Darkblade Savior

by Andy Peloquin

  A sliver of hope blossomed within the Hunter. “Tell me everything.” He gripped Garnos’ shoulders. “How do you cure the Irrsinnon here in Enarium?”

  “As long as we remain in the city, there is no need for it.” Garnos gave a dismissive wave. “The shadow of the Serenii, our ancestors, protects us from the Irrsinnon.”

  “And what of those who leave the city?” the Hunter pressed. “How do you keep the madness from overtaking them?”

  “With this.” Garnos gestured to the opia. “When our ancestors, the Serenii, saw what happened to their descendants, they took pity on us and used their magick to bring the opia into existence as a cure for our ailment. One sip of the potion brewed from fruit and the Irrsinnon is forever banished.”

  “Then what is the Expurgation?”

  Garnos bared his teeth. “A cruel practice, conceived of by our master as a means of culling us and preventing any Melechha from being born.”

  The Hunter’s brow furrowed. “But if, as you say, the opia has no side effects…”

  Garnos tapped one of the ripe purple berries. “This opia does not. The original strain created by the Serenii.” A shadow passed over his eyes. “But according to the tales my wife has heard from our brethren on Shana Laal, the Sage grows his own tainted strain, one bred to kill off any with the pure blood of our ancestors. The poison lies in the seeds, so they say.”

  “The Melechha.”

  Garnos nodded. “The only true threat to his power here in Enarium. A Melechha with knowledge of how to activate the powers of Enarium could harness them against him and destroy him completely. Alas, that knowledge is lost to us. All that remains of our ancestors is the curse of madness and the traces of their blood flowing through our veins.”

  Anger mingled with horror in the Hunter’s gut. He’d come so close to giving Hailen the opia in Kara-ket, which would have killed him as surely as a dagger to the heart. All these weeks, agonizing over whether or not he’d made the right decision. The fact that the Sage had captured Hailen and forced the Hunter to pursue had, in the end, saved the boy’s life.

  “The Expurgation is precisely the sort of depravity expected of our master.” Garnos’ face purpled with anger. “Starving our youths, forcing them to recite foul oaths to the Devourer, killing them!”

  The Hunter had watched the Elivasti youth—Daladar, his name was—die a horrible death because of the opia. A slight tremor had turned into body-quaking spasms, discoloration, and ultimately suffocation.

  “If you know he’s capable of such terribly cruelty, why don’t you rise up against him?” the Hunter asked.

  “Our ancestors swore an oath—” Garnos began.

  “Curse your oath!” the Hunter snapped. Master Eldor had said the same thing, and that oath had cost him his life. “You are free of the madness of your ancestors, so why not liberate yourselves from the burden of the vow sworn by those same ancestors? They were afraid of being eliminated by the Serenii, thus sought safety in service to the Abiarazi. But—”

  “Afraid?” Garnos’ brow furrowed in confusion. “Why would we be afraid?”

  The question took the Hunter aback. “The Serenii wanted to kill you because they feared you would kill them,” he said.

  “Who told you that?”

  The Hunter opened his mouth to speak, then realization dawned. “The Sage.”

  “Of course.” Garnos nodded. “The truth twisted to his convenience.”

  From the moment he’d set foot on Shana Laal, the Sage had manipulated him, deceived him, used him. How much of what the Abiarazi had said was true? The more he learned, the more he realized “truth” was a concept the Sage found relative, a useful tool to bend people to his will.

  “Then what is the truth?” the Hunter asked. “Why did your ancestors swear to serve the Abiarazi?”

  Garnos shook his head, and sorrow twisted his features. “Because it was the only way to escape our destiny.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Many of the legends of our past have been lost to time,” Garnos continued, “but what we do know is that the Serenii chose to mix their bloodlines with that of humans. Just as the Abiarazi produced half-human offspring—you, the Bucelarii—some of Serenii chose to do the same. These Serenii were a select minority, but there were enough that the Elivasti began to multiply quickly.”

  The Hunter had heard this much from the Sage. “But the question is why the Serenii chose to mingle their lineage with the humans.” He gestured around him. “Compare the grandeur of Enarium to any human city, and mankind is little better than primitive savages.”

