Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
But no one else in the crowd or at the Empress’s table seemed in the least bit worried. They were all leaning forward, their eyes fixed eagerly on the spotlight, waiting for the beast to appear.
They didn’t have to wait for long.
“And now,” the trainer intoned, his voice dropping to a dramatic whisper that still carried, “For your viewing pleasure… the Kriver!”
From within his cape, he produced a long, black whip. He snapped it once in the air and the crack was like a gunshot, sharp and final.
The response was immediate.
A deafening roar filled with pure, primal power, shook the very air. It was a sound that bypassed the ears and vibrated directly in the center of Braze’s body. From a dark archway across the hall, the beast bounded into the circle of light.
Braze’s breath caught and every muscle in his body tensed. Every instinct he possessed screamed DANGER!!!!
The Kriver was a nightmare fusion of evolutionary horrors. It stood on four powerful legs that ended in paws like a grizzly bear’s—each claw a curved, black sickle longer than Braze’s hand. Its torso was massive and barrel-chested—covered in a short, sleek pelt of iridescent black fur that shimmered with hints of deep purple and green as it moved.
But where a bear or big cat would have a neck and head, the Kriver’s body surged upward into a cluster of thick, muscular tentacles—eight of them—each as long as a man was tall, writhing and coiling around its central mass like furious serpents. At the tip of each tentacle was not a sucker, but a snapping, beak-like mouth filled with needle-sharp, rotating teeth.
And in the very center of this whipping nest of appendages was a single, massive eye—glowing with malevolent, intelligent amber light.
It roared again—a multitude of sounds coming from the snapping beaks at the end of its tentacles—and its stench reached Braze’s nose. This living nightmare smelled of wet fur, raw meat, and fresh blood—not a comforting combination.
Braze stared at it in horror. It was a predator built for utter devastation. And there was nothing—no cage, no force field, not even a rope—between it and the front row of tables.
The trainer, however, seemed utterly at ease. He paced around the perimeter of the light, his whip held loosely in one long-fingered hand.
“Observe, ladies, the precision of the Kriver! Its tentacles are not mere limbs—they are independent hunters—each with a mind of its own, yet they obey my mind!”
He stopped and pointed his whip at his own ridiculous pink hat.
“For my first demonstration, I shall ask my sweet pet to remove my hat. Not with violence, but with the delicacy of a maiden plucking a flower!”
He stood perfectly still and stared at the beast. Did he have some kind of mental control over it, Braze wondered? How was he making his orders known?
However he was doing it, it seemed to be working. The Kriver’s central eye fixed on the hat and suddenly, there was a blur of motion too fast to follow. One tentacle lashed out and retracted in the same instant.
Braze saw that the beak-mouth at its end had plucked the pink cone-hat from the trainer’s head and now held it aloft, waving it gently before tossing it aside with a contemptuous flick.
The audience gasped in unison, then broke into delighted applause at the Kriver’s terrifying precision.
“You see?” the trainer cried, bowing as if he had done the trick himself. “Control! Now, witness her balance and grace—traits previously unseen in a creature of such raw power!”
He gestured to an attendant, who rolled a large, polished crystal sphere into the light.
“She will walk the sphere—a dance of perfect equilibrium!” he cried.
With a series of sharp clicks of his tongue and flicks of his whip, he directed the Kriver and then stared at it for a long moment.
The beast seemed to understand. It hunkered down, its great muscles bunching. Then, with a fluidity that belied its size, it placed both massive front paws onto the rolling sphere.
A collective inhale swept the room as the Kriver pushed forward, walking the sphere in a slow, deliberate circle around the trainer. Its tentacles waved in the air like the legs of a grotesque, upside-down insect, maintaining a perfect, impossible balance.
“Fucking hell,” Braze growled under his breath.
The sight of such destructive potential harnessed to such a frivolous trick was somehow deeply unsettling. The applause this time was more hesitant—tinged with awe.
“And for my final display…” The trainer spread his arms wide, his red cape hanging like a curtain. “I will place myself at her mercy. I shall stand within the Cage of Flesh, surrounded by her hunting limbs, trusting completely in our bond!”
He gave a sharp, guttural shout. The Kriver’s tentacles, all eight of them, shot outwards and downwards with a sound like cracking whips.
The beak-mouths snapped shut a hair’s breadth from the stone floor, forming a perfect, impenetrable prison of pulsating muscle around the trainer. He stood in the center, a smile frozen on his blue lips, as the tentacles began to rotate around him—a living, swirling vortex of muscle and snapping teeth that could reduce him to pulp in a heartbeat.