The Raven Warrior Read Online Free PDF

No. No,” it moaned. “You are not he—they promised me a companion wolf, but you are no wolf but a man.”
    For the first time, Black Leg got a good look at his attacker. Got a good whiff of him, too. He seemed old and was filthy. His hair, nails, and beard looked as though they hadn’t been cut in months, maybe years. The dirt under his nails was black, his hair a tangled mass that hung down on either side of his face. And the beard was long, filled with dead leaves, twigs, and bits of whatever the creature had been eating, substances Black Leg didn’t care to speculate about. It was hunkered down on its heels, sobbing, nose running in two mucous streams down the uncombed mustache into its beard.
    “No, no, no! I will despair and die. You cannot be the one,” it sobbed. “The voices said nothing about such powers. Where? Where is the wolf? My wolf, my friend, the promised protector?”
    Black Leg was shaken, filled with a mixture of pity and fear. He had never seen a human being in so wretched a condition.
    The thing began to crawl away through the shallows, toward the boggy shore. Its mouth opened and Black Leg saw that its teeth were those of a young man, white, even, with strong, pink gums.
    Black Leg shuddered, looked down at his own nude body, and realized he had been smeared with filth by the thing’s arms and hands. He waded deeper into the lake to clean himself. He was afraid to turn wolf again, lest he bring on another assault by the fearful being. He sighed with pleasure when he was out far enough to be in up to his neck. True, the water was cold, but only briskly so. Only cold enough to bring up the reflex that heats the blood in the young and can make a swim even in icy water a profound pleasure.
    In the first light of morning, the water was murky and he felt the long fronds of waterweeds stroke his calves, knees, and thighs. He was walking on a velvet carpet of vegetation a few feet below the surface. A floor soft and yielding but at the same time crisp and somehow protective of his feet.
    Nice. Nice,
he thought. But then he noticed the weeds seemed to have a lot of prurient curiosity. He was being fondled and caressed by something that felt finned, scaly, and yet almost slimy like a fresh-caught fish. The touch explored him so gently that at first he was disarmed by an intense rush of pleasure. Then he realized he was being felt up by a . . . fish!
    “Yeeeee!” He wasn’t proud of the screech he gave while setting a record back to land. It sounded a bit feminine, at least to his ears.
    But when he reached solid ground, he was nervous enough to become wolf again without thinking about his first encounter. But he was reminded immediately.
    “Thank God. Thank whatever gods may be. He has returned. Let me embrace you!”
    Black Leg became human again. “No!” he shouted. “You stay away from me!”
    The old man on the shore began weeping. And something else reared up out of the water. It was heavily draped in waterweed, but Black Leg could see enough to note that it had fins, scales, and hands with webbed fingers.
    “Holy Christ!” he yelled.
    “What’s the matter?” the thing in the water said. “You didn’t like it?”
    The old man on the shore drew himself up, pointed one long-nailed, grimy finger and thundered, “It is the Lorelei. Begone, for being you wolf and man, flee ere she begins her seductive song and calls you to your doom!”
    “You old fool!” the thing in the water shouted back at him. “That’s saltwater . . . I’m fresh. At least get your evil supernatural beings straight. You have been sorcerer. And while you’re at it, get away from my lake.”
    The old man on the shore flung a sphere of fire at the fishy-looking thing. But a waterspout leaped up in front of it and put the fire out.
    The old man on the shore sank down, moaning, his head in his hands. “Weak, I’m so weak. Hunger and cold have sapped my strength. I am no longer fit for battle. Soon, soon, if the