Charpter 43 - Viktor Drichey, Part 1

The bedroom door creaked open and Father Wilkud entered the room where the dying men were to die. The air in the room was stale and heavy with the stench of death.

The flame of the single candle sizzled in the sudden draft of air, casting monstrous ghostly shadows that fluttered across the walls.

At first Father Wilkud barely made out that someone was huddled under the covers of the small bed. It looked as if one of the brothers had removed his habit and carelessly tossed it on the bed.

It wasn't until the seemingly empty garment moved and the wrinkled cloth fell from a head that was little more than skin stretched over a skull, that the priest was certain that someone was there.

The figure was frail and looked old, very, very old… His head was completely bald and dotted with freckles, and the only visible hair was thick gray eyebrows. His bony hands had been deformed by some cruel degenerative disease to look like claws. The old man's skin was paper thin, taut on the bones he cove