Page 54 of Anathema

In the distance, Zevander caught sight of a dozen more, bounding toward them in their unsettling hops that made scarcely a splash across the water. Kazhimyr’s mist sent another blast of white smoke over the bog’s surface, which turned it to ice around their pale, bony legs. As the Carnificans wriggled and roared in a failed effort to get loose, Zevander’s scorpions struck, the metal slicing through their bodies, severing them in half.

Within minutes, all the Carnificans lay in severed bits across the mire.

Reeling back their sigil powers, the two Letalisz stood breathing hard, Zevander’s heart hammering in his chest. Calling on the powers of sablefyre expended his energy levels and had left him drained. Still, the two kept on, trudging through the remaining three furlongs of sludgy wetlands, without further incident, until they eventually reached the solid castle grounds.

Unfortunately, the few Carnificans they’d encountered in the bog were only a small fraction of the hundreds believed to inhabit Corvus Keep.

To the right lay what appeared to be the ravaged remains of a ribcage and leg bones, the size indicating the victim had been no more than ten. A spindling child, if Zevander had to guess. As they neared the castle, more bones lay in piles across the yard, their species indiscernible in the heap.

“I can’t say I won’t accidentally kill the crazy, old mage after that miserable fucking trek.” Kazhimyr dislodged a chunk of muck that’d dried to his leather tunic.

“Aren’t you the slightest bit impressed that he survived it?” How Dolion might’ve managed such a feat remained a mystery. While his power had been honed over a number of centuries, he lacked strength in his old age.

Kazhimyr groaned, knocking the heel of his boot against the dead grass, onto which more wet muck slipped away.

The scent of death and decomposition clung to the back of his throat, as Zevander crossed the yard toward the dilapidated door of the castle that stood cracked open.

The two pushed past the creaking iron doors into the grand entry hall, where a stone raven stood in the center, its wings broken and chipped with age. Tapestries, tattered and torn, dangled haphazardly over the water-stained, stone walls, and the portraits of royal lineage hung cocked and faded, punctured with violent destruction.

What was undoubtedly a once-grand foyer stood in decay, its remnants scavenged and destroyed.

“Whatever happened here … it must’ve been horrible. It’s as if they left everything and fled.”

Zevander scanned over the ruins, his thoughts darkening as he took in the state of the castle. “I’d venture to say they didn’t flee. Not by choice, anyway.”

“Who were they?”

“I don’t know. There’s nothing in the history books that speaks of anyone occupying this castle. Only that it belongs to Nyxteros.”

The sound of crumbling stone alerted Zevander to the right, just as two Carnificans came charging on all fours, like animals. From his hip, Kazhimyr yanked a curved, double-bladed dagger that, under a glow of white light, extended to a spear.

Zevander unsheathed his black sword.

The Carnificans charged without hesitation, as was the state of their minds. They attacked relentlessly and without fear.

Zevander swung, just missing the Carnificans that ducked fast. As one of them scrambled toward him, he unsheathed his dagger and stabbed the ruthless creature in the throat. He twisted in time to slash another in the gut with his sword, slicing its stomach open with one hard yank of the blade. Another advanced, and he parried a jab to its skull, striking with unerring precision.

A half dozen more poured out of rooms, charging from the right and left. Dozens more after that, until Zevander and Kazhimyr stood back-to-back, fighting off the mob of berserkers. For every swing of Zevander’s sword, Kazhimyr parried with a stab of his spear.

“Remind me … again … when we’re supposed to start … shitting ourselves?” Kazhimyr asked, jabbing his spear into the abdomen of his attacker. When he yanked it back out, a glob of jellied organs spilled onto the floor.

“Right about now, I’d say.” Zevander swung wide, lopping off the head of a Carnifican that rolled across the cement.

Their sigils emerged, Zevander’s scorpions and Kazhimyr’s deadly mist of ice. Three Carnificans climbed the stinger of Zevander’s scorpion, just before the appendage slammed into the cement, slicing one of them in half. The other two slipped off on impact and met the same fate.

A snowy blast of white mist hurled three other berserkers into the wall in a bloody explosion of limbs and bone. Zevander and Kazhimyr backed themselves up the crumbling staircase, until a tingle rushed over Zevander’s skin, and he realized the Carnificans were no longer advancing.

They’d passed through a ward.

On the other side of a shimmering wall, his scorpions fought off the dozens more Carnificans that emerged to fill the great hall.

Zevander reached out to call them back, and the oversized arachnids faded to a cloud of black smoke that crawled beneath his sleeve.

Khazimyr bent forward, palms to his thighs, catching his breath. “Well, that was about as fun as stroking my cock with a gauntlet.”

Carnificans charged after them, slamming into the invisible force like a shield of liquid glass that stood between them and the two assassins.

“Judging by that ward, we must be close.” Kazhimyr sheathed his spear back into its holster at his hip. “And I suppose that answers the question of how.”

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