With a guttural cry—half battle shout, half oh-for-the-love-of-roots—Mikhailis drove the ward-staff forward. The polished haft was heavier than it looked; bark-metal layers made the thing hum in his palms like a struck tuning fork. Its glyphs burst vivid violet at the moment of impact.
The head met the corpse's sternum with a hollow WHUMP. For a heartbeat nothing happened, then brittle ribs splintered outward like dry kindling. A blossom of brown-grey spores exploded, floating around the torch-light in slow-motion spirals. They looked innocuous—almost beautiful—until the acrid, mushroom-rot tang punched into his sinuses.
Mikhailis gagged behind clenched teeth. Do not inhale. Do not inhale. He ripped the staff free, choking on the taste of old coffin wood. The creature's frame buckled. Ligament-roots failed, and it toppled sideways, tumbling through the spore cloud like a sack of wet sticks.
