Anger burned white hot in the Hunter’s breast. He abandoned the shadows—the time for stealth had passed—and poured all the speed he could muster into his legs. He didn’t bother with a shout of rage—no sense alerting his enemies—but announced his presence with a whisper of steel on leather as he ripped his long sword free. Surprise and ferocity would be his only ally against a superior force.
One of the rearmost Elivasti turned at the last moment. The man had a hard jaw, thick nose, and heavy eyebrows that flew upward as he caught sight of the Hunter charging. He managed to open his mouth before the Hunter’s long sword hacked through his neck. Blood misted in the air, spraying over the Hunter as he charged past.
He didn’t slow—like the charge of cavalry, his effectiveness would diminish if he got bogged down by the mass of men—but bulled through the ranks of Elivasti at full speed. He lashed out to his left and right with his sword, slashing legs, necks, wrists, and any body parts not covered by the heavy blue armor. Four of the eight rear guards fell, three bleeding from deep gouges in their limbs, the last man’s head lolling on his neck. He was within two steps of the Sage and Hailen when something struck him hard from behind.
The impact hurled him to the side, and he crashed through the two Elivasti on the Sage’s right. Though he bore them to the ground with him, they somehow managed to entangle his limbs for a second.
Long enough for two Elivasti to point their Scorchslayers at him. A loud humming filled the air as blue runes glowed along the length of the weapon aimed right at his head.
He couldn’t dodge both. If even one hit him, it would tear him apart.
The Hunter tensed in expectation of searing agony, but a dim part of his mind knew he’d never feel a thing. The bolt would rip him to shreds before his brain could register the pain.
White lightning split the air.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The lightning bolt sizzled a finger’s breadth from the Hunter’s face—close enough to singe his eyebrows—and punched into the head of the Elivasti on his right. The man’s face exploded in a spray of crimson gore that splattered the Hunter’s face. The taste of scorched copper filled the Hunter’s mouth.
The Hunter’s jaw dropped as he saw the two Elivasti that had fired at him. One staggered backward, a spikestaff buried in his chest. The second stared stupidly at him, seeming unable to comprehend why his right eye had suddenly gone dark. He fumbled at the wooden shaft of the spikestaff that had pierced his face, then crumpled as his brain shut down.
The Hunter didn’t understand either, but didn’t bother to question why. He ripped his left arm free of the Elivasti holding him and lashed out with his long sword. The tip opened the man’s throat before he could dodge.
A shout of rage echoed to the Hunter’s right, and the humming of the weapons filled the air. Even as the Hunter rolled out of the path of a lightning bolt aimed at his chest, he caught a glimpse of three figures in blue Elivasti armor running toward him. One was short with a patchy beard, while the second had bright red hair and a long, braided beard to match.
Cerran gripped two spikestaffs in his right hand, while he hurled a third with his left. The metal tip of the thrown polearm punched through the blue armor of the Elivasti directly between the Hunter and the Sage. Kalil moved far faster than the larger Bucelarii, throwing himself into a forward dive to dodge a lightning bolt fired at his head. He rolled to his feet and extended the spikestaff with a thrust any fencer would envy. An Elivasti screamed as the sharp metal tip buried into his groin.
The third figure, he’d recognize anywhere.
Taiana.
Taiana hit the front ranks of Elivasti from the Hunter’s right, and they barely had time to raise their Scorchslayers before she was among them. She wielded the spikestaff like a spear in her right, with Soulhunger in her left. She drove the dagger into an Elivasti’s thigh as she ducked a lightning bolt, then brought the staff whirling across in a low blow that knocked the feet out from beneath two more blue-armored warriors.
Power raced through the Hunter as Soulhunger drank deep. The world seemed to slow and the Hunter saw his chance. With the Elivasti focused on the new threat, his path to the Sage was clear. Yet he had to make a choice: kill the demon or save the boy.
