They struck so fast that it was hard to even register what was happening for Katryna. She ducked behind Arthus as the man swung his sword at an incoming tentacle.
Like a knife through butter, the sword cut the tentacle clean in two. Black blood spilled onto the stones as the severed limb wriggled about.
Katryna heard a shrill cry as a man to her left with a long beard and shoulder-length hair was being dragged across the ground towards the water, a tentacle constricted tightly around his leg. His hair became dishevelled as he struggled to cling on to something, anything.
Katryna did not even hesitate, after seeing how fast the things were moving. She took a dagger from Arthus’s belt, sprinting over to the flailing man as he was dragged. The man’s nails ripped from his fingertips as he tried to stop himself from being pulled towards the water.
Katryna gripped the handle as tight as she could, slashing at the tentacle. She carved a messy gash into its flesh, but the thing had to be as thick as a stocky man’s thigh. It did not relent.
“Please! Help me!” he cried.
It hadn’t worked. The tentacle retracted back into the water faster after having been cut; the helpless man was tugged under Katryna’s feet, causing her to lose balance.
She tumbled to the ground with a thud, the dagger clanging on the stone. Katryna looked on in horror as the man was slammed into an iron bollard before being pulled over the edge into the silent abyss.
“My lady!” Arthus called, rushing over to help her.
The tentacles continued latching on to fleeing people and dragging them to the water. The guards struggled to fight them off, though the ground was fast becoming a slimy mess of severed tentacle tips and black blood. Each time a tentacle was severed, another appeared from somewhere else.
Then, a monstrous roar emanated from the water’s edge. A bellow, like an angry bull.
Katryna saw an enormous hand rise from the sea, slamming down onto the edge of the dock wall. Grey, rotten fingers, each the size of her own arm, gripped the dock’s surface. Another hand rose up and clutched at one of the bollards.
Something was pulling itself from the water.
“Arthus…” Katryna gasped, feeling her chest tighten as she shuffled on her hands and knees. “Arthus!”
The High Sword was in the process of striking another attacking tentacle and saving an injured woman from being pulled away, when he heard the princess shout.
He followed her horrified gaze before being shocked himself by the sight before them.
An enormous creature lifted itself up onto the wharf from the steaming water. The thing was a disgusting, albeit astounding sight. Water sizzled and dripped from its five-metre-tall form as it stood up on two legs as a man would.
Yet nothing about it appeared human.
The tentacles reeled in towards their origin, the giant creature, snaking into its hunchback until they disappeared. They had come from within its body, like huge parasites.
Arthus made his way over to the princess. The guards pouring in towards the harbour formed a perimeter around the stationary monster. Spears jutted up into the air like a protective wall, the guards ready to defend their city and their people at all costs.
Those left in the city street running perpendicular to the harbour were frozen in shock. No one uttered a word, only those who were injured and still screaming.
The creature stood silent too, the rags hanging from its twisted body dripping with water and its pale skin pulsating. The creature had a huge, rusted ship chain in its hand, the end of which was still submerged.
“Can… can it see us?” Arthus whispered to Katryna.
Katryna was unsure if it could see anything at all- its head was bony and deformed, with jagged sheets of metal and dead plates of coral sticking out from where its face should have been. There were no eyes to be seen, no nose or ears, or any other facial feature.
“That thing is not natural! Creator, help us,” someone shouted.
“What’s it doing?” a guard asked.
The monster began to reel in the heavy chain it wielded with both hands. The metal groaned and the creature howled and sputtered from an unseen mouth.
Arthus took a few steps forward, sword at the ready, with his body poised for attack. Dozens of guards had taken position around the thing while keeping a gap of a few metres around it.
The agony of waiting for the monster to do something was intensifying. No one was brave enough to charge it, not even all the men together.
A few seconds later, the monster had pulled in a huge ship anchor at the end of the enormous chain. It gripped the shank of the anchor within its misshapen hand…just like a weapon.
The hunchback leapt from the wharf, violently landing on the cobblestone road, leaving it shattered and smashed. Katryna felt the ground shake and nearby windows vibrated in their frames.
“Close the portcullis,” Katryna said blankly, unthinking.
Arthus gasped. “What?”
“Close it, now!”
Katryna pulled Arthus by the arm, trying to convince him to follow her back the way they had come through the gate to the harbour.
The guards surrounding the enormous creature shouted and hollered, swords and spears drawn, rushing the approaching monster as one large force.
The monster roared as it became surrounded before lifting the thick chain above its head, pulling the anchor up with it. It swung the anchor through the air and crashed it down onto several of the guards.
Katryna heard a sickening
