Triumphant laughter echoed through the staircase from the floor above them. The Hunter’s heart leapt—he’d recognize that laugh anywhere. Arrogant, vicious, infernal.
The Sage.
He leapt up the stairs onto the landing and came face to face with ten Elivasti. Blood covered their armor, spattered their face, and stained their hands—enough blood to fill a human body.
The Hunter’s gut clenched. These Blood Sentinels had been the ones to kill their brothers-in-arms to activate the Keeps in service to the Sage.
A fanatical light shone in their eyes, and frenzied smiles split their faces as they caught sight of him. The Hunter had met men like them before—they had trained their entire lives to sacrifice their lives for the Sage, yet had been denied their glorious calling. They had lived for the sole purpose of dying.
He was more than happy to oblige.
A roar of rage ripped from his throat as he charged them. Ten Scorchslayers pointed at his chest, and blue light flared bright on the landing, mixing with the crimson light of the Blood Sun.
Time slowed around the Hunter as he raced toward the Elivasti. He could see the light of the runes growing brighter as the Scorchslayer prepared to discharge their lightning at him. At the last instant, he threw himself to his knees and bent backward. Ten crackling bolts of energy whipped above his head, a few passing close enough to singe his hair. His forward momentum sent him sliding toward the Blood Sentinels and, before they could recover and correct their aim, the Hunter hit the foremost rank.
The spikestaff crashed into one Elivasti’s knee, crushing bone. The man dropped with a scream, straight onto Soulhunger’s blade. The Hunter tore the dagger from the man’s groin, spraying blood, and whipped Soulhunger around to hamstring another Blood Sentinel. He lashed out with the spikestaff in his right hand, which cracked into a guard’s forearm. The Scorchslayer dropped from the Elivasti’s hand and clattered on the floor.
The Hunter leapt to his feet, kicked the Scorchslayer backward, and threw himself into the knot of men in one smooth move. Like a whirlwind of wood, steel, and flesh, he laid into the Elivasti. Their armor could resist a lightning bolt, but not the strength of a raging Bucelarii. His bludgeoning attacks crushed skulls, splintered arm and leg bones, and dented breastplates with enough force to shatter the chest beneath. He never stopped moving, trusting Taiana to watch his back as he tore through the Elivasti.
The Scorchslayers could wreak devastation on a distant foe, but they were next to useless in close quarters. Normal warriors wouldn’t fire for fear of hitting comrades or allies. The Blood Sentinels, however, loosed lightning bolts without hesitation. The loud humming of the weapons gave the Hunter enough advanced warning to leap out of the path of the sizzling lightning. The Elivasti caught in the crossfire weren’t so lucky. Four fell to errant fire before the Hunter disarmed and killed them or Taiana’s bolts tore their unprotected heads and legs to shreds.
And then there were no more. The Hunter stood alone in a middle of ten blue-armored bodies—or what remained of them. Blood covered him from head to toe, filled his mouth, seeped into his stolen Elivasti armor, turned his hands slick. Not bothering to wipe the crimson away, he turned and stalked up the stairs toward the uppermost chamber.
Toward the Sage and Hailen.
Chapter Forty-Three
The Hunter stepped into a world of crimson and black. The walls and floor were made of the same obsidian of the Dolmenrath, and the red light of the Blood Sun made the towertop chamber seem more ominous. Yet it lacked the same eerie malevolence he’d encountered in the standing stones across Einan. The power running through this place, however, far surpassed anything he’d felt when Hailen touched the standing stones in the Advanat, beneath Kara-ket, or even outside Enarium.
Through the broad windows, the Hunter could see the ocean of white, fluffy clouds below him. It felt like the world was upside down, with only the solid stone beneath his feet to ground him in reality. That, and the massive pillar of crimson that now obscured the sun and painted the world in bloody hues.
For the first time, the Hunter realized just how high up he was. The Illumina dominated the top of the hill upon which Enarium had been built, and he was nearly twenty floors up—an impossibility by even the latest Voramian and Praamian architectural standards. He stood above the clouds, literally. Nothing but a thin pane of transparent glass stopped him from plummeting to his death.