It was no choice at all. He tossed the sword to his left hand, tore the spikestaff from a fallen Elivasti, and wound up to hurl it at the Abiarazi. The Sage would have to dodge, and in that split second he’d be forced to release his grip on the boy. The Hunter could cover the distance in a second and scoop up Hailen. Escaping with the boy would be dicey, but he’d take that risk.
The demon moved far more quickly than the Hunter anticipated. Before he’d even lifted the spikestaff, the Sage snatched up Hailen and gripped him like a human shield. Only the Hunter’s inhuman reflexes and decades of training prevented him from releasing the shaft and impaling the boy. He forced his arm to throw high, and the spikestaff sailed over the Sage’s head to clatter into a stone wall beyond.
Triumph shone in the Sage’s eyes. “Give up and die, Hunter!” he shouted. “You cannot defeat me.”
“Watch me!” With a snarl, the Hunter passed his sword back to his right hand and charged the Sage.
A humming off to his right warned him of danger. He threw himself flat to the ground, and a bolt of lightning sizzled through the air above his head. Before he could leap upright, more shouts and cries echoed through the streets around him. The Hunter whirled to find twenty, thirty Elivasti boiling from the streets and houses around them. All wielded spikestaffs rather than Scorchslayers, but enough of the Blood Sentinels had survived to prove a serious threat.
“As you can see, I’ve been expecting you!” The Sage threw back his head and laughed. “And here I thought I’d lure just you out. How considerate of you to bring your friends.”
Rage flooded the Hunter as he saw his chances of rescuing Hailen and killing the Sage slip away. Abiarazi, even one as outwardly weak as the Sage, had proven notoriously hard to kill. Even if it took him ten seconds to bring down the demon, the surviving Elivasti would be reinforced and they’d surround him, Taiana, Cerran, and Kalil. There was only one way he’d walk away from this.
“Run!” he shouted. His eyes searched for Taiana and found her ripping her spikestaff from the gut of an Elivasti. Blood stained the weapon, spattered her face, and soaked the front of her tunic.
The Hunter’s heart stopped as a Blood Sentinel pointed a Scorchslayer at her back. He acted without hesitation—secrets be damned, no matter who she served, she was still the woman he’d loved his entire life. He crossed the distance to the Elivasti in two long strides and drove his long sword through the back of the man’s head, just above the collar of the armor. Instead of pulling the sword back to free it, he simply pivoted and tore it through the side of man’s skull. The lightning bolt sizzled harmlessly into the stone street as the Blood Sentinel sagged.
He grasped Taiana’s arm just as the wave of reinforcements arrived and dragged her out of the way of a spikestaff thrust at her head. His long sword knocked aside another blow, and Taiana lashed out with Soulhunger to deflect a strike that would have pierced the Hunter’s gut. They fought as they ran, blocking and parrying rather than trying to bring down the Elivasti. There were too many to kill but not too many to survive as long as they didn’t stop moving. The purple-eyed warriors were hampered by their longer polearms and the fact that they didn’t want to strike their comrades. That alone saved the Hunter and Taiana’s lives.
They burst free of the crowd of Elivasti and sprinted down the street in the direction the Sage had been marching when he attacked them. The Hunter didn’t speak, simply ran. The shouts of the Elivasti and the humming of the Scorchslayers filled the air behind them, and the Hunter zigzagged to avoid presenting an easy target. Lightning bolts crackled past his head, and he grunted as one singed the back of his leg. He pushed down the pain and forced himself to keep moving. If he stopped, he died.
“Kalil!�
� Taiana gasped as she ran. “Cerran!”
The Hunter didn’t slow. “They had the Elivasti armor. Either they made it out or they didn’t. We need to keep moving if we’re going to get out of this. You can find them later.”
Though Taiana’s expression tightened, she kept running beside him. She had to know he was right. Going back now would only put her in danger as well.
When they reached the Southwestern Keep, the Hunter turned to sprint up the hill toward the Second Echelon. “Come on, we can lose them this way.”
“No!” Taiana shook her head. She pointed toward the glowing blue tower. “We know which way the Sage is activating the Keeps, so we have to search them before he switches them on.”
