Beyond Taiana, two more figures, both men, were locked in a furious struggle. One wore the same blue breastplate and scaled mail as the man Taiana had killed, but his chest bore ornate golden whorls like a circlet of thorns. The second wore an ancient-looking suit of armor that looked like hundreds of brass coins strung together for protection. Dust and dirt stained his dull brown clothing, sun-tanned face, strong hands, and long, dark hair, but a fire of fury burned in his eyes as he struggled to rip a strange-looking weapon—which bore an odd resemblance to an oversized crossbow stock before the arms were attached—from his opponent’s grip.
Taiana raced toward the two men, but in the three seconds it took her to cross the distance, the blue-armored warrior had broken free. He lashed out with a vicious kick that snapped the dark-haired man’s head back and sent him reeling. That strange weapon in his hand whipped up, pointing at the brass-armored man, and his finger pressed the trigger.
Blue runes glowed along the length of the weapon—made of a strange metal and stone rather than the wood used for crossbows—and a loud humming filled the air. Lightning burst from the end of the stock and crackled the short distance to the staggered man. Bronze armor, tunic, flesh, and bone exploded in a red mist. His head, shoulders, and chest simply disappeared, and his truncated torso collapsed to the road.
Taiana leapt onto the blue-armored man and drove Soulhunger into the space between his armor’s gorget and the side of his neck. A scream of agony filled the air as Soulhunger’s gemstone flared bright. Power raced through the Hunter, pushing back the last of his numbness and purging his body of the iron’s poison. Another scar burned into the flesh of his chest, but the energy flooding him cleared his mind.
He leapt to his feet, his senses on full alert for any sign of danger. Seven bodies littered the street around him. Six wore blue-scaled armor and carried the strange spike-tipped quarterstaves. Taiana knelt over the seventh, the headless remains of what had once been the bronze-armored man.
“Damn it, Neroth!” Taiana gripped his lifeless hand, closed her eyes, and whispered, “Sorry, my friend.”
After a moment, she stood and turned to face the Hunter. “We need to move, now.” Her voice held steel, her expression hard as stone.
“Taiana!” The cry came from behind the woman.
Taiana whirled, Soulhunger at the ready. She lowered the dagger as she saw the figure racing down the street toward her. The newcomer was short and narrow in the shoulders, with skin the deep copper color of Vothmot and a sparse beard that made him look barely out of his teen years. He wore the same ancient-looking bronze armor and carried a spiked staff that matched the ones littering the street beside the blue-armored corpses. The Hunter caught a hint of his unique scent, a deep blend of Vothmot kaffe, worn metal, smoke, and sandalwood.
“Kalil, what are you doing here?” she demanded. “You and Cerran were supposed to—”
“They’re coming!” The young man skidded to a halt in front of her, and the words poured from his mouth in a breathless rush. “Three full companies of Elivasti, heading here now. They’ll be here in less than a minute. Cerran sent me to warn you and Neroth to…” His voice trailed off as he saw the body behind Taiana. “No, Neroth, no!” He made to rush toward the dead man, but Taiana’s arm snapped out to catch him.
“He is gone, Kalil.” A mournful note echoed in her voice. “That is a wound from which even he will not heal.”
“B-But, Neroth…” the man stammered, and tears streamed down his face. “He can’t be—”
“But he is,” Taiana snapped, and her words had a hard edge. “And we will be, too, if we don’t move now.”
When Kalil’s eyes refused to leave the body of Neroth, Taiana grabbed the smaller man by the shoulders and shook him so hard his bronze armor rattled.
“Which way are they coming from?” she demanded.
This seemed to shake Kalil from his stupor. “N-North,” he said, blinking hard. “Two companies from the north, with another from the west.”
Taiana released the man with a curse. “We have to collect their spikestaffs and get out of sight before they surround us and cut off our escape.” She turned to the Hunter and held Soulhunger hesitantly out to him. “Can you move?”
