Shadow of the Exile (The Infernal Guardian Book 1)

by Mitchell Hogan

  He placed the knife against the wound, then tried to drive it into her neck. His muscles strained against the iron grip of her bindings.

  Ren looked over her shoulder at him. “You cannot overcome your baseness, can you?”

  What did she know of him? Nothing! Blood and fire, he wanted to spill her blood and batter her senseless.

  “Do as I command!” she barked.

  Tarrik strained for a few more heartbeats, then gave up. He blinked sweat from his eyes, vowing to unlock Ananias’s essence as soon as he could.

  He made the second cut and shoved the disc under her skin. Ren winced and grimaced but held herself steady. Tarrik couldn’t help thinking she’d taken the pain well, but from her scarred skin, he supposed she was used to it.

  “Now sew up the incision,” said Ren.

  He did as he was told, unsure whether touching her skin repelled or aroused him.

  “What does the artifact do?” he asked.

  “It’s . . . an augmentation. It can store a vast amount of all tidal powers, though it isn’t itself a catalyst. If I’m compromised or cornered, and there are no other options, I can unleash the arcane energies within it. A last resort.”

  Tarrik had never heard of such a thing, nor could he come up with a reason anyone would want it under his or her skin. The release of such energies would mean Ren’s death, along with anyone around her. She was probably lying.

  “The world is incredibly complex, Tarrik. Can one person hope to stand against the might of a river?” Her voice grew tight, and she shook her head.

  Tarrik had no idea what she was talking about and no desire to find out. Her goals were nothing to him.

  “It will leave a scar,” he said without thinking.

  “One more doesn’t matter. Have you finished?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then take the bandage, and wrap my shoulder. Not too tightly, as I need to move my arm.”

  He unrolled the bandage and wrapped it underneath her arm and around her shoulder. Then he picked up the small bottle of alcohol and took a swig. It burned his throat and stomach, but the pain felt good and took his mind off killing her.

  “That’s all?” he said.

  “Yes. You’re finished.”

  “You should try trusting me more often. I have to obey your commands, and I cannot kill you. We’re in this together.”

  Ren scoffed weakly. “Trust you? A demon.”

  “Better than being a slaver.”

  “I use what tools I have. If you knew what—” She broke off, shaking her head. “I trust my horse to take me where I want to go. You, I trust less than a rabid dog.”

  “I’m not an animal to be leashed and brought to heel whenever—”

  “No, you’re a blasted demon! A defiler of women and men and children! You exist only to bring chaos and to sate your own base lusts. Don’t think I don’t know this. Look at me! Look at my scars! Tell the hundreds of thousands of people killed by Nysrog and his followers that you’re not an animal. You should be begging me for forgiveness for what your kind has done to mine.”

  “You’re a fool! The demons had no choice. They were ripped from their world and forced to obey malicious masters like you. When you beat a dog so, it fears you. When you force it to fight in order to eat, of course it’s reduced to animal urges. You brought the demons here and let their base instincts loose. Don’t blame them. Blame your sorcerers.”

  “And the higher demons? Nysrog the Black, the Glutton of Souls?”

  What was she saying? Did she abhor what Nysrog and the Tainted Cabal did? But wasn’t she one of them? She had been subjugated by the Adversary and was bound to serve him. As Tarrik was bound to serve her . . . except her chains had started with torture, a tormenting of the flesh before the mind.

  No. He cast such thoughts aside. She was still a slaver.

  “Your kind brought this upon themselves. Slavers and seekers after power! Users of—”

  “Cease talking before I punish you, foul demon!”

  Tarrik clamped his mouth shut. A dose of the Wracking Nerves wouldn’t serve any purpose. Silently, he cursed himself for his loss of control. He resolved to do better. He had to if he was to survive this accursed place. He must pander to Ren, get her to trust him, all the while working on absorbing Ananias and using his strength to break free of her bindings.

  Ren moved to her saddlebags and pulled out a journal. She began writing. She didn’t look to be in pain from the incision and implantation of the artifact.

