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‘You’re safe … not quite dead’

The voice should not be nearly so co

‘Yet’

There it was

Yet?

‘We’ve got time’

I can’t see

‘For the better, one would think’

I feel sand

‘A warm and pleasant beach’

I can’t move my hands

‘They are bound’

What happened?

So without words answered

Echoes of a panicked sorrow sounded in hisoff the walls of his head, accompanied by muttered self-deprecations and a thousand ‘should haves’ Through the thicket of noise, he could see hi, alone, the crowds of Owauku dispersed, not a slender body in sight, as he stared into a cup of wo blankly

I reh

‘Wait’

They ca of his -faced, iron-voiced He saw hih eyes not his own

Another ee as he launched himself at them The first at the pack, the first that would die, recoiled, stunned at the sudden assault She looked to her cohorts for assistance, found his hands wrapped around her throat a round and slaainst the earth, over and over; she stared at hihast, the breath to voice her fear not found

‘What?’ one of the back up!’ another shrieked

He had risen, leaving the creatureout hands She e, eyes wide over her shield as she raised it before her He spoke words that were not froue, reached out on hands that felt like ice wrapped in skin the colour of stone

What happened then?

He felt cold all of a sudden; the voice shifted to soid and sharp

‘This happened’

They looked worried

‘They were right to feel fear’

They don’t fear anything, I’m told

‘They fear us’

That can’t be right Were those ’

But were theyIt probably wouldn’t do that if I were dead

‘Not dead’

Are you sure?

‘This one isn’t ,’ a voice, distant and harsh spoke ‘Give it a kick’

A blow erupted against his ribs He felt a screah his throat

‘Yes’

His eyes snapped open, blackness replaced with a blinding flash of red His breath returned to hiht even more so When both finally came to him easily, his vision was a field of purple, broken only by theface

‘Yeah,’ the netherling grunted, flashing a jagged sneer ‘It’s still alive’ She peered intently at hilanced over her shoulder ‘You want er earlier,’ another voice snarled in reply ‘Not worth killing over that, really’ The sound of a black chuckle e fro athered there in a knot of iron and purplea boat hewn of black wood onto the shore One eed from the croith a snarl and a sword, only to be stopped by a sudden iron gauntlet cracking against her jaw She staggered, then stalked back into line, herded by the scowl of a larger ferunted, ‘until the Master says so’

A collective sigh of disappoint over Lenk, who quickly lost interest in him and stepped back to rejoin her companions His attention swayed on the in his head, desperately trying to retreat back into his skull and plunge hiht have heeded their wishes, as his head swivelled fro his eyes to the sight that greeted him quickly became impossible

If the skeletons could stillTheir aped open, bone-white jaws turned skyward, black eye sockets vast and eed from their colossal maould have shook the earth

They lay on the sand in dozens, titanic hills of arching spines and reaching claws, held fast to the ground by chains that refused to release, heedless of the rust that threatened to break or the fact that their prisoners were long dead They lay in silent agony, bound, heads stoved in, ballistafro

They were Abysnised, froiant Abysmyths What could they have to scream about? What could have caused them such pain? What had pulled the cruel and pitiless,’ the voice uttered with a hisper ‘They died screa’

Ah

‘And we hed coldly

What? We killed them?

‘You didn’t have to’

But …

‘We did’

You’re notsense

‘More important problems’