The Hunter nodded as he took the blade. “Yes.” The single word was all he could muster. The glimpses he’d seen of Taiana in his memories hadn’t prepared him for this hard, commanding, almost soldier-like woman before him. She spoke with the voice of one accustomed to having her orders obeyed.
“Then we get the bloody hell out of here now.” She pointed to the newcomer. “Drayvin, this is Kalil. Kalil, Drayvin.”
The smaller man nodded, but said nothing else. Grief, an emotion the Hunter recognized all too well, shadowed his dark eyes.
Black eyes, the Hunter realized in shock. Eyes the same midnight void as his own, the same as Taiana’s.
The Hunter’s jaw dropped. The man and woman before him lacked the scent of rot and decay as the Abiarazi, but the eyes revealed the truth. Kalil and Taiana were Bucelarii, just like him.
His mind reeled at this discovery. How was it possible? He was the last of the Bucelarii, the only one of his kind left on Einan. The Cambionari had hunted the rest to extinction, until not even the Sage or the Warmaster could find any left alive to serve them. Yet here were two more not an arm’s reach away. Something in the way Taiana had spoken of Neroth’s healing abilities told him that the dead man had also been Bucelarii.
Three of us. The thought left him speechless. Three Bucelarii, right here in Enarium. Were there more? Was the city of Enarium home to more of his kind?
Another realization hit him and his gut tightened. Is he…? The Hunter had come to Enarium seeking his wife, who’d been with child the last time they met. Could this be that child? Our child? He studied the newcomer, searching for any resemblance between him and Taiana.
Taiana picked up the strange crossbow-looking weapon she’d taken from the dead blue-armored man, and at her instruction, Kalil helped her to strip the staves—spikestaffs, she’d called them—from the corpses.
“Let’s go,” Taiana commanded. She hesitated only long enough to glance at the dead Neroth before turning and running up the street.
The thought that the young Bucelarii could be his son—my son—rocked the Hunter to the core. Before he realized it, he was moving, following Taiana, his body working as his mind struggled to digest everything that was happening.
He’d fought off the Stone Guardians outside Enarium, and Sir Danna had died fighting by his side. When the monstrous stone-skinned brutes shattered her iron greatsword, he’d suffered a wound that had nearly killed him.
No, the iron’s poison did kill me. He remembered dying; not the worst experience, but not one he cared to repeat. And Taiana saved me.
She’d used Soulhunger to kill the warriors in their strange blue armor and, in consuming their souls, had cleansed the iron from his blood.
But who in the bloody hell are these warriors? Could they be the Elivasti Kalil had mentioned? Now that he thought of it, they had lacked any trace of scent, just like the Elivasti in Kara-ket. Why are they fighting the Bucelarii? And what were those weapons they carried? Those glowing runes set into their length could only have been Serenii, but he could never have imagined the Serenii created something that wrought such horrific death.
His survival instincts, honed over decades as an assassin, kicked in and shoved all the overwhelming information to the back of his mind. He had to focus on staying alive long enough so he could find Hailen and—
Hailen!
Fear spiked through him, and he skidded to a halt. He’d sent Hailen and Kiara racing toward Enarium as he fought off the Stone Guardians, but they couldn’t have reached the city more than ten or fifteen minutes ahead of him.
So where the hell are they?
Taiana glanced over her shoulder, then slowed as she saw him stop. “What are you doing?”
“The boy!” the H
unter demanded. “Where is he?”
“Now’s not the time to—”
“Where in the bloody hell is the boy?” The Hunter’s voice rose to a shout.
“What boy?” Taiana asked.
Dread sat like a rock in the Hunter’s gut. “The boy who entered Enarium shortly before me.”
“I saw no boy.” Taiana glanced at Kalil, who shook his head.
The Hunter’s blood turned to ice. Where could Hailen and Kiara have gone in the few minutes before I arrived? He’d seen no sign of them at the gate, nor anything to indicate what had happened to them.
“We need to find him!” The Hunter’s fists clenched. I can’t let anything happen to him, not again.
