Jurok’s struggles were weak, desperate flailings of a man already halfway to something inhuman. Kavrin held him down, the man’s mottled skin hot and slick with a thin, acrid sweat that burned Kavrin’s nose. One of Jurok’s newly formed, bulbous eyes, nestled grotesquely beneath his left earlobe, wept a thick, green tear that trailed across Kavrin’s cheek. The gravedigger felt no revulsion, only the dull ache of the beast’s command in his skull: *Live. Preserve them.* He heaved Jurok’s writhing mass upward, ignoring the fresh gush of mud from his own boots onto the manor’s ornate, ruined carpets. Jurok was a dead weight and a thrashing fury all at once, his limbs heavy but unpredictable. Kavrin dragged him through the grand hall, past overturned furniture and the lingering scent of rot and fear. A whimper, high-pitched and choked, drew Kavrin’s gaze to a dark corner. Two smaller, shuddering figures huddled there: Jurok’s remaining children, Lykos and the daughter. Lykos, barely a man, had his face buried in his sister’s matted hair, his body trembling with a palsy that seemed to have taken hold in the last hour. The young woman, older than the boy, stared at Kavrin with glassy, bulging eyes. Her face was pale, streaked with dirt and tears, but lacked the immediate, fleshy deformities of her father and deceased mother. Yet, a subtle shift in her posture, a slight elongation of her fingers, hinted at the insidious corruption already taking root. “Get up,” Kavrin grunted, his voice still raw from his earlier shout. He didn’t wait for a response, simply hauled the daughter up by the arm and tugged Lykos by his tunic. The boy cried out, a thin, reedy sound, but offered no resistance. They moved like sleepwalkers, their gazes fixed on nothing, following Kavrin with the blank obedience of the doomed. Out into the downpour they went, the rain a cold, cleansing slap after the oppressive heat of the manor. Kavrin half-dragged, half-carried Jurok, his shoulders burning. The graveyard, usually a place of quiet sorrow and damp earth, now pulsed with a subtle, disquieting energy. The granite headstones seemed to lean inward, their inscriptions blurring in the rain, as if struggling to contain the burgeoning madness. Shadows, usually flat against the wet ground, appeared to peel away, gaining a viscous, independent life, stretching and contracting with unnerving speed. A clump of grave-moss pulsed a faint violet, its tendrils reaching out, hungry. He reached the iron gates of the Charnel Crypts, a forgotten section of the graveyard reserved for the oldest, most disgraced families. The heavy stone doors, usually sealed with rust-gnawed locks, now stood ajar, as if inviting them in. The air within was thick with the scent of damp earth, ancient stone, and something else – a metallic tang, like old blood mixed with ozone. Kavrin didn't question it. This place, deep underground, was the only refuge from the accelerating chaos above. He descended the winding stone steps, the torchlight he’d scavenged from the manor casting long, dancing shadows that mimicked the detached ones outside. The crypts opened into a sprawling, vaulted chamber supported by thick, roughly hewn pillars of grey rock. Empty sarcophagi lined the walls, their lids askew, like open mouths silently screaming. It was here, amidst the silent dead, that Kavrin intended to house the living damned. He dragged Jurok to the central pillar, the cold stone a stark contrast to the mutating elder's feverish flesh. From his gravedigger’s kit, Kavrin produced heavy iron chains, thick as a man’s thumb. He didn’t bother with niceties. The chains bit into Jurok’s wrists, his ankles, securing him to the pillar with a grim finality. Jurok whimpered, a new mouth forming just beneath his chin, a puckered, fleshy orifice that wept clear fluid. “No, please,” Jurok gargled, his primary mouth twisting. “Just let me die. End it.” “I can’t,” Kavrin said, his voice flat. He felt nothing hearing the pleas from the man who had ordered his past annihilated. The apathy was a shield, thick and impenetrable. He chained Lykos and the sister to separate pillars, their struggles weak, their eyes still vacant. They were less like captives and more like dolls, placed where they were told. Kavrin retrieved a canvas sack he’d also brought from the manor. Inside, wrapped in a linen cloth, was a hunk of raw venison he’d found in the kitchen. He unwrapped it, the scent of fresh blood filling the crypt. Jurok retched, his many mouths puckering and closing in unison. “You need to eat,” Kavrin stated, his voice devoid of sympathy. “I can’t… I can’t stomach it,” Jurok gasped, his body shivering violently. The new eye near his ear twitched. “It turns my gut… everything turns now.” Kavrin ignored him. From his tool belt, he unhooked a wooden funnel, roughly carved, typically used for pouring lamp oil. He pressed the wide end against Jurok’s primary mouth. “Open.” Jurok recoiled, his face twisting in disgust and terror. “No! I won’t! Let me die, you brute! You were always a brute, Kavrin, even before…” The mention of his name, of a past he couldn’t recall, was a faint flicker in Kavrin’s cold indifference. He pushed harder, forcing Jurok’s jaw open with a thumb and forefinger. The elder's resistance was pathetic. Kavrin tore a strip of raw venison, grisly and red, and crammed it into the funnel. It caught, too large. He pushed it with a finger, then another, until it forced its way down Jurok’s throat. Jurok gagged, a horrendous sound that echoed in the crypt. His body convulsed, but the chains held fast. Kavrin repeated the process, methodically forcing chunk after chunk of raw meat into the funnel, then into Jurok’s heaving throat. Jurok cried, coughed, retched, but with each forced swallow, a spark of life, however horrific, remained. “You will live,” Kavrin said, wiping the back of his hand across Jurok’s spittle-soaked chin. “No matter how much you hate it.” Hours later, Jurok lay slumped against the pillar, his breathing shallow, his many mouths slack. The other two, Lykos and his sister, were still and silent. Kavrin, exhausted, sat on an overturned sarcophagus lid, watching them. The crypts were silent save for the drip of water from the ceiling and Jurok’s ragged breaths. The madness from above hadn’t yet fully permeated this deep. He reached into Jurok’s tattered coat, pulling out a handful of items: a tarnished silver coin, a small, intricate key, and a folded piece of parchment. It was a receipt, stained with what looked like dried blood, written in a cramped, elegant script. Kavrin held it to the torchlight. The date was recent, only a week ago. The item purchased: *Chanda-Beast Crystalline Cortex. Delivered to: Sathid. Poet. Mainland. Payment received: Three hundred auric scales.* Sathid. A mainland writer. He ground down rare, psychic flora for his inks. And now he had the beast’s brain. Kavrin’s stomach twisted. The beast’s command echoed again: *The bloodline must persist. The ritual must complete.* But how could he complete a rebirth ritual if the most vital component was miles away, in the hands of a ruthless stranger? As if in answer, a faint shudder ran through the crypt. A new, wet gurgle emerged from Jurok’s chest, and the elder’s head lolled. Kavrin’s gaze snapped to him. Jurok’s skin, already a map of deformities, now seemed to sag, losing its feverish flush. His pulse, which Kavrin had been checking periodically, was a thin, thready beat under his fingers. Dangerously slow. Too slow.

Warden of the Damned