The War Of The Black Tower (Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

eventually they passed into sleep.
    Upon waking, two fiery eyes loomed
over them.
    He sat bolt upright, waking Rolenya,
and she gasped and shrank away.
    No ,
Baleron thought. No, it CAN’T be. Not
again .
    But it was. The Dark One had taken
the guise of the Great Wolf, but he was even larger now. His slavering jaws
dripped hissing saliva that smoldered against the stone floor. His eyes burned, pools of fire in the blackness. He growled deep, and
Baleron shook with fear. The Wolf’s musk-stench filled the pit.
    “Gilgaroth,” Baleron said, awed.
    “I
have come,” declared the Wolf.
    “Thank You . . . for Rolenya.”
    “I
have come for her, not you. Unless you have . . .
reconsidered.”
    “What? You cannot . . . you cannot do this! You can’t give her to me and
then take her away, again . It’s not right !” He understood how foolish the
words were even as he spoke them, but he couldn’t help it.
    Rolenya huddled against the far
wall, her eyes, angry but scared, transfixed by the Shadow’s. She did not seem
able to bring herself to speak.
    “ WILL YOU SERVE ME?” asked Gilgaroth.
    Baleron understood now why
Gilgaroth had given Rolenya to him. He’d given Baleron something precious so
that it would hurt more when he took it away. It was the same in the arena, but
this was worse, as the gift he’d given was greater: time.
    In a small, trembling voice,
Rolenya said, “Don’t give in, Bal.”
    Baleron tried to meet the Wolf’s
gaze, but couldn’t.
    “I am not your creature,” he said.
    Enraged, the Great Wolf bounded
forwards, knocking the prince aside and leaping on Rolenya. She struggled, but
she could not fight such a being. The Wolf’s jaws crushed the life from her,
and her blood spattered the stone walls and scattered the lurking scorpions to
their holes.
    Gilgaroth, ignoring the prince’s
shouts and fists, devoured Rolenya, right before Baleron’s horrified eyes.
Baleron beat at the Great Wolf’s sides so fiercely that he exhausted himself
and sank against the wall as far away as he could get, and, weeping bitterly,
turned his face away. He closed his hand over his ears to muffle the wet, meaty
sounds and awful growls of the Wolf.
    Finally, a secret door slid away in
the pit wall with the sound of stone grating on stone, and the Dark One backed
into it, his red stare never leaving Baleron. Rolenya’s blood dripped from his
muzzle.
    “I
can make her and destroy her a thousand times, Baleron. How many times can you
stand to watch?”
    The door slammed shut, leaving
Baleron alone in the pit.

 
                   

 
    Gilgaroth was true to his threat, for the next night it
happened all over again—and the next.
    Every night Gilgaroth created a new
body for Rolenya and every night he destroyed it after Baleron’s refusal to aid
him. Sometimes he would give them time together first, sometimes not. The
prince watched his beloved die time and again, sometimes horribly and slowly.
He began to go mad, talking to himself when no one was there, pulling at his
hair, which (he knew from the fistfuls) had begun to show even more streaks of
silver. Killing himself would be pointless; Gilgaroth would only make him a new
body. His only defense was to lose himself in his own mind.
    He could not obey the Shadow, could
not help destroy the world. If he and Rolenya had to suffer for it, then suffer they would. Eventually the war would reach a
point where his contributions would matter little and the Dark One would kill
him or forget him. Either way, this had to end sometime. He only had to hold on
till then, no matter the cost to Rolenya. She agreed, as she said many times
when they were put together. “If all I have to do to save the world is be
tortured and die, I’ll do it,” she said. Over and over she urged him to be strong
for both of them, to resist the Enemy’s demands.
    As Olfrig had alluded to, a huge army of Borchstogs and corrupted Giants and Men and
others had gathered at the base