Page 94 of Vasmora

“Crazy bastard jumped!”

“Who is it?”

“What is your name?” the commanding officer called down.

Not bothering to answer him, Kazhimyr turned toward the three cave entrances, his skin tingling, as it sometimes did when he had a bad feeling.

“Should you make it to the nest, call out her condition. Is that understood?”

Again, Kazhimyr ignored him, his attention fixed on the far left cave ahead of him, where in the distance, he could see the glow of eyes. Slowly, he pushed to his feet.

“Do you hear me, Soldier! You’re to report her condition!”

Dismissing the command, Kazhimyr strode forward, straight for the cave with those glowing eyes. If Maevyth was trapped in there, he intended to find out, at all costs. Behind him, some of the other soldiers yelled out, one calling him mad. Others gasped.

Light faded behind him, the deeper he ventured, toward those glowing eyes.

The creature growled and hissed.

Kazhimyr came to a halt.

It lunged forward, and Kazhimyr pressed himself against the cave wall, its dripping fangs mere inches from his face. The beast sniffed him frantically.

Rearing back, it let out a roar, sending a blast of cold air into Kazhimyr’s face.

It hissed. Growled.

His muscles tensed, bracing for the attack.

Kazhimyr turned to see it retreating backward, as if it were afraid. Of him?

Movement on the wall captured his attention, and he turned toward the shadow of a spider moving across a narrow strip of light in the direction of the charnelyth.

A high-pitched squeal rang in his head, just like before, and a crackled sound, like a voice speaking to him, curled the hairs on the back of his neck. He snapped his attention toward the mouth of the cave in search of the source.

Nothing.

“Find him,” it said in a distorted voice.

“Who’s there!” Kazhimyr called out.

“Have you found the general?” the superior officer yelled back. “By gods, the crazy bastard is alive!”

Kazhimyr searched the darkness for the voice he’d heard moments ago. At no further sound, he kept on, tracing the charnelyth’s tracks, until, at last, the cave opened to a vast cavern, the ceiling of it shrouded in darkness, where the pale blue glow of the water below it didn’t reach.

Two charnelyths stood off to the side, hissing and growling. A third sat further back, perhaps guarding a nest.

A cluster of smaller serpents hissed from a small tidal pool adjacent to the larger body of water that took up the center of the cavern.

“Help …”

The weak and breathless voice emerged from his left, and Kazhimyr turned to see General Loyce laid out on a bed of glowing fungi.

Five serpents, perhaps no longer than the dagger at his hip, feasted on her stomach that had been torn open, the viscera spilling out over the edges of the wound. As if the creatures had chewed their way out of her.

One of them twisted around, rearing up like a snake, its face coated in a sticky red. It hissed at him, then spun back around and sank its fangs into her flesh.

She jerked and cried out, leaving Kazhimyr to wonder how in the gods she hadn’t gone numb with shock.