Book 2 of the Land of Szornyek series, City of Dod, is almost here! Click here to pre-order your copy! Haven’t read Book 1 yet? Never fear, Tentacles and Teeth is only $0.99 right now! Grab your copy before the sale ends.

City of Dod is another action-packed adventure in a post-apocalyptic world filled with monsters.

Head down, mouth shut—this is Askari’s new mantra. A pall still hangs over the Baratok community from the rarohan attack only a few months before, and all Askari wants is to stay out of trouble and help her grieving community heal.

Until a stranger rides into camp. He offers her a chance to obtain something rare and valuable—monster blood with healing properties that could help prevent more of her people from dying. But when the mission goes wrong, she becomes the target of a relentless monster who won’t stop pursuing her until she and everyone around her are dead. Her only thought is to lead it away from the Baratok community, even if that means sacrificing herself.

Injured, scared, and with only Harcos and Shujaa to help her fight, Askari flees from the Baratok with the monster on her tail. As she runs, fights, overcomes injuries, and encounters unimaginable terrors, she begins to wonder if she’ll ever make it back home—or if she even wants to.

Intrigued? Read the excerpt below:

The bogar charged straight for the stream. It reared up on its hind legs, its front legs thundering down on the opposite river bank. Askari had been right—it could straddle the river. But its middle legs hung down into the water and immediately began to turn orange. The orange crept slowly up, up to its knees. It made a wheezing, squealing noise, like air being pushed through a small hole.

It couldn’t be as simple as rust, Askari thought, but maybe some kind of allergy to water. Hopefully at least something that could weaken it, make it easier to kill.

The bogar now stood eyeball to eyeball with Askari. She felt energy surging through her body, overwhelming her exhaustion and fatigue. Her stomach ached where Agi had stabbed her, and her entire body was covered with cuts and bruises from their midnight dash through the woods.

She stared into the large, bulbous eyes of the creature, its giant pincers only a few feet away. Its head was huge, so huge that she couldn’t have wrapped her arms around it. She scrambled back as far on the rocks as she could go. Leverage. Speed. That’s what she needed.

Taking a deep breath, Askari bent down, preparing to launch herself forward, but froze as the bogar opened its mouth. Bogarites poured out, falling to the ground and skittering up the rocks to where Askari stood.

"Go now!" she heard Shujaa shout.

Without another thought, Askari sprinted and leaped.

Her feet landed solidly on the wide back of the bogar, and she gripped the machete tightly in her hands. The garg’s shiny, cold skin made her shudder. It smelled strange too, a bitter, sulfuric scent. Askari clapped her hand over her mouth and nose and tried not to gag.

Askari spun around to stare at the bogar’s head. Sure enough, it couldn’t turn around. It began to beat its wings, creating a breeze, but she found she could stay between them without even being jostled. However, in almost no time, bogarites had begun to make their way up the bogar’s back. They would be swarming all over her in no time too.

She held her machete in her hands and surveyed the situation. She could smack the garg with the blade randomly, or she could do so strategically. She looked around frantically—were there any weaknesses up here? Any soft spots? The smell grew stronger, and her eyes began to water. It must be part of the bogar’s defenses. Where was it even coming from? The bogarites? Or the bogar itself?

Moving carefully forward, Askari leaned down to examine the bogar’s head. A tiny cloud of vapor rose from a small hole almost invisible amid the swirling patterns on its back—and amid the crowd of bogarites scuttling around. The hole was too small for her to stab her machete into, though. She glanced back at the wings, staring at them for a moment. Maybe they were softer than its skin? Maybe she could injure those? Then she felt something on her feet. She looked down. The bogarites swarmed over her shoes. Revulsion filled her stomach. She tried to step forward, but whatever they were doing was like glue. She could see them excreting or spitting a brown goo that covered her feet and ankles. She was stuck.

Tears filled her eyes; her muscles trembled. Her breaths became short and fast and her mind swirled, racing to think of something, anything. Panic. That’s what they called this.

It didn’t matter in the end. She said she would go down fighting, so she would. Without waiting another instant, she lifted her machete high over her head and brought it down with as much force as she could muster, aiming directly for the hole at the base of its neck. A little puff of orange smoke burst out of the hole, but the bogar didn’t move or flinch. She yanked the machete out and drove it down again and again, hoping that maybe she would cut its brain in half so it couldn’t function anymore.

A dull roar sounded in her ears. She wasn’t sure if it was coming from her mind or somewhere in the woods. Her heart pounded as she brought the machete down again, slicing into the back of the bogar’s head. A rusty, orange liquid began to seep from the hole. She hoped it was blood, or some kind of bodily fluid, and that by releasing it, she was speeding the bogar’s death. On the other hand, it could be some kind of healing solution. Maybe these gargs couldn’t die…

The bogarites kept coming, higher and higher. They were up to her knees now, still releasing some kind of sticky liquid that covered her pants, shoes, and skin. She would be completely consumed soon. Buried. Drowned. Encapsulated. Askari swallowed and brought her machete down again. She couldn’t think about it. Couldn’t worry about it. Her legs began to burn, and pain throbbed and pulsated, distracting her from trying to kill the garg. The dull, distant roaring grew louder.

Orange liquid began to squirt in a fountain from behind the bogar's head, and the bogar began to make a slow, low moan at first, that rose up and up in pitch until a high-pitched scream ricocheted off the rocks and hills around them. It jerked back and forth, and Askari fell to her knees, holding on to the bogar’s ice cold skin for dear life.

The roar grew louder as the bogarites around her writhed and chattered, losing their grip on the bogar and falling to the ground.

Askari gritted her teeth and raised her machete one more time, jamming it into the sulfurous hole. The bogar let out a long, piercing scream and toppled to the ground, landing with a thunderous boom. Water and bogarites splashed in every direction. Askari launched herself away from the creature as it fell, landing and rolling half in the water and half on the dry riverbed. She groaned slowly, rolling over into a sticky pool of rusty orange slime that dripped from the gargantuan creature, now dead and glassy-eyed.

"Take my hand!" Shujaa shouted over the roaring sound, which was now nearly deafening. “Now!” She ran toward Askari, eyes wide.

Askari dragged herself to her feet, only to see a great wall of water rolling, rushing toward them.

The dam.

Harcos had broken the dam.

Askari leaped forward and grabbed Shujaa from behind, locking her in a bear hug. The frigid wall of water crashed over them, and everything turned to black.