A horse whickered somewhere behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder. The fire had burned low in its pit, a dull red ember sunken amid the copse of trees. Its glow warmed the outlines of the men sleeping there, and he considered the companions thrust upon him by circumstance. Shaking his head, he faced forward once more.
He wondered why he had not already slipped away into the night. He was better on his own, had always been better alone. He had insisted on taking the last watch in part to give himself the opportunity to depart unseen. He smiled, remembering the open suspicion on Amric’s face when he pleaded to do his part and relieve the man. He suspected that the warrior, if he slept at all, slumbered now with one eye open and affixed to Syth’s back.
That alone would not have kept him here, however, and his smile faded as he pondered his own inaction. If he ever owed these men anything, he had repaid it in Stronghold. He had always felt little enough need for the respect or affection of others. Why, then, did he not leave, he who had always chafed in the company of others? There was validity, he thought, in the reasoning that the forest had become too dangerous to travel alone, even for one with his talents, but he was disturbed to find it a partial truth at best. Perhaps being so long in the grasp of his inhuman captor had awakened a deeply buried hunger for companionship. He shuddered. He hoped it was a condition that would pass; in his experience, nothing good ever came of depending on others.
A rustle of grass brought him about, wind coiling beneath him by reflex and lifting him to his feet in a burst. His hands clenched into fists within the black gauntlets, though he did not recall snatching them up when he stood. Syth relaxed. It was the Half-Ork, wending his way between the gaunt trees, leaning on his staff with movements cautious and stiff. He watched the healer’s slow approach.
“I did not mean to startle you,” Halthak said in a hushed tone as he halted a few paces away.
“I am on watch,” Syth responded with a grin. “It is my duty to jump at every sound. Did I not impress you with my vigilance? Or did you expect to find me dozing?”
The healer smiled back, his creased face splitting to display the tusks at the each corner of his wide mouth. Even in the faint light afforded by the glimmering stars overhead, Syth could see the fellow’s tired, drawn expression.
“You should be resting, conserving your strength,” Syth said.
“I will, soon enough,” Halthak replied. “I needed a moment to say something to you.”
“Oh?”
Halthak nodded and hesitated, as if uncertain how to proceed. “I wanted to thank you for your part in rescuing me, and for risking your life for us all, in the end. Amric told me you had a choice. You could have fled with your freedom, but you chose to stay. He said without your knowledge of Stronghold’s layout, the cause might well have been lost.”
Syth stared at him, recalling his heated exchange with Amric over possession of the key device. He flushed, though whether in shame or anger he was not certain, and he found himself grateful for the concealing dark. “Well,” he said at last, “your friend Amric can be a persuasive fellow.”
“Nonetheless,” Halthak pressed, “I owe you my freedom, and probably my life as well.”
Syth fidgeted, and then shrugged, flashing his ready grin. “I have stolen much in my lifetime,” he said. “I thought it would be a welcome change to be rightfully owed, for once.”
Halthak nodded and swung away. Syth watched his silhouette pick its way back toward the camp, and then he sank smoothly to the ground to sit cross-legged once more, facing out into the night. Later, when the sky began to lighten with the coming morn, it found him still seated there, a solitary figure lost in unaccustomed thoughts.
The man in black emerged from the Gate to stand on a broad platform high above the ruins. He glanced behind to see the Gate seal itself, a searing vertical slash of light that frothed and hissed at the edges until it dwindled and finally vanished. Then the portal was tranquil once more, or at least as tranquil as it ever became.
The man cocked his head, regarding its shimmering surface within the great enclosing arch of stone. As always, he could not decide which it resembled more, the iris of some massive eye without a focusing pupil, or a roiling, fibrous mass of clouds. And he shrugged, as ever before. It was a thing of function, not of beauty, though he had always felt there was an ancient splendor to it that transcended mere beauty.
