Page 137 of Vasmora

The prince coughed, sending a spray of black fluids onto the stones, and Kazhimyr tensed, glancing around to see if anyone might’ve seen it. Once in the shadows, he watched through the frantic cluster of bodies as the guards cleared a path.

“My good people!” King Jeret called out, not far from where they hid away, lifting his hands in the air. “Settle yourselves!” His voice wafted through the boisterous crowd like a whisper in a cyclone, and it was only by reading his lips that Kazhimyr caught what he’d said.

One of the guards raised a horn and blew a high-pitched sound Kazhimyr recognized as a warning.

“Listen to me!” King Jeret bellowed. “I can rid him of this affliction!”

A few of his subjects slowed and turned back toward him. Others joined them, gathering around the king and his men.

“The gods have chosen me to deliver you from this pestilence and blight!” King Jeret raised a golden scepter into the air.

“You brought this upon us!” The child’s mother shoved to her feet and charged toward the king.

Before she could reach him, the king’s guards stepped in her path, and one of the brutes slammed a fist into her chest, knocking her backward, her spine crashing against the ground.

“I can show you!” King Jeret urged. “Watch.” Stepping carefully toward the man whose body pulsed with black veins, the king lifted the sleeve of his robe, holding out his arm.

Kazhimyr’s muscles locked, his gaze anchored on the king’s hammering veins. Mesmerized. Words spoken in an ancient tongue he didn’t recognize whispered around him. A sweet, metallic scent filled his nose, and saliva pooled on his tongue.

The infected hissed and lurched, sinking two fangs into Jeret’s arm, and a whimper escaped the king, his arm imprisoned and shaken by the mutated man.

Screams rang out. A woman in the crowd collapsed.

Coughing around the king’s arm, the infected released him and stumbled backward. He dropped to his knees, head tilted skyward. A spider the size of a rabbit seeped from his mouth and, carried upward, it turned to black smoke, before the black of his eyes rolled back to their bright blue.

The crowd turned silent.

“What happened?” the formerly infected man asked.

The mantle of silence amongst the crowd broke for a collective gasp and whispers.

Dorjan wheezed, snapping Kazhimyr from whatever trance had gripped him.

“We need to go. Now,” Dravien whispered at his back.

Kazhimyr glanced to Dorjan and back to Jeret. “Perhaps we should let the prince take a bite of the king.”

No sooner had Kazhimyr spoken the words, the man who’d bitten King Jeret collapsed to the ground, trembling. Black fluids poured from his mouth and he curled into himself, arms banded across his stomach.

“It … burns!” he cried. “Everything burns!” The man shook and moaned, then let out one last gurgling outcry and stilled.

“You killed him!” someone from the crowd yelled, breaking the hush that’d fallen through the market.

King Jeret shook his head and pointed. “I cured him. You saw it. He was not worthy! Only the purest can be saved!” A spark lit the king’s eyes, the same sickening glimmer that shone in the eyes of men who longed to be gods. “Follow me! And I will offer you salvation!” Jeret held his arms out, and as the crowd cheered and shouted, Kazhimyr sneered, shaking his head.

Damn fools. If they only knew he’d sacrificed his own wife and children.

Kazhimyr stole the opportunity to slip through them, heading in the direction of the port.

“Fight for me! And you will not become the infected!” The king’s voice droned on behind him.

A drawn, grating breath rattled through Dorjan, and Kazhimyr hastened his pace toward the wharf that stretched a few hundred meters into the ocean depths. Merchant ships rocked against the wood planks, but one smaller vessel stood out to him. With a glance over his shoulder to check Dravien still followed behind, he made his way toward that single-masted boat.

When they arrived, its captain, an older man with white curly hair, peered back at them from where he stood on deck.

“We need passage across the Australius,” Kazhimyr said.

The man’s eyes slid over all three of them. “I don’t take passengers. Piss off.”