Darkblade Guardian

by Andy Peloquin

  “You say that,” Garnos replied with a shake of his head, “yet logic alone can be a terrible curse.” He thrust a finger toward the Terrace’s eastern wall, beyond which the Hunter knew lay Khar’nath. “Imagine if you know beyond a shadow of doubt that killing one person would save the entire world. What would you do?”

  “Kill him,” the Hunter answered without hesitation.

  “But what if that person was Taiana?”

  The question struck the Hunter like a physical blow. Would he be willing to kill his wife if it averted total destruction? It was the same question he’d tried to avoid contemplating since he discovered Taiana served Kharna.

  “I…don’t know,” he said after a long moment.

  “But why?” Garnos asked. “You know that her death would save the world, so logic dictates that she dies.”

  The Hunter nodded. “Yes, it does,” he said in a quiet voice.

  Garnos tapped his armored chest. “Yet the emotion within you makes you hesitate. Perhaps you would spare her, even if it meant the world ended. Or, perhaps you would sacrifice her. The simple fact that you question the decision proves that you are as much a creature of emotion as logic. Emotion does not make you weak—without it, pure logic would drive your actions, and pure logic is cold and cruel.”

  A shadow passed across the Elivasti’s face. “The Serenii were creatures of logic. Though they had emotions, they sought to suppress them and act according to rationale alone. Thus, when they saw how numerous the humans grew, how quickly they multiplied, they saw them not as an innocent new race of creatures to be protected, but exploited as a resource. Just as mankind has bred horses, the Serenii bred humans.”

  Garnos’ words sent disgust rippling through the Hunter. “To what end?”

  “To feed Khar’nath.” Garnos’ eyes went to the eastern wall of the garden. “Khar’nath was created as a place of power, a complement to the power gathered by the Keeps of Enarium. Alone, the energy collected by both the Pit and the Keeps could transform the world. Together, the magick could prove its destruction.”

  The Hunter’s eyes went wide. “The Serenii wanted to destroy the world?” Everything he’d learned about the ancient race had indicated that they were builders, cultivators, not destroyers. Kharna had been the outlier, and the Abiarazi had brought chaos and carnage to a world of order and peace.

  Garnos shook his head. “I did not say that. I said the power was sufficient to destroy the world. What the Serenii intended it for, we do not know. Until the last thousand years, our people have had no written records or histories. Much of what we know has been passed down through stories, doubtless distorted by time and retellings. But the one thing all the stories made clear was that the Serenii bred us to feed Khar’nath.”

  Revulsion shuddered down the Hunter’s spine, and the memory of the old and infirm below being fed to the crystals lining the Pit flashed through his mind.

  “The first Elivasti saw that as a betrayal and fled the Serenii.” Garnos shook his head. “They wandered Einan, but they could not escape the world ruled by their ancestors. The Irrsinnon claimed many, and many more fell to starvation, thirst, or predators. Until they encountered the Abiarazi.”

  The Hunter found himself leaning forward, eager to hear more of the story.

  “The Abiarazi convinced them to swear an oath of loyalty,” Garnos continued, “pledging their service for all time if they would shelter our Elivasti forefathers from the Serenii. The Abiarazi, with their half-human offspring, had seen the value of such servants, and welcomed us into their service.”

  “That seems to have turned out well for everyone.” The Hunter made no attempt to hide the sardonic bite to his words.

  Garnos scowled. “For years, the Abiarazi honored their bargain and protected the Elivasti, until the day they returned to conquer Enarium.”

  The Hunter raised an eyebrow. “The Abiarazi marched on Enarium? What of the curse of the Empty Mountains?”

  “To my knowledge, the Serenii had not yet placed the curse.” Garnos shook his head. “Too late, they realized the Abiarazi had come for them, and though they used their most powerful spells, they could not stop the Abiarazi from reaching the city walls.”

  The Hunter’s mind raced. “So the demons killed all the Serenii?” The ancient race had not been seen since the War of Gods—a mass slaughter by the Abiarazi could explain their disappearance.

