Samlor stepped forward and swung at the demon again. He wasn’t going to abandon Khamwas to the creature unless there were no other choice.
He chopped for a wrist. Instead of slipping through like light in mist, the caravan master’s steel clanged as numbingly as if he had slashed an anvil. The demon seized the blade and began to chitter in high-pitched laughter,
All of the demon but its right leg had pulled free of the wall. That leg was still smokily insubstantial, but the claws of the left foot cut triple furrows in the concrete as they strained to drag the creature wholly out of the stone. The left hand-forepaw-was reaching for Samlor’s face while the right gripped his knife.
Samlor’s mouth had dropped open as he breathed through it, oblivious of the dust that would have made him cough another time. He jerked straight down on the dagger hilt, ducking from the swipe that started slowly as a boulder rolling, then completed its arc at blinding speed.
The blade screeched clear. If a man had held it, his fingers would have been on the floor or dangling from twists of skin.
The demon’s paw was uninjured, and its claws had streaked the flat of the blade against which they were set.
Samlor caught the throat-clasp of his cloak. He could throw the gar- ment like a net over the creature and-
-and watch the claws shred it as the demon, steel strong and more than iron hard, leaped free to dispose of the men before it. The creature’s eyes had no pupils and glowed orange, a color which owed nothing to the urchin which still tumbled innocently around the room.