dozen strides before the passage doglegged, and not far beyond that point, greenish luminescence flickered from an opening in the left wall.
    Stalking onward, Kagur found the opening led to a side chamber that evidently contained the demon’s treasures—or at least a sparse but exotic collection of possessions. A golden quill scratched letters in red on a parchment that somehow unwound more and more of itself without ever reaching an end or making a great pile of used paper. In a sluggishly moving painting, a bloody man and woman locked in a carnal embrace gnawed off and devoured pieces of one another’s flesh. The green light danced from an egg-sized gem wreathed in emerald flame and reflected from an oval looking glass floating in midair.
    But there was no sign of Eovath. Kagur would have to venture deeper into the cave to find him.
    She took a breath, steeling herself to do so. Then a notion came to her, and she turned back to contemplate the mirror anew.
    Like any proper Kellid, she distrusted sorcery even when human beings rather than demons were the casters. And a looking glass that hovered in the air was about as plainly enchanted as any article could be. There was no telling what touching it might do. Yet if the demon tried to use its horrible, debilitating gaze on her again, it might just come in handy.
    Gingerly, she took hold of the mirror’s golden frame and tugged. It moved it easily. When she tucked it under her arm, it made no effort to drift upward or pull away, acting no different from an ordinary object. She breathed a sigh of relief.
    Then Eovath’s deep voice bellowed, and metal rattled and clashed.
    Kagur nearly succumbed to the urge to race in the direction of the sound. But stealth and caution might still serve her brother better, and so she managed to hold herself to a fast stride rather than a sprint.
    The light failed as she stalked deeper, until she was groping her way through utter darkness. But fortunately, that was only for a few steps. Then she rounded a bend, and a trace of new light tinged the murk up ahead.
    At its end, the passage widened out into another chamber. As she crept up to peek inside, metal clattered once again.
    The light in the chamber shined from a scattering of glowing stones and glinted on an upright gray metal slab and the coils of chain that bound Eovath against it. Projections clasping the sides of his head kept him looking straight forward, and little hooks at the ends of thin, bent arms held his golden eyes wide open. At the top of the apparatus, a leering molded face sneered out above the giant’s own.
    Eovath writhed and struggled against his bonds, producing more rattling and clashing, and the chains shifted and tightened like living things to hold him in place. The metal face clenched its jaw with effort.
    The bat demon watched until even Eovath, for all his enormous strength and endurance, had to leave off straining and catch his breath. Then, its clawed feet clicking on the floor, it advanced on him, probably to try again to change