  Tarrik sat by the fire, trying not to think. A twig snapped over by the beezle-fruit trees, and he turned his head to investigate.

  “It’s just a crab. You’re jumpy,” said Ren.

  “Jumpy?” Tarrik reached for his spear, vowing to keep it close while they were out in the wilderness. His hands tightened around the shaft, squeezing hard with the remnants of his anger.

  “You’re always alert. When you see something move, or there’s a sudden sound, you move your head to investigate it, then freeze.”

  “My realms are not kind to the unaware. I am your bodyguard. It is my job to be vigilant. Would you rather I ceased to guard you?”

  “No. I’d rather you tried to appear normal.”

  “So I am to protect you by not being alert? Your words make no sense.”

  “No . . . just minimize your sudden movements. Now, go and catch a few of the beezle-crabs, and throw them on the fire. They won’t take long to cook. They move slowly, so it’s easy to avoid their claws—but I should warn you, they can snap your fingers off.”

  By the time night fell, Tarrik had eaten two of the crabs, and Ren one. Their flesh was succulent and tasty, not as fishy as he’d expected. He supposed they did live on land.

  Ren pumped water with her left arm, and they washed their hands and plates before she told Tarrik to rest and brought out a leather-bound book to read—the grimoire. Again she generated a sorcerous globe above her head to provide enough light.

  Tarrik wasn’t sure what to do with himself out here alone with his slaver, under the stars. He glanced at Ren, but her attention was consumed by her reading. Occasionally she frowned and mouthed words, as if familiarizing herself with their sounds. She seemed unconcerned that a sending from Samal might show up. Then again, she had said such a manifestation shouldn’t happen again.

  After another swallow of spirits, Tarrik tossed a few branches onto the fire and settled down beside it. The heat felt good on his face and hands, a reminder of home. He turned his attention to the churning mass inside him that was Ananias’s essence.

  His heart drummed in his chest as he realized there were both hope and terror here. Hope of returning to his realm of exile and somehow redeeming himself, thereby being granted permission to rejoin demon society. And terror that he might fall short of this goal and be forever outcast. He could have wept at the strength of emotions roiling within him.

  He remembered the first higher demon he’d defeated and absorbed: Bergrunn Unnur-Valgerour, self-appointed brood mother of the aesheyak—minor demons similar to spiders, though as large as the beezle-crabs. A whirlwind had roared around him, through his mind, as her essence had invigorated and strengthened him. Afterward, his body had developed over months to become more. His mind had sharpened, expanded to another level of consciousness. And his command over the dark-tide had grown—so much so he’d thought he could sometimes feel it even when the moons shone in the night sky.

  But Ananias was something else. His essence was a bottomless deep, a void Tarrik might drown in if he wasn’t careful. It had happened to other higher demons: overconfidence led to rushed mistakes and then a descent into madness. Perhaps that was what had happened to Nysrog. And maybe the Adversary had succumbed as well.

  Absorbing another’s essence was always a test, Tarrik realized. Only the sane, the strong of will, and the careful passed. To fail was to lose yourself to the roiling energies and condemn your mind. He must proceed softly. Haste was the enemy her
e.

  Besides, Ren would likely sense him accessing the dark-tide and react with violence. He must bide his time.

  The next morning, Ren turned their horses loose, slapping their rumps until they cantered away. Though Tarrik wasn’t sorry to see the beasts go, he thought they could have at least killed one and eaten its meat.

  Ren watched them stop some distance away to crop the grass growing across fields long fallow. When she turned to Tarrik, her eyes were bright and wild.

  She is mad, like others of the Nine.

  “We were followed yesterday,” she said. “They used sorcery to keep an eye on us during the night, to make sure we didn’t sneak away under the cover of darkness.”

  Tarrik grunted. “Someone sent by Veljor? Or Puck Moonan?”

  “I don’t know. The incantations didn’t have Puck’s scent. Perhaps his apprentice or one of the sorcerers in Veljor’s employ.”

  “The green-skinned waif?”

  “She does have Illapa blood, which makes Puck’s choice curious indeed.”

  He had no idea why and didn’t care. “Shall I kill them?”

