Eldritch, p.66
Eldritch, page 66
“Fuck! Something’s pulling me!” Kazhimyr’s shrill outcry cost Zevander a split second when he glanced back toward the archway to see his friend digging his boots into the ground, an unseen force dragging him toward the Umbravale.
A hot searing pain streaked across Zevander’s arm, and he looked down to see the wet glisten of saliva sinking into his leathers. The creature lunged for Zevander, fangs first, just as Ravezio swung out his sword, slicing through the beast’s hind leg. It tumbled backward, those vicious fangs just missing Zevander’s face.
“Help, Kaz!” Ravezio shouted, drawing the spider back toward him. “I got this one!”
Zevander joined Dravien who yanked at Kazhimyr’s arm in a futile attempt to pull him away from the archway.
“Godsdamn, I see the chasm!” Kazhimyr shouted, his voice pitched with panic.
No. The Umbravale was rejecting his passage.
Zevander glanced back to see Ravezio fighting off the spider’s snapping fangs. He exhaled a long breath, in an attempt to clear his head, and summoned the new glyph to mind. Each intricate symbol was memorized in perfect detail—the one he’d learned back in the Lyverian mountains. He held out his palm and shot a torrent of flame toward the barrier that was absorbed into its shimmering surface.
It flickered and wavered, the silvery barrier dulling to a dark gray.
Kazhimyr flew backward as it released its hold, and the gap in the barrier flickered back to silver as if it repaired itself.
Zevander lowered his hand and breathed hard through his nose. “I’m going to open it again. You have to slip through quickly before it seals itself again.”
Dravien stepped forward. “I’ll go first, just in case.”
Zevander frowned but didn’t dwell too much on it as the Elvyniran rolled his shoulders back and hunched forward, ready to dart through it. “I’m ready,” he said.
Again, Zevander let out a long exhale and called upon the glyph one more time, focusing on the shimmering wall. “Go!”
Dravien leapt through, just before the barrier sealed itself again.
Zevander’s knees buckled beneath him, his energy slowly fading, as his body shook with weakness, but he held his hand out again. “Both of you! Go!”
Kazhimyr nodded, pushing to his feet, and before she could protest, he swiped Maevyth into his arms.
“Put me down! No!” she screamed, clawing at his grip, but thankfully, Kazhimyr held steady. As much as it crushed Zevander to see her in distress, he had to ensure her safety.
The moment he shot the flame toward the barrier again, Kazhimyr slipped through, Maevyth’s screams fading behind them.
Zevander collapsed to his palms, breathing hard as the glyph devoured what little energy he’d gotten from the vivicantem. He twisted around to see the massive spider had pinned Ravezio to the ground, but the beast didn’t snap at him. Instead, its eyes were focused elsewhere.
Mesmerized.
A crackling sound emerged over the dying hiss of the creature as the black carapace of its body slowly turned gray, the lifeless shade crawling over it like frost. A quick twitch of its leg slowed as the joints froze, its entire body turning to granite.
“Fucking hell,” Ravezio said, sliding from beneath the spider’s monstrous maw. “Glad those things have a hundred eyes. Think that was the fastest I’ve turned anything that size to stone.” The moment he’d cleared it, the stony statue fell forward, the spider’s face smacking into the ground with a hard thud.
Both Letalisz chuckled as Ravezio rose to his feet.
“Come on,” Zevander said. “Everyone else is already through.”
As Ravezio stepped forward, his spine snapped ramrod straight, eyes wide with panic. A figure stepped through the wall of flames that fizzled away at his back. Gnarled antlers at his head. Long bony limbs that looked like tree branches. Cloven feet.
Cadavros.
In his beastly form, he stood with his hand outstretched toward Ravezio, his other palm, which appeared to be missing fingers, was directed at Zevander.
“Let him go,” Zevander growled.
“Yes. I will let him go freely on the condition that you join me in burning down the Umbravale.”
It was then Zevander realized there was no pull at his mind, none of the strange tugging at his thoughts that he usually felt around the mage.
Their connection must’ve been severed when he’d consumed Maevyth’s blood.
