Page 226 of Red Ruin

“Keep moving,” I insist, still wobbling from the thunder.

I’ll recover.

We can’t get trapped here.

I’m jogging at Tan’s side when something catches my ankle.

I swing my glaive as I topple, turning the fall into a controlled roll. My ankle twinges.

I kick out anyway. There’s acrackof shattering fingers. The skeleton hand that tripped me flies off my boot.

A shadow crushes the attached arm-bone before it digs itself out of the earth.

Tan stomps through the crown of a rising skull. “We must be getting close.”

More skeletal shapes rise from the dirt like creepy radishes.

The temperature drops.

“Forward.” I tug Remy’s hand to keep his focus. “Keep shielding.”

With draugr on our asses, we need Remy blocking the twisted, black lightning bolts. Tan and I can handle the skeletons.

We thwack them as we run.

They’re not that strong, but they’re never-ending.

We fight through the maze of tunnels, step by step. Simms opens shortcuts through rock and blocks the path where he can, but there are too many nooks and crannies, and too many of the undead can move through the earth.

Whenever there’s a break, I dart to Vhex or Remy, stroking skin, rubbing a horn—anything to keep their power flowing strong.

My breath goes ragged.

At the rate their magic corrupts down here, I’m going to be the weak link.

Any time I even think about stopping to recover, another wave of undead blocks our path.

Forward is the only way out.

“Terrain shift ahead,” Simms warns, his voice strained as he walls off the ghouls on our tail. “Feels like a hallway.”

“Must be the prison.”

The lich’s power weighs me down in a coat of frozen lead.

We’re almost there.

Running on bloodlust and murderous glee, Vhex rockets through a row of ghouls and smashes through a crumbling doorway.

“Be careful,” I mutter, a beat too slowly.

As I clamber over the rubble, Remy slips past, reinforcing the shadow shield that hasn’t left my body for a second.

We stumble into the broke-down version of the prison complex I saw in his memories.

The cells where Azrid Supreme buried Faervaine’s shame lie blown-open, long abandoned. The air hangs dusty and thick, and my breath fogs from the chill.

Simms walls off the door behind us. With no enemies in sight, we’re left with the sound of our heavy breathing and distant, muffled wails.

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