  Garnos hesitated. “This, the legends do not say.” He let out a long breath. “I do not know what transpired that day, what happened to the Serenii, or why we were permitted to remain in Enarium. What I do know is that the Abiarazi saw the Keeps and Khar’nath as a power to harness. They sought to use the only resource they had: us.”

  A sickening feeling rose in the Hunter’s gut. “They fed you to the Pit?”

  Garnos nodded. “At the beginning, they only demanded we give our old, feeble, ill, and dying to Khar’nath. They called it ‘a noble sacrifice’, one we could not refuse. Thus, our ancestors discovered that they had sworn to a far crueler master than the Serenii. The Abiarazi are driven by their appetites and desires, and you must know as well as any that it can be far more terrible than pure logic.”

  The Hunter had seen what the Abiarazi did in the name of power, wealth, and bringing about the return of Kharna. The First had killed Farida and the beggars living in the Hunter’s safe houses in Voramis, all so the Hunter would slaughter the Bloody Hand and the Dark Heresy to gather the power needed to open a portal to the fiery hell. Toramin had ruled Malandria through the fear his “Order of Midas” created through their cruelty and ruthlessness. Queen Asalah had sacrificed Samia, the concubine that she had claimed to love, simply as a cover-up for the death of the al-Malek. The Sage had caused open war in Kara-ket for the sake of eliminating the Warmaster.

  “But the Abiarazi were not content to take our old and infirm.” Garnos’ face darkened. “Eventually, they demanded that every tenth child born was to be given to Khar’nath. When that did not provide the power they sought, they sought to take more of our lives. The strong warriors, the maidens, the mothers, everyone they believed could feed Khar’nath and provide the power they craved.”

  “And you went along with that?” the Hunter demanded.

  “What choice did we have?” Garnos gave a sad shake of his head. “The early Elivasti had bound themselves to the Abiarazi by the demons’ cruel magick. Our only hope was to obey. We had no choice but to watch our people die for the masters we had pledged to serve. Until the day we were given that choice.”

  “What choice?”

  Shame twisted Garnos’ face, and he couldn’t meet the Hunter’s eyes. “The Abiarazi said that Khar’nath needed to be fed, by human or Elivasti. So long as we kept the Pit supplied with blood, they did not care where it came from. The Elivasti chose life, and thus…” He swallowed hard and drew in a deep breath. “Thus began the suffering of the humans of Enarium.”

  The Hunter’s gut tightened. The merchant in the Whispering Waste had spoken of “purple-eyed spirits” abducting children, and he’d seen the Elivasti marching a group of weeping youngsters through Enarium into Khar’nath.

  “You brought humans here to feed them to the Pit.”

  “To my great shame, yes.” Garnos gave a slow nod, his shoulders slumping. “Humans live shorter lives, especially those in the Pit, and they die faster than they breed. For four thousand years, my people have been capturing humans from around Einan.”

  The Hunter recoiled in horror. The way Garnos had said “breed” sent a shiver of disgust through him. Humans bred horses, dogs, and chickens to serve them. The Abiarazi, through their Elivasti servants, bred humans to die.

  “Four millennia,” the Hunter breathed. “There have to be hundreds of thousands of people in the Pit.”

  “At last count,” Garnos said in a quiet voice, “six hundred eighty-four thousand.” He passed a hand over his face, which had gone ashen, solemn. “Give or take the hundreds that die every day.
”

  Hundreds that die every day. Even though shame flashed in Garnos’ eyes, the Elivasti spoke the words in the same matter-of-fact tone that a shepherd spoke of his flock or a Reckoner spoke of gold.

  “Do you not hear yourself?” the Hunter demanded. Anger burned in his gut and he stabbed a finger at Garnos. “Hundreds of people dying every day because of your people! How can you stand that?”

  “I cannot.” Tears brimmed in Garnos’ eyes. “For the last eighty-five years, I have lived with the nightmare of what I and my kin have done. I cannot erase those haggard, worn faces when I close my eyes, and there is not enough wine or spirits on Einan to drown out my shame.” A desperate light filled his eyes. “Yet I am but one man! One man surrounded by too many others willing to go along. This is the way things have always been in Enarium. It is all I and my people know. We serve the will of our masters until the day death comes to claim us.”

