Shadow of the Exile (The Infernal Guardian Book 1)

by Mitchell Hogan

“They are coming,” he gasped, trying to increase his pace without tripping on the unfamiliarly spaced steps. He managed a half jog, which drew gasps of pain from Ren. He glanced at her and saw that her red-rimmed eyes were half-lidded.

  They heard shouted cants from below. Glittering lights soared up the staircase toward them, their radiance painting the walls and stairs with a sapphire glow.

  Ren bared her teeth and responded. Her cants emerged as a sparkling fury, plummeting toward their foes with a wailing screech, weaving curved trails before detonating with thunderous cracks.

  The stone trembled under Tarrik’s feet. He ran on, casting a frantic glance downward. The soldiers and sorcerers were rent into pieces by Ren’s shimmering lights. The air seemed to shriek under the assault. Blood slicked the stairs, and the survivors slipped and skidded.

  Tumultuous roars sounded as Ren’s eldritch sorcery battered their pursuers. Hammer after hammer. Crack after crack. Stone chipped and shattered. Stairs broke and crumbled, graven with white and golden emanations, barring the way to those who pursued them. Tarrik tightened his grip on Ren and ran. She had given them a chance.

  Up and up he raced, his booted feet slapping stone until his lungs and throat burned. No sorcery followed their wild dash. All he could hear of the sorcerers and soldiers below was the wailing of the injured. Ren’s head lolled against him, her eyes closed, mouth slightly open. She looked haggard, her skin ashen and streaked with dust.

  He looked up and saw an opening high above, and a light. The golden light of the sun.

  “I see the sun,” he said, his voice croaking in his dry throat.

  Ren groaned and opened her eyes. She blinked, then moaned. “Hurry,” she said in the barest whisper.

  Tarrik urged his burning muscles forward. Step by aching step he ascended, and eventually the sunlit doorway appeared before him. He lurched through it and felt heat and light envelop him.

  Ren panted and shuddered in his arms. “Put me down,” she gasped.

  Tarrik lowered her to the stone, and she immediately pushed away from him, staggering a few steps into the bright light. Blood and dust streaked her back.

  Ren sobbed. She turned to face Tarrik, then fell to her knees. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Thank you,” she said. “I will not forget.”

  “We still have to get out of here,” he reminded her. “And in your condition, that’s unlikely.”

  She was too weak, too wounded. The sorceries she’d used to get them here had to have drained her. And they needed water . . .

  “Water!” Tarrik spat the word. Ren couldn’t create her platform without it. In the commotion, he’d forgotten.

  “I have some,” she said, and held up the waterskin she’d brought from the cellblock. She placed it carefully on the ground next to her, then unbuckled her sword and set that down too. “But first, I need to replenish myself.”

  Tarrik glanced at the yellow sun high in the sky. “It’s too late for the dawn-tide and too early for the dusk. We’re stuck here until evening. Do you have enough power to see off hours of assault from the Cabalists?”

  “That will not be necessary.”

  Ren lay on her back and stretched out her arms and legs until she was sprawled on the roof of the tower.

  She is insane.

  Tarrik licked his lips and decided he’d made a mistake. He should have left her to rot. His blood boiled, and anger surged through him—at himself most of all. That was what this world did to you. It took your hardness, honed over years and orders ascended, and diminished you. Contian had softened him, as had Jaquel. And now Ren was doing the same.

  He needed a drink.

  Ren lay unmoving, bathing in the sun’s light. For a dozen heartbeats nothing happened; then she began to glow.

  Tarrik backed up a step and shook his head, not believing his eyes. He found himself struggling for breath.

  Ren moaned, then cried out. Her hands curled into claws, fingernails scraping across stone. Golden waves rolled over her, painting her clothes and face—an eldritch power Tarrik knew nothing of. She wore a rapturous smile.

  Blood and fire, she is exquisite.

  He was instantly gripped with horror. Not again. He couldn’t care for another human. But here he was, bound not by Ren’s sorcery, but by his own emotions and loyalty. He couldn’t look away.