The Hunter immediately recognized the room from Kharna’s vision. This was where the Swordsman had made his last stand, where the Serenii—the ones the humans had called gods—sacrificed themselves to seal the rift against the Devourer.
His eyes were inevitably drawn to the heart of the room. Tendrils of inky, swirling blackness clawed through the portal, drinking up all light and filling the room with ever-shifting shadows. The threads of chaos, the Devourer of Worlds, sought to consume the world and destroy the very fabric of reality. Through the rift, the Hunter glimpsed impossibility, a creature so vast and unimaginable that his mind recoiled from the sight. A shudder ran down his spine, and with effort he tore his gaze from the gaping rift into nothingness.
The tear in reality was enclosed—if such universe-shattering chaos could be enclosed—within a pillar of what looked like solid sapphires, the same pillar that ran all the way down through the base of the Illumina. The roof was made of the same transparent gemstone, as if the light of the sun could push back the seething darkness of chaos. The light of the Er’hato Tashat changed the glow of the pillar from the usual blue to a deep purple. Pulses of violet light ran through the column like a giant heartbeat, and the Hunter could feel it being pulled downward. This, then, had to be what sustained Kharna—the power of the sun added to the lives of those in the Chambers of Sustenance.
A waist-high stone table stood beside the central column, connected by those same transparent, flexible tubes. Yet this was no ordinary table. Gemstones like those in the Keeps had been set into the surface, and glowing runes shone along its entire length. It was exactly as the Hunter had seen in his vision below.
The Sage stood before the table, a triumphant look in his eyes as he held Hailen’s hand pressed to one fist-sized square of gemstone. Blood dripped from the boy’s fingernails onto the altar to be soaked up by the stones, and the runes flared brighter, filling the air with that violet light.
Hailen’s gaze fell on the Hunter, and his violet eyes, red-rimmed from fatigue and tears, brightened at the sight. “Hardwell!”
“Don’t worry, Hailen,” the Hunter said without taking his eyes from the Sage. “I’m here.”
The Sage’s head whipped around, and his eyes narrowed as he, too, caught sight of the Hunter. “Damn you, Hunter!” In that moment, he bore a strong resemblance to the bestial, battle-hardened Abiarazi the Hunter had seen in his vision. “Once again, you prove yourself an impossible thorn in my side. But no longer. You die here!”
The Hunter grinned. “The First of the Bloody Hand said the same thing. You’ll share his fate soon enough.” As he spoke, his eyes scanned the towertop chamber. No Blood Sentinels were in sight—no one stood between the Hunter and his prey.
“Ah, ah, ah!” The Sage snarled as the Hunter moved closer. “One more step and I spill the boy’s blood all over the altar. You know I need only a few drops, but I will not hesitate if you force my hand.”
The Hunter stopped, his jaw muscles working. He didn’t dare look behind to see where Taiana was.
“How fitting that you should be here at the end!” The Sage spoke in a loud voice to be heard over the vibrations running through the stones. “To watch me succeed where you, and all the rest of our progeny, have failed.”
The Hunter shook his head. “We didn’t fail. We did precisely what we promised the Serenii we would.”
“The Serenii?” The Sage’s face twisted into a snarl. “Those weak-bodied, cowardly creatures were never a match for us. We slaughtered half their race in a matter of hours, and we would have triumph
ed had not the gods sided with them.” He threw back his head and laughed. “But look at the gods now. Look at what I have done to them!”
Eleven Chambers of Sustenance lined the circular walls of the room. One Chamber had been opened and its occupant—the withered husk of a too-tall, multi-jointed creature that had once been a Serenii—lay discarded on the stone floor.
“The gods could not stop me thousands of years ago, and they will not stop me now!” the Sage crowed.
The Hunter shook his head. “The gods don’t exist. They never did. There was only—”
Fire flashed in the Sage’s midnight eyes. “There is only Kharna! There is only the Destroyer and the power he promises to those who serve him.” He thrust a finger toward the tear in reality. “And once I restore him to this world, that power will be mine.”
Confusion whirled in the Hunter’s mind. If the Sage had lived during the time men called the War of Gods, he ought to remember the truth—of the Abiarazi’s arrival on Einan, of the Serenii battle with the Devourer of Worlds, and the sacrifice they had made. Yet it seemed the Sage remembered only a twisted version of the truth.
