Darkblade Guardian

by Andy Peloquin

  "Long Keeper’s mercy!" Rassek's terrified cry came from below. “Darillon, are ye—?”

  "I-I'm fine," Darillon called down. His eyes were wide, his face pale as he stared at the Hunter. "You…"

  The Hunter clenched his jaw and tried to ignore the throbbing ache in his shoulders. His body would heal, but for the next few minutes, any movement of his arms would be agony. Unfortunately, given his precarious perch, he couldn't afford to rest. He had to keep climbing to reach the top.

  "Come on," he told the mountaineer. "We've got to get up there."

  He didn't wait for an answer, but set off at a slower pace than before. Darillon's fall had driven all thoughts of competition from his head. A few extra minutes would be worth far more than taking another risk.

  The chimney proved the safer choice for the climb, though no less challenging than a straight vertical ascent. By the time he pulled himself over the lip and onto the rocky ground at the top of the cliff, fire blazed through the muscles in his arms, legs, and back. His shoulder hadn't fully healed, and he cradled his strained right arm to his chest as he climbed to his feet. With his left hand, he unwound the coils of rope from his shoulders and dropped the line over the cliff's edge. After a moment, the rope pulled tight as Darillon grabbed on. The Hunter braced his legs and held firm while the mountaineer climbed the remaining five paces to the top.

  Darillon's incredulity hadn't faded as he stared at the Hunter. "How in the Keeper's name did you manage that?"

  The Hunter shrugged. "The Mistress' luck, I suppose."

  "I'll say! " Darillon blew out his breath. "We could have both died. Storming hell, we should have died." His eyes narrowed as he studied the Hunter. "There's no way you should have been able to hold us both up."

  "What can I say?" The Hunter grinned. "I drink a lot of milk."

  Darillon snorted. "Remind me to buy a dairy cow when I return to Vothmot." He shook his head and blinked, still stunned. "Seriously, though, I can't thank you enough. You saved me, no doubt about it." He held out a hand.

  The Hunter clasped it. "You said it yourself, the Empty Mountains are a rough place. We've just got to be ready for whatever it throws at us."

  Darillon nodded, but his expression fell and he let out a groan. "Bugger."

  "What?" The Hunter raised an eyebrow.

  "Rassek's never going to let me hear the end of this." Darillon threw up his hands. "Now I'll have to listen to him natter on about how I nearly got myself killed."

  "We could always leave him down there." The Hunter chuckled. "We could use the extra food."

  "Don't tempt me." A small smile tugged on Darillon's lips. "Sadly, that would only make things worse. I'd have to leave Vothmot, else risk his wrath. Trust me, you do not want to get on that man's bad side."

  "Noted." The Hunter turned to the tripod construction and studied it. "So how do we get this thing moving?"

  Darillon showed him how to work the pulley-crane. Two ropes ran through greased pulley wheels suspended from the top of the tripod construction, then down through parallel holes in the solid wooden beam at the base. Two shorter ropes connected the rotating wooden beam to what looked like a large horizontal wheel.

  “For now, we’ve got to do the heavy lifting,” Darillon said with an apologetic grin. “But once we get the horses up here, they’ll handle the load for us.”

  The Hunter gripped the wooden handle of the mill wheel and, on Darillon’s signal, threw his weight against it. The wheel moved smoothly, and though the weight required some effort to move, he found it less difficult than he’d expected. Within five minutes, he saw the mane and head of Darillon’s sturdy mountain pony appear over the edge of the cliff. The horse hung suspended from a makeshift harness Rassek had to have fashioned. Locking the wheel in place, the Hunter went to help Darillon haul the horse onto solid ground.

  It took just a few minutes to secure the horse to the wheel, and the beast made short work of hauling up Rassek’s mount. Together, the two horses got through the work of hauling Evren and his horse, Hailen, Ash, Elivast, and finally Rassek himself up the cliff face in less than an hour.

  The Hunter grinned as he caught Darillon's wince from the corner of his eyes. As the mountaineer had feared, Rassek laid into him the moment he reached the top of the cliff. Anger blazed in the man's eyes as he shouted at his partner. "Bull-headed fool" and "stubborn son of a donkey" counted among the kindest of the invectives he hurled at Darillon.