“I do not wish to fight you. Agree to help me and your friend will live.”
“No!” Ravezio rasped, his voice tight with tension. “Don’t…do it!”
Zevander summoned a flame to his palm. “I’ll not tell you again. Release him!”
A deep, ominous chuckle rumbled out of the mage as he turned his palm upright and a flame appeared there.
Cold shock crawled over Zevander’s chest as he watched the telling black fire flicker over the flat of the mage’s hand.
“It seems I’ve acquired the power of both Pestilios and Deimos.”
“Then what do you need me for?”
“Unfortunately, the body can only accommodate so much power. What little I’ve acquired from Deimos isn’t enough to destroy it myself.”
Zevander threw out his palm, sending a torrent of flames toward the mage.
Cadavros released Ravezio and, with both hands, parried a blast of his own flame that collided with Zevander’s.
Zevander’s arms shook as he held them steady, pushing past the force opposing him. In his periphery, he watched Ravezio jump to his feet and charge toward the mage.
“Ravezio! No!” The distraction sent Zevander flying backward beneath the force of Cadavros’s flame slamming into his chest and knocking the air from his lungs.
He gasped and wheezed, twisting around to see Ravezio floating in the air, his arms outstretched either side of him.
His leather tunic stripped away from his body by an unseen force and the sight of him took Zevander back to the days in the mines when the guards would hold him outstretched that way.
“No!” Zevander gasped again and clawed at the dirt toward them.
Ravezio managed one small glance over his shoulder and the look of fear in his eyes sent a slithering dread beneath Zevander’s skin. The wet sound of tearing flesh echoed over Ravezio’s agonizing bellow of pain. All of his scales ripped away from his body at once, exposing the raw, glistening flesh beneath.
A frigid jolt ground Zevander’s muscles to a halt like the slow-moving granite that’d crawled over the spider moments before.
Ravezio collapsed to the ground in a bloody heap, wheezing and writhing.
“No!” Zevander roared and with as much strength as he could muster, he sent a blast of flame back at the mage.
Cadavros blocked it with his own counter flame and the two once again stood locked in a battle of power.
Muscles shaking with rage and wrath, Zevander held steady. He yanked his sword from its scabbard and against the unbearable force pushing against him, he stepped closer. Closer.
Cadavros side-stepped and circled around Zevander, breaking the clash of flames. He swiped up Ravezio’s fallen blade and held it outstretched as he inched closer toward the Umbravale. “I told you. I don’t want to fight you.”
As Zevander drew nearer to Ravezio, he took in the state of his friend and felt a tight clench in his chest. The irreparable damage that would ultimately kill him.
He collapsed to his knees.
Blood seeped out of the small pockets scattered over Ravezio’s raw flesh where his scales had been torn away. Long, ragged breaths sawed in and out of Ravezio as he lay on his side and he coughed, sputtering blood onto the snowy ground. “Kill me,” he rasped, coughing again. “Please.”
Zevander wanted to take his hand and assure him that he’d live but touching him in his state would be deadly. “I’m going to return you to Aethyria. You’re going to get help.”
Ravezio sucked in a sharp, strained breath. “No. I won’t…make it.”
“It’s true,” Cadavros said, standing at the archway, as if he intended to block their passage.
A deadly fury burned in Zevander’s heart as he stared back at his dying friend through a mist of tears. His muscles trembled, teeth clenched so hard they could’ve cracked from the pressure.
“Please. Do it.” A tear spilled down Ravezio’s temple and Zevander turned away, nostrils flaring as he fought to hold himself together.
He nodded.
“Thank you …” Ravezio wheezed and sucked in another rattling breath. “For your…friendship.”
“Dormisz qumeht lunadei, meh’amij.” Rest with the gods, my friend. Zevander rose to his feet and held a trembling hand out to the man he’d known as a brother. One who’d never hesitated to fight on his behalf. He closed his eyes and summoned the flame.
Ravezio let out a single quiet grunt and when Zevander opened his eyes again, nothing but small blood stone remained on the ground where his friend had lain only moments ago. He swiped it up, stuffing it in his pocket and turned his attention toward the mage still standing at the archway.
