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There was a creaking sound.
At the opposite end of the arena, another gate was opening.
Cynically, I wondered if it would be wolves again.
Or perhaps starving lions.
Instead, something very different emerged.
A creature from the realm of nightmares.
The beast which prowled forward was an uncanny fusion of the terrifying and the grotesque.
Yet as I took in the creature’s appearance, I quickly recognized what it was.
The beast's body was an eerie aberration with the sinewy grace of a leopard and the cloven hooves of a goat. Its onyx-spotted hide gleamed with spectral patterns, while its malevolent, crimson eyes shone with an unsettling intelligence, unblinking and unfeeling.
Its elongated, serpentine head was crowned with jagged ridges of horns, and stretched upwards on a sinuous neck that was covered in iridescent, black, reptilian scales. The creature's maw was lined with dagger-like fangs, and gaped open gruesomely, revealing a yawning cavity devoid of tongue or palate.
The beast looked like nothing from this world. It was a creature that should not have existed.
I had only read about it in books.
Enough to know it was a legendary glatisant.
Where in Aercanum had my brother managed to locate such a creature?
As the glatisant prowled forward, it let out an uncanny baying sound that pierced across the arena, making some in the stands cover their ears and others cry out in fear. The creature's vocalizations sounded like an eerie human whine, as if the glatisant's past victims were somehow still alive within it and calling out to be saved.
The glatisant rumbled towards the group of prisoners who had converged around the sword.
One man, the largest looking of them, held Excalibur aloft. Shoving the other prisoners aside, he took up a fighting stance as the glatisant charged.
I held my breath. The man seemed like a confident and experienced fighter.
But as the glatisant bore down on its prey, Excalibur once more proved to be a cruel and unyielding accomplice.
As the man moved to strike, the sword remained lifeless and unbending, moving backwards when clearly he wished it to go forwards, and sideways when he wished it the other direction.
There was a single shout. Then the glatisant descended.
As the man was lifted into the air and into the glatisant's mouth, the only sounds in the arena became those of crunching bones and tearing flesh.
Excalibur dropped harmlessly back into the sand. Immediately, another prisoner rushed to pick it up, though she looked far less optimistic about her prospects than the man who had come before her.
Sure enough, moments later, she followed the first man into the glatisant's maw.
After five more had fallen trying to make Excalibur yield to them, the others began to scatter, deciding to take their chances running rather than fighting.
The sword lay in the sand untouched.
I looked at Lancelet. She still hovered near the gate. The glatisant had not approached that part of the arena.
Yet.
The arena began to turn into a nightmarish labyrinth as a desperate game of cat and mouse played out. The prisoners were easily cornered prey. They darted in frantic and disjointed patterns, trying to evade the relentless advances of the glatisant.
Amidst it all, Lancelet stood motionless at the periphery of the arena, watching the unfolding chaos. She had been lucky so far, but I knew it would not last.
