Read Online Blades Of Illusion: Crown Service #2 by Terah Edun - Free Book Online Page B

just before he had finished his work. She couldn’t even see his left eye as the eyelid above had flickered down into a half-closed position.
    “You’re not slowing me down,” she replied tersely.
    He glared.
    She raised an eyebrow as she kept her right arm wrapped securely around his waist and jerked her chin towards their compatriots in front of them. A long line stretched as far as she could see of mercenaries walking, carrying, and dragging fallen warriors. Warriors affected by the damned creatures’ venom but not dead yet.
    The mercenaries’ guild had a motto that she knew, or at least she thought she knew, they took very seriously. Never leave a man behind .
    Ha, Sara thought to herself wryly, I wonder if the captain ever got that memo. Division Three certainly deserted the other divisions of their guard fast enough.
    Outwardly, she said, “Look around you. No one’s getting anywhere too fast. Now shut your trap and put your right foot forward, and then put it forward again.”
    He stared at her.
    “And I’ll handle your left.”
    He gave a small laugh. “Do I have a choice?”
    “No,” she said flatly as she jerked him closer so that his paralyzed left side once more aligned seamlessly with her right and she could force his left leg to lift alongside the movements of her right leg.
    It had been twenty minutes since the lizard had taken a bite out of him and they realized the dire straits that were coming. One of the only two healers still alive had confirmed with a tired look that the venom was one they had no chance of fighting. It had taken seven dead mercenaries within a four-hour period before the healers had tersely admitted that they couldn’t combat the invasive poison traveling through their patients’ bodies with their powers, nor could they provide an herbal remedy to ease the process and halt it from spreading. Sara had remembered one healer laughing bitterly as she said, “We might be able to concoct an antivenom if you catch one of the blasted creatures. Alive.”
    Another leader in the guard, her patient actually, had looked up at that healer with bloodshot eyes from where he sat up on his elbows and looked at his paralyzed legs that were decaying before his very eyes. “Do you not think we’ve tried? Staying alive is an issue, much less capturing the blasted thing.” Then he had chuckled and laid down on his pallet to die. “ Might, she says. Might my ass.”
    Sara had quickly walked past him. Not because she was unsympathetic to his agony, but because the morose attitude about their ability to combat the creatures was one she knew was widespread. Hell, the bite not only paralyzed you—while piercing armor—but eventually it caused your muscles to putrefy at an accelerated rate.
    “I wonder why?” Ezekiel had said next to her. That had been a short hour before he had received his bite.
    “Why what?” Sara had muttered absentmindedly.
    “Why the putrefaction? We’re already paralyzed and waiting for them to come for us.”
    Sara had been cleaning her weapons as they walked. All the mud and wet was wreaking havoc on her leather and blades. There was nothing to be done for it but continue to shine them and move on.
    “The smell,” she had said.
    Ezekiel had prodded her. “And?”
    Sara had sighed and turned her head to look at him with an irritated gaze. When she saw the eager eyes of an intellectual just wanting one more tidbit of information, she snapped her blade back into its sheath with a click and said, “The smell of the rotting bodies probably leads them to their prey.”
    “Oh,” Ezekiel had said thoughtfully.
    “Yes, oh,” she had said flatly. It was a horrible way to die. Well...more horrible than suffocating to death. In most cases, those who were bitten had lost control of their lungs and suffocated shortly after. A few horribly unlucky souls, though, had become fully paralyzed while still taking in breath. Those ones were left to starve or wait for the