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WITHOUT WARNING the wind died away and was replaced by an utter cala&039;s nerves until they were as raw as the flesh across his windburned cheeks Even the harsh breathing of the teaa could hear was the sound of runners on the ice, a s the nest of a coiled white reptile

They continued on into the North, Zark correcting their course with only a slight a could see stars clearly and individually against a backdrop of total darkness There was no limmer that splashed down across the plain and painted it in deepest blue

They reached a point where the land gradually began to slope down Zark halted the teas milled about he stood with his lantern at his side and looked out to where the distance became a drawn curtain

Michael stepped beside hi?"

"Be quiet," Zark said He was listening for so He narrowed his eyes and swept the the horizon He looked briefly to the stars and then back at the far landscape

"There are no lights," Zark said

"What?" Virga asked

"No lights," the hts in s"

"They&039;re noested hopefully The man would have to take them on

"Shit," Zark un and the sealskin bag Virga watched as he popped open the breech and inserted a red cartridge Holding it at arth over his head, he fired it with a soft plop! in the direction of the settleht as the flare arced in the sky, the di like a dark sea felt the response repeated in Michael The hunter bent on one knee in the snow and waited for either a light or the reply of another flare

There was nothing

One of the dogs whined Another answered The black anian to whine the big black snapped in its direction

Zark shook his head "I don&039;t know," he said quietly, ale ain toward the lower plain

In another fifteen minutes they had reached the flat The flare had faded, returning the had beconizing by habit a place of food and rest Virga tried to pierce the glooh He cursed his weakness

And suddenly the dogs yelped, stopping and then tangling together as if they had run collectively into a wall of glass

Zark cursed He tightened his grip on the handlebars and cracked his whip over the head of the lead dog It wanted to go on and pulledtheir tails between their legs and digging in with their paws Zark struck his whip directly into their round was rutted with the es that had passed in the saa reasoned that they had not run into rocks or some obstruction The settlement, if he had estimated the distance correctly, still lay so his whip down, Zark cursed the anie He said to the twoahead Are you coa, afraid to know Beyond Zark the darkness esome and absolute

Theto find out" He held the lantern with one hand and followed its yellow track on the scarred snow Virga and Michael followed behind Zark stopped twice to bend down and exae tracks

As they walked toward the settles still whimpered behind them Zark stopped abruptly and sniffed the air, his face intent in the yellow light "Can you smell it?" he asked Michael

"No What do you smell?"

"Blood," the man said He raised his lantern and walked on

Patches of it, black and frozen, were scattered about on the snow Virga avoided it, feeling his heart haa longed for any sound, even the wind&039;s piercing wail

Zark stopped again He held out the lantern Its illu a narrow path that broadened and broadened until it fell upon soasp and stiffened Zark as if he were suddenly frozen

It was the body of an Eskis to a cross of splintered wood The cross had been hammered upside down into the perround level Virga had a sudden recollection of having seen an inverted cross over a doorway, but the frantic rush of blood in his brain prevented hi exactly where

As Zark ash across the linted; the blood made a black oily pool beneath a face open-mouthed in absolute, pri the lantern to both sides The three men saw a row of bodies, so fro on both sides into the darkness beyond the range of the lantern, seeht the scent of blood that Zark had mentioned and noticed with a dulled sense of alar in a frozen puddle The red snow covered his boots

"Thirty-six men," Zark said suddenly He spoke as if he were totally drained of strength "Twenty-eight women All of the

"What?" asked Virga, tearing his gaze away fro to anyone who has reached this point An exa the barrier"

"All of the He shifted the lantern and looked, disbelieving, down the line of gruesoht and stared back through ice-fil ers of outthrust hands clawed at the last remnants of life They had died in much pain and, worse, a terrible certainly of what lay before theht on an upturned face, here another, another, another Soently Soue Virga shuddered and, glancing toward Michael, realized that thebeyond the row of corpses out toward the black wastes

"These were good people," Zark said "They were good hunters with loyal wives And now" He turned suddenly upon Michael "Who did this thing?"

"Baal," Michael said softly

"The man you seek?"

"The man we seek"

"One man did this? Onemeat?"

"He&039;s not alone There are others with him"

"How many?"

"Three or four"

Zark cursed bitterly "How can alike this?"

"They were your friends?"

"I knew them," Zark said "They asked er ild and churning behind his eyes; it seeht, crunching through blood-caked snow

"What kind ofBaal has done here is nothing compared hat he&039;s done below," Michael replied "It&039;s nothing compared to what he can do We must find hi the row of crosses He shook his head at the awful carnage "This has the stink of evil," Zark said