“And what if he’s on his way here right now?” the Hunter shouted. “No way you can fight your way out of a Keep against so many of his Elivasti, Soulhunger or no.”
“No.” She shook her head. “You know him better than I do. Is he the sort of demon that would put his own life at risk unless absolutely necessary?”
The Hunter thought back to the night one of the Masters of Agony—actually an Elivasti in disguise—had made an attempt on the Sage’s life. The demon had frozen in fear. He’d used the Elivasti to do his dirty work, manipulated the Hunter into killing the Warmaster for him, then set Master Eldor to bring down the Hunter.
“He’s a craven bastard,” the Hunter growled. “He’ll retreat to the safety of Hellsgate, collect more of his Blood Sentinels and Elivasti, then come back with a force three times the size.”
“That’s what I had hoped.” Taiana gritted her teeth. “In my memories, I still have flashes of some of our forefathers during the Great War. Many of them were great warriors and generals, but many were content to let us do the fighting.”
“The Sage is definitely the latter.”
“Good.” Taiana nodded. “Then we have a few hours to search the Keeps we know he will activate next.” She fixed him with a piercing gaze. “Together, Drayvin.”
The Hunter met her gaze. He wanted to go with her—more than anything else, he wanted to remain beside her. Though her mind had been tainted by Kharna’s evil, he had to hold out hope that he could reach her, break her free of the Devourer’s hold.
But could he? Was she too far gone for him to bring her back?
“First tell me why you attacked the Sage,” the Hunter said. “You could have gone on to the other Keeps and let me face him alone.”
“Because you are my husband,” she replied without hesitation. “Despite our differences in belief, we are bound together forever. I would not let you face danger alone.”
“Even if it costs you your life?” The Hunter raised an eyebrow. “You could have died back there.”
“I could have.” She nodded.
“And if you fell, what would happen to our daughter?” the Hunter demanded. “You are the only one who knows where she is.”
“I have faith,” she said simply.
“In Kharna?” The Hunter snorted. “What would the Devourer of Worlds do for us puny mortals?”
“No.” She shook her head, and her midnight eyes burned into his. “In you.”
The words, spoken in a quiet voice, had enough power to shatter the Hunter’s world.
“You would do anything to protect this boy, and I know you would do the same for our daughter.” She let out a long, slow breath. “Just as I must do the same.”
Anger and frustration burned within the Hunter. “I cannot help you! I must find a way to stop the Sage.”
“Helping me would do precisely that!” Taiana thrust a finger toward the Keep behind her. “There could be more of our kind in there, warriors that could aid us in our battle.”
“Even if every one of those damned Chambers held a Bucelarii, that would only be twenty-four to join our cause.” The Hunter shook his head. “Twenty-eight of us against more than four hundred Elivasti. And you know as well as I that the chances of finding that many Bucelarii in there are almost nonexistent.”
“And yet I must try,” Taiana insisted. “If not for our kin, then for Jaia. I cannot fail her again.”
In that moment, he saw the woman he had dreamed of, the woman he had loved a lifetime ago—that he loved now. Even if Kharna had twisted her mind, the Destroyer’s evil hadn’t fully taken hold. He wanted to help her, but too much rested on his shoulders for him to turn aside from doing what needed to be done.
“Then go.” The Hunter raised his hands. “I will not stand in your way.”
“But you will not join me.” A statement, not a question.
“I, too, must do what needs to be done,” the Hunter growled. “Even if I must do it alone.”
“What will you do?” Taiana asked. “Where will you go?”
The Hunter pondered the question. Truth be told, he had no idea what to do now. If the Sage had retreated into Hellsgate, he would be all but unreachable. Surrounded by strong walls and an army of Elivasti, he could bide his time. Activating the remaining twenty-one Keeps would take him no more than seven or eight hours. If he marched his entire army out of Hellsgate before dawn, he could complete his task before the Withering. And nothing the Hunter could do would stop him.
Not unless the Sage never left the safety of Hellsgate.
