Thieves World 7 – The Dead of Winter by Asprin, Robert

emptied, and the black blood gushed out on the altar’s white stone. “Now,” said

Ischade, a slow warm smile in her voice, and reached out to the ewe.

Mriga swallowed the little struggling darkness, in horror, and felt it go down

fighting like something itself horrified and helpless. Its darkness rose behind

her eyes for a moment and roared in her ears. The ewe cried out and bubbled into

silence. When her vision cleared, she found herself looking at an Ischade truly

dressed in shadows and grinning like one of the terrible gods who avenge for the

joy of it, and at a Siveni robed and helmed in dark, only the spearhead bright.

Even Tyr had gone black-furred, but her eyes burned as a beast’s will when a

sudden light in darkness finds them. Tyr threw back her head and howled in good

earnest. The earth beneath their feet buckled and heaved like a disturbed thing,

as if in answer, and then shrugged away its paving and split.

“Call up your courage,” said Ischade softly, “for now you’ll need it.” And she

walked down into the great crack in the earth, into the fuming, sulfur-smelling

dark.

Tyr dashed after her, barking; other howls echoed hers, above the earth and

below it. Mriga and Siveni looked at each other and followed.

Groaning, the earth closed behind them.

Mor-am and Haught looked at each other and swallowed.

They did this again later, when the donkey, frightened and hungry past caring,

stretched to the end of its tether and started browsing on the nearest shrub. It

had shied away when the shrub screamed, and its broken branches began to bleed.