"Who are you?" Slyn repeated. "Give me your name or I'll slay you like I slew Kehan the Giant's Bane, Eekar the Serpent Skin, Shenrash the Scarred, and all other chieftains who thought they were mighty, thought they were safe in our territory. I can slay a demon too."

"A demon?" The stranger smiled thinly. "Yes. Yes . . . I suppose I am a demon now. At least parts of me." He raised his arms. The tentacle wriggled, dripping ooze, and the lobster claw clattered. "Most call me Raem Seran, King of Eteer, Lord of the Abyss. To you I will simply be . . . Master."

Slyn roared, jaw stretching as wide as it would go. Master? He—Slyn the Conqueror—serve another?

With a curse, Slyn swung his sword at the demon.

Raem's lobster claw rose, grabbed the bronze blade, and shattered it.

The demon's tentacle stretched out, growing longer and longer, forming an obscene, dripping serpent that wrapped around Slyn. The tentacle's suckers attached to Slyn like lamprey mouths, pinning his arms to his sides, cutting through his armor. Across the hills below, Widejaws howled in rage and fear but dared not approach.

"Release me, demon!" Slyn cried. He tried to free himself, to bite, to kick, but the tentacle squeezed tighter, crushing him. The suckers bit into his flesh, and Slyn roared.

"Release you?" Raem asked calmly. He tilted his head quizzically. "You've named yourself an enemy to me. Almost as deadly an enemy as shepherds and gatherers. Should I not slay you like you slew them?"

Slyn snapped his teeth at the demon. "I serve no master. I serve no gods. I have lived free, and I will die free. Kill me then, Raem." He spat. "I spit upon any man or deity who would call himself my master."

"Kill you . . . to start, yes." Raem nodded. "But you would not remain dead for long, Slyn, son of Heshok. You would wake up in a pit of darkness and fire, and we would change you. Stretch your skin like a sack of wine, pumping you full of blood for demons to drink. You would hang upon our walls, forever screaming, a living sack of sustenance. How you would plead to die! It would please me to hear your screams."

Clutched in the biting, crushing tentacle, staring into the mad eyes of this demon, Slyn felt something he had not felt in many years, not since his father had burned him as a child.

He felt fear.

"I would not scream," he whispered hoarsely; he could speak no louder. His ribs creaked, feeling ready to snap.

"Perhaps not," Raem said. "Some in the Abyss merely weep. You might be a weeper. But I offer you an alternative, Slyn of Widejaw. A chance for glory, for true dominion. I offer you a chance to slay dragons."