“We will.” Taiana’s response was curt, sharp. “But right now, we need to get the hell out of here!” She cast a glance up the street and spoke quickly. “The Elivasti will be here any second, and you saw what those weapons of theirs can do. The smart things are to get out of sight and get back to the others, then figure out how to find the boy.”
She took a step closer and gripped the Hunter’s hand. “But you have my word, Drayvin, we will do whatever it takes.”
The sound of his name knocked something loose in the Hunter’s mind, and a memory washed over him.
“You have my word, Drayvin, we’re getting through this alive, whatever it takes,” Taiana said, gripping his hand tighter.
Freezing cold rain splashed down around them in great droplets, turning the already churned earth to mud. Rivulets of red coursed past the Hunter as the falling water washed away the blood staining the field of battle.
“And when we do, are you finally going to answer my question, Captain?” he asked with a smile.
“Really, this again, Captain?” She tried to sound angry, but he could see a hint of a grin toying at her lips. “Now’s not the time for this, not with the humans gearing up for another attack.”
“I figure now’s the best time for it.” He squeezed her hand, which felt so warm and firm in his, blocking out the chill of the falling rain. “There’s a chance we don’t get through this, so I figured you’d better—”
“I accept, Captain Drayvin.” Her face broke into a smile, the same smile he’d fallen in love with all those months ago.
He swept her into his arms and kissed her with the ferocity of the emotions roiling with him. Being by her side had made the days of endless war worth it. Without her, he’d never have survived. His father, the Abiarazi general, would have—
“Drayvin!” Taiana’s shout snapped him from the memory. “We need to move, now, but we will find the boy.”
“Good enough,” the Hunter forced out, though the words seemed to catch in his throat. He fell into step behind her as she raced up the street, and again shoved down the distracting thoughts and conflicting emotions churned up by the latest memory. He had to focus on escaping the Elivasti, on surviving.
For now. When the Elivasti were no longer a threat, he would get the answers he’d crossed a continent to find.
Chapter Two
Even as he raced through Enarium, the Hunter couldn’t help marveling at the splendor of the Serenii city. The streets were paved, not by individual stones joined together by mortar, but a single unbroken sea of white rock. Houses with one, two, and three floors bordered the roads, all made from the same white, red, and grey stone of the Empty Mountains.
In Kara-ket, the Sage had spoken of the Serenii enslaving humans, yet this looked more like the humans had lived in Enarium. The grand towers had to belong to the long-dead race, but perhaps these smaller structures had served as homes for early men.
The Serenii towers rose above the city like shards of blue sapphires driven into the mountaintop upon which Enarium sat. From their position in the northwest of the city, the Hunter could see the tips of twenty-four enormous towers, each at least eight to ten floors in height. The walls of the towers not only reflected the blue of the sky above, but seemed to glow with a faint internal brilliance. As they raced past the tower that stood on the northwest corner of the city’s lowest Echelon, the Hunter felt a humming beneath his feet.
The city of the Serenii held an undeniable power. The magnificence of the constructions lent a solemn air to Enarium, compounded by the fact that there were no other living things in sight—none but the two racing in front of him.
Kalil moved with the speedy grace the Hunter had come to equate with warriors of shorter stature. The Hunter could see no resemblance between the darker-skinned Bucelarii and Taiana, but he couldn’t help staring.
Could he be the child I never had a chance to meet, the child I cannot remember? The Illusionist Clerics had stolen his memories; Taiana had been the one to hand him over.
His eyes went to the woman, and he took in her strong shoulders, broad back, well-defined arms, slim waistline, and powerful hips and thighs. She had a fighter’s physique—hard to reconcile with those few memories he had of her—and though she was feminine and beautiful as he remembered, there was no denying her strength and agility.
She is a warrior to the core. She held the stolen spikestaffs in casual, relaxed grips, but her head never stopped moving as she scanned her surroundings. She moved with no trace of fear, a predator on the prowl, ready for anything.
