Darkblade Guardian

by Andy Peloquin

  The man’s eyes widened a fraction, the most emotion the Hunter had seen from him.

  “I’ll make sure to explain it away.” The Hunter spoke in a brutish voice to match Setin’s tone. His voice wasn’t quite perfect, but it’d be close enough for all but the Elivasti’s closest friends. “This won’t come back on you.”

  The man gave a little grunt and a barely perceptible nod, and his eyes returned to their glassy, unfocused stare.

  “What’s your name?” the Hunter asked.

  “Those who care about my name call me Ryat.”

  “How long have you been here, Ryat?”

  “Long?” Ryat’s voice was heavy, dull, a tone to match his vacant expression. “Don’t know. Never been anywhere else.”

  Horror roiled in the Hunter’s gut. “Your whole life, you’ve been trapped here?”

  The man gave a little shrug of his shoulders. “What else is there?”

  The words sent a shudder of disgust through the Hunter. He couldn’t imagine a life like this, a life of…nothing. These people sat in their filth, living and dying with nothing. Ryat could be anywhere from his twenties to his fifties—impossible to tell beneath all that muck. Without a purpose, even a single reason beyond survival to drive him, he and all the others in the Pit had nothing to live for.

  No wonder they’re all half-mad. The Hunter clenched his fists, and the wooden baton he’d taken from Setin creaked in his grip. The sheer boredom and emptiness must be mind-numbing. He couldn’t imagine even a month of this, much less a year, a decade, or an entire life.

  Hatred at the Sage, the Warmaster, and their Elivasti roiled in his gut. He turned on his heel and hurried through the camp, aching to be free of the smells, sounds, and sights of the misery around him. Yet everywhere he turned, he found only more suffering, more people enduring their meaningless existences.

  His steps led to the north and west, toward the massive dark grey-and-red fortress of Hellsgate that towered above Khar’nath. Through a gap in the shelters to his right, he saw a long line of ragged people formed in front of a handcart laden high with bread long gone moldy. Three Elivasti handed out the meager food while another seven beat anyone who stepped, shuffled, or collapsed out of line. One of the Elivasti was so fat he could barely fit into his suit of blue armor—an insult by comparison with the emaciated wretches he fed.

  A few minutes later, he nearly ran into a patrol of Elivasti storming through a section of shelters and ripping down the canvas walls, taking the ragged blankets, and harassing the men and women living there. One guard even tore off a young man’s clothing, then trampled the threadbare garments into the muck. The violet-eyed man laughed as the youth scrambled to recover his mud-stained clothing—his only possessions.

  Anger burned in his gut, but the Hunter forced himself not to intervene. If he did anything now, it would harm any chances of breaking Kiara—and perhaps a few others, like Ryat—out later. The thought of standing by while these people suffered rankled. He had to get out of here before the reek of misery and the sight of such abject suffering overwhelmed him.

  Everywhere he turned, people shrank back from him. No, not from him—from Setin, the brutish, fleshy Elivasti whose features he wore. He leaned into the swagger and plastered a sneer on his face, but the pretense barely went skin-deep. The Hunter had never cared much for people. Voramis had been a cruel place, filled with men and women driven by greed, lust, gluttony, wrath, and every other sin imaginable. They stole, deceived those closest to them, betrayed, even killed each other in the name of power, riches, and, in many cases, simple survival.

  Yet this…this was something different. The Elivasti had imprisoned these people not out of a desire for wealth, power, even fear for their lives. They had done it on the orders of the Abiarazi, carrying out the commands of cruel masters that saw humans as worthless. Whatever fear had driven the Elivasti to swear their service to the Abiarazi, could it be any more terrifying than this? Seeing people reduced to such a terrible state, barely more than animals. No, less than animals. Men and women treated sheep, goats, milk cows, warhorses, even stray dogs with far more dignity than the people condemned to live in this Pit.

  Anger burned bright in the Hunter’s chest. He’d told himself he never cared for humans, but that hadn’t been the truth. He had cared, just for a select few. Humans like Bardin and Old Nan, those discarded by “polite society” and betrayed by their own minds and bodies. Humans like Farida and Hailen, the ones unable to defend themselves from the cruelties of life. Those were the humans that mattered to him. How were these people any different?

