Liliana - Zombie Strength

  Beneath the implacable strength of the risen dead, cloth and skin parted. Semner screamed, a high-pitched shriek of agony such as he had never known. So tightly did those fingers squeeze, so hard did they press, flesh peeled back from bone, muscle tore from clinging ligaments. For the dead, who feel no pain, it mattered little; to Semner, it mattered a great deal.

  His body convulsed, he screamed until his lungs burned for breath. Within the meat of his legs, bony fingers clenched around the muscles of his calves and yanked them away.

  The room shook as Semner toppled to the floor. Even had the fall not knocked the breath from his lungs, his scream would still have faded. Already too much blood had pumped from the gaping holes in his legs; his skin had paled, his vision begun to fade.

  Mercifully, perhaps more mercifully than Semner deserved, he lost consciousness before the dead men hauled their way along his body and began to tear away pieces far more vital than his calves.

***

Agents of Artifice, Chapter 7