Darkblade Guardian

by Andy Peloquin

  The Hunter's eyes narrowed. "Sir Danna said that?"

  She nodded. "She hates you for what you did to her apprentice."

  "That…" The Hunter hesitated. "That was an accident."

  He told her of his conversation with Visibos, his promise to let the other Beggar Priests know he was trapped in the vault, and his confrontation with Lord Knight Moradiss. He left out none of the details about killing Father Pietus and Garanis, as well as taking Hailen from the temple.

  "And you thought that was a good idea?" Kiara sounded incredulous. "You, the Keeper-damned Hunter of Voramis, playing wet nurse to a six year old?"

  "I…" He drew in a deep breath. "It was the right choice. I know it was." He was surprised to find he wanted her to believe it as much as he did. "I've only gotten this far because of him. If what I've learned about him is true, he's the key to everything."

  "Everything?" Kiara raised an eyebrow. She seemed not to notice that she'd removed the dagger from his throat.

  "Stopping the Sage, locking Kharna away forever, saving the whole bleeding world!" He fought to keep his voice from rising. "Father Reverentus told me the truth of who he is. But more than that, I need to make it right."

  "Make what right?"

  He told her about the Elivasti curse, the opia, and the dangers of the Expurgation. "If I don't get him to Enarium, he's going to succumb to the madness." He swallowed the lump in his throat. "I already watched one person suffer, Kiara. I can't go through it again."

  Shame burned in her eyes. She couldn't know he was speaking of Aerden, Master Eldor's son; doubtless she envisioned the lifeless, mangled corpse of Farida, butchered by the First to goad the Hunter into attacking.

  For a long moment, silence stretched between them. Anxiety thrummed within the Hunter; an odd sensation, one he'd never experienced. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was a beautiful, half-naked woman an arm's length from him. Once, long ago in Voramis, she'd told him she saw good in him. The same good Sir Danna claimed to have seen. Now, Sir Danna hated him for what he'd done. The look in Father Reverentus' eyes mirrored his fury at the deaths of the Beggar Priests in Malandria. Was it so wrong that he wanted at least one person not to hate him?

  "Well, shite," Kiara said, letting out her breath in a slow exhale. "You certainly do know how to tell a bloody good story."

  "I'm sure Sir Danna has told you more than a few."

  "Oh, you're right on that count." Kiara shook her head. "The things she's said about you…those aren’t the sort of things I expected to hear from a knight's mouth. She's going to keep coming for you until she has vengeance for her apprentice."

  Vengeance. Sir Danna had made her intentions plain the moment she hired the Warrior Priests to help her hunt him down. Once engaged, the Warrior Priests did not relent in their efforts to deliver the Lady’s retribution.

  "I don't think there's anything I can do to slow her down, either," Kiara said.

  Her words caught the Hunter by surprise. "Slow…her down?" he asked.

  Kiara fixed him with a hard gaze. "It's why you're here, isn't it? Thin the enemy, throw the camp into disarray, muck up her plans? Sound about right?"

  The Hunter's eyebrows shot up. How in the Watcher's fiery beard had she known?

  "You forget who I served for more than a decade." Kiara shook her head. "That's just what the First would have done in your position. Whittle down his enemy and do whatever he could to even out the odds. He'd have used every underhanded trick he could think of."

  The Hunter said nothing.

  "Your silence is acknowledgement enough." Kiara tapped her lips with the dagger. "How much time do you need to reach Enarium?"

  The Hunter shrugged. "I don't know."

  "Don't know?" Kiara's brow furrowed. "You mean you've come all this way and you have no idea how much farther you have to go?"

  "Well, excuse me if I failed to pick up a road map that leads to the Lost bloody City," the Hunter retorted. "They were all out back in Vothmot."

  Kiara scowled. "Time hasn't made you less snippy, I see." She blew out her breath. "From what I've overheard of Sir Danna's conversations with the other Cambionari, we're less than a day away."

  Hope surged within the Hunter. One day? Was it possible they truly were that close?

