Call of Kerberos: Twilight of Kerberos, The - Jonathan Oliver Page 0,18

sword, but was stopped when a taloned fist punched deep into his sternum. He was dead before he hit the ground. Katya cried out and swung at the creature but overbalanced with her attack, and soon the thing stood looking down at her.

Silus was too slow to prevent his wife from being grabbed and now the fight was on a different footing. The two remaining creatures watched him, unblinking, making no move to finish what they had started. Around them the sounds of battle had stopped. The smoke was beginning to clear as a strong wind came in off the sea, revealing the smouldering ruins of buildings and corpses.

"Let her go!" Silus yelled. "I know that you can understand me, one of you spoke to me. I'm telling you to let her go!"

The sound of a staff tapping out a regular rhythm approached them as another of the sea demons stepped into view.

Though this one was larger than its brethren it was stooped, its hide was tarnished and encrusted in places with barnacles and other molluscs. One of its eyes was a milky white and scars criss-crossed its chest as though it had faced battle many times.

The creature approached Silus, laid a finger on his chest and regarded him intently with its one good eye.

"What are you?" Silus said.

"We are the Chadassa." The creature said. Its voice reminded Silus of the sea breaking on shingle. "I am Belck."

The thing gestured for Katya to be brought forward and crouched down before her, running its hands over her belly, making strange crooning noises at the back of its throat. Some of the molluscs clinging to its hide opened up at the sound of its pleasure. Katya tried to draw away from Belck's touch, but she stopped struggling when her arm was forced further up her back by the Chadassa restraining her.

Silus rushed Belck then, burning with the desire to cleave the creature's head from its body, but one gesture from Belck's hand halted the fisherman and another sent the sword tumbling from his grip.

As the aged sea demon straightened and turned to Silus, Katya spat at it. "You touch me like that again and I'll break your neck! Nobody but my husband touches me like that."

"This man is far more than just your husband. Our blood runs in his veins."

"Silus is nothing like you freaks. Trust me, when Vos finds out about your little invasion you're going to wish that you had never left the sea."

"Ah, but with the help of Silus we shall soon leave the sea behind anyway. All of Twilight shall be ours, and then shall come the time of the Great Flood."

"Listen," Silus said. "I don't know what you're talking about and I'm not about to help you. I've no idea who you think I am."

"No, you really don't do you? Allow me to offer an explanation."

Belck stepped in close to Silus. The light of Kerberos faded from the creature's eye as he watched, the darkness intensifying until it was all he could see.

And then Silus was looking back at Nürn, but it was not the place he knew. The church of the Final Faith did not dominate the town square here and the old stone forts that dotted the coast no longer looked so old. What had once been crumbling, lichen encrusted brick now looked almost newly laid.

Silus found himself standing by the rock pools not far from the harbour. In front of him a woman was collecting mussels. He called out to her but she didn't turn round.

Having filled her pail she turned to leave and, as she did, she failed to spot the thing curled within the deepest of the pools.

It rose up to meet her as her shadow fell over it.

The woman screamed and staggered back, dropping her pail as the creature forced her into the sea,

Silus didn't move but his point of view changed and he found himself following the Chadassa and the woman down beneath the waves.

She struggled in the creature's grip, thrashing like a caught fish, but the thing didn't let go. It swam with her into a dark gash in the seabed, before surfacing from a pool in the centre of a vast cave.

The woman was carried through an echoing darkness, illuminated by the glow of thousands of tiny thread-like worms which writhed over the cavern walls. Soon she stopped struggling and lay limply in the creature's arms. Her eyes spoke of the turmoil within, but she made no sound