Darkblade Guardian

by Andy Peloquin

  Not that any of the people seemed to care. Most of those he passed stared at him with vacant, hollow-eyed expressions, not even bothering to lift their heads from the mire or getting up from where they lay to empty their bowels. An oppressive listlessness permeated the air around him. So many of the men, women, even children around him had simply resigned themselves to their fate.

  Sorrow drove a dagger into the Hunter’s heart. Not even the poorest beggars or most diseased lepers of Lower Voramis had looked like this. In Voramis, those who did not eke out a living succumbed to hunger, thirst, or disease. Here, the people had nothing to do but wait for death to claim them, so they did nothing to stave it off. They have nothing to live for, so no reason to try living at all.

  The red light emanating from the walls of Khar’nath painted the scene with a garish ruby brush that made everything seem grimmer, bleaker, devoid of life.

  Horror writhed like worms in the Hunter’s gut as he moved through the pathetic shelters. This was a fate far worse than he could have ever imagined. A life of imprisonment, a meaningless existence dominated by the languor that set in with the knowledge that nothing you did mattered. Children were born, matured into adults, and died in these squalid conditions. They had nothing to look forward to beyond death.

  Until the day the Sage used them for whatever purpose he’d collected them for in the first place. It could hardly be worse than this, yet knowing the Abiarazi, it would be. The Hunter knew he had to find out what was the purpose behind the human herd penned up in this cage—a cage from which there was no escape.

  But first, he had to find Kiara. He couldn’t let her languish in this wretched place. The question remained: how the twisted hell was he supposed to find her in the enormous hellhole? It covered easily as much ground as the Beggar’s Quarter in Lower Voramis, and it could take him days to search it.

  “You there!” The call came from behind him, edged with an arrogance the Hunter knew none of the pathetic wretches around him could summon. “Stop where you are!”

  The Hunter shambled forward at a slow, steady pace and hunched to hide his height. He sucked in his stomach and cheeks in an effort to appear gaunter and more malnourished.

  “Fucking wretch!”

  Something struck the Hunter from behind—barely hard enough to hurt—but he sprawled to the floor the way any of the miserable men and women in the Pit would. A boot slammed into his lungs, and he folded up around it, clinging to the armored leg and letting out the most pitiful whimper he could summon.

  “I talk, you listen!” Anger flashed in the violet eyes that stared down at him and twisted the Elivasti’s brutish features into a snarl. The man was tall, thick-necked, and had a paunch that struggled to break free of his mud-stained, rust-pitted blue armor. “I say suck my cock, you say ‘Yes, Setin’ and be thankful for it.”

  The Hunter let out a groan and an inaudible mumble, which only seemed to irritate the Elivasti. Sausage-sized fingers closed around the Hunter’s throat and lifted him upright.

  The Hunter found himself staring into Setin’s purple eyes, their noses a finger’s breadth apart. But over the Elivasti’s shoulder, he caught a glimpse of two more figures.

  One was a blue-armored Elivasti, no doubt the companion to the man that held him. The second was a woman, with long, dark hair and a full figure that looked utterly out of place amidst the malnourished wretches of the Pit. Even the bruises marring her face couldn’t conceal the beauty of her full lips and well-formed features.

  Kiara!

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kiara hung limp in the Elivasti’s arms, her eyes closed and blood trickling from a cut in her forehead. A glance at the awkward angle of her left arm told him it was dislocated.

  Anger flared like a volcano in the Hunter’s gut. Kiara had protected Hailen and this was her reward?

  “You hear me?” Setin snarled, spraying spittle in the Hunter’s face. The Elivasti’s fetid breath flooded the Hunter’s nostrils and turned his stomach. “I said—”

  “I heard what you said, you fat cunt.” The Hunter growled in a low voice edged with menace. “I just don’t give a shit.”

  Setin’s expression darkened, his eyes narrowing in anger. “You little—”

  The Hunter cut the Elivasti off with a single blow. His fist plowed devastation through Setin’s neck, crushing the cartilage of his windpipe and slamming into his spine with bone-shattering force. The purple-eyed man sagged like a sack of steaming cow dung and fell face-first into the muck, where he lay wheezing. His limbs gave a little twitch before falling still.

