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Chapter 36: It Knew

Chapter 36: It Knew

Rook remained stunned long enough for the Fourth Rank to nearly kill him. The creature’s accusations continued echoing through his mind, spoken in too many voices for him to separate one from another.

One life against all of ours. You could have stayed. You could have let them finish. Your greed killed us.

None of it meant anything to him. He searched through what remained of his living memories and found no faces to match those voices, no place where he had heard them, and no moment when someone had begged him to remain. There was only the certainty within the creature’s hatred.

It knew him.

The Fourth Rank’s shoulder twitched, and Rook reacted. He lifted the falchion just as one of its sword arms descended. The impact struck the already cracked weapon near its center, breaking the blade apart like glass. Fragments scattered past Rook’s face, but the ruined falchion had bought him the fraction of a second he needed.

He stepped back as the second sword arm passed through the space where his ribs had been. The tip sliced across his coat without reaching the flesh beneath it.

Rook discarded the broken hilt and retreated several more steps. His gaze remained fixed upon the creature’s eyes, watching for another change in its stance, but part of his attention was still trapped within those words.

Greed. One miserable life. All of ours.

Voss had been watching the Fourth Rank with equal intensity, though for an entirely different reason. The deaths of his Reapers had stopped mattering the moment the creature spoke. He stared at it from beneath his cowl, studying the way every stolen voice inside it had reacted to Rook.

"Seems like this thing knows something," he said before rushing forward.

Rook looked toward him. "What are you doing? Back away!"

"Nah." Voss ran past the scattered weapons and bent to seize a long metal spear. "This guy is interesting."

He lifted the weapon from the ground, only to feel its full weight drag against his shoulders.

"Shit, this is heavy."

"Then put it down."

Voss ignored him and tightened both hands around the shaft.

The spear vibrated. The movement began near Voss’s fingers and travelled along the entire length of the weapon. The metal produced a strained hum as every weakness in the shaft was pulled taut. There was no visible change to its shape, yet the spear somehow appeared more rigid than before, as if bending had ceased to be something the metal understood.

Voss stepped forward and threw it like a javelin.

The Fourth Rank turned one shoulder toward the incoming weapon and struck it aside with the flat of its sword arm. The spear barely changed direction, and it did not spin away. Whatever Voss had done to it made it feel like it resisted the laws of physics for a second. The tension running through its shaft kept it perfectly straight as the spearhead scraped across the creature’s shoulder.

Thin flesh split open as the point struck the bone beneath it and tore away a narrow piece before continuing across the field.

The Fourth Rank flinched, and Rook moved.

He ran past the broken falchion and tore the one-handed scythe from the ground. The weapon had a short handle and a thick inward-curving blade designed for hooking through joints rather than sweeping across open ground. This weapon was never meant for cutting, but carving and applying maximum damage.

The creature struck at him, but Rook shifted aside and allowed the sword arm to pass beside his shoulder. He continued forward before the creature could recover and swung the scythe into the side of its leg.

The curved edge pierced the thin flesh and caught against the femur.

Rook pulled. The blade bit into the bone and forced the Fourth Rank’s leg to bend beneath its weight. The limb buckled with a layered howl, and one sword arm stabbed into the ground to keep the rest of its body upright.

"You should have died!" it screamed.

"I did die, bitch."

Rook tore the scythe free.

The Fourth Rank swung at his head. He ducked beneath the blow, stepped inside the creature’s reach, and buried the curved edge between two of its ribs. The blade caught behind the lower bone, and Rook pulled with both hands.

The rib resisted for an instant before breaking near the spine. Its fractured end tore through the flesh covering the creature’s side, and the Fourth Rank dropped lower as its narrow body folded around the injury.

Its damaged leg could no longer support it properly. The spikes beneath that foot scraped across the stone, searching for enough purchase to force the limb straight.

Voss approached from the creature’s blind side, reached down, and slapped one hand against its thigh.

The Fourth Rank’s leg vibrated.

Rook felt the movement through the scythe buried between its ribs. The trembling intensified until the thin flesh covering the thigh pulled tight against the bone. Every muscle in the limb became rigid at once, stretched far beyond anything dead flesh should have endured.

The first muscle snapped with the sound of a wet cord breaking. More followed as the flesh split beneath the skin and the tightened muscles tore themselves apart. The Fourth Rank’s leg collapsed, bending at an angle that drove the exposed end of the femur through its thigh.

The creature screamed and swung at Voss.

Rook drove the scythe higher between its ribs and pulled. The hooked blade dragged the creature’s upper body several inches to one side, changing the path of its attack. The sword arm passed close enough to cut through the edge of Voss’s cowl, sending a strip of dark cloth falling from his shoulder.

Voss touched the damaged fabric. "That was almost my face."

"You’re welcome."

"I had it handled."

"You nearly had your head handled separately from your body."

The Fourth Rank twisted sharply and tried to tear itself from the scythe. Rook was dragged forward several steps before he caught his footing.

"Rope!" he shouted. "Let’s tie this bitch up."