Darkblade Slayer

by Andy Peloquin

  "That is exactly why I am doing this!" Sir Danna's voice rose to a shout. "For my dead apprentice, and for every one of my comrades, friends, and…" She swallowed. "…companions you cut down in cold blood."

  "I did not seek out that fight, just as I did not seek out this one." The Hunter bared his teeth in a snarl. "But I will not hesitate to end this, either. If you truly saw what I did in the House of Need, how do you believe you can fare any better here and now? With two swords at your back, when I brought down nearly twenty in Malandria."

  "Because I believe in the strength of my purpose," Sir Danna snarled. "And because it is the Beggar God's will that you die!"

  "Is that so?" The Hunter barked out a laugh. "Did you know that it was your Beggar God who actually pled with the rest of the gods for the Bucelarii to be spared? In The Numeniad, it is written that the Beggar himself told the Bucelarii he would one day call upon us to serve him." A cruel smile spread his lips. "Your Beggar God is nothing more than a shell to house the soul of Kharna, and it is Kharna's will that I live."

  Sir Danna's face went pale, but she tried to brush it off. "You lie, like all of your kind!"

  "This is no lie," the Hunter said. "Kharna is the hand that controls all the demons on Einan. His body lies trapped, but the Devourer of Worlds pulls the strings still. Which is why I travel to Enarium. The Sage seeks to unleash the Destroyer, but I wish to lock him away forever. Every moment you spend hunting me allows the true threat to go free. Help me destroy the Sage. You can resume your quest for vengeance once Einan is safe."

  "And I should just trust you?" Sir Danna snapped. "Put myself within killing distance of you again?"

  "Like you did on the road to Malandria?" The Hunter nodded. "I did not threaten or harm you in any way, yet you and your apprentice tried to kill me. If anything, I should be the one seeking vengeance for attempted murder."

  "It is not murder when—"

  "It's a holy mission, yes, I know." The Hunter rolled his eyes. "But that doesn't change the fact that I saved you and Visibos. Twice. Yet you were the ones that poisoned me and threw me into the Chasm of the Lost. What does that say for your 'purity of heart'?"

  Sir Danna flinched as if struck.

  "Father Reverentus, the Cambionari from Voramis, told me that only those of pure, righteous blood are accepted." The Hunter's smile turned mocking. "There's nothing pure about that rage I see burning in your eyes. What would your Beggar God think?"

  "Nothing at all." The knight spoke barely above a guttural growl. "The Beggar God is a lie. All of it is a lie."

  The words shocked the Hunter far more than Sir Danna's presence. When last he'd seen her, she'd been devout in her worship of the Beggar God. To hear her decrying the god's existence like this, it sounded like something he would have said, but not the words of a priest. Kiara seemed equally stunned.

  Sir Danna continued, not noticing. "When I found Moradiss lying in a pool of his own blood, I wondered at the Beggar God's purpose. When I saw Father Pietus, Garanis, and all the other Cambionari dead at your hands, I questioned why they had died while you, the spawn of demons, went free." Her tone went flat, monotone. "But it wasn't until I found Visibos' emaciated, starved, mutilated corpse in the vault that I came to realize the truth."

  The Hunter raised an eyebrow. "And what truth is that?"

  "The Beggar God is no god at all. None of them are. They are nothing more than figments of our imagination, conceived to give us something to blame for our troubles."

  The Hunter had spoken the exact same words to Father Reverentus in Voramis. Hearing them from her mouth sent a chill down his spine.

  "If the Beggar God truly existed—if any of them did—they would never have allowed such a thing to happen. You would be the one lying dead, and Moradiss would still be alive."

  Something about the way she said the name “Moradiss” sounded…off. It held a note of grief similar to the way she spoke of her apprentice, the same echo of personal loss. He'd heard it in his own mind a thousand times as he thought of Farida's death. He'd loved that little girl—he'd only come to realize it after her death, but he couldn't deny it. Sir Danna had cared for Visibos as a companion, an apprentice, even a dear friend. But Moradiss…he'd been more than that to Sir Danna.

  "You loved him, didn't you?" he asked. "Moradiss."

  Sir Danna's face hardened. "What business of yours is that?"

