Darkblade Slayer

by Andy Peloquin

  Grinning, the Hunter continued his traverse. No way would Sir Danna or the others think to look for him here, clinging to a cliff face just a few paces from their camp.

  He climbed along the rocky wall for another twenty paces, then slowly clambered upward. He peered over the cliff's edge and found himself staring at the rear of one of the two-man tents. The sound of snoring came from within.

  The Hunter was about to climb up and slip into the tent, when the snort of a horse drew his attention. He glanced to his right, and grinned as he spotted the source of the sound. Sir Danna's warhorse, Pathfinder, stood beside fifteen others. A pile of bags, bundles, and horse tack lay a short distance away.

  A mischievous grin twisted the Hunter’s face into a smile. Oh, that will do quite nicely!

  He climbed along the wall until he passed the last tent, then slipped over the cliff's edge onto the trail. A few of the horses snorted and pricked up their ears as he approached. He made a soft chuffing sound with his mouth to calm them.

  "Easy," he whispered, and clucked his tongue quietly. He moved slowly, careful not to startle the mounts. Pathfinder seemed to recognize him from the days they’d spent on the road, and the horse greeted him with a little snort. The rest of the mounts followed the black destrier’s example and relaxed.

  Concealing a dagger within the folds of his cloak, he slashed the ropes holding the horses together. Next, he went for the supplies. He slashed the straps of the reins, bits, stirrups, martingales, and bridles with quick strokes of his dagger, careful not to let the blade catch even a hint of firelight. He kept an eye on the men at the front of the camp as he moved, but none of the Cambionari or Warrior Priests seemed to notice. Doubtless the day's battle and hard travel had left them exhausted.

  He slung one bag of food over his back—he and his little group would have a fine breakfast, while Sir Danna's men went without—and threw two more off the edge of the cliff. He tensed at the faint thump of the heavy sacks hitting the stone walls, ducking into the shadow of a tent.

  "What's that noise?" one of the men near the fire called.

  "Don't know," replied another. "Hey, Frestall, did you hear that?"

  "I didn't hear nothing," came a third voice, this one from the group of men at the trail. "What did it sound like?"

  "Kind of like…" The first man trailed off. "I don't know, a sound, all right? You heard it too, right, Drenthus?"

  "Not sure," the second man, Drenthus replied. "Could have just been the tents flapping in the wind."

  "Or it could have been another of those Keeper-damned rock monsters coming back to finish what they started," said the first man.

  "Well, go take a look and see if it is," Drenthus called.

  "Not a bloody chance!" said the first man. "Broken arm's in enough pain as it is just sitting here. You go."

  "You're the one who heard it."

  Silence for a moment, then the first man spoke. "Maybe you're right. Maybe it was just the wind."

  "More like Pathfinder breaking wind, right?"

  Drenthus’ comment elicited a few chuckles from his fellows, but none of them moved from their positions on guard or beside the fire.

  The Hunter let out a long, slow breath. That was bloody close. Had they come to investigate, they would have found supplies missing and their gear damaged. That would certainly have raised an alarm.

  The demon's angry shrieking filled his head, reminding him why he'd come to Sir Danna's camp. He clenched his jaw as the pain intensified to a stabbing ache behind his right eye.

  Fine, I get the point!

  He squeezed his eyes shut until the piercing pain passed and the screeching quietened. When it had faded to a tolerable ache, he slipped the bag of supplies off his shoulder and set it on the ground. He turned toward the nearest tent, just three paces away. The sound of soft breathing came from within. He listened carefully for any sign of a second occupant, but heard nothing else.

  I guess this man's as good as any.

  He peered around the tent toward the fire. The two men that had been sitting there were striding toward him, and he ducked back into the shadows, heart thundering. He tightened his grip on his dagger and waited as the sound of their boots crunching on the rocky trail grew closer.

  The footsteps grew fainter, then faded. He poked his head out just enough to see the two men crawling into a tent on the opposite side of the trail. Relief surged within him as he glanced at the sentries and found their backs turned to him. With quick, silent steps, he slipped around to the front of the tent and ducked between the flaps.

