My legs have stopped trembling and I can feel energy rushing through my body once more. I don't care if it's adrenaline or magick, all I know is I don't want it to stop. I'm shaking in anticipation as a massive, clawed foot steps out of the amphitheater's inner chamber. "Finally, a damn dragon," I say.
"No," says Eve, taking a step backward, "it's the Cockatrice."
The rest of the monster springs from the darkness—a heaving mass of feathers and spines. Part reptilian, part human, part...chicken? A beaked, feathered head with a wobbling red comb bobs around as the beast steps forward on a pair of feet covered in sharp talons. Its most disparate bits of anatomy are two oversized human arms carrying an imposing iron mace.
I step forward, raising Excalibur as my muscles burn. The creature pivots toward me and flaps a pair of leathery green wings. "Come on, you freak!" I yell, squinting through a billowing cloud of grit.
I hear Poseidon's voice boom down over the arena.
"O ill-dispersing wind of misery!
O my accursed womb, the bed of death!
A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,
Whose unavoided eye is murderous."
"Shut up!" I holler over my shoulder.
Poseidon laughs. "Not a fan of the theatre?"
YOU ARE READING
THE SECRET SEA: EXPANDED EDITION
FantasyNovel - fantasy / adventure After Tim's apartment burns to the ground, his best friend and woman he secretly loves, Eve, invites him to stay behind her house in a gardening shed until he finds something more permanent. After moving in, Tim's life ta...
