The Forgotten Gods of Earth by Andrew J. Offutt

Author:Andrew J. Offutt [Offutt, Andrew J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Short Story
Publisher: Galaxy Publishing
Published: 1966-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

And then he stood alone. His nostrils flared as he stood panting, surrounded by the corpses and heads and limbs no longer joined one to the other. His feet were planted in curdling blood. Their blood and his dripped from his hands, trickled warmly down his bare legs.

Deliberately, with the unconcerned industriousness of a woodsman cutting trees, he hacked the heads from those not already beheaded. In the event he failed, Gundrun would no longer use these men who should long ago have been walking the afterworld with the shades of their friends.

He bellowed out his rage and his challenge.

“Gundrun! Blackest creature on Earth’s face — resurrector of slain men! Gundrun! Your oversized sparrow died outside — your swollen fishing worm in the hall — and at my feet lie ten heads severed from their decomposing bodies! Gundrun, commander of the legions of hell! What else send you to meet Kymon of Kir?”

His voice ran down empty halls, dashed into dark empty rooms and out again, slashed through the thick webs of long undisturbed spiders and set them a-tremble, rose up the long stairway before him, shouted back at him from shroud-draped walls of shiny basalt.

He waited. Again he filled his lungs to roar out his challenge, again he flung wide his jaws to shout.

Then at the head of the steps stood Gundrun, black sorcerer of Atramentos.

His eyes blazed down at Kymon’s as had the dead serpent’s. A slender nose arced out between those eyes, hooked like the beak of the prodigious bird. Below that nose writhed tendrils of mustache like the fear-wraiths that had touched Kymon outside the warlock’s lair. And below the mustache was a lipless slash of a mouth, resembling nothing more than the old wounds of the dead men at Kymon’s feet. His body was lost in a long, ungirt robe of unreflecting black.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.