Page:Weird tales v36n07 1942-09.djvu/21

Rh in silent fear as the flashing, gray-furred shape streaked upon its enemy.

Mulvaney's mind was the mind of a wolf. He was not afraid. The hot blood pounded fiercely in his veins. He was a new wolfa young wolf. He had strength wolf. He had strength and advantage. Cunning did not matter.

Snapping, snarling, growling hideously, the black and the gray threshed down the slope. The two were a tangle of legs and muzzles, of bushy tails and hard, whip-cord muscles.

They fought as wolves fightfang to fang and claw to claw. Rage and murderous hate flamed in Mulvaney's wolf-brain. His man-brain looked askance, observed what he did, and approved.

The night was made fearful with their hate. Their snarling rage struck silence and terror to the tiny denizens of the field. The moon and the stars looked on impassively.

Mulvaney sought with murderous fangs the throbbing jugular of his enemy. His jaws ached for the feel of thick, hot blood spilling over them. Gnashing teeth bit into the black wolf's tender gorge. The beast panted frenziedly, clawed at Mulvaney's ribs and flanks. The gray wolf sank its fangs deeper into hot fleshand then he went spinning bewilderedly end-over-end, to land crashing a dozen yards away.

The were-people whimpered. A voice croaked hysterically.

"The Master! The Master!"

Confused with shock, bruised and gasping, the wolf-shape of Kenneth Mulvaney drew trembling legs under itself. The solid earth seemed to roll maddeningly, and he whined with pain. The thunderous symphony pounding in his brain receded and grew faint. He lifted his muzzle and scented fiercely for the black wolf.

A biting, acrid odor dug at his sensitive nostrilsthe reek of glowing sulphur. And then he saw the Shape!

It was cloaked with the Blackness and the Stink of the Pit, evil of eye and visage, black, grim, utterly hideous. The hair rose on the gray wolf's back. A snarl gnarled deep in the panting chest. Purplish lightnings flickered in the gloom that clothed the hateful Shape.

The Demon's silence was its most utter terror. Mulvaney struggled against the fear that ate at his heart. The Monster spoke. The solitude resounded with the whiplash of its voice.

"Neither man nor were-beast can destroy me, Kenneth Mulvaney! I have tested you and found you strong. Strength be in the evil you shall do for me! In my stead, from now on you shall lead the packand shall render unto me these souls, one by one as death shall claim them. It was for this purpose I sent the call of the Valley into your being where you roamed Outside and did not know yourself!"

The gray wolf snarled its hatred.

ATE is my strength," the Prince of Evil derided him. "All my loyal subjects hate me. They serve me well, nonetheless. But rememberI hold your souls in bondage. When you shall die, they shall be rendered unto me and my Kingdom of the Damned!

"This is your portionof you who are the descendants of the witch-folk of eld. Through the years, I have gathered this band together in my Valley, to increase and become strongto battle the race of men for supremacy.

"The ancient practices shall return. The ancient laws shall be in order. Not in this century nor in the next. But by and by. Eternity is not too long to wait for my vengeance!"

The Shape fell silent, a brooding, awful silhouette against the sleeping wolf of a stone mountain that jutted into the star spangled sky at the head of the Valley. The sooty lips moved again.