He turned his back on the construct, and took a few cautious steps. His knees quivered but held, and already he could feel strength seeping back into his limbs. Passing through an Essence Gate was always disorienting, but in this case the reward was almost immediate. He tasted of the energies gathered here by the Gate, and he smiled. Nothing compared to the heady rush of power back home, except of course for this, when a Gate was gathering. And this one was doing little more than sipping thus far, he thought with anticipation, trying to imagine the concentration of force it would reach when in full operation.
The black-robed man strolled around the platform, hands clasped behind his back as he took in his surroundings. Tiny, dark shapes wheeled high overhead in a cloud-streaked sky, but they did not approach and he paid them no heed. The mid-morning sun struggled to pierce that high shroud, sending sparse shafts of warmth down to dapple the crumbling ruins, which stretched away in every direction to the limit of his vision. A blanket of mist rolled and curled over the ground, like some turbulent phantom sea. Where the white waves parted, he could see vegetation pushing through shattered paving, and great mounds of wind-worn, sun-bleached stone.
Bent, misshapen forms shuffled and crawled through the mist, but they gave a wide berth to the colossal pedestal and the wide stairs leading up to the Gate. Good, he thought, as it would save him the trouble of dealing with them.
His expression twisted in distaste as he surveyed the ruins, and with long fingers he stroked a neatly trimmed ebon beard shot through with grey. The place was a shambles. He preferred it when the locals kept the Gate locations in a suitably respectful state, but that had obviously not been the case here. There was no longer power enough to spare from the other side for the old ways either, he reflected with some regret. No matter, he supposed; the Essence Gate was the important thing, and it was fully functional and well preserved by magic. On a whim, he tried to recall the name given to this place. It took long seconds, but finally, through the dusty halls of memory: Queln! That was it, he decided, pleased with himself at this small indulgence.
Then his mood darkened as he remembered his purpose in coming here.
Indeed, how could he forget the name of this place, even over the intervening years? Another part of this otherwise insignificant world had played host to a personal failure which had taken him a great deal of time and effort to overcome, ever since. In many ways the echoes of that time haunted him yet today, for he suspected its influence in the treatment he received, in the assignments he was given, and in the galling pace of his advancement.
And now the vanished threat which he had long argued was dead and gone, which he insisted had been swallowed by a primitive and hostile realm, had instead been detected after all these years in a flaring burst of power. He was not sure how it could be, but one thing he did know: this was his chance to wipe away that past failure, once and for all.
After the initial shock, he had insisted it must be him that went. His jaw tightened as he recalled the looks of scathing contempt upon their faces, as all of the old doubts and suspicions were dredged to the fore. How costly that one mistake amid a lifetime of service! But he had been resolute, and in the end, they had relented and sent him.
He closed his eyes and reached out with other, less restricted senses. It was difficult, here in the presence of the Gate. Though it boosted his strength, it also clamored with signals of its own and gave rise to or attracted other disruptive elements, interfering with such delicate efforts. After several minutes he sighed and opened his eyes. Even with the raucous tumult assailing his senses here, he was certain; the
force he sought was nowhere to be found, concealed once more. The magnitude and signature of that first bright signal had been unmistakable, however. His quarry was alive, on this world, and somewhere to the west of this very Gate.
He ground his teeth. He refused to return now, abashed, bearing the same inadequate answer as before. His masters had not bothered to state the obvious, that anything less than resounding success this time would be the end of him. In fact, he wondered how long he had before they sent another to assume his mission and dispose of him as well. There was no room for failure in empire. He sighed. He would wait then, here on this pathetic excuse for a world, and pray that this time his quarry could not remain hidden from him for so long.
Magic on that scale always left a trail of some kind. Sooner or later, he would track it to its source.
He gathered power to him, drawing in more and more, holding it until it burned at his core. A fierce, exultant smile spread across his aquiline features. He considered giving reign to his anger and shattering these paltry ruins further, leveling the place––except of course for the Gate and its platform––and scorching its slinking inhabitants. But no, even this petty pleasure was denied him, for he could not be certain how sensitive were the defenses of the one he sought, and he had no wish to alert his quarry to his presence with such a display.