  They almost sound like an old married couple, the Hunter thought with a grin.

  Finally, the outpouring of Rassek's anger dried up, and a red-faced Darillon muttered, "It's almost enough to make a man wish he had died." This earned him a furious glare from the younger mountaineer. “But remind me to give Hlareth a mouthful of knuckles when we return to Vothmot.”

  “With pleasure.” Rassek gave the older mountaineer a wicked grin. “It’ll go nicely with my boot shoved up his fat arse. Cheap bastard’ll be tastin’ leather for a month.”

  The Hunter checked over his gear and horse tack while Rassek and Darillon set about unharnessing the horses from the wooden wheel. He donned his leather armor, baldric, sword belt, and heavy cloak, satisfied at feeling the weight of his weapons once more. He’d just turned to lift Hailen into Ash's saddle when a flash of light in the distance caught his gaze. He shaded his eyes against the bright sunlight and squinted in the direction it had come. Nothing. The mountain appeared empty, devoid of life except for them.

  So where did that light come from?

  For long moments, his eyes swept the mountains behind them. The glint had originated near Sapphire Lake. Perhaps it had just been a reflection of sunlight on the water. Or, had his anxiety played tricks on his mind?

  No, there it was again. A flash of light, no mistaking it this time. He scanned the shore of Sapphire Lake, his eyes straining to make out the details far in the distance. What he saw sent an icy dagger of fear into his gut.

  Sunlight reflected not off the lake's surface, but off armor. Bright, burnished steel plate mail worn by a figure riding on a black destrier.

  Impossible! There's no way she could have tracked me here.

  Even though the mounted figure was leagues away, he immediately recognized it. Sir Danna Esgrimon, Cambionari, demon-hunter.

  More figures rode behind her. Most wore the white cloaks of Warrior Priests of Derelana. However, the five riding immediately on her heels wore dull clothing and a type of armor he couldn’t make out from this distance.

  His heart clenched, and his eyes went to Soulhunger hanging on Hailen's belt. The Cambionari had tracked the dagger all the way up the mountain. Whatever abilities the Beggar God had bestowed upon his chosen, those pure of heart, they somehow enabled her to hunt him down no matter where he went. Even out here, in the middle of the Empty Mountains.

  So what the bloody hell do I do now? He couldn't risk her catching up to him. What if Father Reverentus had instructed her to bring Hailen back as well? There was too much at stake now.

  The Hunter reached for his sword and prepared to chop the pulley-crane into kindling, but common sense made him pause. He'd have no way to explain away his actions to Rassek and Darillon, and he had no doubt the two mountaineers would want to stop him. They wouldn't let him destroy the hoist that enabled them to earn a livelihood. He'd have to hurt or even kill them, then he would have no one to lead him to where he needed to go.

  His eyes went to the ropes they’d used to haul the horses up the cliff. Though it rankled, he forced his hands to unclench from his sword hilt. All they had to do was remove the rope and the Cambionari would have no way to follow them. He doubted climbing counted among one of the knightly skills Sir Danna had mastered during her training. To follow him, they'd have to find another way around. That would buy him at least a day, as Rassek had said.

  We just have to keep moving and stay ahead of them long enough to find the way up to Enarium. According to Rassek, they would reach their destination before nightfa
ll. That had to be enough time for him to unlock the secret in Taivoro's book.

  "Help me gather up these ropes," he told Darillon and Rassek.

  "But what about the pulley-crane?" Rassek asked. “Takin’ the ropes’ll make it mighty difficult for the next group to come this way.”

  "We can leave them here on our way down," the Hunter said. "For now, we may have need of them on our hunt for Enarium."

  The two mountaineers exchanged glances, hesitating. After a moment, Darillon shrugged and strode over to help him collect the rope. It took fully five minutes to coil up the rope and unwind it from the winch, and the Hunter chafed at the delay.

  It's worth it to slow Sir Danna down, he told himself.