  The second Elivasti, the one holding Kiara, had a single moment to react. His face creased into an idiotic expression of dumbfounded surprise as the Hunter’s throwing knife took him in one wide open eye. Kiara hit the ground hard as the man’s hands released her, and the Elivasti followed her unconscious form into the mud a moment later.

  The Hunter whirled, his second dagger held at the ready, but no more blue-armored figures were visible. Only filthy, haggard men and women in their makeshift shelters. Barely a hint of surprise cracked the listlessness in their hollow-eyed expressions.

  “Help me here,” the Hunter snarled as he tore the dagger from the dead man’s eye.

  None of them moved. They simply stared, as if unable to understand what they were seeing. Either that, or their life of abuse and emptiness had rendered them senseless.

  “What do you think will happen if more Elivasti come and find these bodies?” The Hunter glared at the men and women around him. “What will they do to you in vengeance?”

  It seemed fear was one of the few emotions they could still understand; he could see it in their eyes, in the way their gaunt faces tightened.

  One man in particular seemed less apathetic than the rest. He’d actually risen to his feet and taken a single step closer.

  “You!” The Hunter crossed the distance in three strides and gripped the man’s arm. “Can you hide these bodies?”

  The man was tall, with the dark skin common in Al Hani and a hint of muscle visible on his scrawny shoulders. “Aye.” His voice was dull, heavy.

  “Then do it, now!”

  The man’s dark brown eyes wandered past the Hunter to rest on Kiara’s unconscious form. “I told her not to try.”

  “Try what?” the Hunter demanded.

  “There is no escape,” the man said, as if he hadn’t heard the Hunter.

  The Hunter seized the man’s shoulders and shook him. “Is that why they beat her?”

  The man flinched at the Hunter’s touch and cried out in instinctive fear. Horror roiled through the Hunter at the sight. The Elivasti had broken these people thoroughly. Their minds and spirits were as withered as their bodies.

  “Bring her inside,” the man said in that same dull voice. “Out of sight.” He lifted a hand in a languid wave to a small shelter a short distance away.

  The Hunter released the man’s shoulders. “And what of the Elivasti?”

  “They’ll never be found.” For a moment, a single spark of emotion—anger, defiance, hatred—burned in the man’s eyes. “In the shit pit where they belong.”

  “Good.” The Hunter hurried back to Kiara’s side, but stopped next to the dead Setin. An idea struck him, and he quickly stripped off the Elivasti’s blue armor, the padding beneath, and heavy boots—which turned out to be a surprisingly good fit. Setin carried only a heavy wooden cudgel for a weapon, and no personal items. But he didn’t care about coin or trinkets. He just needed the armor and boots.

  That, and Setin’s face, of course.

  He remained crouched over the Elivasti’s corpse for a long moment, studying his features. A thick nose that had been broken and set poorly, ears flattened by bare-fisted fights, piggish eyes set close together, and a too-strong jawline covered in scruffy stubble. He committed the man’s face to memory—he’d need it to get out of here.

  He stripped the second Elivasti as well, and bundled both sets of armor and clothing
into a bundle. He slung the bundle over his shoulder, gathered Kiara into his arms, and carried her into the shelter—little more than four tattered blankets hanging from crooked wooden poles—the man had indicated. The pitiful shelter had a few ragged blankets piled on the ground as a bed, with a round stone to serve as pillow. The Hunter shifted the blankets with his foot and set Kiara down as gently as he could. He bundled up his cloak and slipped it under her head.

  He grasped her dislocated arm. “Sorry about this.” A quick twist shoved the bone back into its socket.

  Kiara awoke with a cry of mingled pain and fury. Her uninjured right arm lashed out at the Hunter, and her fist caught him a surprisingly strong blow on the cheekbone. Her next punch struck him in the chest, and she would have gouged out his eyes had he not caught her wrist.

  “Easy, Kiara!” He held her firmly. “It’s me.”

