Page 43 of Vasmora

“Are you all right?” He hesitated to ask, thinking back on her screams from earlier.

A long silence followed. “I’m just fine,” she answered, but Kazhimyr could hear the tears in her voice. “I’m going to be fine.”

Footsteps pounded down the corridor and shaking his head free of those thoughts, Kazhimyr backed himself into the dark corner of his cell. Four guards arrived and exhaled a bitter chuckle, shaking his head.

“Four of you ratkissers to retrieve one harmless man with no blood magic,” he taunted.

“You ate another fucking prisoner,” one of them said. “Ain’t nothing harmless about you.”

The reminder had Kazhimyr’s stomach twisting in on itself. “Afraid I’m diseased? Possessed?” His mind reeled back to moments before, seeing through the eyes of a dead bird. “You should be afraid.”

“Get up. You’re leaving.”

Staring off, Kazhimyr didn’t move a muscle.

“I’ve had just about enough of you.” One of the guards stepped forward and threw out his palm, seconds later, a sharp, paralyzing pain struck Kazhimyr’s muscles.

He fought to contain the outcry rising to his throat where it rumbled out as a guttural sound.

The upper half of his body curled forward, rolling unnaturally over his legs, bones popping with the unusual contortion. A deep, racking pain ripped through his muscles and Kazhimyr opened his mouth for an yelp that refused to come forth. The invisible force dragged him upright and the agony bellowed out of him in broken gasps.

“Kazhimyr!” Maevyth called out to him. “I’m here! You’re not alone!”

A loud crack echoed through the cell as his bones popped back into their joints, the searing pain tearing through his muscles. Like nothing he’d ever felt before.

“Good boy.” The guard sneered and when he lowered his gaze, he jumped backward.

A spider the size of a rat darted toward him from Kazhimyr’s cell. Before it could reach the guard, a taller guard beside him jabbed his sword into the arachnid’s flank, exploding its bulbous abdomen in a spurt of black sludge that poured from its lower half. From the split flesh, a half dozen tiny spiders crawled out. All four guards hopped and slammed their boots, squashing all of the remaining spiders into splotches of black guts and crushed carapace.

“The fuck was that!” One of them said, bent forward, heaving.

“A fucking spider. You’ve never seen one before?” The taller guard answered. “Let’s get the hell out of here. Place makes my skin crawl.”

Kazhimyr’s body dragged across the gritty concrete, his muscles thick with a numb tingling sensation as he fought to reach out for the bars of his cell. He growled and willed his legs to kick, but they refused to move.

“Kazhimyr!” Maevyth cried out behind him. “Kazhimyr, fight them! Fight!”

Arms locked and stiff at his sides, Kazhimyr let out a roar of frustration. “I’ll come back for you! I swear it!” His body trailed after the guards, floating through the air by what felt like an invisible fist around his chest and arms. He writhed as much as he could move, but to no avail. The grip grew tighter the more he fought it.

At last, he was brought to General Loyce’s office, where the bird still lay dead on the floor, the remains of the spider not far from it. The grip at his chest loosened and the unforgiving concrete slammed into his shoulder as he fell to the floor beside the bird. Kazhimyr gasped for breath, pushing to his knees and sat back on his heels.

The smile Captain Zivant wore as he looked him up and down in appraisal taunted the assassin’s fist. Across from him sat General Loyce, still leaned back in her chair with her boots kicked up on the desk.

“And so, we meet again.” Hands behind his back, Zivant circled Kazhimyr like a wolf sizing its prey. “He’s completely stripped of his blood magic?”

“He can’t so much as cool a cup of tea, let alone freeze the blood. His power has been neutralized.”

“For how long?”

The general shrugged and leaned forward, pouring a copper liquid from its decanter into a glass. “Until the curse is intentionally broken or I decide to kill the man who cursed him, which I have no intentions of doing.” She tipped back the contents of the glass, consuming every drop of it in one swallow.

“No diseases after having been to the mortal lands?”

One of the guards behind him coughed and Loyce shot him a glare that the captain seemed to have missed.

“None that I’m aware of, captain.”

“Good. We have a long journey back to Nyxteros. I’d hate for anything to become of him before his trial and execution.” He came to a stop alongside Kazhimyr and out of the corner of his eye, Kazhimyr surveyed the captain’s weapons, looking for something he might grab quickly and strike fast. Captain Zivant was certainly too smart for that it seemed. Not a single weapon within reach.