  Impatience nagged at him as he lifted Hailen onto Ash's back and vaulted into his own saddle. It seemed like an eternity before the mountaineers were ready to go. He struggled not to snarl at them to move faster. They would be curious about why he had become suddenly hurried, which would lead to questions he'd rather not answer.

  He let out a long, quiet sigh as Rassek kicked his horse into motion. Darillon and Evren followed, with him and Hailen at the rear.

  The trail started out flat and smooth at first, but soon turned into rocky, uneven ground that rose at a steep incline. A cliff bordered to the trail on the right side, but to the left the land dropped sharply into a ravine. Within half an hour, the trail grew so narrow that they had to ride single file. When the horses began to stumble on the jagged rocks underfoot, Darillon ordered all but Hailen to dismount and continue on foot.

  Darillon and Rassek had spent their lives exploring these mountains, and they climbed without excessive difficulty. A dull but manageable ache developed in Hunter’s spine and legs, but the knowledge that Sir Danna was on his heels kept him climbing. Evren, however, couldn’t keep up, and they had to pause to rest every half hour or so just to keep the boy from collapsing.

  Occasionally, they passed trails that cut through gaps in the cliff or descended into the ravine and out of sight. The mountaineers ignored those paths, instead choosing the way that led straight up the incline. For hours they climbed, until the sun hovered just above the tops of the westernmost mountains, until they finally reached the top of the steep incline.

  The trail cut straight into the heart of a towering cliff and opened onto a circular bowl surrounded on all sides by vertical rock walls.

  "This is it." Rassek's voice held a note of excitement. "This is where the horses spooked."

  The Hunter looked around. Aside from the trail they’d just come down, the cliffs, easily two hundred paces tall, ran unbroken in a near-perfect circle all around them. The granite was smooth, with none of the cracks or crevices they’d use to climb the cliff to reach the pulley-crane.

  His heart sank, and the glimmer of hope faded.

  There was no way through.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Hunter narrowed his eyes at Rassek. "You're sure about this?" He motioned around him. "There's nothing here."

  "That's what I said." Darillon's face creased into a well-practiced I-told-you-so expression. "Just another empty spot in the mountains."

  Rassek scowled. "Well, this is bein’ where it happened, says I." He pointed to the eastern wall of the hollow. "We were makin’ camp right over there and the horses just bolted."

  The Hunter glanced at the smooth grey stone Rassek had indicated. It looked identical to the rest of the cliffs.

  He ground his teeth in frustration. Now what?

  He couldn't backtrack, not with Sir Danna so close behind. He'd taken a gamble that this was the location where he'd find the way into Enarium. It seemed like a dead end, but he couldn't just give up based on appearances.

  The Sage's words flashed through his mind. “The Serenii were ever fond of their hidden passages."

  "We could always be turnin’ back," Rassek was saying. "There's no other way in, but…" The man's words trailed off as the Hunter spurred Elivast toward the spot he'd indicated.

  The Hunter rode Elivast right up to the cliff and watched the horse for any indication of disturbance. Elivast stood placidly, patient and seeming unperturbed. Biting back a growl, the Hunter dismounted and looped the reins around Elivast's neck. The horse snorted and walked a short distance away as the Hunter studied the cliff face. Nothing about the stone before him seemed even the slightest bit remarkable.

  He drew in a deep breath through his nose. Perhaps there would be a scent to guide him. His sensitive nostrils found nothing but the scent of granite, the strong horse smell of Elivast, and the unique scents of the four people behind him.

  He pressed his hand flat against the stone, as if he could feel the way through. The demon Garanis in Malandria had used an optical illusion to conceal an opening in the stone walls. Had the Serenii done the same? He felt his way along the wall for five paces in every direction, moving his hand to knee level and as high up as he could reach.

  Nothing.

  He stifled the urge to growl in frustration. Think, Hunter, think! He could come up with no answer. He'd never learned the thieves' skill of finding hidden doors or passages. In Voramis, when he couldn’t get through the front door of his targets' homes, he found a way through the back door, an upper floor, or even the roof.

