“Death for them,” he mumbled, and he panted. “By Death itself-death, death for them! Death slow and awful! Death!”

Sigebert awoke to the drumbeat of his pain.

His skin was cold with fevered, nightmare-induced sweat. The coverings of his bed pressed suffocatingly on his limbs and athletic form. Was difficult for him to be certain whether he slept or woke, and in truth Sigebert hardly cared. He lay gasping and sweating, hating.

Of a sudden he went rigidly still. Eyes invaded his chamber. Eyes-yellow as topaz, lambent, blazing-were fixed on him from the foot of his bed. Something-not someone-was there, staring.

Am I awake? Surely this too is dream…

His horror-stricken gaze could discern no more than a blocky and indistinct shape that was like a short thick log, or a man’s head and limbless torso. Black as the heart of midnight it was, indistinct in the darkness of Sigebert’s draped nightchamber. Yet it gave a strong, foul impression of deformity and, distortion; or perhaps that was in Sigebert One-ear’s mind, weighted by pain and alcohol.

In his terror he thought that some goblin or hellish fiend had come for his soul, which was admittedly damned.

The thing moved. Grotesquely, it seemed to shrug and expand. Vast wings flexed and their tips reached nigh from wall to wall. Their spread was more broad than the height of a tall man. Black feathers ruffled.

The thing spoke… or did it speak? Sigebert heard words… or did he feel them?

Do not cry out, Sigebert of Metz. An you do, I shall be gone, the which will be to your detriment. I bring news of your enemies.

Night-spirit, Sigebert thought wildly. Some demon in the form of a gigantic bird…