The newcomer was not one of those demons who waste a lot of energy trying to look like anything human. In fact, at first I could barely tell where Commissar Niloch began and everything else left off, because he was covered with rattling, bone-white tendrils that curled out of his black armor like stray hairs, making him look a little like one of those fancy, frilly seahorses you only see in aquariums. His face was a bit like a seahorse’s too, long, angular, and bony, but no seahorse ever had such evil little blood-drop eyes.

“Oh, my good heart, what have we here?” Niloch was almost as tall as Riprash, but despite his armor and helmet, the rattling bone-tendrils made him seem as fragile as the slenderest branching coral. Still, I don’t think anyone could have looked at the Commissar’s hideous, gleeful face and imagined mere strength would defeat such a creature. “Oh, my charitable works! What is this? A bottom-dweller, a shit-sucker, who does not bow to the Commissar of Wings and Claws, master of all the Meadows and beyond? But why would someone thwart me when all I wish to do is kindness?” He extended an insectoid arm crusted by a whorl of horns. “Why do you insult me, fellow? Why do you hate your rightful master so?”

Even listening to his lilting voice made my stomach turn over. It was as if someone had taken the skin off your favorite grandfather and made a balloon, then let the air squeak out of it in musical bursts. I would gladly have burrowed down into the dung and stayed there forever to avoid that bony, clicking thing noticing me.

Riprash, I guess, was made of sterner stuff. “I waited until you were close enough to show you proper respect, Commissar.” The ogre lowered his vast body to one knee, but I could tell he didn’t like this Niloch much.