  Perhaps that would be his way past. He stepped back and glanced up. The cliff face rose easily more than two hundred paces above his head. Even if he could somehow make the climb, none of the others could. No way they had enough rope to span the distance.

  The darkening sky above the clifftops mocked him. The towering cliffs blocked out the sunlight and plunged the entire hollow in shadow. The Hunter abandoned the thought of climbing up, at least for tonight. He'd never reach the top before dark. If it came to it, he could try in the morning, but he’d use tonight to try to find another solution.

  When he turned, he found the others had ridden up behind him. "We make camp here," he growled. He hated the idea of stopping and resting with Sir Danna so close on his heels, but what choice did he have?

  Rassek frowned. "Ye’re wantin’ to risk the horses spookin’ again, are ye?"

  "No." The Hunter shook his head, his voice tight with frustration. "We'll keep them away from the spot where you say they panicked before. And we hobble them so they can't run."

  Rassek's frown deepened, but Darillon nodded. "It's your coin. Though I'll remind you that we've already been out here for three days out of your ten-day tour. We'll need to head back to Vothmot in no more than two days."

  The Hunter's gut tightened. "Of course." He had no intention of returning. The guides had gotten him this far. If he could just find the way into Enarium, they could leave him and Hailen to their own path. After all, Rassek and Darillon didn't know how to reach the Lost City any more than he.

  They hurried to set up the camp for the night. The shadows deepened quickly as the sun set behind the cliffs, and they had to light a fire to see as they pitched the tents. Yet as it grew darker, the Hunter's excitement grew. The Serenii runes had only been visible in the light of the glowing plants, once the sun had set and the fire died. The minute it grew dark enough, he'd try to find more Serenii runes in the cliff face.

  Impatience surged within him as he chewed on the tough salted pork that passed for their dinner. Hailen ate without seeming to notice him or anything else. The boy hadn't emerged from his comatose state for even a minute all day long. The Hunter tried to ignore the thought that Hailen would never recover after his seizure of the previous night, but it refused to go away.

  Mocking laughter echoed in the back of his mind. “Foolish, foolish Bucelarii,” crowed the voice of his inner demon. “You grew too attached for your own good. Haven't you yet learned what happens to those you care for?”

  The demon filled his head with images of Farida, Bardin, Master Eldor, forcing him to relive their deaths. The Hunter gritted his teeth and wrestled the voice into submission. With effort, he built up the wall in his thoughts. Too much time had
elapsed since his last kill, since Soulhunger last fed. He could feel the demands growing stronger. The demon pounded against the mental barrier. He feared what would happen if it broke free again. The last time he'd lost control, he'd slaughtered fifteen Cambionari and turned the House of Need in Malandria into a slaughterhouse.

  He stuffed the last of his meal into his mouth, stood, and hurried over to his pack. Pulling it open, he found the plants glowing faintly, and blue light radiated from within the satchel. He drew one plant out and strode toward the base of the cliff.

  "Take that from Sapphire Lake, did ye?" Rassek asked from behind him.

  The Hunter ignored the question. His eyes were fixed on the cliffs. He held the glowing plant toward the stone, and the blue glow seemed to turn the grey granite to an inky black. He held his breath in anticipation of the runes flaring to life.

  Nothing.

  The stone remained as black and dark as the shadows around him.

  Damn it! He ground his teeth and moved along the cliff face, holding up the glowing plant to shine the soft blue light over the rocky surface. For long moments, nothing happened as he walked along the stone wall. Come on, come on!

  He'd almost given up hope when a section of stone flared to life a few paces ahead of him. Hope surged in his chest, and he wanted to shout in relief. There was no mistaking the strange symbol carved into stone. As he moved along the wall, more and more flared to life, until nearly a dozen runes were visible.

  He heard a gasp of surprise from the three behind him.

  "What in the frozen hell are those?" Darillon asked.

  "Serenii runes," the Hunter said, triumphant.

  He quickly recounted his discovery in the cave the previous night and his belief that the runes marked the path toward Enarium.

  "If I'm correct, it means we're on the right track." He stabbed a finger at the glowing symbol. "These are symbols left by the ancient Serenii as some sort of guidepost leading us to the Lost City."