  For a dozen heartbeats the light traversed Ren’s form. Tarrik dared not approach to see if she was all right. Then the light scattered and disappeared, leaving only a few yellow motes that twinkled into nothing. Ren lay there, her chest heaving, the smile still plastered on her face. Her skin streamed sweat, and there were scarlet patches on the stone where she’d smeared her own blood.

  She cracked an eye open, and her expression changed to one of relief. She sat up and dusted her hands, then stood. She seemed surprisingly strong for someone who had moments ago been close to death.

  Tarrik frowned. Sheelahn had called Ren “Sun-Child.” Was this the power that Indriol thought she had drawn on—something different from the dawn- and dusk-tides? He recalled the scent that had come off her when she had created her disc—of sunlight. And what Ren had said of herself: I’m something different.

  For a few moments he stood, confused, then found his voice. “What are you? Where does your power come from?”

  “There is more power than just the dawn-, dusk-, and dark-tides, Tarrik. There is the sun. All other tides have their roots in the sun—and the stars.”

  “Not the dark-tide.”

  “Yes. Even the dark-tide. It is misnamed.” She glanced toward the staircase. “We don’t have time to discuss such affairs now. I am restored. I will not punish the Cabalists, though they deserve it and more. I will be done with them soon, one way or another.”

  Ren had succeeded where all others had failed, Tarrik thought. She had learned the secret of containing the sun’s power. With its potency she might be greater than any other sorcerer before her. It was no wonder she’d been able to kill Lischen and Indriol. And she would hand that knowledge over to Samal when he was free. Except her own actions suggested she was standing up to the Nine. More than suggested . . . after all, she’d killed two of them already. And if the Nine were stopped, then Samal would remain imprisoned.

  Ren gazed at him, her sheathed sword held casually in both hands. “You know my secret now. You have seen it with your own eyes. I’ve been able to keep it from the Nine, my cleansing. I should kill you.”

  “Then do it.”

  She wouldn’t kill him. He knew it in his bones. And he didn’t want her to. She needed him. She had come to save him, and he’d done the same for her.

  He could send himself back to the abyssal realms now. But would she let him go—or try to stop him?

  He wanted to hate her for what she’d done to him. He wanted to have her start the process of return . . . but something held him back. There were too many inconsistencies, too many questions. Was Ren trying to save the rest of humankind—and perhaps also much of demonkind?

  She shook her head. “I still need you. I’ll ask one more thing of you: come with me, and I’ll tell you all I can. Then you can decide whether to stay or return to your exile. Do you agree?”

  “Yes,” said Tarrik, and hoped he wouldn’t regret his decision.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  They passed a few hours of flight with hardly a word said between them. Ren’s face was drawn and her movements jerky—no doubt a side effect of the physical and mental torture she’d endured.

  A storm loomed ahead: churning clouds shot through with forked tongues of lightning. Thunder blasted them as they skirted its edge, blustery wind whipping at their clothes and hair. Just when Tarrik was about to suggest they seek cover, he felt his stomach rise as the disc descended.

  Ren landed them at the bottom of a cliff, the ground shrouded in the deep sable of night. Only a few scraggly grasses and stunted bushes grew in the cliff’s shelter, and there was no fresh water that Tarrik could see or hear. Onl
y a stagnant pond with yellow edges was nearby, filled with green scum.

  “I need to rest,” said Ren quietly.

  “Aren’t we supposed to be having a discussion?”

  She passed a trembling hand across her brow. “Yes. When I wake. Please, bear with me. I fear I will collapse if I stay awake any longer.”

  She stumbled to where Tarrik had dropped their gear and, after a few moments of fumbling, came up with a hooded lantern and a curious object she struck to light it. The glow caught something white moving toward them.

  Tarrik hissed and brandished his spear. “Watch out!”

  He glimpsed an emaciated figure with long limbs and white eyes. The being gave a faint moan, then scurried into the darkness. Tarrik peered after it. A dead-eye. And where there was one, there was usually a pack, and in rarer cases a tribe. He hoped it wouldn’t return with others.

  “You’re on guard for the rest of the night,” said Ren. “I’m unable to set wards yet. You can doze during daylight tomorrow.”