  Kiara struggled for a moment, until her eyes came into focus and she seemed to see him for the first time. “H-Hunter?” She spoke in a weak voice cracked by hunger and thirst. “What are you doing down here?” She wrinkled her nose. “You look like crap, and smell worse.”

  “Thought I’d come down here, see the sights, take in the local culture.” He gave her a wry grin. “Best wine and pastries in Enarium, I’m told.”

  Kiara snorted. “Tastes like piss, owing to the fact that it is.” A small smile twisted her split lips. “You here for me?”

  The Hunter nodded. “The moment I found out what happened—”

  “You thought you’d come and rescue me, did you?” The familiar stubborn defiance flashed in her eyes. “Like I told you in Voramis, I’m no shrinking violet that needs rescuing.”

  “Clearly.” The Hunter raised an eyebrow at her bruised and bleeding face. “You had those Elivasti right where you wanted them, did you?”

  “Actually, yes.” A scowl deepened her face. “Right until they overwhelmed me and knocked me out.”

  “You were trying to escape?”

  Kiara nodded. “Got bloody close, too. All the way past the guards on the ramp and up to the gate. Which, admittedly, is where things went sideways.”

  “From what I hear, once you’re in here, you don’t get out.”

  “That’s what I’ve been told, too.” Kiara grinned in defiance. “But I’ll be damned if I don’t prove that wrong.”

  Her expression suddenly changed, and a mixture of guilt and desperation flashed in her eyes. “The boy!” She gripped his arm. “They took him from me. I tried to fight them off, but there were too many to—”

  “I know.” The Hunter nodded. “I saw the Elivasti corpses beside the gate.”

  “Have you found him yet?”

  The Hunter hesitated. “We know where he is.”

  “So he’s alive?” She seemed relieved.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Her shoulders relaxed, and the tension drained from her face. “I spent the last day looking through this Watcher-forsaken place, but when I couldn’t find him, I feared they’d killed him.”

  “No, he’s too valuable for them to kill,” the Hunter said. “They want him alive.”

  “Because of what he can do, like back at those stones on the trail?” Kiara’s eyes searched his face.

  “Yes. But we’re working on getting him back—”

  “We?” Kiara’s eyebrows shot up. “Sir Danna?”

  The Hunter shook his head. “Sir Danna…” He trailed off. “Sir Danna saved me.”

  Kiara bowed her head, and a tear slipped down her cheek. Her mouth moved as if she whispered a prayer for the fallen knight.

  When she looked up a moment later, she asked, “You’ve got friends in the Lost City?”

  “Sort of.” The Hunter found himself uncertain about how to explain. “They’re going to help me find a way to break you out of here.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Hunter.” She gave a dismissive wave, then winced as the pain flashed through her recently dislocated shoulder. “I can handle myself. You just find the boy.”

  “I can’t just leave you in here,” he told her. “This is…”

  “Inhumane? Barbaric, cruel, revolting?” Kiara nodded. “That’s why I’m going to find a way to bust out of here. If I can get out, it means there’s hope for the poor bastards trapped in here as well.”

  Her strength and determination still surprised him. Though her features were the same as the woman he’d known as Celicia, the Fourth of the Bloody Hand, she’d changed a great deal in the last few months. She had said Sir Danna saved her, helped her to find a purpose in life. That purpose had been hunting demons, which had brought them back together. Even in this terrible situation, she would not stand by and do nothing. It was one of the things that had drawn him to her in the first place.

  “Here.” The Hunter shoved one suit of Elivasti armor into her hands and the daggers he’d brought with him. “Keep these hidden, but at hand. Be ready for when I return, but don’t do anything that’ll get you killed.”

  “What are you going to do?” Kiara asked.

  “I’m going to walk through the front gate and figure out how to get you out of here.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t much have the look of an Elivasti. And it’s not just the eyes.”

  The Hunter grinned. “That’s the least of my worries.” He turned away and, gritting his teeth, forced his features to shift to match those of the dead Elivasti. The pain of the lightning crackling through his face still set his head pounding, but he’d grown accustomed to the sensation.

  She gasped when he turned back to her a moment later. “Watcher’s teeth!”

