Reximus Boneclaw's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Survivors from the river bend had run hard through the night. Reximus found their path easy to read. A brick post stained red marked where they had stopped to bind wounds and breathe. Blood crusted its sign. He knelt and pressed his palm to the bricks. Their fear still hummed in the stone. Word was running ahead of him toward Blightburn, and he could not let it arrive first. He caught them at a dry creek before noon. Six of them, shaking, armed with kitchen knives. Reximus did not draw his blade. He lifted his hand and spoke the words he had been studying from old sith pages — life drain. A gray thread tore from each chest and poured into his palm. Their skin pulled tight. Their eyes went flat. He felt their last hours flood into him: the road they took, the gate they planned to reach, the captain they meant to warn. He swallowed all of it. The power did not stop there. Strength rolled through his dead limbs. He turned to the bones scattered along the creek — old raptor skeletons, long claws, hollow skulls. He poured a piece of the stolen life into them. The bones snapped together and stood. Velociraptors, jaws clacking, tails stiff, bound to his will. They circled him like hounds. Far off, towers of black stone rose above Blightburn. Inside that grim temple the ruler would soon hear nothing — because no runner would arrive. Reximus formed his column behind him: skeletons in front, raptors at the flanks, a tall iron frame raised on a cart and draped in red cloth as his marching standard. The trail to the city was clean. The secret was still his.