Free The Kingdoms of Evil by Daniel Bensen

thin as fingers, clutching the road surface. Another limb moved into view on the other side the carriage, and when Freetrick looked, he could see two more at the vehicle's front two corners.
    A thin, high keen rose up from the ground as the limbs stiffened. The carriage rocked, then lifted off the ground. And between those rear limbs, with their flat, long-toed feet so much like hands, he saw the monster's head.
    " Eek !"
    Freetrick rocked backwards, unable to close his eyes against the grotesque vision. Staring in horror and fascination at the tiny, wrinkled, human face that shrieked at him from the shadow under the carriage frame.
    Lay a man flat on his back, with his elbows and knees bent and his feet and palms on the floor. Now watch as he tries to walk. Freetrick had played the game himself as a child. So that explained the backward cant to the carriage and its rocking crab-like motion. And the screaming, of course. The monster must hit his head on the ground with every step he took.
    " Eeh…eek! "
    "Oh do be quiet," Bloodbyrn said. "He knows it is dinner time."
    The little head stretched out from between what Freetrick now recognized as shoulders, its mouth open, sharp teeth waiting to bite.
    "And it eats rabbits?" Freetrick said.
    "No," said Bloodbyrn, "for as I just finished explaining, my lord, Mr. Skree possessed the foresight to kill a peasant on our way down the mountain, and has caused one of the helpful Do-Gooders to fetch the body. So we do not have to part with my…the rabbit."
    "Eek !"
    One of the Proctors from their escort emerged from the embankment at the other side of the road, dragging the corpse. Freetrick stared at it.
    It was a boy, a Betweener by the pointy nose, wearing the rough wool and leather clothing of the uphill villages. Wool and leather died a deep rust-color down the front, where blood from his slashed throat had flowed over them.
    "Mr. Skree did this?" Freetrick asked, horrified, as the Proctor threw the boy's body down at his feet.
    "No," said the Proctor, voice flat, "you did."
    Before Freetrick could respond, the carriage ogre saw the body, waddled forward, and reached out with an enormous limb to seize the corpse.
    Freetrick turned away, and found himself looking up into the Proctor's scowl.
    "Who," he said, and winced at the snap of a cracking bone, "who was it?"
    "A boy from a village on the border." The Proctor's voice was cold.
    "What was he doing…on the road?" As terrible as the sight of the carriage monster was, Freetrick watched it. He could not bring himself to look up. To meet the eyes of the Proctor.
    "Trying to get away from your monsters," said the Proctor. "Looks like he didn't make it."
    "Oh."
    "Get out of here." The Proctor's voice shivered under its load of anger and disgust. "Get out of our nation."
    Freetrick opened his mouth to say that he wasn't the Ultimate Fiend. Then he closed it.
    "Yes," Bloodbyrn said, "I would not linger here, myself." She gestured at the door to the carriage, swaying back and forth slightly as the monster under it twisted and screamed.
    Freetrick looked around desperately for an idea, something he could use to escape. But there was nothing but the woods, the road, the carriage. And the Proctors. Let's not forget the Proctors. But their anti-personnel runes and transport spheres would stop working if they got much farther up the mountains. Or if Freetrick reached out and touched them with his evil-sweating hands. His pulse sped up.
    Freetrick's eyes narrowed as his mind raced. Maybe if he said he had forgotten something in the woods---
    The leash around his neck tugged.
    "You will not escape," Bloodbyrn's voice rose from behind him. It was not a question, or even a warning.
    "Oh," said Freetrick, "really?" He turned on her, and saw Bloodbyrn looking up at him with a bored expression. "And how exactly are you going to stop me?" He reached up to the leash around his neck and jerked it out of her hands.
    Bloodbyrn's expression did not change.