The silence of Nethervale was a predatory thing, but the tome was louder.

  It didn't speak in words. It spoke in a rhythmic, crimson pulse that thrummed against Caldreth's spine, a low-frequency vibration that made the marrow in his bones itch. He pulled back into the deep shadow of a thick column that braced the soaring ceiling.

  Beside him, Krim pressed his back against the stone, his eyes tracking the Deep Stalkers that had already revealed themselves. They were pale, twitching nightmares, circling the motes of light Krim had cast earlier.

  "The threshold is crawling with them, and the door behind us is locked," Krim whispered, his hand tightening against Caldreth's forearm. "Have you any bright ideas? Or do we simply wait for the dark to swallow us?"

  The tome hovered over Caldreth's shoulder, a soft aura of crimson began to bleed from the book's edges, bathing his face in the color of a fresh kill. He stared at the stalkers, his eyes widening as a wicked, manic smile crested his face.

  Krim caught the look and recoiled slightly. "Oh, I'm not sure I care for that look at all."

  Caldreth leaned in, his voice a low, cold vibration that seemed to harmonize with the tome's thrumming. He began to whisper, outlining a strategy that turned their desperation into a weapon.

  Krim's jaw dropped.

  "You want me to what?" he snapped, his voice echoing an octave too high for Caldreth's liking. "That is not a plan, little hunter. That is a nightmare, insanity! If the curse turns on us-"

  "Then move like you want to stay alive," Caldreth interrupted, his gaze never leaving the pack in the center of the room. "Now, lure one in. I'll do the rest."

  Krim sat still for a moment, searching Caldreth's crimson-bathed face for a trace of the figure he had met in the crypt. He found none.

  - - -

  Krim flicked his wrist, sending a single, tiny mote of light drifting toward a lone Stalker at the edge of the pack. The blind creature turned, its sensory pits twitching, and followed the light like a moth toward the deep shadows of the obsidian column.

  As the creature drew near, Krim moved with the blurred speed of the ancient dead. He lunged, pinning the creature against the stone, his bony fingers clamped vise-tight over its maw to stifle the screech.

  Caldreth didn't hesitate. He sliced a shallow gash into the creature's flank, parting the pale flesh. Then, with a quick, clinical stroke, he opened a furrow in his own forearm.

  The tome flared, drinking the scent of the blood, its red glow intensifying until the shadows behind the column were stained the color of rust. Caldreth held his arm over the beast, letting his blood pour into the Stalker's open wound.

  The Stalker convulsed violently. Its skin turned a mottled, bruised black in heartbeats. Before it could recover its senses, Caldreth raised both hands and slammed them against the sides of the creature's head, a disorienting shock that left the thing reeling.

  "Do it," Caldreth ordered.

  Krim's eyes glowed with a surge of necrotic power. A shroud of purple energy swirled around his arms as he grabbed the cursed thing and launched it with a supernatural heave.

  The creature clattered into the center of the room, skidding across the metallic floor. It let out a wet, gurgling roar as the curse took hold, its body rewriting itself into a rabid engine of destruction.

  The investigation was instant. The Deep Stalkers in the middle rushed the sound, but as they reached their kin, the cursed creature turned, snapping and tearing at them with a hunger that defied nature. The curse spread like a drop of ink in clear water, turning the huddle into a chaotic brawl of snapping jaws.

  From the metallic basins lining the room, the rest of them stirred. Dozens of pale shapes began hopping out of the bowls to investigate the slaughter.

  "To the sides," Caldreth said.

  Krim sprinted toward the left, scooping up a heavy shard of scrap iron. He gripped it like a hammer, swinging it in a wide arc to slam the heavy metal against the thick rim of the nearest bowl.

  The sound was a physical blow. The vibration reverberated through the stone, amplified by the basin's curve. The group of Deep Stalkers inside shrieked as the acoustic shock scrambled their senses.

  They didn't stay down, though. Blind and panicked, they scrabbled at the smooth inner walls, trying to vault over the rim to escape the torture of the ringing sound.

  Krim was waiting.

  As the first pale, eyeless head crested the rim, Krim drove his serrated dagger down into its skull with a wet crunch. He twisted the blade and shoved the corpse back down into the bowl to foul the footing of the others.

