Page 282 of Vasmora

I whipped up my forearm to block the bite, and a shield of bone snapped into place across my limb. The mutation’s teeth cracked against it, sharp incisors lodging in the tight woven ivory, and its violent jerk of my arm threw me forward.

Palm to its throat, I steadied the jostling of my body and curled my black-tipped fingers into the humanoid’s gullet, summoning the death glyph. Flesh crumbled to ash, spilling over top of me in a suffocating plume that tickled my lungs. Coughing and gagging, I turned to the side and caught a glimpse of Rykaia knocking back a mutation with a blast of Aeryz.

It charged for her again, and I jumped to my feet at the same time as another humanoid dropped from the ceiling.

Headed straight for me.

I shifted my palm to knock it back with Aeryz, but the mutation froze mid-run, its eyes bulging as the tip of a blade popped through its throat with a spray of black ooze.

It collapsed, revealing Lothare.

He strode toward me, carrying Rho, and my gaze darted for Zevander, heart pounding in my throat.

“Zevander is fine. I have to get to the vein!” he said, handing the pup off to me. Before I could ask him about Gavroche, he plucked his sword from the mutation and dashed off.

The growl of a razorwolf snapped my attention back to where Fennyx and Verena fought back-to-back against two mutations.

Please hurry, Zevander.

I spun around to hand Rho to Rykaia, and a bellowing shriek rattled my nerves.

“Maevyth!” Rykaia pointed toward something behind me. “They’re coming!”

Twisting back around brought the horrifying view of a horde barreling between the warriors. Toward us.

“Ready yourselves!” I cried, and I opened my palms for the command to fight.

Movement in my periphery drew my attention toward the nest’s domed top, where a black cloud swirled above it like a hurricane, expanding outward across the ceiling.

Shrill screams echoed through the cavern, then abruptly silenced.

Every mutation dropped to its knees, spines ramrod straight, mouths gaping. The eerie stillness sent a chill down my spine.

In the next breath, spiders poured out of them and carried upward as plumes of black smoke that joined the growing black cloud overhead. Hundreds of them. The collective smoke turned thick, suffocating, as it expelled upward, drawn from the mouths of the infected.

A figure tore through the top of the webbed dome, drifting toward the overhanging cloud–a terrifying vision of a spider body and skull head with long straggly black hair that whipped around it.

“Pestilios,” Kazhimyr said with a tremble in his voice.

The figure let out a boisterous roar, just before the black clouds swallowed it whole.

Flickers of movement pulled my attention back to the surrounding villagers. The spindly spider legs snapped away from their bodies, crumbling to ash as they hit the ground. Black veins faded to pink scars, and the inky blackness drained from their eyes like ominous tears, revealing blues and greens and golds.

Brows knitted, they glanced around at each other.

“Where are we?” one of them asked.

“I don’t remember anything after the Vale fell,” another said.

Some of the villagers stared around at where the warriors remained standing, waiting for my next command. A few backed away from them.

The rising smoke vanished.

The looming black cloud dissipated.

A hum of confusion carried on the air but was quickly silenced when the crowd parted around Zevander, whose black leathers made him stick out like an inkblot, while he moved through the throng of villagers, toward me.

And in his arms lay Gavroche. Lifeless and pale.