The taste of iron in the back of his throat was familiar. He focused on each breath as his fingers ran over the rough, stone ground for his dropped scythe, while the city spun around him. He barely felt the pressure of Benjamin’s bony fingers on his arm as he pulled him to his feet.
“I told you not to do anything stupid.” Benjamin shoved the scythe into Sikras’s hand.
Tremors threatened Sikras’s knees as he used both Benjamin and scythe to steady himself. “No, you didn’t.”
“It was heavily implied.”
“Take up your complaints with your brothers-in-arms,” Sikras said, testing the integrity of his legs as he stepped forward. “They killed my minion.”
“In their defense, he literally looks like the enemy. Up until five seconds ago, hewasthe enemy.”
Sikras’s eardrums pulsed as Red Sentinels charged forward, some in formation, others not, crimson scarves waving behind them, as they crushed through oncoming bodies like axes through ice. He frowned. So many bodies. The coppery stench of blood did nothing for his headache.
At least the R.S. left a lot of material to work with.
“An’stisei tus necrouz.”
Black mist erupted around his palms as he ripped two newly detached spirits from Enos and tethered them to their fresh corpses. Battle left no time for the theatrics he would flaunt to his clients. Sikras had to act fast if he wished to spare the dead the confusion and horror of returning to a mauled body. Denying them access to their minds seemed cruel, but if he had learned anything about mercy from Vessik over the years, it was the most generous thing he could offer. Aside from leaving them to die in peace, of course.
“Xechname.”
The two corpses shed their expressions of horror and turned, blank-faced, to attack a small pack of advancing skeletons.
Sikras bristled at the sound of a scream. A citizen of Vinepool? One of their attackers? A Red Sentinel?
Oh, no. That scream came from him.
His flesh burned like acid despite no outward signs of trauma. Small tingling pricks were the only sensations in his otherwise numb legs. Flecks of blood flew out his mouth from the force of his cough, and Benjamin caught him before he hit the ground.
“Dammit, Sikras, what did Ijustsay?”
Benjamin’s chastising words sounded so garbled, so far away. Sikras’s mind felt suspended in a sea of thick, stale water, bobbing on waves that threatened to drown him if he didn’t concentrate enough to keep it afloat.
Another agonized scream became a much-needed focal point. Fortunately, it wasn’t his this time.
Unfortunately, it seemed to come from Helspira.
He spied her in the distance as she landed on her side with a thud. The force of her landing disarmed her, and her sword slid across the smooth stone street and rested outside her reach.
Shit. He couldn’t just let Benjamin’s new companion keel over. It was, after all, hard for his undead brother-in-law to meet good people these days. Instinct compelled him to assist, but even if he could stand under the force of his own power—which he swiftly learned he could not when gravity pulled him back to his knees—he would have been too late.
For it became all too apparent that Helspira needed no one’s help at all.
With a snarl, the demon pushed up. Three long strides and she jumped, latched onto her skeletal attacker’s ribcage, and ripped skull and spine from the torso.
Before the body’s remains hit the ground, her fingers dug into the underside of a living man’s jaw so forcefully that her claws punctured clean through and exited his parted, shrieking mouth. She ripped off the mandible and used it as a projectile, striking another attacker in the temple.
Still reeling, Sikras gawked, sentiments shifting in seconds from surprise—“Oh!”—to intrigue—“Oh?”—to disgust—“Oh.”
Benjamin hastily stood. “Heads up.”
Sikras tore his focus from Helspira just in time to catch Benjamin shielding him from an oncoming head. Having swatted it from the air with his sword, it struck the ground, stopping short at Sikras’s boot.
“Gah!” Scooting backward across the cold cobblestone, Sikras struck it with his scythe to send it rolling into the fray. “Disgusting.”
“Keep it up,” Benjamin scolded, “and you’ll look worse than what’s left of that guy. Stop casting spells, dammit. You’re spent.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Sikras frowned, gaze trailing outward to find the torso to whom the head belonged. It wasn’t far. Still unable to stand without rippling agony, he crawled on hands and knees and stopped beside the corpse to inspect the attire.