The Hunter’s mind flashed to Arudan, and suddenly the Sage’s words made sense. The burden of a long life, Taiana had said. Just like the Bucelarii, immortality had warped his mind.
Stories became legend with the retelling, and the Sage had spent the last five thousand years listening to people speaking of the war between the gods and demons. Has he come to believe the stories as fact? If, as Kharna said, the Devourer of Worlds had infected the demons’ minds with chaos, that could have hastened the Sage’s mental decay. The cool, calculating façade could cover a mind tainted by the Abiarazi’s inherent rage, bloodlust, and desires and twisted by chaos.
The Hunter tensed as the Sage turned toward the altar and tapped a glowing rune. He managed two quick steps before the demon whirled back toward him, a slim hand closing around Hailen’s throat. “I will not let you undo what I have worked two thousand years to achieve, Hunter!”
“Wait!” The Hunter skidded to a halt and raised his hands. “Don’t harm the boy.”
Behind the Sage, Taiana crept along the wall, ducking between the Chambers of Sustenance for cover. She had abandoned her Scorchslayer—doubtless the Elivasti blood on her fingers had dried—but held a spikestaff in a white-knuckled grip.
The Hunter forced his eyes to remain fixed on the Abiarazi. “I will come no closer, as long as you swear you will let Hailen live.”
Disdain twisted the Sage’s face. “Once I have the power of Enarium at my command, I will have no need of him. But if you so much as twitch a muscle before the city is fully energized, I will tear his still-beating heart from his chest. ”
Something about the Sage’s words gave the Hunter pause. The Hunter had been so focused on finding and stopping the demon before the Withering occurred that he hadn’t had time to think about what happened if he failed. Now that the Er’hato Tashat was upon them, he had no idea what happened next. Kharna hadn’t told him how long Enarium would take to activate—it could be five seconds or five hours before the power could be harnessed.
He’s stalling. The Scorchslayers had required a second or two to activate, so how much more time could an entire city require? Either way, the Sage had inadvertently revealed the truth. He needs more time.
With every shred of speed he possessed, the Hunter brought his right arm whipping up, back, and forward. His fingers released their hold on the halved spikestaff and the weapon hurtled through the air toward the demon.
The Sage saw the attack coming and instinctively dodged, but the Hunter hadn’t been trying to take him down. As the demon moved, he released his hold on Hailen. In the same instant, Taiana stepped from behind the empty Chambers of Sustenance and leveled her spikestaff at the demon. The Sage caught the movement from the corner of his eye, and his head whipped around to face the new threat.
That momentary distraction was exactly what the Hunter wanted. He crossed the distance to the demon in three strides and drove Soulhunger straight at the Sage’s chest. With his free right hand, he reached for Hailen’s wrist.
The Sage leapt backward, out of the path of the darting dagger, but that sent him away from Hailen. The Hunter’s fingers closed around the boy’s wrist and he hauled hard, pulling Hailen away from the altar. He gathered the boy up and leapt backward before the Sage could counterattack.
The Sage spat curses in the guttural tongue of demons, his eyes fixed on the two of them. “I will feast on your flesh and grind your bones to dust!”
Taiana stepped forward, her eyes like two obsidian daggers. “Your curses hold no power here. We have spent a lifetime apart. My daughter was ripped from my arms and imprisoned for thousands of years. We have endured more than you could possibly imagine. Consider this recompense for our suffering.”
“We should have slaughtered every one of you!” The Sage’s eyes flashed, and his face twisted into a demonic rage. “We should have devoured you in your cribs or torn you to shreds like we did to the pathetic humans that spawned you.”
Anger ignited in the Hunter’s chest as he held Hailen. The boy sobbed against him, clinging to him in desperation. The Hunter had no idea what Hailen had endured over the last few days, and he had no desire to leave the boy even for a moment. Yet he had to put an end to the Sage. He couldn’t fight with the boy in his arms.
While the Sage was occupied snarling at Taiana and heaping curses on the heads of all the Bucelarii, the Hunter strode toward the nearest Chamber of Sustenance.
“Stay here!” he hissed at Hailen.
