Prologue

Prologue

“W

hat the hell was that?” Jonstone backed away from the creature, his heart pounding in his chest.

Captain Boyd frantically waved his hand at the stunned soldier. “Get away from it!”

The scream of swords flying from scabbards mingled with those of the dying.

“We can’t,” the soldier panted. “We can’t kill them! We can’t even hurt them!” He swallowed and looked into the night sky. The moon lit the darkened city with its cold pale light. It would have been beautiful if not for the carnage filling the streets.

“Secure your nerves, soldier!” the captain ordered.

Jonstone could barely talk around his rapid, shallow breaths. He swallowed, as if that would slow his fluttering heartbeat. “It’s not even human. What is it?” The young soldier stood trembling amid the cacophony of battle cries and unearthly bellows, his sword wavering in his shaking hands. The night had been quiet. The city had slept peacefully as it always had. Then the screams had begun, followed by an unearthly laughter that sent chills down his spine. The hairs on the back of the young soldier’s neck rose.

Jonstone felt something bump against his foot. “Captain?” He glanced down, and nearly cried out. Captain Boyd’s head lay at his feet, the man’s empty stare freezing his blood. With mounting terror Jonstone wrenched his eyes from the grisly object and turned around.

A dismembered arm in each hand, the beast looked at him with a red malevolent gaze that spoke of hatred, amusement, and hunger. Its elongated wolf’s muzzle yawned open, providing Jonstone a glimpse at several rows of black and yellow teeth like that of a shark.

His mouth fell open in a silent scream, his forgotten sword slipping from his grasp to clatter on the stone street. He’d been in training for over a year, now. He should have been prepared to fight. He wasn’t even prepared to run.

Jonstone’s own fear held him in its powerful grasp, and the monster inhaled deeply, as if drinking in his terror. He stood before his death. He knew it. He’d thought he didn’t fear death, but he was wrong. Standing in front of him and slowly devouring what remained of his captain was a horror like nothing his most frightening nightmares could approach.

It stood considered him for a moment, then turned away. Once it had rounded a corner, the young soldier closed his eyes in thanks to the Gods for his stroke of good fortune. He needed to steady his nerves, pick up his sword, and find any surviving comrades who still fought. Together they might be able to … what? Drive away whatever these things were? Like he’d already just failed to do.

When Jonstone opened his eyes again, he had just enough time to see impossibly wide jaws block out the moonlight as they closed around his face.