Wrath of the White Tigress Read Online Free PDF

him."
    "Why do you struggle if it's hopeless?"  
    "I must make Salahn disperse me entirely or else I may take memories of what I have done here back to him. Unfortunately, I do not think I have the strength to hold out long enough."
    Jaska wrapped his arms around the White Tigress, and it seemed as if he held nothing more solid than cotton. "I will struggle with you."
    "Against your master?"
    "On behalf of the truth, whatever it might be. This is my gift to you in return for saving my life."
    Within minutes, her form had nearly dissipated. "May the spirits of all the greater deities be strong in you, Jaska Bavadi."  
    Then, with a savage roar, the White Tigress disappeared.

    ~~~

    Two decades of demented sacrificial acts had profaned the Grand Temple of the White Tigress in Kabulsek. This morning's bloodletting was the worst. Not a flagstone remained without a drop of innocent blood or bits of bone, skin, and hair. A temple once revered for sweet jasmine incense now smelled worse than a slaughterhouse.  
    Grandmaster Salahn knelt at the altar. Unhinged sigils described in blood sprawled across his skin. The most devoted of his palymfar lined the walls beneath monochrome stained glass windows. His daughter Mardha paced the sanctuary. Her ebony hair hung free over a black gossamer shift that clung to her voluptuous figure. Blue-grey tattoos decorated skin as uncommonly pale as her mother's had been. Salahn admired the sway of her hips. She was like her long-departed mother, only warped and everything he could desire.  
    Having steeled himself for the final requirements, Salahn drew in a deep breath and focused on the ritual's completion. After a half-hour of chanting, a drop of dark liquid fell through the skylight and splattered onto a marble statue of the White Tigress. The statue melted, and the mix erupted into a spinning, coruscant cloud.  
    Chains of crimson energy bound the cloud as it congealed into the White Tigress. She roared, hissed, and clawed but couldn't break the chains. Grandmaster Salahn laughed with the thrill of victory, bounded up the dais, and stepped into the White Tigress. The goddess screamed as she lost cohesion. Her energies swirled around Salahn, striking and firing through him. Organs and skeleton glowed beneath transparent skin. Lightning blazed within his eyes and mouth and lashed his chest and back. Blood and smoke oozed from the welts.
    Salahn had lived eleven years beyond a century and appeared to be in his sixties. But he would look old no longer. His forked grey beard blackened to the tips, and had he wished it, his bald head would have grown new hair. The wrinkles in his swarthy skin smoothed away. His scars disappeared. Bones strengthened. Muscles and tendons healed of old injuries and grew stronger than ever before.
    Blood poured away to reveal on his chest and back, realistic tattoos of the White Tigress within which she was trapped forever. "Now, I am a god!" Salahn shouted. "Victory will be ours across Pawan Kor and throughout the world. Whatever we wish, we will have. You shall all live as kings, and I will be the King of Kings!"
    The palymfar cheered and chanted their leader's name. Salahn stalked around, reveling in his new body. With his physical and sorcerous capabilities doubled, no man could match him now, not even Jaska.  
    Mardha took his arm. "You're more handsome than before, Father."
    "It is the beauty of power that attracts you," he said, smiling. "And as we spread the White Tigress cult through every land we conquer, that power will grow stronger. In a few years, I will be able to bestow immortality upon you as well. And soon, the Gates of the Underworld will open at my command."
    He began to tremble, and Mardha grabbed his hand. "You should rest now."
    She led him to the throne he had placed in an alcove behind the dais. Adynarh, a tall, dour man who ranked above all palymfar save Jaska, joined them.  
    While Mardha wiped sweat and blood from Salahn's body, he