Prisoner of the Horned Helmet Read Online Free PDF Page A

lifted one gently and gasped audibly. Underneath were only more furs. She crouched over the furs, explored them with delicate fingers and recoiled. They were warm.
    She closed her eyes, gathered control, then spoke without moving, distinctly and carefully.
    “Do not kill me, Dark One. I come as a friend.”
    She opened her eyes, waited. From the shadows came a low growl, then a ragged grey timber wolf emerged. He was large for a wolf. Three feet tall at the shoulders, six feet long. His head and neck hair were erect. Yellow eyes were lethal. His teeth showed as another low growl moved past them.
    Cobra lowered her lids, held her place without moving.
    A low harsh command came from a shadow somewhere behind her. “The wood beside the fireplace! Put it on the fire.”
    Cobra rose carefully and walked slowly to the fireplace. She covertly returned the tiny dagger to its hidden sheath, then stoked the glowing embers into a flame with an iron poker, and placed four logs one by one on the fire. A moment passed before they burst into flames, filling the root cave with flickering orange light. She warmed her hands, then sighed, a faint whistling sound.
    “Be quiet and turn around,” said the voice.
    Turning slowly, she said, “Forgive me, I have traveled alone a great distance to see you. I am weary.”
    Gath of Baal’s head and part of his bare chest glowed in the firelight across the room. The rest of him was hidden in inky black shadow. His chiseled head, sculpted by moving shadows, had a harsh savage beauty. Wild, knife-cut, black hair fell to brawny neck. His lips were wide, flat, and sensually sculpted, while his nose was square. His eyes hid in the dark shadows of a blunt brow crusted with thick eyebrows. A thin smooth scar ran from the left corner of his mouth to his chin.
    The color in Cobra’s cheeks flamed. Her voice became a husky whisper. “Thank you… for sparing me.”
    His eyes seemed to look off at nothing, yet see everything. He listened, then shot Cobra a brutal glance. “You lie.”
    He strode out of his concealing shadow and moved, not toward Cobra, but to the stairwell. There he stopped short, and the firelight probed his muscular flesh. He was naked except for a loin cloth. A long thick dagger protruded from his left hand. His right was balled in a fist, Cobra gasped sharply with sudden fear.
    The head of the huge Sadoulette dropped down out of the stairwell and floated in the air with its yellow eyes level with Gath’s grey. It hissed, spread its jaws wide showing Gath fangs no longer than the blades of a pitchfork.
    Gath’s cocked body exploded with rippling muscle and his balled fist drove up at the snake’s head. Its hammer end caught the reptile’s left jaw flush, drove the head up at an angle, crushed its skull against the sharp edge formed by the end of the stairwell and the wall of the cave. There was a loud crack.
    Cobra winced.
    The head of the dazed python dropped onto the stairs, its body convulsing. Gath kicked it out of his way, moved up the stairwell to the landing. There he hauled the dying snake up and threw its tangled body through the doorway. It was too large and stuck in the doorjamb. Gath kicked it the rest of the way out, then closed the door, slamming the locking beam shut. He then picked a yellow stone off the ground, placed the stone in the open shaft which cradled the locking beam at a position between the end of the beam and a hole carved out of the bottom of the shaft. When he turned, Cobra was standing at the base of the stairwell watching him.
    She said, “You are a careful man.”
    He said, “You are careless.”
    He moved down the stairs, took her by the elbow, guided her roughly to the fireplace. There he took hold of her black velvet cape, ripped it open breaking the tie thongs and revealing a tunic of gold cloth. She did not protest or struggle. He stripped the cape off her, then shook it out. Finding nothing hidden within, he tossed it aside, looked at her.