  Ren squinted into the blazing sun, shading her eyes. “No. We will be gone from here soon. They won’t hinder us.”

  Since she’d freed the horses, Tarrik decided she must have a sorcerous transport solution. Surely she couldn’t be powerful enough to shadow-step them farther than their line of sight? Besides, she didn’t have control over the dark-tide.

  “Gather our gear, including the saddles, and put them over there in the sunlight.” Without further explanation, she strode to the water pump and began cranking the rusted metal handle.

  Tarrik suppressed a growl and set to his task, glancing with hunger toward the beezle-fruit trees and the horde of clacking crabs underneath.

  When he was finished, Tarrik retrieved his spear and stood by their gear. Ren continued to pump water until the trough was full again. It had drained overnight through a crack in its side. She stepped gingerly over the mud surrounding the trough and filled the bucket with water.

  She looked at him then, her eyes glowing with a golden light, and spoke a cant. Then another.

  Heat rose from a circle of ground to Tarrik’s left, smoking as though it were molten rock. Swaths of flame erupted and scoured the grass to fine ash. He glimpsed a twinkle in the air over the now-blackened circle.

  Ren heaved the bucket of water over the sorcery-scarred earth. Steam erupted upon contact, but none of the vapor plumed into the sky. Instead, a haze hung suspended over the circle as if caught in an invisible net.

  Another cant, this one shouted. Sweat poured from Ren’s face.

  Tarrik retreated a step. What was she doing? Waves of heat blasted his face, sent bugs leaping from the surviving grass around the circle. Strangely, he sensed only minimal dawn- and dusk-tide emanations. Perhaps she was testing her storage amulet.

  Blue light erupted around the circle, filaments scribing the shape of a thin disc that hovered a foot above the scorched ground.

  Ren poured more water from the bucket over the disc, and the liquid evaporated instantly. She dropped the bucket and strode to Tarrik’s side. She smelled of arcane power and the parched cleanliness of clothes dried in bright sunlight. Above all, she smelled pleased with herself.

  “The water is essential,” she told him. “It both harnesses and reflects light. And light is power. All of the tides—the dawn, the dusk, and the dark—are born of light.”

  She was a fool. “Not the dark-tide.”

  Ren regarded him with amusement, which raised his hackles. “If you say so.”

  “And what is this you’ve wrought with your sorcery?”

  “A conveyance. Place our gear on the platform. The heat won’t penetrate the top from underneath. Be quick about it, though, or you might char your new boots.”

  Ren took a step up onto the shimmering disc, which stood suspended over the ground. “Come. We have a long way to travel.” She stepped to the east side and knelt, bowing her head and whispering cants.

  Tarrik swallowed his misgivings and piled their gear in the middle of the disc. Close to the platform he could feel the fierce heat from underneath penetrating his boot leather. He fetched his spear, then stood on the disc. He could see through its scintillating cobalt to the ash-strewn ground beneath.

  He’d never heard of such an arcane contrivance. Even Contian had relied on mundane means of travel. Ren must be much more powerful than the old man had been, though he supposed the Nine had been chosen for their sorcerous potency—if what Ren said could be believed.

  “Sit,” she said.

  Tarrik complied, placing his spear beside him. Fifty yards away, the horses grazed unperturbed, and the crabs searched for nourishment beneath the beezle-fruit trees.

  Ren raised her arms, and crimson-violet lightning answered her call. She grasped its sparking tendrils in both hands. The disc lurched forward, then rose into the sky. Wind whipped about them, tugging their clothes and lashing their hair. Trees passed in a blur; then the pair were above the canopy, rising still higher. A fall from such a height would burst them open like ripe fruit, Tarrik thought uneasily.

  Ren stood and cast her gaze behind Tarrik, searching the sky.

  Tarrik turned to see black orbs trailing smoke scorching through the sky toward them. They originated from a single point on the ground, a mile from where they’d made camp. He clutched his spear and scrambled to his feet. There was nowhere to run.

  Ren sang cant after cant, gathering more and more power unto herself. She laughed, as if being assailed were amusing.

