Sorcerer's Vendetta (The Secret of Zanalon) Read Online Free PDF Page B

body fired to run, overloaded; she froze and shook like an idiot. It saved her life.
    Sssssswwwwiiiiissssshhhhhhh !
    Air sliced just above her head. Her legs stiffened instinctively. She launched straight backward, skid-thudded hard on her behind. The flashlight spun from her hand crazily, then blacked out as it struck.
    She gawked up at the statue, its swing complete. Decapitation – not what I had in mind for today.
    The statue now stepped down from the pedestal. It, he, was looking around as if for lost prey.
    He said something, and at first it sounded like gibberish, but suddenly it clicked that he was speaking the scrambled precursor to English of the early middle ages.  Rachel's mind, scrambling in survival mode, translated quickly.
    "What is this? A night cloak spell?” he was saying. “Very good, old woman, but it will not save thee." He was panting, adrenaline loaded, as he approached her with sword sweeping slowly, a deadly blind man's cane.
    She scrambled back, crab-like.
    "Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod." Rough bark rammed into her back. Trapped by the inner wall of the tree.
    He oriented on her movement, lunged. Cold moonlight glinted in her eyes – the sword, thrust straight into her face.
    I'm skewered!
    Rachel flung herself to the side, heard the thock! as the sword struck home. Her glasses, already haywired, slung free as she scrambled for the flashlight, fast-motion crawling.
    I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die!
    In her leaf-pawing, one hand fell on a familiar shape. Not the flashlight. Why she thought the flashlight could save her, she didn't know. Blind him? Throw it at him? Hit him with it? She whimpered, expecting death as she crammed her glasses, now decorated by a speared leaf, on her face.
    The swordsman yanked the razor-sharp blade from the wood as she fumbled, finally snatching up the flashlight and snapping it on.  He reoriented as the flashlight flicker threw staccato shadows to dance a skeletal jig against the wild, living walls.
    But it was enough.
    The swordsman paused, peered at her. Then he looked down at himself.
    "I am not ..." he started. He raised his head, narrowed eyes at her and drew the blade up. "Thou'rt not the old woman," he decided.
    Rachel finally got the flashlight under control and brought it up to shine in his face, holding it as he had held the sword, except for one thing – she shook like a jackhammer.
    The beam revealed the statue, now fully fleshed, a man with long, black hair, wild in his rage. He raised a hand to shield bright blue eyes, squinting.
    "Put away that magick torch, boy," he said. "I see thou'rt not who I seek."
    Rachel held it still aimed at his face. Her head shook, spastically, vehement denial that she could possibly be that one.
    The swordsman gave a soft snort of derision, but his lips twisted in a slight smile. Humoring her terrified defiance, he sheathed his sword, then waited, a brow up.
    Rachel lowered the flashlight, but her mind had kicked into high gear. Could he have something to do with Rollin's disappearance? Did he come alive before? But she had looked around the pedestal and the area around the … him. If he had killed Rollin with that same sword strike, there would have been an awful lot of blood. Did he just reset to a statue? That was crazy. This was all crazy though.
    She shook her head, overwhelmed by her wild suppositions, knowing she just did not know enough to make any conclusions. Finally she managed to stammer, "H … how did you do that?"
    He turned away as she spoke, looked back to the pedestal whence he came.
    "It occurred to me to ask that o' thee." He approached the pedestal, knelt, traced fingers lightly across the face of the engraved stone, and frowned.
    "Was it not thine intent to revive me?"
    "I?  No.  Revive you? I couldn't." She gave a nervous laugh. "I'm not a ... a witch. And I'm not a boy."
    He broke from his study of the stone to peer at her, doubt obvious on his face. She realized he now mistook her for a child at