Death - Mortis mind reads

With a cry of frustration and fury, Death hurled Mortis from him as though it had begun to bite. It smacked into the far wall, where it sent a cascade of stone chips and dried blood floorward before it followed them to land with a hollow clatter.
“Damn it!” The skin of the Horseman’s palms split and tore beneath his fingers, so tightly were they clenched; had he any blood to shed, it would have poured in torrents. “Damn it, damn it, damn it!”
“Brother …” War took a single tentative step, almost but not quite reaching out. “What—?”
“I should have anticipated that!” Death—normally so unflappable, at least on the surface—was as distraught as War had ever seen him. “How could I be that stupid!”
“What—?” the younger Rider tried again.
“We have to go.”
“I thought you planned to question—”
“We have to go now! The Council must be informed, and we have preparations to make. With any luck, it should at least take them some time before they can move. If we—”
War’s gauntleted hands closed on the other’s shoulders, physically spinning him around. “What’s happened, damn you?”
Death froze in the midst of raising his own hands to knock his brother’s away, then allowed himself, however slightly, to slump. “They know, War. Something, some vestige of Mortis’s mind, still lingered, still communed with the others, and I didn’t prepare myself for it. The Abominations tore the knowledge from me, and I’ve no doubt that Hadrimon and Belisatra now have it as well.”
“What knowledge?” War asked the question, but they both knew full well how Death would answer.
“All of it. The history of the devices, the location of the Abomination Vault …
“And the means to fully awaken the damn things.”

***

Chapter 18