“I didn’t want to harm your friend. And I don’t wish to fight you,” he said, as if that would erase the wrath Zevander intended to inflict on him.
Zevander let out a bitter and mirthless chuckle and shifted his sword in his hand. “Perhaps you should’ve thought of that before you killed him,” he said, and charged toward Cadavros.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
MAEVYTH
Twenty minutes earlier …
The moment Kazhimyr carried me through the boundary, I squirmed and clawed for escape. “Let me go!” I screamed and he finally set me on my feet. Twisting around, I bolted for the archway where I could see Zevander on the other side of it. Beyond him, the gigantic spider that’d attacked only moments ago had turned to stone, and I exhaled a relieved breath, watching Ravezio crawl from beneath it.
“Come on, Zevander. Hurry,” I muttered, watching the two of them smile as they made their way toward the archway.
Ravezio froze in place, his eyes wide with panic.
Kazhimyr surged to my side. “What is he doing? Come on!” He smacked his palm against the watery shield, and while it flickered, it didn’t give. “Hurry!”
A figure stepped through the flames and dread twisted in my stomach as Cadavros slowly approached.
“We have to go back.” Pushing at the boundary was futile and a paralyzing helplessness tremored beneath my skin. “We have to go back right now!”
A battle of flames ensued and my breath hitched every time Cadavros slung his flame at Zevander.
“Where’s the scroll!” Kazhimyr patted at his trousers, his eyes wide and panicked. “Where’s the scroll? I need to find the scroll!”
The stranger named Dravien at the other side of him rifled through his cloak and I frowned.
“What is it? What are you doing?” My limbs trembled as I held my palms pressed to the barrier.
“I need the scroll to go back through!” Kazhimyr kept on with his search for it and I turned back to see Ravezio suspended in the air, his arms outstretched.
“Oh, gods.” The words shook from my throat, as his clothing tore away from his body.
“No. No, no, no.” Kazhimyr pounded his fist against the barrier. “Ravezio! Ravezio!” He twisted around to where Dravien patted and rifled.
“I must’ve dropped it somewhere!” Dravien sank his hands into his pockets. “Fuck!”
A gut-wrenching outcry ripped from Ravezio’s throat as his scales were torn away from his body.
Terror burst through my chest, gripping my lungs.
Beside me, Kazhimyr collapsed to his knees and the sound that tore out of him rivaled the painful cry of his friend on the other side. He pressed his forehead to the barrier and his body shook with a sob. “Ravezio!”
Tears blurred my vision when Zevander collapsed beside him, the expression on his face tearing at my heart.
Kazhimyr let out a roar of anger, hammering his fists against the cruel, shimmering wall that refused to give. But it was too late.
Ravezio was gone.
Zevander charged for Cadavros and the agony in my chest tightened. Swords clashed and clanged as they fought each other, Zevander’s skills far more honed than his enemy’s.
Cadavros swung out at Zevander, his strike weak, as the grip of his sword—minus the three fingers I’d dissolved—faltered. Zevander parried with a powerful strike that knocked the mage backward with fumbling steps, bringing him closer to the Umbravale.
The fight lasted only minutes before Zevander gained the upper hand, standing over his opponent whose back faced us.
Cadavros shook his head, weakly raising his sword. “Deimos wasted his power on you. A foolish boy! You could’ve been king! All of Aethyria would’ve bowed to you!”
“You must’ve forgotten your history, old man,” Zevander rasped through heaving breaths. “Deimos didn’t long to be king. He longed for Morsana.”
“Yes,” the beastly man hissed. “And that is precisely why he perished in the flames. He was weak for a woman! Just like you!”
“Why show me visions of her?” In spite of his obvious exhaustion, the slouching of his muscles and contractions of his chest, Zevander held his sword steady.
“I misjudged. I thought you longed for more than your pathetic life. Instead of conquering kings, you cowered for the love of a woman.”
Zevander pressed the tip of his blade to Cadavros’s throat. “I cower for no one. Man, king, or god.”
“Killing me will unleash the plague,” Cadavros taunted. “Go ahead, if you love her so much.”
