“Here’s your fanged Kaanig!”

With hatred marring his tone, the r’kem and seven of his armed comrades heaved an enormous wooden casket into the crowded interrogation chamber below TrCasinaar, leaving it in the center of the pitch-black room. Then, as though unnerved by the darkness and at thought of their deceased ruler, they dashed from the chamber as if growling hounds of conviction were nipping at their heels.

When the heavy iron door clanged shut, its loud echo reverberating throughout the chamber of many deaths, the terrified palace staff imprisoned there exchanged remarks in varying degrees of dread and incredulity. If their Kaanig was truly dead, something they had only...