  His heart thudded as he stared down at the figure sleeping at his feet. The man's chest rose and fell in the steady rhythm of sleep, and he showed no sign of waking.

  Good. I'll make this quick, then. The Hunter sheathed his dagger and reached for the man's neck. A powerful wrench of the sleeping man's head would spare him pain and prevent any chance of outcry.

  As his fingers closed around the man's neck, the figure whirled in bed, a dagger flashing up toward his throat. His reflexes kicked in and his right hand flashed up to catch the hand holding the blade, stopping it a hair's breadth from slicing flesh.

  "H-Hunter?" Confusion and surprise edged the figure's voice. A familiar female voice from a lifetime ago.

  The Hunter's nostrils detected the scent of leather, steel, and lilies a moment before his brain recognized the woman before him.

  "It really is you," said Celicia, Fourth of the Bloody Hand.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The Hunter stared, frozen by surprise, at a face he thought he'd never see again. He blinked in case it was a trick of his eyes, but her dark eyes, full lips, raven hair, and well-proportioned figure were the same as the day he fled Voramis. And her unique scent, a curious combination of strength and femininity that had drawn him from the moment they met in The Iron Arms, he’d know it anywhere.

  "What in the Keeper's name are you doing here?" he finally managed to ask.

  "I could ask you the same thing!" Celicia—no, she'd said her name was Kiara—demanded in a harsh whisper. "And, in case you haven't noticed, I'm the one holding the dagger."

  The Hunter let out a quiet snort. "If you were going to use the dagger, you would have already." It was a gamble; the last time they'd seen each other, she had been lying on the ground bleeding out, wounded at the hands of the First, demon of Voramis. He'd spared her life that night, given her a chance at a better life free of the Bloody Hand. And this is how she used it? "Tell me why the hell—"

  "No." Kiara cut him off by pressing the dagger harder against his throat. "For once, you'll be doing the talking here."

  She rose from her bedroll, and the Hunter's eyes flicked downward. Her thin undertunic did little to conceal her full figure. The faint light of the fire leaking through the canvas outlined her well-endowed chest, slim waist, and rounded hips.

  "Eyes up here, Hunter," Kiara growled.

  The Hunter gave her a little grin. She barely reached his chin, but she had enough spirit for a woman three times her size.

  "What do you want to know?" Again, he gambled on the fact that she would have already raised the alarm if she intended to. For some reason, she seemed more interested in answers than alerting the others to his presence.

  "Is it true?" Kiara's whisper had a hard edge. "Did you really do what Sir Danna said?"

  The Hunter's gut clenched, and a lump rose to his throat. "Yes," he said after a long moment. "I did kill the other Beggar Priests."

  Kiara's expression hardened and her muscles tensed, as if to attack.

  "But not for the reason you think," he said quickly before she could draw the knife across his throat.

  "And what exactly do I think?" Kiara demanded in the same quiet tone.

  "I'm guessing Sir Danna told you what I was." The Hunter held her gaze.

  "That you're one of them?" She spat the word. She’d seen the truth of what lay beneath the First's disguise of flesh and bone. She had stared into th
e demon’s depthless eyes, watched his face contort and writhe as he died at the Hunter's hands. "I knew that much already. You told me the truth that night in the tunnels beneath Voramis."

  The Hunter nodded. "Then she told you what I did in the House of Need in Malandria? To Father Pietus, Lord Knight Moradiss, and…Visibos." The name left a bitter taste on his lips. He truly hadn't intended for the apprentice to die.

  "She did." Kiara spoke in a hard, cold voice. "But I didn't know it was you she was talking about all these weeks. I thought it was just another demon."

  The Hunter raised an eyebrow. "You wanted to hunt demons?"

  "After what the First did to me, to everyone else I know?" Kiara snarled. "I'd hunt down every damned one of the Abiarazi around Einan if I could."

  "How did that happen?" The Hunter's brow furrowed in confusion. "How did you end up here?"

  "You first," Kiara snapped. "Tell me how you go from butchering the Bloody Hand to killing twenty Beggar Priests to murdering an Illusionist Cleric and his guards."