  A second one lunged, its claws scrabbling on the stone. Krim reversed his grip on the scrap iron, bringing it down like a piston, crushing the creature's neck against the lip of the basin.

  "Foul," Krim muttered, flicking black ichor from his sleeve as he systematically butchered the creatures trying to flee their prison.

  Caldreth took the right. He used the flat of his blade to strike the metallic rim, creating a deafening, ringing vibration that sent the creatures inside into a spasming panic. But instead of picking them off from the safety of the edge, he vaulted over the rim.

  He dropped five feet down into the bowl, landing with a wet thud directly atop the writhing heap of Deep Stalkers.

  It was tight quarters, a claustrophobic nightmare of claws and pale skin, but Caldreth moved faster than the stunned beasts could react. He spun in a tight circle, his sword acting as a blender in the confined space. The red glow of the tome illuminated the basin's interior like a strobe light, flashing with every spray of fluid.

  It took less than thirty seconds. The screeching from the right-hand basin cut off abruptly, replaced by the heavy, wet sound of something dragging itself out.

  Krim drove his dagger into the skull of his last straggler, wiping the sweat from his brow. He glanced to the side, checking on Caldreth.

  A hand, slick with black gore, gripped the rim of the right-hand basin. Caldreth pulled himself up and over the edge, dropping to the floor with a heavy squelch. He was coated from boots to hairline in viscous fluid.

  He shook his head, flinging droplets of ichor onto the clean flagstones.

  "One down," Caldreth said, his breathing heavy.

  "You went inside?!" Krim shouted, his voice echoing across the wide chamber. "You jumped into the nest?"

  Caldreth turned. A wild, crimson-stained smile split his face, his eyes burning with wild energy.

  "It's faster!" Caldreth laughed. He didn't wait for a response before sprinting toward the next basin in the line.

  The sound of his armored boots pounding the stone acted like a dinner bell. The creatures didn't wait to be flushed out. They surged over the rim in a pale, chittering wave. Half of them skittered toward the center of the room, drawn by the echo of the cursed chaos, but the other half locked onto the charging Sangrathi.

  Krim watched, gripping his weapons, ready to intercept the stragglers.

  But none reached him.

  Caldreth met the charge head-on. He ducked under a leaping stalker, his sword flashing upward in a brutal arc that bisected the creature in mid-air. He spun, carrying the momentum into a backhand slash that took the head off a second.

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  A third lunged low, its jaws clamping onto his calf with hydraulic force. The metal of his greaves groaned, then shrieked as the creature ripped the plate away, sinking needle-teeth into the flesh beneath.

  Caldreth hammered his free fist into the creature's faceless head, once, twice, but the thing held fast, grinding its jaw. Snarling, he reversed his grip, driving the heavy iron pommel down into the beast's skull with a sickening crack.

  As its grip loosened, he drove his knee into its face, flinging it backward. Blood pooled in his boot, hot and slick. Something else was welling up within him, trading pain for ecstasy.

  Two more lunged for him at once. Caldreth drove his sword through the chest of the first, burying the steel to the hilt. As it clawed at him, he kicked its legs out from under it, pinning the dying beast to the floor.

  The second launched itself at his throat. Caldreth threw his left arm up to catch it. The creature slammed into him, its jaws snapping shut on his forearm, teeth grinding against the metal plating of his vambraces.

  He yanked his blade free from the first corpse and slashed it across the belly of the thing hanging off his arm. The creature shrieked as its stomach opened, a wet coil of entrails spilling out to slap against the floor. With a savage roar, he drove the blade down again, splitting the abomination in two and silencing its voracious snapping.

  The vibration of the impact hummed in his arm, singing that sweet, numbing note. This time, he didn't have to chase the feeling. He didn't have to search for the ghost of a memory in the dark. It was right there, hovering over the violence like a static charge, waiting for him to make the connection.

  Caldreth stood amidst the gore, his chest heaving. He was a wreck. His left greave was gone, his leg weeping blood into his boot. His tunic was shredded, and black ichor coated him like a second skin.

  But he was smiling.

  It was a wet, crimson-stained grin that didn't reach his eyes, eyes that were beginning to burn with a terrifying, inner light.

  "Just a few more," Caldreth whispered, the words trembling with a desperate need.

  The tome pulsed hot over his shoulder, sensing the cracks in his restraint. It offered a shove. It dripped its bloodlust into his veins, mixing with the adrenaline to create a cocktail of pure, volatile aggression.