  Tarrik grunted. She was still giving him orders. But he had agreed to hear her out. “Hurry up and get some sleep. I want to return to my realm as soon as possible.”

  “You’re so sure you will return?”

  Tarrik snorted. He’d learned that nothing was certain. “Sleep. I’ll keep an eye out.”

  And continue to work on absorbing Ananias’s essence.

  Tarrik woke in a shaking horror, as if he’d been caught with his mind wandering in the middle of a hunt to realize his prey had turned upon him and he was no longer the hunter, but the hunted. The makeshift campsite reeled around Tarrik, and everything looked out of place.

  Where was he? What was he doing here?

  He sat up and drew in a ragged breath. He’d fallen asleep in his exhaustion.

  On the other side of their saddlebags, Ren lay on her blanket, one-half twisted around her body as if she’d writhed in her sleep. Her eyes were closed, stray locks of hair she hadn’t braided falling across her face.

  She groaned and whimpered. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps. There was a red stain on her blanket near her mouth, and Tarrik saw she’d worried her knuckle again in her sleep. Her lips moved, speaking words so softly he couldn’t quite catch them, but they had the ring of Skanuric.

  Tarrik considered moving to her, wrapping her finger so she did no more damage to it tonight. But he stopped himself before he was half out of his own blanket. Ren would not want him to touch her without permission. She had made that abundantly clear.

  He settled back and tried to calm his breathing, but just then she cried out in her sleep. Ren thrashed so violently that she woke herself. She scrambled from her blanket and stood staring into the night, a savage snarl on her face, breathing heavily. She saw Tarrik, on his feet too now, spear in hand, and her expression changed to one of relief before she schooled it into blankness.

  She wiped sweat from her face and glanced at the lantern Tarrik had left alight beside her makeshift bed. “I take it no dead-eyes have attacked?”

  “No. You never seem to sleep well,” he added.

  She looked around again, then sat on her blanket cross-legged, rubbed both palms into her eyes, and yawned. “I suppose now is as good a time as any to explain.” She looked Tarrik in the eye. “I would like you to serve me willingly.”

  This again. “I will serve no one unless forced to.”

  “You served Contian.”

  “Do not speak of him! You don’t have the right!”

  “He was my father! Though I barely saw him. You knew him far better than I did . . . than I ever will!” Her hands clenched into fists, and she pounded one against her knee with an audible smack. Then she cleared her throat. “Please . . . tell me about him.”

  Her reaction rocked Tarrik back on his heels. He narrowed his eyes and considered her for a moment.

  He had to admit to himself that Ren touched him. This woman who was so powerful herself but still longed to know about the father she looked up to. Tarrik trembled, his throat tight, as he remembered his own child who’d died young, whom he’d never gotten the chance to know.

  Contian—the only human Tarrik had ever trusted apart from Jaquel. Even Delfina, Contian’s wife, had looked upon Tarrik as an abomination, and he had been the cause of grief between the two of them. Perhaps that was where he should start.

  He spoke slowly, softly. “I was with Contian when he rescued the woman who would become his first apprentice and later his wife.”

  “Delfina? My mother.”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me.”

  Memories flooded back to Tarrik. He did his best to describe them. “We were out ‘treasure hunting,’ as Contian liked to call it—walking over ancient battlefields on the off chance looters had missed sorcerous artifacts. Contian liked to smoke his pipe and ponder history and how it made corpses of all men.” Tarrik laughed. “That pipe! Its smoke brought more than a few dead-eyes to us, but he never seemed to care. An entire tribe of the creatures wasn’t enough to trouble him.

  “Anyhow, one night we heard the baying of a pack of ghouls that had cornered a young woman. She was out gathering a certain tiny fungus that glows in moonlight. Exhausted from fleeing the creatures, she had unwittingly scrambled down a dead-end gully. Contian rained fire down upon them, but as usual he was overzealous, and the conflagration was in danger of burning the girl to charcoal too. So he went down there to save her. He walked right into the inferno, atop rock glowing orange from the heat, his wards surrounding him, and came out cradling a black-haired girl in his arms. As I recall, she wasn’t very appreciative when she woke. Called him an idiot and a fool.”

