The Barrow Lands Bards Page 6

bones," said the Red Catbeast. "Now, for myself, I want to gnaw on your ambones. Perhaps starting with the tendons in the wrist so that you can't move your fingers while he savors them. And then I'll take my time gnawing on each arm and letting you hear me crack your bones, to pay you back very slowly for the nasty little trick you played on me. "

  Brabanoc backed away. "You can't come in here," he said. "You're not invited."

  "Ah, it doesn't matter," said the Gray Dog. "The folk are frozen but time isn't. Days will come and go. You'll run out of food soon enough and the folk here will still be under our spell. You'll die of thirst and hunger within the month, and what is a month to those who have eternity to live? We can wait till the town falls to ruins around them and get the harp and leave them asleep until the world's end. I think we may wake them in time for Ragnarok, just as the teeth of the Fenris wolf closes down on them."

  "In fact," the Black Hound said, "It might be amusing to have our master wake their minds so that they are aware of things that pass around them but they can't move or speak. I wonder if they'll forget how to talk in a thousand years or so. I'm sure it'll take that long for the smell of your corpse to leave their noses. I wonder how they'll feel when the buildings fall on their heads."

  "You shall have to ask your master if he'll do that for us -- make them aware," said the Red Catbeast. "It sounds delicious."

  Brabanoc glanced toward his sister and then went upstairs to his own room where he started searching frantically through his small pile of possessions. It wasn't much. He had a blue cape and a toy fife he'd picked up from a peddler in the Waldner and a change of clothes. Iron didn't seem to work. He rifled through the rooms of the other travelers but found no charms or other devices that would help against the Eldritch beasts. The skies darkened to night and he fell into an exhausted sleep.