“Tell me how I can contact Garnos,” the Hunter said.
Taiana’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
“You asked me to trust you before.” The Hunter met her eyes. “Now I ask you to do the same. Trust that I will do whatever it takes to stop the Sage from freeing Kharna from his eternal prison.” At least they could both agree on that.
“Garnos has the noon to sundown shift in the Pit,” Taiana told him. “From the few conversations we’ve had, I understand he likes to pass his free hours working beside his wife.”
“Where will I find her, then?” the Hunter asked.
Taiana’s expression grew grim. “In the Terrace of the Sun and Moon. Atop Hellsgate.”
Keeper’s teeth! The Hunter’s gut tightened. Talk about bad to worse.
“What are you thinking, Drayvin?” Taiana cocked her head. “That look in your eyes, that’s the one that says you’re about to do something crazy and dangerous.”
The Hunter gave her a wry grin. “Crazy dangerous sounds about right. I’m going to do what I’ve spent the last fifty years doing. I’m going to assassinate the Sage in Hellsgate.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Hunter drew in a deep breath and checked over his appearance one last time. He’d gone back to Taiana’s base for the suit of blue Elivasti armor he now wore—a worthwhile investment of time, he’d deemed.
The face he wore belonged to the first of the Blood Sentinels he’d killed in his desperate attempt on the Sage’s life. The man had a thick nose, close-set eyes, a sloping forehead, and a jaw so square it looked like it had been shaped by a mason’s ruler. The Hunter had added a thick scar along the side of his face for good measure. Changing his eyes to the right shade of violet had proven far more difficult than he’d expected, but the real challenge had been adding three extra inches to the breadth of his shoulders. Between his face and the Blood Sentinel armor, he doubted he’d get many questions.
Unless, of course, he ran into someone who recognized him as one of the guards that had fallen in battle today. He’d contemplated using Setin’s face, but if the Elivasti were even slightly organized, they would have noted that Setin hadn’t returned since leaving the previous night. Add to that the fact that he’d fled Detrarch Honsul, and the identity of Setin would be his back-up plan.
Unfortunately, he had no idea what this man sounded like or how he spoke. He’d have to take a stab at it and hope he didn’t encounter any Elivasti that had known the man in life.
He drew in a deep breath as he strode up the street toward the front of Hellsgate. Moment of truth. He shifted his grip on his Scorchslayer—the one he’d taken off the same guard that had worn the armor—and leaned into a confident swagger. The sun setting
to the west would cast him in shadow, hiding his face even more. With his added breadth and his natural height, plus the grizzled look on his strong features, he strode toward Hellsgate’s front entrance as if he owned it.
The massive stone structure of Hellsgate was even more impressive from up close. Thirty paces tall and easily five hundred wide, it was more than large enough to house the thousand or so Elivasti living there. The front gate matched the portal to Khar’nath, made of the same steel-banded and spike-studded wood. Garnos had been right—the fortress truly was impregnable. Even from this distance, he could see the walls were as smooth as the glassy exterior of the Keeps. No way he’d be able to scale the outside.
Which meant going up through the inside.
He grunted a greeting to the company of Elivasti that stood in front of the gate, but never slowed in his his swaggering stride.
“Where you been, Ryken?” asked one. His breastplate bore the crossed white fists of a Detrarch. “Hunting the black-eyes?”
The Hunter snorted and nodded to the man.
The Detrarch raised an eyebrow. “Any luck finding the bastards?”
The Hunter shook his head, then shrugged and grunted again. Over his years as an assassin, he’d learned that non-verbal communication could be surprisingly versatile. One of his facades had never spoken a single word but answered only in grunts and body language. That persona, a Voramian sailor named Turit who worked the docks and kept an ear open for any juicy bits of information, had been one of his most successful. People had shared all manner of secrets, going so far as to call him “a good listener”.
These men, however, seemed less pleased by his taciturnity. His keen ears picked up the muttered “arrogant Blood Sentinel jackass” as he strode past the Elivasti and through the front gate.
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