  “That is precisely what the Serenii believed at first.” Garnos nodded. “Yet over time, they came to see that the humans had something to offer that all their magick and wisdom never could.”

  The Hunter cocked an eyebrow.

  “Emotion.” Garnos clenched a fist. “Passion.”

  That took the Hunter aback.

  “The Serenii were creatures of logic, driven by the search for understanding the world around them.” Garnos swept a hand in a gesture that encompassed the entire city. “As you can see, their wisdom is far beyond anything that even we, their descendants, or the Abiarazi can comprehend. They ruled Einan completely, using the magick within its core and their knowledge of nature to build the world of their choosing. But perhaps they were too logical.”

  “Too logical?” the Hunter asked. “That doesn’t seem like a bad thing.”

  He’d seen what the emotions of mankind could do. Passion, lust, greed, desire, hatred, and envy had driven men and women to kill their parents, siblings, children, friends, and enemies. War existed because humans sought what others had, or out of vengeance for past hurts, wrongs real or perceived. No matter how logical mankind intended to be, they were creatures driven by emotion—just as he was.

  In his rage over Farida’s death, he’d butchered the Bloody Hand and Dark Heresiarchs. Out of his love for Hailen, he had killed scores of desert raiders. He’d even cut down Master Eldor, the man that had been as a father to him, for the sake of protecting the boy. Yes, emotion could drive humans—even half-humans—to do terrible things.

  “You say that,” Garnos replied with a shake of his head, “yet logic alone can be a terrible curse.” He thrust a finger toward the Terrace’s eastern wall, beyond which the Hunter knew lay Khar’nath. “Imagine if you know beyond a shadow of doubt that killing one person would save the entire world. What would you do?”

  “Kill him,” the Hunter answered without hesitation.

  “But what if that person was Taiana?”

  The question struck the Hunter like a physical blow. Would he be willing to kill his wife if it averted total destruction? It was the same question he’d tried to avoid contemplating since he discovered Taiana served Kharna.

  “I…don’t know,” he said after a long moment.

  “But why?” Garnos asked. “You know that her death would save the world, so logic dictates that she dies.”

  The Hunter nodded. “Yes, it does,” he said in a quiet voice.

  Garnos tapped his armored chest. “Yet the emotion within you makes you hesitate. Perhaps you would spare her, even if it meant the world ended. Or, perhaps you would sacrifice her. The simple fact that you question the decision proves that you are as much a creature of emotion as logic. Emotion does not make you weak—without it, pure logic would drive your actions, and pure logic is cold and cruel.”

  A shadow passed across the Elivasti’s face. “The Serenii were creatures of logic. Though they had emotions, they sought to suppress them and act according to rationale alone. Thus, when they saw how numerous the humans grew, how quickly they multiplied, they saw them not as an innocent new race of creatures to be protected, but exploited as a resource. Just as mankind has bred horses, the Serenii bred humans.”

  Garnos’ words sent disgust rippling through the Hunter. “To what end?”

  “To feed Khar’nath.” Garnos’ eyes went to the eastern wall o
f the garden. “Khar’nath was created as a place of power, a complement to the power gathered by the Keeps of Enarium. Alone, the energy collected by both the Pit and the Keeps could transform the world. Together, the magick could prove its destruction.”

  The Hunter’s eyes went wide. “The Serenii wanted to destroy the world?” Everything he’d learned about the ancient race had indicated that they were builders, cultivators, not destroyers. Kharna had been the outlier, and the Abiarazi had brought chaos and carnage to a world of order and peace.

  Garnos shook his head. “I did not say that. I said the power was sufficient to destroy the world. What the Serenii intended it for, we do not know. Until the last thousand years, our people have had no written records or histories. Much of what we know has been passed down through stories, doubtless distorted by time and retellings. But the one thing all the stories made clear was that the Serenii bred us to feed Khar’nath.”

  Revulsion shuddered down the Hunter’s spine, and the memory of the old and infirm below being fed to the crystals lining the Pit flashed through his mind.

