Reximus Boneclaw's Arc

Chapter 3 of 7

The veil held, but Reximus did not. He stood before the stone shelves where he had stacked the bones in neat rows, skull above skull, ribs sorted by size. He slid a bead on his bone abacus and counted what he had raised. Six. Only six skeletons stood in the dust. At this pace, the holocron would die of old age before his army was whole. He needed a faster hand. He drew the hilt at his belt and ignited the red blade. For two days he drilled alone, cutting forms against the brick, learning the weight of the saber again. Then he reached deeper. He pulled lightning through his arm and into the crystal. The blade hissed white at its edges. One strike now did the work of three. He turned the lesson on his craft. He carved a wider ritual line with the charged blade, and the cut sang with stored current. When he called the bones up this time, the lightning leapt from shelf to shelf. A dozen rose at once. Then twenty. Skulls clattered onto spines. Ribs locked. He slid bead after bead until a whole rod was full. But a rusted door at the back of the ossuary began to glow at its seams. The lightning had strained the veil where it was thinnest. Orange light bled through the rivets like hot blood. He had his pace. Now he had a leak.