  He saw men and women too emaciated from starvation, thirst, and inactivity to lift their heads from the mud in which they lay. Children too numbed by life to smile, play with friends, even cry for their mothers. Hollow-eyed people that witnessed horrors on a daily basis—that spent their lives trapped in a hell they could not escape.

  A part of him ached to do something, to help these people as he’d helped the beggars in Voramis. His human side cried out at the injustice, and threatened to break beneath the burden of knowing he could not do anything. Not yet, not until he had dealt with the Sage.

  If the Sage restored Kharna to this world, these people would die along with the rest. His first priority had to be stopping the Abiarazi from harnessing the power of Enarium. Which meant he had to find a way to get Hailen back from the demon’s clutches. Even if he had to take on the entire army of Elivasti, he would do it.

  “Setin!” A voice from his right pierced the pounding in the Hunter’s ears. It took him a moment to realize the voice spoke to him—to the Elivasti whose face he wore.

  He turned toward the call and saw a short, squat Elivasti in the same mud-stained blue armor waving to him. “That’s thrice I called you,” the man said, frowning. He had a long, lean face covered in thick stubble, with a nose that had been broken too many times to ever be set right again.

  “Sorry, didn’t hear it.” The Hunter mimicked Setin’s thick voice as best he could.

  “You gone deaf from all that agor you’ve been drinking?” the Elivasti asked. “Or just got too much mud in your ears?”

  The Hunter shrugged. “Might be.”

  “Where’s Ardem?” The Elivasti’s purple eyes scanned the crude shelters behind the Hunter. “You left him getting his rocks off with that tart on the west side of the Pit?” The man’s expression turned nasty, leering.

  The Hunter’s gut tightened but he forced his face not to reveal his disgust. Instead, he shook his head. “Naw, fucker tried to knife me in the back.”

  The Elivasti’s narrow eyebrows shot up. “He what now?”

  The Hunter nodded. “Said something about me owing him for Guinda, and he was just collecting the debt.”

  The Elivasti winced. “Shite.” He blew out a long breath. “Want me to collect the body? Make it look like an accident?”

  “Naw.” The Hunter gave a dismissive wave. “Tossed his damned carcass into the filth where he belongs.” If anyone happened to find Ardem’s body, this would provide explanation enough. Though, he wasn’t certain what would happen if they discovered Setin’s corpse as well.

  The Elivasti’s face paled. “That’s cold, Setin. You two was like brothers.”

  The Hunter shrugged. “Oldest story in the book, isn’t it?”

  “Truth.” The Elivasti sighed. “Bastard owed me two weeks’ rations.”

  “Take it up with his corpse.”

  The Elivasti cursed. “Just my luck, too.” He spat, adding a wad of green phlegm to the muck. “You going up?”

  The Hunter nodded.

  “Shift’s not over for another hour.” The Elivasti’s eyebrows knit together. “You remember what happened the last time Detrarch Honsul caught you raiding the larders on shift.”

  “So I won’t get caught,” the Hunter said, and Setin’s fleshy lips and pudgy cheeks stretched into a grin. “Want me to bring you anything? Just to be certain you didn’t actually see me g
oing up?”

  The Elivasti smiled slyly. “Roast chicken’ll do, and no one’ll know you left your post.”

  With a knowing wink, the Hunter strode away. He let out a slow sigh—his attempt at impersonating the fat Setin had gone far better than he’d expected. He’d worried the man would see through his disguise, but he’d gotten lucky.

  Better not press my luck too far.

  He shot a glance backward at the Elivasti, and what he saw made him want to vomit. The man he’d just finished speaking to had rejoined a larger group of blue-armored men, who were herding a group of people toward the walls of the Pit. All had white hair, loose-hanging skin, and lines that denoted their advanced age, and were too weak to protest as the well-fed, armed Elivasti shoved them forward—straight onto the sharp crystals. The Elivasti held the men and women there long enough for the bright-glowing stones to consume every last drop of their blood. The pitiful wretches barely screamed before they collapsed.