  The ledge is there. Jump. The tome urged, the voice thick with hunger.

  Caldreth leaned into the sensation. He stopped fighting the pain and let it fuel the fire. He let the adrenaline bridge the gap, finally seizing that fleeting moment that had been out of his grasp twice before.

  He let go.

  A shiver of pure, unadulterated euphoria washed down his spine, erasing the fatigue, the pain in his leg, and the smell of the rot. The world slowed. The screeching of the remaining Stalkers dropped an octave, turning from a chaotic noise into a rhythm.

  The chaos turned into a playground.

  Caldreth laughed, a sound that bubbled up from a place of manic joy.

  The Red Haze descended.

  It wasn't a blind rage. It was a state of absolute clarity. Pain, fear, doubt, the very concept of mortality, it all faded into a meaningless, red-tinted fog, leaving only the violence in crystal-clear focus.

  He moved before the creatures even tensed their muscles. He didn't check his footing; he slid through the gore. He didn't guard his open wounds; he offered them as bait.

  "Come!" Caldreth roared, his voice distorted by the power surging through his throat. He threw his arms wide, leaving his chest wide open, inviting the avalanche of flesh. "Come and break yourselves!"

  He spun, his movements beyond reckless. He moved through the chaos with a terrifying, rhythmic grace, but he had abandoned all defense.

  He severed the arm of a leaping Stalker, but the creature's momentum carried it forward, slamming into his chest and knocking him off balance. Before he could recover, a second weight hit him from behind.

  Claws raked across the scales of his drake skin armor, jaws wriggled through his shoulder plating, clamping down hard on the muscle of his trapezius, near his neck.

  The pain should have dropped him, only to be numbed by the haze. Instead, Caldreth roared. He reached back, grabbed a handful of its pale flesh, and threw himself backward.

  He slammed his full weight and the creature into the hard stone of the basin wall. There was a wet crunch of breaking ribs, and the jaws unlocked. Caldreth spun, driving his blade into the stunned creature's throat before it could hit the floor.

  He turned to face the next threat, but he was a fraction of a second too slow.

  A clawed hand lashed out from a blindspot.

  Caldreth threw up a clumsy forearm to deflect the blow, knocking the limb wide, but he didn't catch it all. Two claws slipped past his guard.

  They raked across his face, two deep, parallel lines, tearing from his temple to his jawline. Skin parted, and blood sprayed hot and thick,

  Caldreth didn't flinch. He didn't even wipe the blood away. He lashed out blindly with his free hand, his fingers locking around the attacking Stalker's throat.

  He hauled the creature forward and slammed his forehead into its face.

  Bone cracked against bone. The impact would have stunned a normal man, sending white stars dancing across his vision, but Caldreth just bared his teeth at the spark of pain.

  He shoved the dazed creature to the floor. Dropping his guard entirely, he gripped his sword with both hands.

  He brought the blade down. He raised it and brought it down again.

  He didn't stop when it ceasedmoving. He hacked at the ruin, over and over, the blade biting into the stone floor as often as the flesh, turning the creature into an unrecognizable heap of meat.

  He was laughing the entire time, a wet, jagged sound that echoed off the stone, louder than the dying screeches of the monsters he was butchering. The blood running down his face tasted of copper and salt, and he drank it in like wine.

  Krim watched in awed silence as Caldreth mowed through the ranks. It was a harvest. The boy was drenched in black ichor and his own bright red blood. He was taking wounds that would cripple a veteran soldier, yet he moved as if the pain were merely fuel.

  Only when the last of the Deep Stalkers fell, collapsing with a final thud against the metallic floor, did the world begin to catch up to him.

  But Caldreth wasn't ready for it to end.

  He spun in a tight circle, his boots sliding in the slick gore, his eyes darting frantically around the silent chamber. He was a ruin. His left greave was gone, the leg beneath mangled and weeping; his tunic was shredded at the shoulder where teeth had sunk deep, and his forearm was a mess of puncture wounds.

  Blood dripped from his chin, running down to mix with the ichor on his chest, and his left eye was swollen shut behind the fresh, raw furrows of the claw marks. But he was still riding the crest of the wave, his heart hammering a demand for more fuel.

  "Glorious!"

  The shout ripped from his throat, cracking into a wet, jagged, manic laugh at the end.

