The first secondary limb dropped from the ceiling and caught a soldier around the upper arm and shoulder. Its cluster of small fingers spread across the man and pulled in different directions at once.
The shoulder came apart with a wet crack, forced open from four points simultaneously. The soldier screamed, pitched sideways, and the appendage lifted him off the floor, three feet up, his boots kicking at empty air.
"Get him down! Get him down!"
Two soldiers drove their swords into the appendage's base where it joined the main limb. The membrane split, and the appendage fell away.
The soldier hit the floor and did not rise again. His right arm had been bent into an ungodly direction. He was breathing. That was the full extent of the good news.
A second limb swept low across the floor, faster than the first, its surface sliding against the stone as it moved. Sig had no sword, his had snapped earlier, and he had been retreating when the appendage found his legs.