  “And you believe that excuses your inaction?” The Hunter fought to stop his voice rising to a furious shout. “You follow along because you cannot make change?”

  “Once, in my youth, I believed it was enough to treat the poor wretches in the Pit as humanely as I could.” Remorse flashed in the Elivasti’s eyes. “I did not abuse or beat them as my brothers did, and I tried to give them what comforts I could. Yet I have learned the truth: it is not enough to do nothing. Alone, I cannot bring about change, but I will not let my people continue to become the very thing they feared. This is why I risk everything to help Taiana, to help you.”

  Now the tears slipped down the man’s cheek. “I would give anything, anything, for a brighter future, both for my people and those souls trapped within Khar’nath. If I could set them free, I would. But I am just one man. What can I do?”

  The answer—both to Garnos’ question and his problem—popped into the Hunter’s mind. The sheer audacity of it took his breath away, but he could not deny it was the best plan they had.

  “And what if I told you I knew a way you could change everything?” he asked. “Right now. Tonight.”

  A glimmer of brightness pierced the despair in the Elivasti’s violet eyes. “Tell me,” he said in a quiet voice.

  The Hunter drew in a deep breath. “We’re going to pull off a jailbreak.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Garnos jerked back, his eyes going wide. “What?”

  “You heard me.” The Hunter nodded. “We’re going to empty out the Pit. Now. Tonight.”

  “Impossible!” Garnos shook his head. “There’s no way even you can pull it off. There are too many for the four of you to take out.”

  “No, it’s going to be you and me.” The Hunter gave him a wry grin. “The two of us.”

  “Are you mad?” Garnos’ voice rose to a shout. He swallowed and spoke in a quieter voice. “What you’re suggesting is—”

  “Impossible, like you said.” The Hunter chuckled. “If it were just you and me fighting alone. But we won’t be alone.”

  Garnos’ eyes narrowed. “Unless you have an army hidden in the Empty Mountains, your plan will never work.”

  “We already have one inside the city.” The Hunter thrust a finger toward the east. “You said it yourself, there are six hundred eighty-four thousand men, women, even children that will take up arms.”

  The Elivasti’s jaw dropped, and he simply stared at the Hunter for a long moment, as if unable to comprehend what the Hunter was suggesting.

  “How many Elivasti do you have guarding the Pit?” the Hunter asked.

  Garnos blinked, started to speak, swallowed, then managed to stammer out. “F-Forty or so at and around the gate. Another thirty within the Pit.”

  “Seventy against nearly seven hundred thousand?” The Hunter’s face twisted into a cruel smile, the expression that best suited the brutish features he wore. “I’d say the odds are weighted in our favor.”

  “B-But,” Garnos struggled with the words, “the people in the Pit are—”

  “Starved, abused, tortured.” The Hunter spoke in a low growl. “They have watched their friends and family being fed to Khar’nath or being beaten to death by men like Setin.” He clenched his fists. “Those with nothing to lose have nothing to fear.”

  “It is madness, yet perhaps…” Garnos’ brow furrowed as he digested the thought.

  The Hunter, seeing the crack in the man’s protests, drove the point home. “All we have to do is open the gate, and they will do the rest. If you had a chance for freedom, wouldn’t you fight, no matter how weak you were? Even if it meant you could die, would it not be worth it for the sake of the rest of your people?”

  After a long moment, Garnos nodded. “I would fight until my last breath.”

  “Then this is your chance.” The Hunter gripped the man’s shoulder. “For four thousand years, the Elivasti have inflicted this horror upon the world. For five thousand, you have served the will of the Abiarazi. Now is the time to break the chains that have held you bound. This act will not erase the stain of your past, but perhaps it is a step toward atonement.”

  Long ago, he’d scoffed when Father Reverentus offered him a chance to atone for the death of Brother Securus, the Beggar Priest he’d been tricked into killing, and all the other lives he’d claimed. He had accepted the priest’s mission to kill demons out of vengeance for Farida and the beggars murdered by the First of the Bloody Hand. Yet, the farther he’d come on his journey, the more appealing he found the idea of redemption. Too many had died for his hands to ever truly be cleansed of blood, but he could try to balance out the scales.