  The Hunter hesitated, and Kiara pressed the dagger harder against his throat. "The truth, Hunter, or I'll raise the alarm right now."

  "You'd really risk it?" The Hunter let out a little laugh. "You know that blade won't kill me."

  "No, but this one will." The stink of iron grew thick in the room as Kiara drew a second dagger and held it before his eyes. After a moment, she shrugged and sheathed it. "You're not going to hurt me, Hunter."

  "Are you certain of that?" He could hardly believe her brazenness. He had no reason to leave her alive. Frozen hell, the fact that she traveled with Sir Danna meant she had come all this way to kill him.

  "Yes," Kiara said simply. "Like you said, if you were going to kill me, you'd have done it already. Back in Voramis, or just now when I held the dagger to your throat."

  "The dagger's still there."

  "True, but if I really wanted you dead, I'd have used the other one." She actually gave him a wry grin. "Call this a conversation starter. So get conversating, Hunter."

  The Hunter had known many women in the fifty years he could remember. None of them, not even Sir Danna with all her armor and skill at arms, could match the dauntlessness of the woman before him. She had risen to become the fourth most powerful member of the Bloody Hand, and it hadn't been because of her looks alone. She'd proven herself clever when she deceived him in Voramis, then shown her iron will when she helped him defeat the demon.

  The words came pouring from his mouth with a force beyond his control. He spoke of what happened to him after leaving Voramis—from the meeting with Sir Danna and Visibos to the moment they poisoned and dumped him in the Chasm of the Lost to his attempts to reclaim the dagger in Malandria. A part of him wanted to share everything he'd endured over the last few months. He'd carried the burdens alone for so long—the weight of his guilt, the pain of losing those closest to him, the gravity of knowing that he fought to save Einan from the demons.

  “Keeper’s teeth!” Kiara breathed. Her eyes had grown steadily wider as the Hunter told him her story, her expression more pensive. "And the boy? Did you really murder him and leave his body in a ditch somewhere?"

  The Hunter's eyes narrowed. "Sir Danna said that?"

  She nodded. "She hates you for what you did to her apprentice."

  "That…" The Hunter hesitated. "That was an accident."

  He told her of his conversation with Visibos, his promise to let the other Beggar Priests know he was trapped in the vault, and his confrontation with Lord Knight Moradiss. He left out none of the details about killing Father Pietus and Garanis, as well as taking Hailen from the temple.

  "And you thought that was a good idea?" Kiara sounded incredulous. "You, the Keeper-damned Hunter of Voramis, playing wet nurse to a six year old?"

  "I…" He drew in a deep breath. "It was the right choice. I know it was." He was surprised to find he wanted her to believe it as much as he did. "I've only gotten this far because of him. If what I've learned about him is true, he's the key to everything."

  "Everything?" Kiara raised an eyebrow. She seemed not to notice that she'd removed the dagger from his throat.

  "Stopping the Sage, locking Kharna away forever, saving the whole bleeding world!" He fought to keep his voice from rising. "Father Reverentus told me the truth of who he is. But more than that, I need to make it right."

  "Make what right?"

  He told her about the Elivasti curse, the opia, and the dangers of the Expurgation. "If I don't get him to Enarium, he's going to succumb to the madness." He swallowed the lump in his throat. "I already watched one person suffer, Kiara. I can't go through it again."

  Shame burned in her eyes. She couldn't know he was speaking of Aerden, Master Eldor's son; doubtless she envisioned the lifeless, mangled corpse of Farida, butchered by the First to goad the Hunter into attacking.

  For a long moment, silence stretched between them. Anxiety thrummed within the Hunter; an odd sensation, one he'd never experienced. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was a beautiful, half-naked woman an arm's length from him. Once, long ago in Voramis, she'd told him she saw good in him. The same good Sir Danna claimed to have seen. Now, Sir Danna hated him for what he'd done. The look in Father Reverentus' eyes mirrored his fury at the deaths of the Beggar Priests in Malandria. Was it so wrong that he wanted at least one person not to hate him?

  "Well, shite," Kiara said, letting out her breath in a slow exhale. "You certainly do know how to tell a bloody good story."

  "I'm sure Sir Danna has told you more than a few."