  Ren had stood while he spoke and closed the distance between them. She stopped an arm’s length from him. “My mother told me that story. She said Contian was always overenthusiastic with his cants. That sorcery was continually a wonder for him.”

  “Isn’t it for you?” Tarrik asked. “Such power you wield. Most humans would be jealous.”

  Ren folded her arms around her waist and looked away. “What has that power brought me? Nothing but torment and misery. I would gladly be rid of it, but I cannot. Not when there’s one last thing for me to do.”

  “Destroy the Nine and keep Samal imprisoned?” Tarrik said. He’d figured out that much at least. The demon lord’s release would plunge this world into nightmare. But wasn’t that humans’ lot? To know misery and disappointment. To live with the knowledge that no matter what the perversity or injury, whatever indignity or horror, there was nothing else. They were what they were and could not evolve, as demons did.

  But although he couldn’t care less about the humans, he knew freeing Samal was a mistake. One that the world would come to regret.

  Ren looked at him in surprise. “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Give me some credit. You have already killed Lischen and Indriol. My guess is more of the Nine are on your list when we reach Samal’s prison. Do you have a chance of succeeding?”

  Ren hesitated. “I think so. A slim one. The consequences, though, would be dire.”

  “Worse than Samal entering this world again?”

  She gave him a wan smile. “No. You are right, Tarrik. What is the weight of a few deaths when so many could be prevented? It would be foolish of me not to try. I know, more than anyone, how malevolent Samal is. I used to fight against him and Nysrog, as you know, until I came to Samal’s attention, and he added me to his disciples. I was bound to him as human sorcerers do with demons. I was tormented, tortured, broken, and then reassembled into a sorcerer whose only purpose was to serve Samal. Once I was taken, I was forever changed. I did such things that would give you nightmares, and I enjoyed them. I was his creature, body and soul. There is no coming back from what I’ve done. Even after I inadvertently broke his bindings upon me, I could not return.

  “Samal must remain imprisoned. The world cannot afford to let him walk free again with the Nine behind him. I cannot let that happen. I will
not. Will you help me? I find I require an ally when I thought I had hardened myself not to need anyone. I have been alone for so long, against impossible odds and almost certain death, that I forget what it’s like to be otherwise.”

  Had she forgotten what she’d done to him, Tarrik wondered. Or did she view it as insignificant? Or necessary?

  “Why should I help you, sorcerer, demon slaver?”

  Ren ignored his question. Instead, she looked away and toyed with one of the silver buttons on her shirt. “Delfina told me of Jaquel.”

  Tarrik froze, his heart hammering in his chest, his throat tight.

  Ren continued as if she hadn’t noticed his distress. “At first I was incredulous. A demon and a human in love—who would credit such a happening? With what I knew of demonkind at the time, it seemed . . . impossible. But I have to admit, now that I know you, I have seen another side to the higher-order demons. Or to you at least.”

  Tarrik found words tumbling from his throat. “Jaquel was a wonder among humans. Fierce. Intelligent. Caring. To Contian, Delfina was the finest treasure he found on his wanderings. For me, that treasure was Jaquel.”

  Ren reached for his hand but withdrew before touching him. “I can see the qualities Jaquel would admire in you, demon though you are. You are formidable and fearsome and sometimes recklessly brave. You have what many demons, even many humans, lack: a sense of honor.”

  Tarrik shook his head. “I only do what I have to, to survive.”

  “When many others would have given up. Is that not a virtue? I know you are capable of loyalty, and of love too. Myself, I have no time for such things. There’s always a price, Tarrik. Whatever you want to achieve, it is never without a cost. Some things are bigger than any individual, and they’re worth dying for. It is likely I will be dead in the next few days. But I will gladly give my life to keep Samal interned.” Ren looked Tarrik in the eyes again. “Will you help me willingly, without being bound or compelled?”

  Ren obviously thought spending her life in an attempt to keep Samal imprisoned was worthwhile. The question was, should Tarrik risk his own?