  She is insane.

  The dark orbs hammered into Ren’s ethereal wards and glanced off into the clouds above. The disc rocked, and Tarrik staggered, falling to his knees. Ren tottered but remained upright. She cried out as cracks appeared in her wards.

  She snarled another cant, and eldritch power answered. Tarrik felt her wards repair.

  Plumes of incandescence surged outward from her, following the dispersing trails of smoke back to their source. The air seemed to crack asunder as her incantations hit the earth in a fiery crush. Trees and boulders were immolated. A fissure opened up in the ground. Dust and embers swirled. Tarrik stared openmouthed at the destruction.

  Ren placed her hands on her hips and gazed at the burning ground, waiting.

  No further sorcery assaulted them.

  She returned to the front of the disc. “Well, she won’t try that again.”

  He gathered his wits. “Did Puck send her after you?”

  She shook her head. “He may be insane, but he isn’t stupid. His apprentice acted on her own. Like so many of the young, she thinks she knows everything, but she has much to learn. One day, someone will squash her like a bug. Today, I let her live. And she knows it.”

  Chapter Seven

  Tarrik couldn’t determine how fast they were flying, but miles and miles of lands passed quickly beneath them. The wind gusted occasionally around him, but Ren, sitting at the leading edge of the disc, must have constructed a shield of some sort in front of her. Her head was bowed, and in her hands she held lightning-struck clouds that glowed golden and sparked with brilliant white sorcery. Tendrils of the strange power straggled over her arms and face, trailing behind her like vaporous hair.

  A light rain squall came upon them as they left sight of land and coasted over the Simorga Sea, but its droplets puffed into steam before they splattered Tarrik. He perceived that the heat from the enchantment that powered the disc must emanate in all directions while they were aloft.

  The white-flecked field of blue stretched away underneath them, and the air was crisp and clean. A fleet of fishing ships heading back to the coast looked like toys. Tarrik experienced a rush of terror at the thought of all that water. If Ren’s sorcery were to fail, they would plummet into those blue depths and never resurface. He’d seen drowned bodies before, and once the broken limbs and shattered skull of a woman who had thrown herself over a cliff into the
waves below to escape ravening demons. He had been one of them, back before he’d advanced to a higher order.

  He swallowed down the last of Roska Fridle’s spirits and sighed. How far until they reached their destination he didn’t know. With a sniff, he rolled the empty bottle across the platform and watched it drop over the side. The heat from the disc shattered the container, and glass whizzed behind them as if shot from a bow. He shuddered as the debris faded to a speck, then disappeared into the blue. There was no end to this sky or the ocean. It was as if they were the only living beings in existence.

  Finally, a faint smudge ahead grew steadily into a landmass. Rugged cliffs spotted with dark beaches rose to windswept grasses and then to mountainous forests.

  “Niyas,” said Ren, and Tarrik thought there was relief in her tone.

  An island country, Tarrik knew that much from past experience. Ruled by a queen. Or it had been before. Much could change in this world fairly quickly. A defect, he supposed, of the humans’ short lives.

  Behind them the sun brushed the edge of the ocean and began to paint the sky orange and red. The fiery colors reminded him of home, though he had come to find the sky’s usual pale blue calming. Tarrik suddenly realized they had been descending slowly for some time. He could now discern individual foam-crested waves. Nearby a flock of seagulls alighted on the water, some diving to feed on a shoal of small fish that formed a shadow beneath the surface.

  “Who will you have me steal from here?” he said.

  Ren didn’t answer. Instead, she stood and raised her arms above her head, stretching her back. Her orichalcum-hilted sword still hung down along her spine; she hadn’t taken it off since they’d left Ivrian.

  Even though they’d been flying the entire day, Ren didn’t look the worse for wear. In fact, despite her incision, she seemed invigorated, which made Tarrik curious. The prolonged use of sorcery had to have exhausted her repositories; likely she’d want to reach land before dark in order to take advantage of the dusk-tide to build up her strength, then pass a quiet night until she could absorb the dawn-tide too.