  Dread writhed within the Hunter’s gut. He turned away and hurried along his way toward the exit out of Hellsgate.

  Garnos’ words hadn’t prepared him for the horrors of Khar’nath. In his memories, it had been a flaming pit that opened into a fiery hell.

  Reality had proven far, far worse.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nervous tension thrummed through the Hunter with every step he took. He’d gotten lucky with the other Elivasti, but there was no telling what would happen when he tried to leave the Pit. He wouldn’t hesitate to fight if forced, yet that would make escape utterly impossible. His only hope lay in keeping up the Setin charade.

  Relief filled the Hunter at the sight of the broad stone steps set against the western wall of the Pit. The staircase was five paces wide and made of the same dark grey stone as Hellsgate. It climbed the thirty paces out of the Pit toward an enormous gate of steel-banded wood set with long, sharp spikes.

  Ten blue-armored Elivasti stood at the base of the staircase, hands on their weapons, their stances relaxed.

  “Where you off to, Setin?” one of them, a short man with a face like a bloodhound, asked. “Shift’s not up for another hour.”

  The Hunter’s gut clenched, but he kept the anxiety from his face. “Running an errand for Honsul.” He gambled on the hope that none of these was the man the other Elivasti had mentioned. Detrarch could either be a name or a rank; he wagered it’d be the latter.

  “Errand, eh?” The same man stepped forward and held out a hand. “Show me the orders.”

  “Didn’t get any written orders.” Again, another gamble. “Might be it’s an errand he doesn’t want a lot of nosy pricks knowing about?”

  The Elivasti looked at him, suspicion written plain in his violet eyes. The Hunter held his tongue and stood his ground. Over his years as an assassin, he’d learned that the most important part of a good disguise was confidence. Any man could sell a ruse with the right amount of bold self-assurance—he could act it even if he didn’t feel it. Every muscle in his body quivered with nervous tension.

  After a long moment, the man stepped aside. “Fine.” The Hunter made to walk past, but the Elivasti gripped his bicep. “But when I see Detrarch Honsul tonight, I’ll ask him about the errand. If I find out you’re lying to me…”

  The Hunter tore his arm free of the man’s grasp. “Ask him yourself. Might be he tells you, or”—his vicious smile grew—“might be he doesn’t trust you enough to tell you.” He strode up the stairs before the Elivasti could respond.

  Only once he’d reached the fifteenth step did he let out his breath. That was too bloody close!

  He focused on the way out to keep the anxiety from overwhelming his mind. Though the stairway was five paces wide, the steps themselves were so narrow only half the Hunter’s foot fit on each. It proved uncomfortable to climb, which made it an effective deterrent against a rush or mob. People would trip on the narrow stairs, fall, and be crushed to death.

  As he climbed, he studied the enormous gate. Easily the height of four men and five paces across, the solid steel-banded wooden door looked strong enough to withstand even a charging Stone Guardian. The only weak point within its construction was the wicket gate designed to allow men to enter and exit without requiring the entire gate to be opened. However, the wicket gate seemed as solidly built as the rest of the massive door.

  There was no way the Serenii had built the gate, that much the Hunter knew. The Serenii architecture and design spoke of elegance and grace, but this was solid, unwieldy, and brutally efficient. Human or Elivasti hands had crafted it, without a doubt.

  He banged on the wicket gate. “I’m coming out!”

  A window slid open and a pair of violet eyes regarded him. The Hunter’s heart stopped—he had no idea if there was a password to get out, but he’d simply assumed they’d let him leave. Every heartbeat without a response from the guard added to the nervous tension in his gut.

  Finally, the wicket gate was pulled open with a groan of hinges. The blue-armored Elivasti guards within greeted him with lazy grunts, not even bothering to stand from their wooden stools. The Hunter responded with a nod, but his eyes roamed over the internal mechanisms of the gate.