  “The first Elivasti saw that as a betrayal and fled the Serenii.” Garnos shook his head. “They wandered Einan, but they could not escape the world ruled by their ancestors. The Irrsinnon claimed many, and many more fell to starvation, thirst, or predators. Until they encountered the Abiarazi.”

  The Hunter found himself leaning forward, eager to hear more of the story.

  “The Abiarazi convinced them to swear an oath of loyalty,” Garnos continued, “pledging their service for all time if they would shelter our Elivasti forefathers from the Serenii. The Abiarazi, with their half-human offspring, had seen the value of such servants, and welcomed us into their service.”

  “That seems to have turned out well for everyone.” The Hunter made no attempt to hide the sardonic bite to his words.

  Garnos scowled. “For years, the Abiarazi honored their bargain and protected the Elivasti, until the day they returned to conquer Enarium.”

  The Hunter raised an eyebrow. “The Abiarazi marched on Enarium? What of the curse of the Empty Mountains?”

  “To my knowledge, the Serenii had not yet placed the curse.” Garnos shook his head. “Too late, they realized the Abiarazi had come for them, and though they used their most powerful spells, they could not stop the Abiarazi from reaching the city walls.”

  The Hunter’s mind raced. “So the demons killed all the Serenii?” The ancient race had not been seen since the War of Gods—a mass slaughter by the Abiarazi could explain their disappearance.

  Garnos hesitated. “This, the legends do not say.” He let out a long breath. “I do not know what transpired that day, what happened to the Serenii, or why we were permitted to remain in Enarium. What I do know is that the Abiarazi saw the Keeps and Khar’nath as a power to harness. They sought to use the only resource they had: us.”

  A sickening feeling rose in the Hunter’s gut. “They fed you to the Pit?”

  Garnos nodded. “At the beginning, they only demanded we give our old, feeble, ill, and dying to Khar’nath. They called it ‘a noble sacrifice’, one we could not refuse. Thus, our ancestors discovered that they had sworn to a far crueler master than the Serenii. The Abiarazi are driven by their appetites and desires, and you must know as well as any that it can be far more terrible than pure logic.”

  The Hunter had seen what the Abiarazi did in the name of power, wealth, and bringing about the return of Kharna. The First had killed Farida and the beggars living in the Hunter’s safe houses in Voramis, all so the Hunter would slaughter the Bloody Hand and the Dark Heresy to gather the power needed to open a portal to the fiery hell. Toramin had ruled Malandria through the fear his “Order of Midas” created through their cruelty and ruthlessness. Queen Asalah had sacrificed Samia, the concubine that she had claimed to love, simply as a cover-up for the death of the al-Malek. The Sage had caused open war in Kara-ket for the sake of eliminating the Warmaster.

  “But the Abiarazi were not content to take our old and infirm.” Garnos’ face darkened. “Eventually, they demanded that every tenth child born was to be given to Khar’nath. When that did not provide the power they sought, they sought to take more of our lives. The strong warriors, the maidens, the mothers, everyone they believed could feed Khar’nath and provide the power they craved.”

  “And you went along with that?” the Hunter demanded.

  “What choice did we have?” Garnos gave a sad shake of his head. “The early Elivasti had bound themselves to the Abiarazi by the demons’ cruel magick. Our only hope was to obey. We had no choice but to watch our people die for the masters we had pledged to serve. Until the day we were given that choice.”

  “What choice?”

  Shame twisted Garnos’ face, and he couldn’t meet the Hunter’s eyes. “The Abiarazi said that Khar’nath needed to be fed, by human or Elivasti. So long as we kept the Pit supplied with blood, they did not care where it came from. The Elivasti chose life, and thus…” He swallowed hard and drew in a deep breath. “Thus began the suffering of the humans of Enarium.”

  The Hunter’s gut tightened. The merchant in the Whispering Waste had spoken of “purple-eyed spirits” abducting children, and he’d seen the Elivasti marching a group of weeping youngsters through Enarium into Khar’nath.

  “You brought humans here to feed them to the Pit.”

  “To my great shame, yes.” Garnos gave a slow nod, his shoulders slumping. “Humans live shorter lives, especially those in the Pit, and they die faster than they breed. For four thousand years, my people have been capturing humans from around Einan.”

