Free The Dusk Watchman: Book Five of The Twilight Reign by Tom Lloyd Page A

something in protest. The beastman was too exhausted with grief to feel fear any longer – if this was Death come to claim him, so be it.
    Overhead the sky darkened steadily as dusk marched on towards night. Gaur tasted the sharp tang of fear on the wind as his soldiers fell back from whatever it was that had found them. Before long his horse stopped too, tossing its head with anxiety as it smelled something amiss. He spurred the beast hard, but it had no effect, so Gaur dismounted and advanced on foot as Menin soldiers streamed forward and his horse fled.
    Some animal sense danced down Gaur’s spine, like the raised hackles of a dog faced with the unnatural. He tightened his grip on the axe even as he started to make out the figure waiting for him: standing still with eyes fixed on Gaur as the gloom shimmered and danced on either side of it. Thick plates of chitin armour glowed a whitish-amber in the waning light, broad shoulders tapered into slender arms, each carrying a long javelin.
    He walked on and at last the figure moved, advancing towards him with a few swift, delicate steps. He saw it more clearly now, a reddened body with pale limbs – four legs like a spider’s, jointed up at the height of its waist, and a segmented thorax twitching behind it like a grossly fat tail. The daemon peered at him with two slanted pairs of eyes formed in an X shape about a slit Gaur guessed was a mouth. Its torso was criss-crossed with burnished gold chains, each bearing shifting, arcane symbols that made Gaur’s eyes water to behold.
    He came within ten yards of the monster and stopped, spending a long moment observing it before looking to its left and right as the shimmering air started to coalesce into shadows, hinting at fresh horrors arrayed around what the Menin had intended to call their camp. There were dozens of them, no, scores – far more, Gaur realised, than even Larim could have called into existence.
    ‘Unsummoned by man, yet here you are incarnate,’ Gaur called, unafraid.
    ‘The breeze sings a song of pain and fear,’ the daemon said in a soft, rasping voice. ‘Drawn to the horrors of your doing we find a Land altered.’ It gestured expansively, at its comrades and its own body. ‘The powers are weakened and we come out to drink the fear of mortals.’ It paused and cocked its head at Gaur. ‘But not you. Your scent is one of hatred alone. Tell me, little mortal, tell me why this is before my kin come to rend your flesh from your bones.’
    ‘My lord is dead. There is nothing within me but a thirst for revenge now.’ Gaur hefted his axe. ‘If you want my flesh, try to take it.’
    The daemon didn’t move, but there came a whisper Gaur realised was laughter. ‘Revenge? How sweet a flavour! Tell me, little mortal, what would you give for your revenge ?’
    Gaur looked back at the broken army behind him, shrouded in the veil of dusk. ‘All I possess.’
    The daemon laughed again, quietly joyful at the prospect of more than just mortal flesh now. It raised itself up high and brandished one javelin at the shadows on its right. The shapes drew back a shade while one was dragged forward and slowly coalesced into a grey lizard-like daemon – six-limbed and sinuous, with a frill of barbs to protect its head. The new daemon crawled up to its master, head low to the ground, subservient.
    ‘You have the grave thief’s scent still?’
    The smaller daemon hissed and clawed furiously at the ground, carving deep furrows in the moorland. ‘I smell him,’ it replied, ‘even among the dead of the battlefield.’
    The greater daemon stood up on its hind legs and snuffled at the evening air. Gaur could sense its delight, but he remained impassive. Their agenda was their own. He didn’t care what that might be, or who this grave thief was. If they could deliver the destruction he wished upon King Emin and the Narkang armies, that would be enough.
    ‘Revenge,’ the daemon repeated. It shivered with pleasure and