  "If you could find a way to slow Sir Danna down," she told him, her expression pensive, "you just might be able to reach Enarium ahead of her."

  "And then what?" the Hunter asked. "Once I reach Enarium, how am I supposed to do anything with her right behind me?" He'd given the matter a great deal of thought. He couldn't keep trying to outrun the Cambionari. Even reaching Enarium wouldn't offer him safety if Sir Danna could simply track Soulhunger.

  "I don't know." Kiara shrugged. "That's something you have to figure out yourself. But at least you'll have reached Enarium, and you'd have a chance to save the boy. Isn't that enough?"

  The Hunter shook his head. "I have to deal with the Sage, too. And whatever minions he has waiting for him. I can't fight both the demon and the Cambionari."

  "Well, you're smart enough to figure something out. The first thing to do is buy yourself some time."

  "That's taken care of." The Hunter grinned.

  "Don't tell me what you did." She waggled a finger in his face. "I need to be able to say in all honesty I had no idea how whatever you made happen happened."

  "Why?" The Hunter fixed her with a hard gaze. "Why believe me? Why help me?"

  For a long moment, Kiara met his gaze in silence. "I owe you my life," she said finally. "You not only spared me back in Voramis, you saved my life. And I knew, right then and there, that you were nothing like the First and the Third. The man I saw when I looked in your eyes was a man of violence, of death, yet also one capable of being more."

  "And what if I made all this up?" Her behavior made no sense to him. "What if I just lied to trick you?"

  "Trick me?" Kiara gave a harsh little laugh. "Please, Hunter, I spent years watching the First manipulate and deceive everyone, from the King of Voramis to the lowest pickpocket on the streets. He elevated me to my position in the Bloody Hand because he found I was nearly his equal in treachery and duplicity. It would take a far cleverer man than you to fool me."

  The Hunter grimaced at the stinging words. "You're too kind."

  Kiara grinned. "In a way, it's the thing that drew me to you in the first place. You may have worn a mask to hide your face, adopted a false persona as a cover, but the man beneath was always visible. I simply know how to look better than most." Her smile faded and her expression grew serious. "That is why I know Sir Danna will not be easily swayed from her quest for vengeance. Though it is rage and grief that drives her, she truly believes in the righteousness of her actions. She is doing precisely what she trained her entire life to do: kill demons and their offspring. She may be too blinded by her hatred for you to accept or even be willing to hear the truth."

  "Then," the Hunter growled, clenching his fist, "I will do what I have always done. I will kill her, as I should have long ago."

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Kiara rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. "Men! Always treating violence as the first and only resort."

  The Hunter cocked an eyebrow. "You have a better idea?"

  "Than you going and trying to kill Sir Danna right now?" Her tone grew sardonic. "I’d honestly say I can think of few worse ideas."

  "I'm listening, then." The Hunter folded his arms.

  "I’m going to do something you would never think of," Kiara said in a mocking voice. "I will speak to her."

  He snorted. "And you think that will work? That your words will sway her from this mission of vengeance? A mission that has led her halfway across Einan, over deserts, wastelands, and mountains?"

  Kiara shrugged. "What harm is there in trying? It can't make her hate you any more."

  "If you want to waste your breath, so be it." The Hunter gave a dismissive wave. "Though I fail to see how you could convinc
e her to do anything."

  "Because I'm a woman?" A dangerous look flashed in Kiara's eyes. "Because I'm not a mighty warrior like you?"

  The Hunter shook his head. "No, because as you said, she believes she is doing the right thing in hunting me down. If she truly thinks she is on a holy mission, nothing will stop her."

  During the days he'd spent traveling with Sir Danna and Visibos, he’d seen the fervency and zeal of the knight's beliefs. She was devout, staunch in her faith, and driven by what she believed to be the will of the Beggar God. It didn't matter that the Beggar God didn't really exist; Sir Danna believed he did, so that was all she needed.

  Kiara's jaw took on a stubborn set. "But once I tell her who you really are, what you did in Voramis—"

  "She will shrug it off as the act of a demonspawn acting according to his true nature." The Hunter shook his head. "You said it yourself, she is blinded by her rage and grief."