  The Hunter recoiled in horror. The way Garnos had said “breed” sent a shiver of disgust through him. Humans bred horses, dogs, and chickens to serve them. The Abiarazi, through their Elivasti servants, bred humans to die.

  “Four millennia,” the Hunter breathed. “There have to be hundreds of thousands of people in the Pit.”

  “At last count,” Garnos said in a quiet voice, “six hundred eighty-four thousand.” He passed a hand over his face, which had gone ashen, solemn. “Give or take the hundreds that die every day.”

  Hundreds that die every day. Even though shame flashed in Garnos’ eyes, the Elivasti spoke the words in the same matter-of-fact tone that a shepherd spoke of his flock or a Reckoner spoke of gold.

  “Do you not hear yourself?” the Hunter demanded. Anger burned in his gut and he stabbed a finger at Garnos. “Hundreds of people dying every day because of your people! How can you stand that?”

  “I cannot.” Tears brimmed in Garnos’ eyes. “For the last eighty-five years, I have lived with the nightmare of what I and my kin have done. I cannot erase those haggard, worn faces when I close my eyes, and there is not enough wine or spirits on Einan to drown out my shame.” A desperate light filled his eyes. “Yet I am but one man! One man surrounded by too many others willing to go along. This is the way things have always been in Enarium. It is all I and my people know. We serve the will of our masters until the day death comes to claim us.”

  “And you believe that excuses your inaction?” The Hunter fought to stop his voice rising to a furious shout. “You follow along because you cannot make change?”

  “Once, in my youth, I believed it was enough to treat the poor wretches in the Pit as humanely as I could.” Remorse flashed in the Elivasti’s eyes. “I did not abuse or beat them as my brothers did, and I tried to give them what comforts I could. Yet I have learned the truth: it is not enough to do nothing. Alone, I cannot bring about change, but I will not let my people continue to become the very thing they feared. This is why I risk everything to help Taiana, to help you.”

  Now the tears slipped down the man’s cheek. “I would give anything, anything, for a brighter future, both for my people and those souls trapped within Khar’nath. If I could set them free, I would. But I am just one man. What can I do?”

  The answer—both to Garnos’ question and his problem—popped into
the Hunter’s mind. The sheer audacity of it took his breath away, but he could not deny it was the best plan they had.

  “And what if I told you I knew a way you could change everything?” he asked. “Right now. Tonight.”

  A glimmer of brightness pierced the despair in the Elivasti’s violet eyes. “Tell me,” he said in a quiet voice.

  The Hunter drew in a deep breath. “We’re going to pull off a jailbreak.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Garnos jerked back, his eyes going wide. “What?”

  “You heard me.” The Hunter nodded. “We’re going to empty out the Pit. Now. Tonight.”

  “Impossible!” Garnos shook his head. “There’s no way even you can pull it off. There are too many for the four of you to take out.”

  “No, it’s going to be you and me.” The Hunter gave him a wry grin. “The two of us.”

  “Are you mad?” Garnos’ voice rose to a shout. He swallowed and spoke in a quieter voice. “What you’re suggesting is—”

  “Impossible, like you said.” The Hunter chuckled. “If it were just you and me fighting alone. But we won’t be alone.”

  Garnos’ eyes narrowed. “Unless you have an army hidden in the Empty Mountains, your plan will never work.”

  “We already have one inside the city.” The Hunter thrust a finger toward the east. “You said it yourself, there are six hundred eighty-four thousand men, women, even children that will take up arms.”

  The Elivasti’s jaw dropped, and he simply stared at the Hunter for a long moment, as if unable to comprehend what the Hunter was suggesting.

  “How many Elivasti do you have guarding the Pit?” the Hunter asked.

  Garnos blinked, started to speak, swallowed, then managed to stammer out. “F-Forty or so at and around the gate. Another thirty within the Pit.”

  “Seventy against nearly seven hundred thousand?” The Hunter’s face twisted into a cruel smile, the expression that best suited the brutish features he wore. “I’d say the odds are weighted in our favor.”