When I approached Vekrem and Asema, I’ll admit—

  I thought they were dead.

  Their eyes, open and lifeless as death itself, and their mouths stuck open in a perpetual scream of agony; a look of surprise that was to be stuck on their face for all eternity. I pushed back the feeling of despair in my chest as I cut at the thorns with my dagger. I had no heart for it; the thorns cutting my hands as I worked at the deed… but for what? If they were already dead…

  Then, to my shock and optimism, I saw Asema’s chest rise ever so slightly, then Vekrem’s… they breathed.

  They actually breathed.

  With that sudden realization, I threw caution to the wind as I cut and cut and cut at those thorns, heedless of any injuries I took.

  Slash

  Slash

  Slash

  Eventually, despite my own hands and arms being cut to ribbons, with dozens of small lines of red lining them, the thorns fell free. Finally, I pulled the individual thorns from the parts of their bodies where they pierced. When I did, their eyes, frosted over by a living death, filled back in with color and life. Their mouths closed, and as they opened them back up to scream, I put my hand over them to silence them both.

  “Shhh,” I said. “Those things are still around here… somewhere.”

  Asema shoved my hand from her mouth, whispering, “Get your filthy hands off me.”

  As she rolled, coming up to a crouching position on her knees, she looked at the small puncture holes over her body, blood oozing in a lazy flow from them.

  Grimacing, she said with some reluctance, “Thank you.”

  Staring off into the distance, I asked, “What were those things?”

  Vekrem recovered, sitting up himself to crouch beside us. “Spriggan,” he said. “Kin of the Kilic. While the Kilic spreads its rot around the world, the Spriggan feed by draining the blood from helpless victims. They are ambush predators that grow vine-like growths around their bodies, which they detach and use to drain their victims to feed.”

  “Yum,” I replied, and Asema looked at me questioningly. “Sarcasm.”

  Asema suddenly stepped away from us, keeping low. Vekrem followed close behind her, and I followed them both. She stopped, reaching down and picking up a rather enormous weapon.

  A two-handed morningstar.

  The metal clung to the ground, and as she attempted to lift it, it fell back down; the weight was clearly too for her to handle.

  Turning back to Vekrem, she asked, “Do you have anything that’ll help?”

  Vekrem turned from her gaze.

  I interjected, asking, “How could he possibly help? It’s too big for you—hell, it’s too big for any of us.”

  Asema glared at me, but Vekrem spoke first.

  “I do have something,” he said, “but… it’ll make the spread of the rot even worse. And the pain… are you sure?”

  “Give it to me,” Asema demanded. “And what matter is the rot if we set out to cure it? Either we fail and I die… which I will, anyway. Or we succeed, and any side-effects won’t matter.”

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  “That’s not—“

  “Just give it to me! Quick—before they return.”

  Vekrem rummaged through his satchel until he came across a small blackened mushroom with red spots. Instead of glowing, it appeared to warp the surrounding light around it, drawing it into its endless void as if it were a black hole.

  “That looks dangerous,” I said, pointing at the thing, but not daring to go any closer to observe.

  “It is,” Vekrem replied breathlessly. “But she may be right. We’ll need strength.”

  “And what does it do?”

  The sound of clattering wood stilled our tongues, and, to our despair, no less than six spriggan appeared in the clearing—

  And they were ready to kill us.

  Without ceremony, Asema shoved the mushroom in her mouth and swallowed it without chewing. It took but a moment, but she went to her knees, holding back her wrenching vomit. Then, with a revived look in her eye, she stood, hefting the morningstar atop her shoulder with one arm.

  With one fucking arm!

  She peered at each one of us with a scowl on her face as she said, “Let’s kill some fucking spriggan.”

  ***

  Asema lifted the giant morningstar mace with one hand and crushed the head of the first spriggan who came towards her. Blood, or what I assumed to be blood, darkish green and sticky, oozed from the crater where the creature’s head had once existed.

  No time to wonder about that now.

  Another spriggan attacked me, then another as I jumped back, dodging the attacks of two at once. Unable to keep up of my own volition, I let my senses take over for me, not even thinking as my body moved on its own to dodge the whipping tendril-like thorn attacks. Still, I wasn’t fast enough as a few still managed to hit me, ripping fabric from my clothes and tearing into my flesh, blood leaking in little streaks down my side.

  I grunted, but with a deft hand, I managed to drive my blade between the gnarled roots of one spriggan’s face, its green blood oozing out over the blade and down my arm. I ripped the blade free just in time to block another attack from the other. The one I had slain before fell off the tip of my dagger to lay dead on the floor.

  Having a moment to watch, I saw Vekrem using his own nails as weapons; no, not nails, claws! Long, black, and sharp, he was able to slice through the creature’s vine attacks with a simple swipe of his hand. His eyes looked different, abnormal in a way that was hard to understand. Focused beyond focused, as if he could see the future and simply reacted to what had to be.

  My own spriggan attacked again, but without its partner to press the advantage, I quickly overwhelmed it with my own furious onslaught, slicing the gnarled roots of its body back until my dagger eventually found the soft flesh underneath. With a thrust and a twist, the spriggan died, falling next to its companion, its green blood intermingling on the ground, and the dirt soaking it up eagerly, as if parched.

  Vekrem shoved his razor-sharp nails through the face of one spriggan, the blackened claws coming out the backside of the creature’s head covered in green ichor. Asema swung her mace sideways, clubbing another in the midsection. The force struck so great that the creature’s body was ripped in half. She stepped forward, crushing the spriggan’s head underfoot, green blood exploding over her boots.

  Breathing heavily, I made my way to them, looking upon the carnage. Six dead spriggan, and not one of us was injured—well, not seriously anyway.

  I’d say that was a fight well fought.

  “Let’s hurry before more show up,” Asema suggested, shouldering her massive weapon with little ease, the metal soaked green and dripping.

  I was going to ask how that was possible, but Vekrem spoke up first as he said, “We need to locate Saise before we make our exit.”

  Asema turned to him. “Do we? Really? What does she contribute? Nothing.” She held up a finger. “She cares just about saving one life. Just one. She’s here selfishly—she’ll steal the cure for the chitik’s if she gets the chance.”

  “I won’t let that happen,” Vekrem replied. “I won’t leave one of ours behind. So, you can follow me, and save me from whatever stupid decision I’m about to make. Or, you can go about your way, and hope that I survive long enough to eventually create the cure.”

  Asema scoffed, but made no further protest.

  I coughed into the back of my hand. “Well, can we assume that the spriggan captured Saise?”

  They both nodded in unison.

  “Right; well then she should be nearby then. It would be faster to spread out, but that’s probably a bad idea.”

  “A bad idea indeed,” Dragon fumed in my head.

  Vekrem didn’t react to the creature’s words, so I assumed Dragon spoke only to me.

  “So let’s just stick together until we find her,” I suggested. “Then, let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  Looking between the two of them, they both nodded their silent agreement.