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His eyes flew around the room, all thoughts of the festivities and the game forgotten. Hiding himself was his new goal. With the simple, slim furnishings, there was no place to effectively conceal himself. Whoever had come to the palace would be coming for Salas as well, surely. And then Salas would scream, too.
He threw himself under the bed just as he heard the pound of footsteps approach from somewhere down the hallway, leading to the garden room. He was trembling as he tucked his skirt under him, hiding it from view, as the door flew open.
Salas didn’t dare to move, not even to clamp a hand over his own mouth to tighten down his unsteady breathing. He was lying flat, though he was just daring enough to turn his head towards the entrance of the room, cringing as his hair crunched with the movement of his neck. With the thin space beneath the bed, as well as swelled vases blocking sight of the threshold, he couldn’t see the intruder.
That was, until a figure took a step further into the room.
There was only one, and it moved with heavy steps as it paced inside, almost hesitantly. Its breaths were growls in the still air, too loud and deep, crackling like low thunder. Its foot, when it came into view, was not that of a human’s. Instead, it was clawed and furred, both animalistic as well as grotesquely human. As it drew further in, Salas could hear the small spark as tips of claws met the stone-tiled floor, creating an awful, scraping sound that had his skin tightening to goose-flesh.
For a moment, given the inhumanity of the intruders, Salas believed the source of the chaos could have been from a pack of feral dogs or wolves. But the feet were too big, the intentions too careful. That, and there were only two walking limbs, not four.
The intruders were not humans or wolves. Nor were they something that could be stopped.
Salas’ mind raced with recollections of the old tales he’d been told one hundred times before until they had become just that: merely myth. The legend of the Emperor’s greatest accomplishment featured heroes and monsters not quite so different from the fairy tales he preferred, and their unreality was much the same. They certainly weren’t a genuine fear that Salas had ever thought to pay more to mind than a passing nod.
Yet today, the monsters from those tales were here and ready to destroy everything.
For the intruders, and the ones no-doubt massacring the Kingdom of Suscon, were beasts from the North: the beasts of Diagor.
The North had come for their revenge.
The figure moved about the room slowly, its movements jerky as it seemed to be looking for something. It grunted as it worked, reacting to the far off-screams as its brethren continued to terrorize. Easily distracted, it was, eventually tipping over a vase. A careless being.
The screams were dimming, now. Salas knew what was happening, but he was not ready to breathe thought into the reality, unwilling to admit it. A single tear slid down his cheek.
The beast was sniffing the air, disgruntled by something, and all Salas wanted to do was to shut his eyes and have the thing disappear, along with its troop, and restart the entire day without its threat.
Salas’ ability to stay silent was life or death, and he held himself as though posed over fine ice, the smallest breath powerful enough to crack the crisp sheet. The beast in the room continued to move nonsensically, obviously unaware of Salas’ existence. Eventually, it left.
Salas continued to hold himself rigid. That was, until, a shriek echoed through a nearby corridor, too close, too loud, and too real. The sound of growls and metal blades ended the cry, but drew a broken sob from him, wrenched unexpectedly from the depths.
He slapped a hand over his mouth, his eyes widening, but distinctly aware that he’d made a vicious mistake.
A furious snarl echoed behind the door, and then beasts were in the room. Salas could not count how many. There were two, maybe three. From his limited vision, it was just an angry blur of dark fur.
And then pain ignited on his scalp as he was pulled, roughly, by the hair as one of the beasts dragged him out of his hiding spot.
Salas shrieked, kicking and thrashing in an attempt to forestall the inevitable end to everything. A single clawed jab from one of the monster’s massive hands and his screams, he knew, would end like they all had.
There were three beasts in the room, though it felt like there weremore. The energy of their presence was so strong, it multiplied. Adding to the fact, they were large. They must have ducked under the beam of the doorway, for they were at least two heads taller than even the tallest Susconians Salas knew.
Though they walked on two feet, their animalistic features could not be denied. The dark fur, nearly black, covered them from head to toe. They were bare, their bodies perhaps too massive for clothing. Clawed hands and feet. Wolfish legs. Though the bones of their upper bodies were similar to those of human bones, their heads were nothing but lupine. They were complete with ferocious teeth set in mouths that did nothing to conceal their growls, and unforgiving red-and-yellow eyes that all focused directly on Salas.
The one that had dragged him from his hiding spot had him in a bone-crushing grip by the arms to stop his thrashing. The beast leveled him off the floor. Though Salas’ arms were immobile, he continued to kick and squirm, unable to accept his death was just seconds away.
The beast shook him easily, as though dusting out a sand-filled shoe, Salas’ head snapping back and forth with the momentum until the movement made his screaming stop. His struggles calmed.
The beast then brought Salas close to his face, its eyes swiping up and down Salas’ form. This close, he could see his own terrified, pathetic self reflected back at him from the pair of bright eyes that assessed him. He let his own eyes fall shut, feeling as though he would faint at any moment. Unconsciousness would be a strange mercy.
He heard grunts as the beast sniffed him, though he couldn’t begin to guess why. Would they eat him? They hadn’t eaten the others. Salas whimpered.
When the beast shook him again with a low growl, Salas snapped his eyes open again in alarm. When the shaking immediately stopped, he knew that the beast wanted his attention.
In a rough, crackly voice, the monster spoke. “Bird?” it asked carefully, as though speech were a taxing accomplishment in its inhuman form.
Bird? It was asking if Salas was a Susconian palace bird. Salas mind reeled as he considered which answer he should give that could determine his future. Should he lie and say that he was not a bird? Would the beasts allow him to live, depending on his response? Which answer would lead to a favorable outcome?
The beast shook him once more. Stalling was not an option.