  The mechanism proved that the design and construction was human. A wrist-thick steel chain ran through a single wagon wheel-sized windlass. Only one Elivasti lounged near the mechanism, but the Hunter suspected it could take two strong men to open it. Though, perhaps the intricate system of counterweights and balances constructed around the gate could make it easier.

  Solid stone walls surrounded the gate on both sides, running down a hall toward a door that led to what the Hunter guessed was a barracks of some sort built into the stone of Hellsgate itself. Flickering torches hanging from wall sconces provided enough illumination for the Hunter to count at least fifteen blue-armored figures lounging around the gate, doubtless with more inside the barracks.

  The Hunter strode off down the tunnel, and the scent of fresh air kept him moving in a straight line. The interior of Hellsgate, at least the tunnel around him, was more dark grey and red rock, with the same black, unbroken stone road as the rest of the city. The tunnel was fifteen paces wide and ten tall, more than ample for horse-drawn vehicles to come and go with ease. Oddly enough, the passage from the gate led straight through Hellsgate all the way toward the front. He could see the darkness of nighttime at the far end. Almost as if whoever built the fortress—human or Elivasti—had designed it to make bringing more prisoners to Khar’nath as easy as possible.

  He kept his pace unhurried as he marched down the tunnel toward the darkness of Enarium beyond the front of Hellsgate. He passed a few locked and barred doors, but didn’t want to risk a detour to explore more of the fort. Right now, he needed to get out of Hellsgate and back to Taiana.

  He let out a long sigh of relief as the first gust of cool wind drifted across his face. Another minute, and he’d be free of Hellsgate and its horrors.

  “Hey!” A voice called from behind the Hunter. “Setin!”

  Keep moving, no matter what, he told himself. He was so close to freedom, he wouldn’t let anything stop him.

  “Heptarch Setin!” The call came again, this time with a commanding tone. “Stop!”

  The Hunter didn’t turn, didn’t slow or speed up his pace, didn’t give any indication he’d heard. He simply kept walking steadily toward the unguarded exit thirty yards ahead.

  The thump, thump of heavy boots and the clatter of armor echoed behind him, growing closer with every second. The Hunter risked a single glance over his shoulder. Six Elivasti were running toward him. Five wore the plain blue armor of the rest, but one’s breastplate bore two crossed fists painted in white—the mark of an officer, perhaps?

  “Damn you, Setin!” shouted the man with the white-painted armor. “Stop at once or face the Council of Elders on charges of insubordination!”

  Well, that breaks it.

  Abandoning all pretenses, the Hunter sprinted the remaining distance down the
tunnel. A shout of fury sounded behind him and the clatter of pursuit echoed off the stone walls. With a burst of speed the Elivasti couldn’t hope to match, the Hunter raced out of the passage and into the night air.

  The tunnel from Khar’nath let out of the southern side of Hellsgate. To his right, in the center of the massive dark grey fort, another gate led into the main building. More blue-armored Elivasti stood watch at that gate, with a pair of burning braziers to keep out the cold. They seemed not to see him, but the Hunter knew that would change the moment they heard the shouts from the tunnel.

  The Hunter turned and raced south, away from the Elivasti clustered around the braziers. He was halfway down the street by the time the pursuing guards emerged from the tunnel. Their shouts were answered by the men guarding the gate, but he disappeared around a corner before either group could give chase.

  The Hunter grinned. Let them try and catch me now. The clatter of his blue Elivasti armor echoed in time with the pounding of his stolen boots, but he had no doubt he could outrun his pursuers. He had only to worry about any Elivasti patrolling the streets.

  He ran for a full ten minutes without stopping. Even with the weight of his Elivasti armor, he felt no fatigue. He welcomed the exertion—anything to clear his mind of the horrors he’d seen in Khar’nath.

  Once he was certain he’d put enough distance between himself and those behind him, he slowed his pace to a confident stride. A lone Elivasti could look suspicious, but he’d be far more likely to attract attention running at a full sprint.

  His steps led southward, circumnavigating Enarium’s Base Echelon. Trying to cut straight across the city from east to west would involve a lot of climbing, which would prove just as time consuming and far more strenuous than the flatter, longer route. Besides, he could use the time to think.