Her clothing was simple without being ragged, a simple tunic belted at the waist over a pair of trousers. Unlike either of her companions, she wore no armor—perhaps, much like him, she preferred to move about silently, unhindered by the weight of metal. The absence of armor didn’t detract from the danger she radiated. Everything, down to the way her hands flexed and relaxed as if around the hilt of a weapon, spoke of a woman trained for war.
“This way!” Taiana sprinted toward a squat stone building identical to the rest. Three stories tall, the building was blocky and square, free of adornments save for the threads of gold and silver running through the white stone. The door was closed, but Taiana made no attempt to open it. Instead, she ducked around the side of the building and into the shadow of what appeared to be an outdoor shed or storage structure.
She pressed a finger to her lips and peered out toward the street. A moment later, the Hunter’s keen ears picked up the sound of heavy, booted feet. The tromp, tromp grew louder, until nearly thirty blue-armored men charged around the corner and up the street in their direction. Three carried the strange crossbow-looking weapons, while the rest carried the spikestaffs Taiana had taken from the corpses. They moved in perfect step despite their speed, with the same precision the Hunter had seen on the Elivasti practice field back in Kara-ket.
Were these Elivasti also trained by the Warmaster? The Warmaster had mentioned his men in Enarium, which explained how he’d had opia when the Sage controlled its only source on Shana Laal.
Thoughts of the opia brought back his anxiety for Hailen. Had these blue-armored Elivasti taken the boy or simply killed him? His purple eyes marked him as Elivasti, but could they have somehow discovered his true heritage as Melechha, a pure-blooded descendant of the Serenii? If they had, they would take him to the Sage.
No telling what the Abiarazi will do with the boy if he finds out the truth. I’ll be damned if I let anything happen to him.
And what of Kiara? The Voramian woman he’d once known as Celicia, Fourth of the Bloody Hand, had helped Hailen reach Enarium safely. Had she somehow managed to hide him before the Hunter arrived? Were they somewhere in the city looking for him, or just trying to survive? He had to figure out what happened to them. But he couldn’t do that with a pack of Elivasti in the street ahead of him.
Taiana shrank back into the shadows as the blue-armored Elivasti clattered past their hiding place, and the Hunter found himself pressed against the wall, her face a finger’s breadth from his. The scent of her filled his nostrils and tugged at emotions he’d buried deep within himself. Her hot breath on his skin sent a shiver down his spine.
A part of him wanted to take her in his arms, as he had so long ago, to crush her to him a
s he had in his memories. Yet another part of him knew a different truth: The woman I glimpsed in those flashes isn’t the same as the woman standing before me now.
What had changed? She had the same golden hair from his memories, but she wore it pulled back in a tight tail instead of letting it flow free around her face as he remembered. Her soft nose, high cheekbones, and full lips hadn’t changed, yet there was a hard, tight edge to her expression. Something unreadable filled her eyes. There was something guarded, distant about her. She spoke to him as if to a stranger, yet she fixed him with a piercing gaze that seemed to see to the very core of his being.
He’d glimpsed her in his dreams, but it had been precisely that, a glimpse. So who is she really? What does she want with me, with Soulhunger?
More than anything else, he wanted to find out. He ached to be near her, to ask her all the questions only she could answer about his past, their life together, their child. Yet he knew he could not rest until he had found Hailen, wherever in Enarium he was.
“The boy,” he hissed in Taiana’s ear. “I have to find him.”
“You say he arrived before you?” She spoke in a voice barely above a whisper, her lips dangerously close to his cheek.
“Ten, fifteen minutes.”
“Then the Elivasti have him,” she responded, no trace of doubt in her voice.
“How can you be certain?”
“There were Elivasti at the gate when we arrived. They were waiting for you, and they would have attacked had we not surprised them.”
No. Dread writhed like a worm in the Hunter’s stomach. His worst fears had come true.
“Then we have to go after the bastards,” the Hunter growled. “I can’t let them—”
Darkblade Guardian Page 78