Chapter 645: The Dead Company (End)
"One breath at a time."
She squeezed his forearm, a soldier’s thanks. Together they stepped into the gulf of shadow.
"Keep your eyes down. It’s not real. It wants you to want it."
The stench of the chamber clawed down their throats the longer they stood in it, a sticky mélange of iron-rich blood and swamp-rot that coated the tongue like spoiled syrup. Mikhailis fought the urge to gag. Every shallow breath rasped, the air so humid it felt half liquid, beads of moisture forming on his lashes. Beneath his boots, sap and half-congealed ichor mixed into a slick, treacherous skin; each step squelched, the sound muffled by the cavern’s swollen hush.
For one frozen instant he simply stared at the colossus, mind refusing to stitch the pieces together. It was an elf—had been an elf—broad-shouldered and tall enough to dwarf Rodion’s battle frame, yet hollowed by decay until the ribcage yawned open like a cathedral door. Bark had grown where muscle should be, black knots jutting from vertebrae, and shards of antler sprouted along the spine in grotesque imitation of a crown. When it breathed, stolen air wheezed through those ruptured ribs in a chorus of whistles and moans, as though wind raced through broken pipes.
Thalatha’s gasp lingered, a brittle thread in the damp air. Under her helm of focus he saw sorrow ignite—a flicker of memory for some nameless ancestor whose corpse now served the Blight. She pressed a fist to her sternum, an old Hollowguard salute for fallen heroes. The gesture trembled, but she finished it.
Mikhailis’s tattoo opened like a furnace behind his glove: white-hot lines spider-webbed to his fingertips, each pulse rippling under skin in sync with a thunderous drumming—the creature’s heart, or the root’s? Hard to tell. Sweat pooled at his collarbone, sliding cold down his spine even as heat roared in his arm.
Rodion’s right, he thought, jaw clenched so hard his molars ached. Hesitate and the whole hive of nightmares wakes up. Yet his feet wouldn’t move. The choice boiled his thoughts: burn the flowering root, sever its grip, risk the mana backlash tearing half the complex apart. Bind it, hope the seed contained the corruption—and pray it didn’t use the link to crawl into every other root for miles.
Thalatha noticed his twitching hand. "Mik," she breathed, voice stripped of rank, just raw urgency. "Whatever you do, choose fast."
"Fast, right." His grin was shaky, a cracked mask. "Speed is my middle name. Somewhere between reckless and terrifying."