Prologue
Homis looked out at all the slaves as they continued to shift dirt around, making a crater where the structure of the building would be. He sighed and took a swig of water. The sun was brutal this time of year and had him sweating. One of the slaves fell over and he watched as the guards below wrenched him back up on his feet and got him back to work. The king would be pleased at the progress they had already made. He smiled at the idea of having a filling meal and cool wine tonight for the amount of work already done. Shouts interrupted his dreaming. He turned around to see a group of slaves hollering and waving their arms around. He waved at two of the other guards to follow him as he made his way to the group. As they approached one of the guards who had already arrived tried to get the slaves to go back to work but nothing could be understood over the gibberish of the slaves and he struck one down as he grabbed his arm.
“What is going on?” Homis shouted.
One of the guards answered ” They were digging and suddenly they just started jumping around and shouting.”
Homis grabbed a slave that he knew could speak their language well enough to be understood and yanked him aside, “What happened?” he shouted at the slave.
He flinched while he answered, “The was strange rocks that we too big to move ‘so we just go round them’ I say but as we shift more dirt big teeth the size of me torso showed and then gaping hole as big as man sunk into rock and t’ face of a monster made from Gilloroth himself and wes a not going anywhere that has been touched by evil iself.”
Homis threw him aside and strode to the top of the hill. He froze as he looked out.
“Shandou help us.” whispered one of the guards as he stopped next to him. They stared down into the hole, and saw the head of a beast with teeth longer than a man’s body, eye holes the size of a human’s head and a body that stretched over 20 feet.
