Page 138 of Bloodguard

Dark-green scales cover everything save its face. Four strong limbs armed with beast-like claws stained red with my predecessors’ blood protrude one at a time. It stands, shaking out its body as its wobbly head bounces faster.

This…thingcrouches and stretches, creepy gaze mesmerized by its surroundings, as if it wasn’t responsible for the carnage in the first place. As absently as I would scrape mud from my boot, the creature lifts the head of a nearby human, cracks it open like an egg, and slurps down the brain.

It tosses the body aside when it finishes.

And reaches for a troll’s…

Never mind.

I almost miss the parents of the youngling dwarf covering his eyes and hauling him away.

This…thisthingthrown into the arena with me is unnatural and not a part of Old Erth. The others didn’t stand a fucking chance. I’m not sure I do, either.

Whoever conjured this freak had a shit-ton of time and a twisted imagination.

Another gate creaks open, and a wizard with sparkling gold robes steps through. The aroma he carries is that of burning silkweed, the same malevolent magic said to emanate from hell itself.

Oh, shit.

The wizard’s broad features are all business and his snow-white sclera absent of irises. “Au men. Au men,” he says, lengthening each syllable.

“Aumen” snaps its neck in its master’s direction.

Slowly, and as disturbingly as the rest of him, Aumen looks away from the wizard and sets its bobbing head and rolling eyes on me.

I’m used to these assholes scouring all of Old Erth to secure deadly opponents. I never imagined an opponent like this. This thing was born of evil. It’s not just its freakish body—it’s the awkward motions, as if it’s only now learning to use its limbs.

Maybe it’s partly human. But as it rushes toward me, its head bobbles back, its mouth splits open across the length of his face, and it exposes needle-thin fangs. Any sympathy I had vanishes like that last bit of brain stuck to its incisor.

The beast strikes in a cobra-like motion, spitting what appears to be shards or fangs. I use my boomerang to bat them away and charge, swiping my sword out of the sand as I pass.

Again, it spits. This time, I can’t block them all. Like darts, some embed in my stomach. I throw my sword out, hollering in anger and pain when the fangs twitch and burrow farther into my skin. Still, I run.

If it wasn’t for my death grip on the hilt of the sword and the force of my weight lurching forward, Aumen would have gutted me with its claws.

Instead, it peers down, examining my sword protruding from its sternum. It lifts its bobbling head and hisses, spitting more needles. They pierce through my cheek and would have punctured my eye if I hadn’t jerked my head to the side.

I push the sword deeper.

It doesn’t respond in pain. Again, it bobbles, more fascinated with my weapon than it is with me. Did no one else get close enough to injure it?

As I use my weight to push, I realize its ghastly head was sewn on.

“Au-men,” the wizard calls to it. “Au-men.”

The word is foreign to me, more of a sound. Yet within it is power.

I drag my sword downward, gagging when Aumen’s abdomen opens.

There are no visible organs. I wish there were and that I had somehow struck the creature down. Instead, a pouch like that of a marsupial flips inside out, revealing a mouth that punches forward and sinks its fangs into my abdomen.

I don’t scream or cry out.

Some things are too painful for such marginal reactions.

My head falls back, my wide eyes burning beneath the merciless sun. Something else rakes at my skin. There’s a tearing sound followed by the painful pricks of needles burying into my torso. Aumen screams like a tortured man, but so, so much worse. Even in my half-delirious state, every hair on my body stands on end.

There are shrieks. There are racing footsteps. There is violent retching and the crash of flopping bodies.

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