  The Hunter grinned, and Setin’s fleshy lips pulled into an ugly grin. “We’ve all got our tricks,” he said in his best imitation of Setin’s voice.

  “That’s a bloody handy one!” Kiara shook her head. “And here I thought those disguises you wore were all alchemical flesh.”

  “They were.” He turned away and let his features return to his normal face. “It’s a new trick.”

  “So that face’ll get you out the front gate. Then what?”

  “I’ll scout the Elivasti’s defenses, the gate, everything that stands between us and freedom.” The Hunter’s brow furrowed in contemplation. “The first chance I get, I’m coming back to break you out of here.”

  “And what of all these people?” Kiara asked in a quiet voice. “What will you do for them?”

  “I…don’t know.” The Hunter drew in a deep breath. “I want to get them out, but my first concern is Hailen and…” He stopped himself from mentioning his daughter, and instead finished with, “…you. Plus, I’ve got to kill the Sage before he uses the power of Enarium to free Kharna.”

  “Keeper!” Kiara breathed. “That’s quite the full dance card you’ve got.”

  “But I’ll make time for you,” the Hunter said. “You have my word that I will get you out of here. And, if I can, I’ll find a way to help these people.”

  “I’ve got this,” Kiara told him. “You’ve got your work cut out for you.”

  The Hunter nodded and stood. “Anything I can do for you? Maybe bring you a pillow, or a glass of Snowblossom wine?”

  Kiara scowled. “Rot in hell, Hunter.”

  The Hunter chuckled. “At least being in here hasn’t affected your pleasant personality.”

  “I can feel it, you know?” Kiara said, and her voice grew suddenly serious. “Like the Pit is sucking the life out of me.”

  The Hunter paused. He hadn’t felt any different, but he’d only been in the Pit for a few minutes. Yet he could understand how the listlessness of the people trapped here could sap the will from anyone.

  A thought struck him. “The pack I gave you, what did you do with it? Did the Elivasti take it from you?”

  She shook her head. “When I spotted the bastards coming for us, I tucked it out of sight behind the city gate, against the wall. I don’t think they saw me.”

  “Good!” The Hunter nodded. The story of the Swordsm
an and his magical blades might be a lie, but two more daggers—daggers of iron, no less—would come in handy for killing Elivasti and Abiarazi both.

  “I’ll be back as quickly as I can,” the Hunter told her. He gripped her left hand in both of his, heedless of the foul-smelling mud that stained their fingers. “Stay strong.”

  Kiara smiled. “No one stronger in the world, Hunter.” She gave him a little shove. “Now off with you. I’ve got a daring escape to plan, and you, well, you’ve got a whole bloody world to save.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  When the Hunter emerged from the shelter in which he’d laid Kiara, no trace remained of the two Elivasti he’d killed. Even the prints of their boots had been churned into the muck by bare, filthy feet. To any who hadn’t been around when the Hunter killed them, the Elivasti had simply never been here.

  The tall Al Hani man was there, however. He sat on a stone, his back against one rickety post of his shelter, his eyes fixed on the muddy ground. He didn’t look up at the Hunter’s exit, but his low voice drifted toward the Hunter.

  “They’ll hurt us for it. Hurt her.”

  “What?” The Hunter’s eyes narrowed.

  Now the man lifted dark brown eyes and fixed the Hunter with a glassy stare. “Two came down, none went back up.” He shook his head. “They’ll think we did it. Make us pay.”

  Realization dawned on the Hunter. The man was talking about the Elivasti he’d killed. Their comrades would wonder what had happened, and when they came looking, they wouldn’t hesitate to beat the truth out of these poor souls. The Hunter’s gut clenched. His actions would simply compound their torment.

  No, he wouldn’t let that happen. He’d make sure no one suffered for it.

  “One is going back up,” he said, his voice grim. He gritted his teeth and forced his face to change shape, to match the fleshy lips, heavy jawline, and drooping jowls of the Elivasti he’d killed. Lightning crackled through his cheeks, jaw, forehead, nose, and eyes as he imposed his will on the flesh and bone of his face.