Spawn of the Winds by Brian Lumley

held up his hands before him, cringing away from her like a whipped dog. And then I understood, for the hand with which he had taken hold on her was black as pitch; the flesh curled crisply from the little finger, exposing white bone!
    Tracy’s face, too, had changed. Gone the bemused, hypnotized look that had fooled me, her own brother, no less than it had fooled the Russian. She again held out her hand, this time palm up, to show him one of the star-stones. Then she dangled it at the end of its chain, swinging it before Zchakow’s contorted face.
    â€œYou tell Ithaqua that if he wants Tracy Silberhutte, he’ll have to take these, too!” she said.
    Gasping, sobbing in his pain, terror and rage, with the madness in his eyes beginning to shine out as blackly as before, the Russian slowly climbed to his feet. He held his roasted hand close to him, averting his mad eyes from the star-stone, seeking only Tracy’s face as he backed toward the door.
    â€œYou—” he choked out the word. “You will be Ithaqua’s, I promise you!” His voice rose, bubbling with insane rage. “And when he’s done with you, if I have to wait a lifetime, then—”
    â€œOut!” I told him. “Now—before I kill you out of hand!”
    I motioned to Whitey. He opened the door—then threw his
weight against the Russian’s back. With a gurgled cry of astonishment Zchakow hurtled out and down. Moments later he staggered into view on the snow and without looking back made his way to a wolf mount. He was helped onto its back and took a fistful of white mane, yanking the animal about face. He kicked the wolf’s flanks, driving it in the direction of the pyramid.
    Hunched over his mount’s back like some nightmare hag, Zchakow threw up his head to utter a weird, ululant cry that rang loud in frozen air. As its echoes died away there came the sharp crack of Jimmy’s rifle from the nose of the plane.
    â€œHere they come!” Whitey yelled, crouching down quickly behind his machine gun. I moved to my window. And then all hell broke loose.
    IV
    Battle on Borea
    (Recorded through the Medium of Juanita Alvarez)
    Â 
    Out there on the plains of snow behind the advancing single rank of wolf-warriors, six white-robed priests threw up their arms to the skies and repeated the departing Russian’s eerie cry. We heard that concerted wail even as we opened fire on the charging warriors—heard it and saw its result.
    As the first of the advancing riders went down beneath our bullets, the gray skies of Borea began to darken over. Black clouds piled up out of nowhere and a rushing wind filled the air with loose snow. Through this whirling white screen the wolf-warriors reached the plane, dividing into two main groups, one battering at the windows of the nose while the other gathered about the door. Whitey’s target was a mass of snarling wolf-masks and inscrutable, flat leathery faces. Riders stood up on the backs of their mounts, ready to leap in at us through the open door, only to find a deadly hail of lead spraying out at them from that opening. The snow of the plain in a wide area about the door began to turn red with spouting blood, animal and human alike, spilling out like scarlet pearls on a vast white feather bed. On and on the machine gun chattered its mad message of death, hot barrel swinging in a wide arc.

    In the nose of the aircraft Jimmy constantly changed his position, now firing to the left, now right, and the sharp crack of his rifle was accompanied by a steady piling up of white-robed bodies and huge carcasses. In my own position, I was able to lean out of the window and pick off riders as they circled the plane trying to find vulnerable spots in our defenses. But seeing that the fuselage windows were too small to admit our attackers, I quickly moved down into the plane’s nose to put a shot through a window on that side away from Jimmy. Then we sat