“Don’t leave me, Hardwell!” Hailen sobbed, his arms locked tight around the Hunter’s neck. “Don’t let them take me.”
“I won’t.” The Hunter clenched a fist. “I swear it, Hailen. Stay here, out of sight, while I make sure the bad man never harms you or anyone again.”
“I’m scared, Hardwell.” Tears streamed down Hailen’s cheeks and his eyes darted to the gaping hole into chaos.
The Hunter’s gut clenched. “I’m scared, too. That thing in the pillar could destroy us all, which is why I have to stop the Sage from bringing it here. But once he’s gone, no one will ever hurt you again. No one will ever take you away from me.”
Hailen’s violet eyes met his. “You promise?”
Sorrow rose like a lump in the Hunter’s throat. Taiana had gone to extremes to protect their daughter, only to have the child ripped from her arms. The Hunter had wanted to protect Farida, but his actions had gotten her killed. No child was safe in a world where cruelty, violence, and chaos existed.
Yet he nodded and said, “I promise,” without hesitation. He would do everything in his power to protect Hailen, no matter what.
Nodding, Hailen wiped his tears and released the Hunter’s neck.
“Get down behind this thing where no one can see you,” the Hunter told him. “Cover your ears and close your eyes tight.”
Hailen obeyed. So trusting—it only added to the Hunter’s sorrow. He had caused the boy so much pain, yet still Hailen had faith in him. He would do whatever it took to live up to Hailen’s expectations.
He slithered along the black stone wall, trying to keep out of the Sage’s line of sight. If he could get around behind the demon while he was distracted with Taiana, he could bring him down long enough for the two of them to wrestle the Sage into the open Chamber of Sustenance.
When he finally risked a glance at the Sage, horror froze him in place. The demon held the tip of a long, slim sword to Taiana’s neck. Even from his angle, the Hunter could see the gemstone set in the weapon’s hilt. With a snarl, the Sage slashed the tip across Taiana’s throat.
Chapter Forty-Four
“No!” The shout burst from the Hunter’s lips as blood gushed from the gash in Taiana’s neck. The blonde woman fell backward, a hand clasped to her neck.
The Hunter moved before the Sage could pursue, leaping over the altar and lashing out with a flying kick at
the demon’s right wrist. The Sage whipped his hand back, then brought the long sword swinging around to carve a long gash across the Hunter’s forehead.
The moment steel touched the Hunter’s flesh, agony tore through his body. Pain flooded the Hunter—such torment he'd never dreamed could exist—and ever fiber in his body burned. A horrifying chill, the chill of impending death, sapped the strength from his muscles and filled his world with torment. He’d felt pain like this only once before. The First of the Bloody Hand cut him with a similar blade—a blade like Soulhunger, fashioned with one of the Im’tasi stones from Khar’nath. A weapon like those given to the Bucelarii by the Serenii, not the Abiarazi, to aid them in their quest to sustain Kharna.
The Hunter gasped as the sword tore free of his skin and the torment ended. He staggered backward, stunned as much by the Sage’s ability with the blade as the fact that he possessed such a weapon. On Kara-ket, he’d flinched from violence, even seemed terrified by it. The Hunter had expected him to be that same scholarly schemer, not a warrior like the Warmaster. Yet there was no mistaking the confidence in the Sage’s stance or his grip on the slim rapier—the confidence of a man that had spent a lifetime winning battles.
The Sage grinned. “Surprise!” he sang out as he carved circles into the air in front of the Hunter’s face. “Looks like you’re the fool that brought a knife to a sword fight.”
“Make that knives,” the Hunter growled. He reached beneath his armor for the hilt of one the Swordsman’s blades. The skin of his palms recoiled from the touch of iron, but he gritted his teeth and forced his fingers to grip it. Right now, a bit of pain was well worth having a second weapon. He’d have to be bloody fast to keep the Sage’s longer, lighter blade away from him. Even the slightest wound would be agonizing, perhaps even fatal.
He cast a glance at Taiana. His wife lay on the ground, her face pale from blood loss, yet the gush of blood had slowed as her Bucelarii healing abilities repaired the damage. She would live, as long as he kept the Sage focused on him.
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