  "The truth, Sir Danna." The Hunter spoke in a low voice. "That is what this is all about, isn't it? Revenge for my taking Moradiss from you."

  "No," she said, but the words rang hollow. "This is justice for the deaths of—"

  "Not even you believe that," he said, shaking his head. "You hate me because I killed Moradiss, because I killed the man you love. You've come all this way because of that."

  Sir Danna said nothing, but the venom in her eyes spoke volumes.

  "That is a pain I can understand, and a justification I can accept." The Hunter softened his tone. "I have killed hundreds to protect those I love, and I killed hundreds for what was done to others. But the desire for vengeance must be set aside for the sake of Einan. If you cut me down, the Sage wins. Kharna returns."

  "Sir Danna," Kiara interjected, maneuvering her horse up beside the knight, "what if he is right? What if this Sage really is a threat?" She shot the Hunter a glance. "In the brief time I knew the Hunter, I discovered he was many things. A killer without peer, ruthless, merciless. Yet he was never a liar. He told me the truth, even when it meant I would try to kill him."

  Sir Danna shot Kiara a questioning glance.

  "I put a dagger in him," Kiara went on, "but he tried to convince me to help him rather than simply cutting me down, as he had the rest of the Bloody Hand. When the demon would have killed me, the Hunter threw himself in its path to save me. Were it not for him, I would be lying dead in the tunnels beneath Voramis."

  "Can't you see he's using you?" Sir Danna snarled. "Manipulating you for his own ends?"

  "Is that what you call saving your life back there?" Kiara replied simply.

  The knight jerked back, her eyes narrowing.

  "Whether or not you like it, he did save your life back there." Kiara's gaze searched the Hunter's face. "He saved mine, too, even though it gained him nothing. Is that selfless act what a manipulator does? What an evil creature, a monster, does?"

  The Hunter struggled to hide his surprise to hear Kiara defending him. He hadn't intended to save Sir Danna, but his actions had spared her life nonetheless.

  "He could have walked off and left us there to die." Kiara fixed Sir Danna with a hard stare. "Those Stone Guardians would have killed us, but he chose to help us."

  "You think him a hero?" Sir Danna snarled. "Because he saved your life?"

  "I would never call the Hunter of Voramis a hero. But neither would I consider him the same as the demons that destroyed our world long ago." She returned her gaze to the Hunter. "I do not know what the rest of his kind were like, but I know the man who stands before me. The man who stands before us not to defend himself, but a boy. A child. One much like the child he sought to protect in Voramis."

  The words brought a lump to the Hunter's throat, and the familiar weight of guilt returned. Shame flashed in Kiara's eyes as well. She hadn't been the one to harm Farida, but she had served the one who did. She had done many despicable things during her years as the Fourth of the Bloody Hand, and she would carry a burden much like his.

  "I am truly sorry for your apprentice," the Hunter said in a quiet voice. "Had I wanted him dead, I would have simply put a dagger in him myself. I would not have left him there to starve to death. It is a cruel fate, and one that I unwittingly condemned him to. As for your Lord Knight…"

  Sir Danna's eyes flashed. "He is not my Lord Knight!" Her expression grew sad, and her voice dropped to a whisper. "He never was, and thanks to you, he never will be."

  "I did not wish him dead," the Hunter continued. "I had no ill-will toward the man. He simply put me in
a position where I had to defend myself or die. I gave him a chance to let me walk away, and he refused. He forced my hand. Just as you will force my hand if you continue to pursue me."

  The knight's face hardened.

  "Leave me to my mission, Sir Danna." The Hunter was surprised by the pleading tone of his voice. "Ride back to Malandria and mourn your losses. Better still, join me in my hunt for the Sage. Help me bring him down and save Einan. You could not save Visibos or Lord Knight Moradiss, but there are hundreds of thousands more you could save. Help me put an end to the Sage and lock Kharna away in his prison forever. Is that not the mission you have trained for your entire life? To save the world from the threats no one else even knew existed?"

  For a moment, he thought she would relent. He could see his words taking effect, the doubt in her eyes as the woman she had once been tried to break through the hard, angry exterior she'd donned. A hint of the Sir Danna he'd met on the road shone through as she stared at him.

