The Quest of Kadji

Refreshing themselves with the last of the wine and some crumbs of the wheaten cakes that were left, the two mounted and rode on due east through a driving blizzard that steadily grew worse until at length Kadji could no longer perceive their direction from the position of the sunstar Kylix, as the sky was one blowing mass of freezing whiteness. He dared go on no further, lest in the blind flurry of snow they deviate from the eastward and wander aside, thus losing whatever small advantage they had, for by now he reckoned they were not far behind Shamad, who could have had no reason to have pressed his flight with such tenacity and vigor as had the vengeful Red Hawk of the Kozanga Nomads.

They had halted on a low rise of ground and Kadji was debating whether it would not be wise to try to pin their blankets together into a crude tent, and thus wait out the storm in relative comfort, when his black Feddoon pony lifted its head alertly, sniffing the freezing air, and gave voice to a harsh neigh of danger.

In a moment, Kadji, too, had heard the distant sounds that had aroused his pony to a sense of peril.

Wolves!

The eerie chorus of their distant howling came faintly to his ears, as if the blanket of snow muffled their hunting cry. But he knew the sound for what it was: Somewhere out there on the snowy plains, a pack of gigantic wolves were circling their helpless quarry, narrowing in for the kill.

It was a vagrant wisp of thought that made him ground out a bitter curse and seize up the reins, pulling his pony about and heading his nose into the wind. His booted feet thumpe4 the pony’s ribs, and without a word of explanation to his companion, the boy warrior was off and had vanished into the flurry of snow. Like an avenging demon the Red Hawk hurtled through the whiteness, praying to his grim Nomad Gods that he not be late … for it had occurred to him that the quarry the hunting wolves sought might well be his enemy, Shamad! And it was before the sacred Axe of Thom-Ra that the cunning and traitorous Impostor must fall, not to the glistening fangs and hungry jaws of a pack of plains-wolves… .

Within moments he saw them. Their grey hides made them all but invisible in the snowy murk, but their eyes of flaming green were visible, like a host of goblin moons, burning weirdly through the snow-streaked gloom.

He burst among them like a thunderbolt, and the great Axe was in his hands, flying through the air in terrible whistling curves like a live thing, shearing its irresistible way through the thick fur at throat and flank, hacking a gory way through tough muscle and heavy flesh of shoulder and neck.

The wolves broke into a vengeful howling chorus at the sudden appearance of this new and unexpected adversary. One sprang snarling for his face, but the heavy Axe caught it in mid-leap and flung it back to the snowy earth, maimed and broken. A second wolf leaped upon him and clung for a second, claws buried in saddle-leather, foaming jaws snapping at his breast, lambent eyes of emerald flame burning like mad moons into his own. The Axe came whistling down and clove its head to a flying splatter of crimson and broken bone, and it fell and was lost behind.