  "Oh, you're right on that count." Kiara shook her head. "The things she's said about you…those aren’t the sort of things I expected to hear from a knight's mouth. She's going to keep coming for you until she has vengeance for her apprentice."

  Vengeance. Sir Danna had made her intentions plain the moment she hired the Warrior Priests to help her hunt him down. Once engaged, the Warrior Priests did not relent in their efforts to deliver the Lady’s retribution.

  "I don't think there's anything I can do to slow her down, either," Kiara said.

  Her words caught the Hunter by surprise. "Slow…her down?" he asked.

  Kiara fixed him with a hard gaze. "It's why you're here, isn't it? Thin the enemy, throw the camp into disarray, muck up her plans? Sound about right?"

  The Hunter's eyebrows shot up. How in the Watcher's fiery beard had she known?

  "You forget who I served for more than a decade." Kiara shook her head. "That's just what the First would have done in your position. Whittle down his enemy and do whatever he could to even out the odds. He'd have used every underhanded trick he could think of."

  The Hunter said nothing.

  "Your silence is acknowledgement enough." Kiara tapped her lips with the dagger. "How much time do you need to reach Enarium?"

  The Hunter shrugged. "I don't know."

  "Don't know?" Kiara's brow furrowed. "You mean you've come all this way and you have no idea how much farther you have to go?"

  "Well, excuse me if I failed to pick up a road map that leads to the Lost bloody City," the Hunter retorted. "They were all out back in Vothmot."

  Kiara scowled. "Time hasn't made you less snippy, I see." She blew out her breath. "From what I've overheard of Sir Danna's conversations with the other Cambionari, we're less than a day away."

  Hope surged within the Hunter. One day? Was it possible they truly were that close?

  "If you could find a way to slow Sir Danna down," she told him, her expression pensive, "you just might be able to reach Enarium ahead of her."

  "And then what?" the Hunter asked. "Once I reach Enarium, how am I supposed to do anything with her right behind me?" He'd given the matter a great deal of thought. He couldn't keep trying to outrun the Cambionari. Even reaching Enarium wouldn't offer him safety if Sir Danna could simply track Soulhunger.

  "I don't know." Kiara shrugged. "That's something you have to figure out yourself. But at least you'
ll have reached Enarium, and you'd have a chance to save the boy. Isn't that enough?"

  The Hunter shook his head. "I have to deal with the Sage, too. And whatever minions he has waiting for him. I can't fight both the demon and the Cambionari."

  "Well, you're smart enough to figure something out. The first thing to do is buy yourself some time."

  "That's taken care of." The Hunter grinned.

  "Don't tell me what you did." She waggled a finger in his face. "I need to be able to say in all honesty I had no idea how whatever you made happen happened."

  "Why?" The Hunter fixed her with a hard gaze. "Why believe me? Why help me?"

  For a long moment, Kiara met his gaze in silence. "I owe you my life," she said finally. "You not only spared me back in Voramis, you saved my life. And I knew, right then and there, that you were nothing like the First and the Third. The man I saw when I looked in your eyes was a man of violence, of death, yet also one capable of being more."

  "And what if I made all this up?" Her behavior made no sense to him. "What if I just lied to trick you?"

  "Trick me?" Kiara gave a harsh little laugh. "Please, Hunter, I spent years watching the First manipulate and deceive everyone, from the King of Voramis to the lowest pickpocket on the streets. He elevated me to my position in the Bloody Hand because he found I was nearly his equal in treachery and duplicity. It would take a far cleverer man than you to fool me."

  The Hunter grimaced at the stinging words. "You're too kind."

  Kiara grinned. "In a way, it's the thing that drew me to you in the first place. You may have worn a mask to hide your face, adopted a false persona as a cover, but the man beneath was always visible. I simply know how to look better than most." Her smile faded and her expression grew serious. "That is why I know Sir Danna will not be easily swayed from her quest for vengeance. Though it is rage and grief that drives her, she truly believes in the righteousness of her actions. She is doing precisely what she trained her entire life to do: kill demons and their offspring. She may be too blinded by her hatred for you to accept or even be willing to hear the truth."