Excerpt from Book One
Khalida woke, she heard a noise, barely perceptible. She froze listening. She could hear Phobos’s steady breathing from the main part of the bed. There it was again, a faint sliding noise. She dared not move or even open her eyes. She was on her belly having removed most of her armour, soaking up the mellow heat from the stone. Her knees were slightly bent, and she slowly felt for the knife strapped to her right ankle.
She focused on the noise concentrating on its location, her fingers closing around the pommel. A quick twist of her fingers and the knife flew to the ceiling above and found purchase. A shrill shriek emitted. Phobos was out of bed in a single movement, Charon already in his hands.
The light came on and skewered on the ceiling was a grey hairless skinny creature no more than four foot long. It may have been human once, with long arms and legs. These were almost skin over bone, on its feet and hands were suckers Its fingers were long and out of proportion as though they were made to strangle. It had four extra limbs but when Khalida looked properly, they were tentacles also with suckers. Its eyes were like K’dess’s and reflective, made to see in the dark, it’s lips large like a fish and in its mouth needle sharp teeth. At its neck hung reflective eye gear. Around its waist was a belt with a slender but savage looking knife in it, a silver tube and a row of small darts. It hung for a moment still pinned to the ceiling, her blade through its heart, the tentacles were sagging and starting to peel away from their grasp of the ceiling. Then as they came loose, gravity took over and it fell with a crash to the floor. It was certainly dead now.
“What the hell is it?” asked Khalida.
“I think it’s one of K’dess’s assassins, I had heard rumour that he had created such creatures, but I did not believe it till now.” said Phobos. “He will stop at nothing now until you are dead.”
She looked at its poor sad body, what had it endured to become what it was?
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