Zevander sneered. “She’d kill you herself if she were here.”
I would’ve laughed at his remark, true as it was, if my body weren’t locked in a state of panic.
“Get to your feet. I’ve no intention of killing a man on his knees,” Zevander ordered.
“Fucking hell, he’s going to unleash a plague on Aethyria!” Kazhimyr shouted beside me. “What is the chant!”
“I can’t remember!” Dravien growled.
A frantic tension slithered beneath my skin turning my muscles rigid as the two bickered beside me.
“How dare you.” Cadavros rose to his cloven feet. “I am a high mage who wields the power of two gods!” The fury in his voice shook the barrier.
“Remember that as you fall,” Zevander gritted out and as the mage raised his palm, Zevander lashed out first, sending him hurling backward on a gale of Aeryz.
My heart beat an anxious rhythm.
I couldn’t see where Cadavros had fallen. Only that he’d disappeared out of view.
Zevander collapsed to his knees, chest heaving, and I noticed a small patch of blood at his side where he must’ve been struck by a sword. He raised his hand again showing an intricate glyph glowing across his palm.
“Zevander, hurry!” I said, too impatient at him remaining on the wrong side of the archway.
The barrier flickered and wavered.
Beyond him, just a short distance away, figures wisped toward his back, the shadows of a horde barreling right for him.
Not just a horde.
In the thick of spiders and the grotesque, humanoid monstrosities that rushed toward him flew those strange, wraith-like creatures that I’d seen crawling out of the spiders that’d chased Aleysia and I weeks ago.
“Zevander!” I screamed and as if he heard me, he glanced over his shoulder, toward them.
Slowly, he rose to his feet, facing the oncoming horde, and held his hands outstretched, just as Ravezio had stood moments before. “Come for me, Pestilios! I defied death for her. I’ll fight you and any other god who seeks to take her from me!”
My chest cracked like shattered glass, splinters of panic stabbing at my heart. “No!” I screamed, clawing at the wavering wall that separated me from him.
The creatures descended quickly, swarming him, clawing and snapping at him with sharp fangs.
Dravien yanked the scroll from one of the small pockets at his thigh. “I found it!” He one-handedly unrolled the scroll, the other hand against the barrier as he spoke a chant that I recalled from the night Melantha had granted me passage.
On the other side Zevander teetered at the archway, frantically swinging his sword at spiders and wraiths that surged over him like a vicious, black cloud. He stumbled backward, his body disappearing, just like that of Cadavros moments before.
“No! No!” I slammed my palm against the ward, and it slipped through. As I pitched forward, my body was yanked backward, and I tumbled onto my bottom beside Kazhimyr.
“Got him!” Dravien lay on the other side of me, his face contorted in pain and teeth clenched, half his arm disappeared into the flickering barrier. “He’s slipping!”
“Don’t let him go! Please!” As I collapsed to my knees on a shuddering breath, Kazhimyr yanked me away. “Please don’t let him go!”
“Fuck! He’s slipping!” Dravien’s face reddened, his muscles shaking.
“Hang onto him!” Kazhimyr scrambled forward and as he shoved his hand toward the barrier, it flashed and sent him hurling backward until his spine crashed against the tree behind us.
I dove for the edge of the archway and peered down at Zevander, dangling by Dravien’s outstretched hand. Below him, gaped a bottomless black chasm. A terrifying and vast void below his feet. I scrambled closer to reach for his hand, but it was coated in thick blood that had his fingers slipping through Dravien’s.
“Hang on! Please hang on!” Tears and panic wavered in my voice, as I reached down to clutch his forearm, both Dravien and I grasping him.
An unseen force seemed to pull at his feet, as his body tugged unnaturally at my arm. A thousand unspoken words passed over his eyes when they locked onto mine, the expression on his face grim.
He slid further, my hand gliding to his wrist.
Teeth clenched, I blinked away the tears and dug my clawed nails into the ground for stability. “Don’t you dare let go! Please don’t let go!” I screamed, my voice echoing around me. “I love you. You hear me? I love you, Zevander Rydainn! You hold tight!”