  But the laughter died as the silence stretched. The high flickered. The euphoria turned sour, curdling instantly into fury at the thought of the sensation ending.

  "Are there no more?" he demanded, his voice trembling with rage.

  He spun, slashing his sword at the empty air, desperate to hit something.

  "ARE THERE NO MORE?!" he screamed at the shadows, his voice tearing at his throat as it echoed off the vaulted ceiling. "ARE THERE NO MORE LEFT TO BREAK?!"

  Krim, watching from the edge of the second basin, froze. He had seen this before, etched into the faces of wights who had lost their minds to the hunger. He knew that if he stepped out now, Caldreth wouldn't see him; he would see a target.

  Krim made himself small. He slipped silently behind a thick stone pillar, pressing his back against the cold rock, gripping his weapons with tight knuckles. He waited.

  In the center of the room, the silence stretched. Caldreth panted, his chest heaving, waiting for a movement that never came.

  And then, the tide went out. The red tint that had painted the world in sharp, vibrant lines dissolved.

  Caldreth gasped, the air suddenly tasting of copper and rot. The strength left his legs.

  His sword slipped from his trembling fingers, hitting the stone floor with a discordant ring. Caldreth dropped to his knees a second later, the impact jarring his bones.

  Then, the pain arrived.

  It was a landslide. The anesthesia of the Red Haze vanished, and every wound woke up at once. The deep puncture in his shoulder, the mangled meat of his calf, the fire searing across his face, it all hit him in a single, blinding flash of agony.

  He let out a strangled, wet gasp, his vision swimming. He tried to steady himself, to put a hand down, but his arm refused to lift.

  He slumped sideways, toppling over like a cut string.

  He hit the wet stone with a heavy splash, landing in the lake of fluids and black ichor. He lay there, twitching, staring sideways across the floor at the butchered remains of the creatures, unable to even lift his head.

  "I..." Caldreth whispered, the word bubbling through the blood in his mouth.

  Steam rose from his skin, the heat of the haze evaporating the gore that coated him.

  "It's over," Krim breathed to himself.

  He moved slowly, his boots squelching through the thick lake of ichor, making his footsteps audible so as not to startle the boy. He walked through the carnage, approaching the slumped figure with the caution one would use with a wounded animal.

  "Caldreth?" he called out."

  Caldreth's head lolled to the side, his cheek pressed against the wet stone. His eyes were wide, rimmed with red, and filled with a terrified confusion.

  "Krim..." he choked out, his voice a ragged whisper. "Krim, help... I can't... I can't move."

  Krim knelt beside him, ignoring the gore.

  "Everything went red," Caldreth stammered, his fingers twitching uselessly against the floor. "And... and it felt so good. It felt perfect. All I wanted was more. But now... everything hurts."

  He tried to push himself up, but his arm buckled instantly, sending him back into the muck. He looked at Krim, his face crumbling. "What is wrong with me? Why does it feel like my blood is made of lead?"

  "Nothing is wrong," Krim said. He reached out, placing a cold hand on Caldreth's trembling body. "I do not know the name your people have for it. But I have seen it before. It is the price of a trance driven purely by violence."

  Caldreth's breath hitched. A tear cut a clean track through the blood on his cheek. Then another.

  "Why can't I stop shaking?" Caldreth gasped, his teeth chattering so hard they clicked. "I feel like I'm dying, Krim. Make it stop."

  Krim reached down with both arms. He hooked his hands under Caldreth's arms and hauled the young Sangrathi out of the thickening pool of gore, dragging him toward dry ground.

  Caldreth was dead weight, his legs useless and his breath coming in ragged, shallow hitches. Krim sat back against the cold stone, pulling the boy up so that Caldreth was no longer lying in the filth. He was unconscious before his head rolled back against the wall.

  As the silence of the chamber settled, the Tome of Sanguination drifted toward Krim. Its aggressive glow had receded into a dull, pulsing throb, and it hovered nearby like a satisfied predator.

  Krim looked up, his eyes flaring with sharp irritation.

  "Vladar wanted a survivor, not a corpse."

  The tome rumbled a low, vibrating note, but the light in its pages remained dim.

  "He is a boy, not a god. Remember that." Krim looked down at Caldreth's pale, scarred face and whispered into the quiet, "You'll live."