The ripple widened faster than the first, light bending like heat haze before it broke apart.
Something else pushed through. Smaller than the first creature, but faster, its movement was jagged, like it kept skipping frames.
One of the guards panicked early and hurled a spear before it had even finished emerging.
The spear passed through where the thing's chest had been a heartbeat earlier. The monster blinked forward, literally blinked, from the breach to two meters from the guard, and a hooked limb tore through armor like it was paper.
The man dropped before he could even scream.
'One down already. We can't keep this pace.'
Merlin moved before the thing could take its next target. His boots dug into the dirt and he angled left, making himself the more obvious threat. The creature twitched its head toward him, a blur of too many eyes, then darted in his direction.