  "Still, it won’t hurt to try," Kiara insisted. "I may not be her equal in the priestly hierarchy, but she and I have come to…understand each other."

  The Hunter's eyebrows rose. "And what could you possibly have in common with a knight of the Cambionari? Other than your supreme stubbornness, of course."

  Kiara scowled. "Sir Danna and I are far more alike than you might realize."

  The Hunter snorted.

  "We’re both driven by the desire for retribution," Kiara said in a whisper so quiet the Hunter could barely hear it. "For justice. Her, for her apprentice. Me, for what was done to me and to Voramis by the demon."

  The Hunter had no words to reply.

  Kiara continued in the same barely audible tone. "When you left me in those tunnels, I thought my life was over. Everyone I knew, everything I had, gone. There was nothing left for me in Voramis, so I left. I traveled without destination, my steps leading first to Praamis, then to the north."

  North. The same direction he'd gone after fleeing Voramis.

  "I ended up in Malandria with a single copper bit to my name and no hope for a future. All I had was the burden of guilt over what had happened in Voramis."

  "You couldn't have stopped it," the Hunter said. "The demon—"

  "That makes no difference." Kiara shook her head, and a tremor ran through her hands. "I stood by and watched the other Fingers of the Bloody Hand ravage Voramis. I let it happen. Frozen hell, I even did some of those things myself. Terrible things, things that wake me up at night. No matter how I try, I cannot erase them from my mind."

  The Hunter knew those things all too well. The guilt of his actions haunted him, too.

  "I stopped eating, stopped drinking. I had nothing left to live for. I lay in the gutters praying for death to take me to the Long Keeper’s arms and erase my shame." Once again, remorse twisted Kiara's expression. "But one day Sir Danna found me, and she refused to let me succumb to my self-loathing. She brought me to the House of Need, and had her priests care for me. When I told her my story, of what had happened in Voramis, she did the last thing I expected. Instead of having me executed for my crimes, she invited me to join her on a crusade of righteous vengeance. She offered me what I truly craved: atonement."

  The Hunter's eyes narrowed. "Hunting me."

  Kiara shrugged. "I didn't know it was you. All she told me was that a demonspawn had killed her apprentice, her mentor, and the other priests. She had returned to the city too late to save them, but she intended to hunt down the one responsible. The moment she said the word 'demon', I knew I had found my true purpose in life. I would atone for what I'd done working for the First by helping Sir Danna eradicate every one of the demons around Einan. Starting with you."

  The Hunter tensed, but Kiara made no move for the iron dagger at her belt.

  "Until I saw you yesterday, I had no idea who we were really hunting."

  The Hunter shook his head. "I never told her who I really was." No one knew that truth. Not even Hailen.

  "But when I saw you on the bridge, the way you moved, that dagger…" She trailed off with a shudder. "I knew it was you. Somehow, despite the impossible odds, something had led me across your path once more. I didn't know precisely why until just now."

  "And why did we cross paths again?" the Hunter asked.

  "So I could repay the debt I owe you." Kiara gave him a little smile. "You saved my life. It's my turn to save yours so you can save the world."

  The words left the Hunter stunned. He could do nothing but stare, shocked. It seemed so implausible that one simple action back in Voramis could have such an effect all these long months later. He'd made an impulsive decision to leave her alive, believing he'd never see her again. Yet here she was, standing before him.

  He opened his mouth to speak. "I—"

  A confused shout cut him off. "Hey! What happened to all the food?"

  The Hunter's blood ran cold. The call had come from just outside the tent, where the food had lain in a pile before he threw it off the cliff. The sound of booted feet drew closer, accompanied by the voices of two Warrior Priests.

  The Hunter had a single instant to act. His eyes flashed toward Kiara and the knife in her hand.

  "Go!" Kiara hissed, thrusting a finger toward the rear of the tent, which had an opening like the front. "Out the back."

