Dirge for a Necromancer - By Ash Stinson Page 0,111

the nose of an abassy and pierced its brain. He pulled it clear, and it came out with a wave of chunky, fetid blood.

But there were more of them. No matter how many eyes and brains he pierced, there were more yet to pierce. The monsters came forward ceaselessly on their thin, toned limbs, clutching their pikes and their spears, grinning with their scrap-metal mouths. He stabbed into the horde as they came at him from all sides. Here and there, he managed to muster up a few fireballs, which sent the abassy reeling back, smoke coming up from the dark pits of their eyes. But these reprieves were brief. He could barely catch his breath before he was again surrounded, fighting for his life. Fighting for Sir Slade’s life.

And then things grew still.

It spread like a ripple through the army. Never taking their blank, black eyes from Raettonus and Diahsis, the abassy stepped slowly back. Raettonus and Diahsis pressed tighter together, scanning their enemies wearily. The abassy withdrew into a large circle. The line of them that had cut Raettonus off from Brecan moved out of the way, and he could see the unicorn once again. Brecan’s white fur was stained black with abassy blood and his own red blood was gushing from deep cuts on his flank, but he was not really any worse for the wear. Not that Raettonus would ever admit it, but he was glad to see the unicorn still standing.

In the citadel beside them, the war horns still blew and arrows still twanged out the windows. The abassy, however, had stopped moving completely. The ones standing were as still as the ones dead on the ground around them.

Slowly, Raettonus became aware of a heavy, rhythmic thud. At first it was faint—so faint he could barely feel it in the soles of his boots. As it got louder, the abassy backed farther and farther away from them. “What’s going on?” Diahsis asked Raettonus quietly. The shining white visor of his helm was splattered with dark drops of blood.

Raettonus furrowed his brow. “I don’t know,” he said. He didn’t like it, whatever it was.

The abassy were clearing a path as something heavy slowly approached. The trio turned their faces toward the path on instinct. Against his back, Raettonus felt Diahsis go completely slack for a moment. “Gods above,” said the general, his voice little more than a breath caught in the back of his throat.

On the back of what might’ve been a nightmare given flesh, coming leisurely toward them, was Cykkus, the Black Winged Death.

Chapter Seventeen

He rode a black jaguar all armored in bronze with eyes like ice, which must’ve stood eighteen hands tall at the very least. It had two heads and three tails, and everywhere it stepped the earth cracked and turned dark gray as the color itself seemed to wither and die. The golden reins by which Cykkus led the monster still left both its hungry maws free to bite. The jaguar snarled out of both mouths as it neared them.

As fearsome as the beast he rode was, Cykkus was even more chilling to behold.

He was almost eight feet tall from boot to helm, and all in full plate. His armor was black, but not the clumsy, stained black of a mortal’s armor. No, this was the color of sky without stars. The plates were less like metal and more like a hardened void that had eaten even all the light that had touched it. He was wrapped in steel made of nothingness. Flecks of rust, or maybe—probably—blood, were on his boots and gauntlets. Aside from that, his armor had been polished to a glossy sheen that directly contradicted the desolate deepness of its color.

Horns protruded from the forehead of his helm, arching slightly upward, and between them rose a feathery black crest that cascaded down to his back. Like the Zylekkhan helms, Cykkus’ closed in on the cheeks, stopping just beside the nose guard. Shadows obscured his face where it was visible; Raettonus was left with the impression of lips and a mouth, but couldn’t quite make them out. In thick shadows, Cykkus’ eyes shone a searing red through the eye slits. When he turned his gaze on Raettonus, it felt as if something deep inside him were being burned away. In one gauntleted hand, Cykkus held his terrible steed’s reins lightly. In the other hand he carried an axe much the same as an executioner might carry, a pocket watch wound