Page 46 of The Barbarian King's Assassin (Magic and Kings 1)
“What happened?” he asked, looking around, a sword in his hand, death in his stance.
I could understand his confusion because the only things in the room other than me were clumps of mud scattered around and clinging to my sword.
The one I’d sold him.
Odd how I’d found it in the dark. Even odder how its shredded wrapping remained in the corner where Konstantin dropped it for the night.
Almost as if it tore its way out to come to me.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
While I ponderedhow the elekium sword went from being wrapped in a corner to my hand and ignored the many giants who’d broken into my sleeping chamber, I examined the mud clumps—which weren’t there when I went to bed.
Konstantin frowned at me. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” The honest truth because nothing currently made sense. Maybe I still slept.
“Are you injured?” He scanned me head to toe, unlike his brethren searching the room.
“No.” Just embarrassed. “I think I had a nightmare.”
And obviously acted in my sleep. Retrieving the sword, fighting something imaginary. Now if I could just explain the hunks of dirt, stone, and even slimy chunks of plant matter. Dreams didn’t leave behind physical traces.
“This was no nightmare.” Konstantin’s solemn pronouncement.
“You were attacked by a mud golem,” Joor declared. He along with the rest of the giants crowded inside the room.
“Golems aren’t real.”
“Yeah, they are.” Joor said it as if everyone knew it and I was dumb for questioning.
I frowned. “They’re just stories.” Or were they? If I wasn’t asleep, then that meant someone or something had been in that room with me. I hadn’t imagined their touch or the screams when I hit them. There should have been blood, not spattered mud.
“Is this your first time meeting one?” Hoolia exclaimed, her pink mouth stretching into a wide smile. “Look at you, no longer a virgin.”
For some reason that caused my cheeks to heat, mostly because Konstantin chose to eye me sharply.
Not a virgin in any sense. My choice.
“How would a mud golem have gotten inside? We’re on the second floor. The window is still shut.” Konstantin questioned rather than accept an impossibility.
His people began looking for answers.
Hoolia lifted the bed while Joor palpated the dusty planks under. “No hatches in the floor.”
“No signs of it squeezed under the crack under the door.” Broon knelt by it, examining the area.
“Doubtful it came down the chimney. It shows no signs of mud, and it’s still piping hot.” Joor’s addition.
They were being ridiculous, so I threw out something inane as well. “Maybe it came up through the plumbing for the tub.”
They should have laughed at me. Instead, they stuck their faces in the broad-sided luxury. The bottom of it held dirty water, the draining having stopped. Bad plumbing the innkeeper claimed. He’d have it fixed once I left.
“The little assassin got it.” Hoolia scooped and held up a handful of muck.
They couldn’t be serious. “You’re being crazy. Animated mud people did not squeeze through that tiny drainage pipe.” Amazing a town this far from the capital invested in plumbing in the first place.
“What do you think happened then?” Konstantin asked.