  Without hesitation, he rushed toward the opening and ducked through the flaps with little more noise than the wind racing past. He kept to the shadows of the tents as he crept along less than a hand's breadth from the edge of the cliff. The shouts of alarm grew louder behind him as the Warrior Priests discovered their missing supplies. The Hunter cursed himself for leaving the pack of food behind—he could have deprived them of all their rations and forced them to retreat. Now they could pursue him, though they'd do it on near-empty stomachs.

  An idea struck him—a desperate, suicidal, doubtless insane one. Yet he acted on it before giving it a second thought.

  He leapt out of the shadows of the tent and drew his sword. "Hey, goat-fuckers, here I am!"

  Two Warrior Priests and the Cambionari stood beside Kiara's tent, staring down at the empty patch of ground where their supplies had been. At his shouted taunt, they whirled and gawked at him.

  The Hunter swept a lavish bow, then turned and sprinted up the trail.

  A shout echoed behind him. "Stop the bastard!" Steel whispered on leather as the three men drew swords, followed a moment later by the stink of iron.

  But the Hunter didn't slow. Only one man stood between him and freedom. The cries brought the Warrior Priest spinning around, and his eyes went wide at the sight of the Hunter charging toward him. Despite his shock, he reflexively dropped his hand to his sword hilt and ripped it free.

  A snarl twisted the Hunter's lips as he brought his sword whipping across in a powerful one-handed blow. The attack caught the Warrior Priest's blade with such force the weapon spun from the man's grasp, and he cried out at the pain of his shattered wrist. Before he could draw the iron dagger with his left hand, the Hunter drove his shoulder into the man's abdomen. He lifted the Warrior Priest from his feet, took two long steps, and hurled him off the edge of the cliff. The man disappeared into the darkness with a faint scream.

  "Demon!" A strong, angry voice cried out behind him.

  The Hunter spun to face Sir Danna. The knight had emerged from her tent wearing her arming doublet. Once again, he was struck by how little resemblance she bore to the warrior he'd met on the road to Malandria. Her matted braids and the gauntness of her cheeks added to her haggard state, and a storm of hate and bitterness brewed within her eyes.

  "Face me, if you dare!” Sir Danna lifted her greatsword—Ildaris, the iron blade Lord Knight Moradiss had wielded in the House of Need. “Let us put an end to this here and now."

  A wry grin twisted the Hunter's lips. "Nah." With a mocking salute of his sword, he turned and sprinted into the night.

  "After him!" Sir Danna cried.

  The Hunter pounded up the darkened trail, relying on his reflexes to keep him from stu
mbling. The faint light of the stars provided just enough illumination for him to pick his path along the winding trail.

  Less than a minute after he fled the camp, the sound of pounding hooves echoed behind him. A savage grin split the Hunter's lips as he forced himself to keep running.

  Any second now. When the shouts of fury turned to cries of fear and pain, he knew his plan had worked. He'd needed them to react without pause. No one could have predicted what he'd done to their equipment. If only someone hold told them to check their tack before trying to gallop.

  He had to hope at least some of his pursuers had fallen off the cliff. The fewer that lived, the fewer he'd have to face in the final inevitable confrontation that awaited him. He'd have to deal with Sir Danna before he reached Enarium.

  The words from his memories, Her words, echoed in his mind. "Should the Cambionari find you here, with me, they will do to you what they did to the rest of our kind. Look out there, and tell me you would not share the same fate."

  His wife had sent him away for fear of what the Beggar Priests would do to them both, to their child. He couldn't return to Her with the Cambionari hot in pursuit. Unless Kiara somehow managed to convince Sir Danna to leave him in peace—and he had little hope she would succeed—he'd have to make a stand and deal with the knight and her company once and for all.

  If he didn't, Hailen and the woman he'd traveled all this way to find would be in danger.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The Hunter raced up the trail, his heart thundering and his breath burning in his lungs. He'd left the shouts of the Cambionari and Warrior Priests behind him more than an hour earlier, but he had little doubt Sir Danna would regroup and resume her pursuit. With little to no food and water for her men, she'd feel the pressure to eliminate him and get back to Vothmot—or reach Enarium—before they starved to death.