  Then the moment passed, and the hate reasserted itself. The venom returned to her expression and her face went flat, icy.

  She spoke a single word. "No."

  Chapter Forty

  "Sir Danna, you—" Kiara began.

  Sir Danna spoke in a low growl. "You are either with me, Kiara, or with him. You cannot choose both. Help me bring him down or get the bloody hell out of my way."

  Kiara made no move to draw her sword, but shook her head. "I cannot stop you, but I will not help you."

  "So be it." The knight's voice held no trace of emotion, simply…emptiness. "Then crawl back into the abyss in which I found you. I have tried to help you—"

  "Help me?" Kiara's voice rose in an angry shout. "You saved me from myself, and for that I will be forever grateful. But I have seen the angry, hate-filled monster you have become over these last months. The ruthlessness as you hunted him down, your callous reaction to the death of every Warrior Priest and Cambionari beside you. We lost nearly a score of men and women that have ridden with us for hundreds of leagues, yet what is your reaction?" She spoke a mocking parody of the knight's voice. "They died in service to Derelana and the Beggar God."

  Kiara kicked her horse toward Sir Danna, and fury flashed in her eyes. "They deserved better than that, Sir Danna. Every last one of them. But you are so consumed by your desire to make him suffer that there are no lines you will not cross, no one you will not sacrifice in service of your quest. I cannot and will not follow someone like that."

  Sir Danna's jaw dropped. She seemed stunned at the tirade, and she stared at Kiara as if for the first time.

  "I will not apologize for what he has done," Kiara stormed. "He has already done that for himself. But what do you have to say for your actions? How many others have died because of you? The things you said you did in the name of justice and holy retribution? From where I'm sitting, your actions are more demonic than those you ascribe to him. You think that you are free of guilt because you wear the armor of the Cambionari or profess to serve a god? The Keeper will judge you for your actions just as the rest of us will be judged. On that day, how do you think you will fare?"

  The Hunter was as shocked as Sir Danna. He'd known Kiara had fire burning within her. He'd seen it when she tried to kill him for what he'd done to her comrades of the Bloody Hand, then helped him kill the First who had caused all the suffering in the first place. But this…this was a new strength he couldn't have imagined.

  "You bear the burden of their deaths on your conscience, if you still have one." Kiara's expression hardened. "The lives lost in your pursuit of revenge, even after you learned the truth."

  "And what truth is that?" Sir Danna's face creased into a snarl, and her eyes went from Kiara to the Hunter and back. "That you two are in league, and that you've been working together since the very beginning? That you have been conspiring with him all along, helping him to evade me?"

  "And how exactly would she do that?" the Hunter asked. "Until I saw you in Vothmot, I had no idea you were hunting me."

  "Until I saw him on the stone bridge, I had no idea who we were hunting," Kiara added. "All these months, as I followed you blindly in your quest, can you possibly say that I was working with him? When would I have had the time to do that?"

  "He is a Bucelarii!" Sir Danna shouted. "You have no idea what dark powers he possesses, what evils he is capable of."

  The Hunter shot the knight a mocking smile. "If she was working with me, she would."

  "Enough!" Sir Danna shouted. "I will hear your lies no longer!" She rounded on Kiara with a furious glare. "You will deceive me no more!"

  Ice froze in the Hunter's veins as Sir Danna's hand flashed to the hilt of her greatsword. He moved without thinking, his right hand darting into the folds of his cloak for a throwing dagger. He brought his arm up, back, and forward in a blur of motion. Sunlight glinted off whirling steel as the blade spun through the air toward the knight.

  Sir Danna hissed in pain as the razor edge of the blade opened a gash along her right forearm before she could draw her sword. Her fingers unclenched and the sword clunked back into its sheath.

  The Hunter's eyes widened as he realized what he'd done. The Stone Guardians would sense the knight's blood. He had to get Kiara out of there before the monstrous creatures came for Sir Danna.

  He sprinted down the hill, crossing the ten paces to Sir Danna in four quick steps. Before the knight could turn to face him, he leapt onto a stone beside the path and threw himself at Sir Danna. He slammed into her armored chest and wrapped his arms around her midsection. The impact knocked her from the saddle, and the two of them crashed to the ground behind Sir Danna's horse hard.