  “You can make a difference,” the Hunter continued. “You can put an end to the suffering you and your kind have caused for millennia. Your service to the Abiarazi can end, right here, right now.”

  “But our oaths—” Garnos began.

  The Hunter cut him off with a slash of his hand. “Were sworn out of fear. Fear can drive men to do all manner of things, things they often regret for the rest of their lives. But do not let that fear hold you back from standing up. As you said, you are but one man amidst many. I have learned that one man, the right man, can bring about great change if he is willing to risk everything.”

  It sounded so strange to hear the words coming from his mouth. They were the words spoken by the mighty heroes and kings of legends when facing overwhelming odds or fighting an unstoppable evil. He was no hero, his legend that of an assassin, an inexorable bringer of death. Yet, in this situation, in this place, a killer was needed where heroes and kings would falter.

  “Your oath to the Abiarazi is meaningless,” he said, an edge to his words. “Once, the demons held dominion over your kind. They held the threat of annihilation against you and used that to twist you to their bidding. Yet you have seen the Sage, the man you call master. He is as human as the men and women inside that pit. He surrendered the last of his Abiarazi power to cross the Empty Mountains. He has no control over you other than what you give him.”

  Garnos’ expression grew pensive, a frown twisting his lips.

  The Hunter straightened. “I am Bucelarii, descended from the Abiarazi, bred to serve and die in their name. Yet I fight, because I have seen what will happen to this world if I do not. You can do the same. Rise up and overthrow the masters that have held you enslaved for millennia, just as I have. The time has come to push aside that fear to do what you know is right. With your actions, you could bring about a new day for the Elivasti. A day when you no longer call demons, Serenii, or even the gods themselves masters. You have a choice, and with it, you determine the future of your people.” He narrowed his eyes and held up his hand. “So tell me, Garnos of the Elivasti, what do you choose?”

  A long silence stretched on as Garnos digested his words. Hesitation mingled with fear in the man’s expression, but a hint of something else, something harder, shone in his violet eyes. Grim determination slowly replaced the timidity, and his face cemented into a firm, tight-lipped frown.

  “We fight.” Garnos clasped his h
and, and there was real strength there. “I choose hope.”

  The Hunter returned the grip, and a thrill of excitement coursed through him. It felt so strange to be in this position. For thousands of years, he had wandered Einan, lost, aimless, like a blade of grass blown in the wind. Those winds—call them fate, destiny, the gods, or random chance, he didn’t care—had brought him to Enarium at this very moment in time. So be it. He would do what he must. For Hailen’s sake, for Taiana and his daughter, for the humans and Elivasti alike.

  “I trust you have a plan of some sort?” Garnos asked.

  “Open the gates, let the people out.” The Hunter shrugged. “Seems straightforward enough to me.”

  Garnos scowled. “All that speech, and you don’t even—”

  “Last night,” the Hunter cut him off, “when I walked out of the Pit, I saw the windlass that opens the main gate. It will take the two of us to get it open.”

  Garnos held up a finger. “Then, don’t forget the seventy guards holding the stairs and the gate. Plus, there are always a handful moving around the causeway. We could be looking at a hundred or more armed men to stop us from opening the gates.”

  “Which is why we need a distraction first.” The Hunter gave him a wry grin. “If the prisoners attack from the inside, it will keep the guards occupied long enough for us to deal with the ones within and throw the gate wide.”

  Garnos shook his head. “Then that is where your plan falls flat.” He sighed. “As you said, the people within the Pit are beaten, starved, and abused. My fellow Elivasti have contrived all manner of cruel torments to break their spirits and shatter their will until nothing but hollow husks remain.”

  The Hunter couldn’t argue with that. The hollow-eyed, haunted looks on the faces of the people he’d seen within Khar’nath had proven Garnos’ words true. They had been broken, yet perhaps not beyond the point of repair.