  The Hunter twisted his torso as he flew through the air, landed atop Sir Danna, and rolled off onto the trail below her. He came to his feet, sword held at the ready. Sir Danna, stunned by the fall, lay groggy and dazed on the stony ground. She'd struck her head on a stone, and blood turned her red hair an even darker shade of crimson.

  "Kiara, you need to get out of here!" he shouted. "The Stone Guardians are going to smell the knight's blood and they'll be coming for her."

  "I'm not abandoning her to those monsters." Kiara's jaw set in a stubborn expression.

  The Hunter's eyes went wide. "If you don't, they're going to kill you, too." He could hear the roars of the Stone Guardians growing louder.

  "You've got more of those plant things, right?" she demanded.

  The Hunter nodded. "But enough for one or two."

  She threw up her hands. "You're the Keeper-damned Hunter of Voramis. Are you going to let some bloody stone monsters beat you?"

  "No, but I'm going to let them take her." He thrust a finger at the prone form of Sir Danna. "It's no more than she deserves for—"

  "For doing exactly what you did after the First hurt your Farida?"

  The Hunter's eyes narrowed.

  "She's just as wracked by guilt and anger as you were that night I saw you in the tunnels. Yet something stopped you from becoming the monster that the First and the Third were. Even if you are the descendant of demons, there's enough good in you to be worth saving." Kiara leaned forward and spoke in a growl. "Just as there's enough good in her to be worth saving, too. Even if neither of you can see it now, it's there."

  The Hunter shook his head. "I won't risk Hailen's life by drawing the Stone Guardians to her blood."

  "Oh, no?" Kiara's hand flashed toward the dagger at her belt, and she drew it and sliced a shallow cut across the back of her arm. "Now there are two of us bleeding. Are you willing to let me die, too?"

  The Hunter's gut twisted. He couldn't risk Hailen's life, but the same thing that had prompted him to help Kiara the previous day cried at him that he needed to save her, too. Which meant he had to save Sir Danna as well.

  "Damn you!" he growled at Kiara as he stooped and hooked his fingers into the gorget of Sir Danna's armor. "Get into the standing stones!"

  Kiara grabbed the reins of Sir Danna's horse and galloped the ten
paces up to the Dolmenrath. To his astonishment, the Hunter found himself dragging the dazed form of Sir Danna up the trail. The knight was a short woman, but powerfully built and heavy with muscle. The added weight of her armor made her surprisingly difficult to move, even with his inhuman strength. The knowledge that the Stone Guardians would be coming for him in seconds kept him hauling her as fast as he could manage.

  He reached the standing stones mere seconds before the first Stone Guardian appeared below him. The Dolmenrath sat atop a hill, offering clear views of the mountainside around him. He could see half a dozen of the huge reptilian monsters climbing up the incline toward him, with more and more appearing from the surrounding mountains.

  The open gate to Enarium lay just a few hundred paces from where he stood, yet it could have been across the Frozen Sea. He wouldn't leave Kiara to die, and Kiara wouldn't leave Sir Danna to the Stone Guardians. He had to fight.

  "Wake her up!" he shouted to Kiara. "We're going to need her to survive this."

  Kiara crouched over the knight and tried to shake her awake. Sir Danna mumbled an incoherent response, but her eyes remained glazed, unfocused.

  The Hunter growled a silent curse. The blow to the head had dazed her, perhaps even fractured her skull. He'd have to face the Stone Guardians alone.

  He whirled toward Kiara. "Keep him behind you," he said pointing toward Hailen, "and keep him safe. Shout out if any of them get too close."

  Kiara nodded and drew her sword. She gripped it with the familiar ease of someone who knew their way around a blade. It seemed the months she'd spent with Sir Danna hadn't been passed in idle luxury.

  The Hunter crouched before Hailen. "The stone monsters are coming, and I'm going to need your help to fight them."

  Hailen's eyes went wide. "What can I do?"

  The Hunter gripped the boy's hand and held it up. "Your blood is the key to whatever power is in these stones. When Kiara tells you, I need you to use it, okay?"

  Hailen nodded, his expression a mixture of confusion and fear.