With a pang of regret, he let most of the power slip from him, keeping only a red-hot ember within that burned as hot as his hatred. He strode from the platform and began the long descent down the wide stairs, hoping that some dark creature from the mist below would be foolish enough to linger in his path.
CHAPTER 14
The huntress surged to her feet, her narrowed green gaze striving against the distance and the gloom of late evening. For long seconds she stood thus, poised upon the hillside, camouflaged both by the fading light and the thick outcropping of scrub grasses behind her which matched her buckskin leathers in hue.
Then she whirled away, snatched up her recurve bow and bounded down the slope like a gazelle.
As she went, she was careful to put the rounded ridge of the hillock between her and her quarry so as not to risk being seen, however slight the risk might be at this distance. She hissed a soft whistle, and her black mare dutifully wheeled from where she grazed and trotted to meet her. She stroked Shien’s glossy neck and whispered to her as she led her up the steep, shifting trail and into the cave. The animal quivered, and her velvet ears flicked as she sensed the tense excitement in her mistress’s words.
When the huntress reappeared at the mouth of the cave, having quieted the mare deep within its recesses, the cowl of her cloak was drawn up and she wore the dark veil across her features, exposing only her eyes. Her knuckles whitened around the handle of her bow as she scanned the hillside. She had been waiting for days, and doubt had become her companion during the long vigil. His party might have perished within the forest, and while she could not believe it would claim one such as him, such an occurrence might free him to travel by less mundane means and thus rob her of the chance to intercept. Or perhaps the party had already emerged by some other route and slipped by her.
Even if they did return the way they had come, as she deemed most likely, this location––while the best she had found––was a poor location for her ambush. The rough foothills around the cave offered some cover, but were too far back from the road to offer a sure shot, and the ground between here and the road was too exposed. If they had returned in the full light of day, they would have no reason to stop here, and she would likely be forced to trail them again and seek another opportunity.
Now, however, all the factors were coming together in her favor. Her prey was returning this way on the verge of nightfall, such that she could still spot them breaking from the trees. Furthermore, it would be fully dark by the time they drew abreast of the cave, and their previous camping spot would beckon against the hazardous prospect of traveling the road under the shroud of night.
She could scarcely credit her good fortune. Perhaps chance favored the just in the end, after all.
Her eyes raked over the cave mouth and the mantle of rock that swept back from it on either side, though in truth she had studied it all so often in the past few days that she had committed every detail to memory. As she had already done a hundred times, she weighed and rejected a dozen perches from which to take the one shot she needed. She cast one more hasty look around, and back again toward the distant tree line, though it was a futile gesture; it had already grown too dark to see such a distance. She melted back into the deep shadows of the cave entrance, partially shielded from view by the dried brush still piled together from when her quarry had camped there a handful of nights ago, and settled in for the wait.
It would have to be a perfect shot, she knew, and it had to be fast. His sight was as keen in utter darkness as that of a mortal man in the comforting illumination of midday. Step from the cave, draw a bead on him and fire, all in one smooth motion. It would be perfect, because it had to be.
The minutes slid by, teasing at the frayed edges of her patience. She stood unmoving, letting her eyes adjust to the gathering dark, and kept her breathing shallow and all but inaudible.
When the first noise came to her from down the hill, she suppressed a start. It seemed too early, unless they had ridden very hard to reach this point, but she knew how lying in wait with pulse pounding in one’s ears could distort one’s sense of time. She strained for every sound. Several footsteps, a small shower of pebbles, the scuff of foot against stone. There were a handful of them as expected, making little attempt to mask their approach, and they were on the winding trail below the cave. The huntress took slow, shallow breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth, praying that Shien would not choose this moment to fidget deep within the cave. But no, the mare was well trained, as disciplined as her mistress; she would not betray their trap.
Her fingers brushed the fletching of the black arrow as she reassured herself every few seconds that she had selected the right missile in the darkness. She listened to the sounds drawing near, and tried to gauge her timing; he had a tendency to hang back, to let others risk themselves, and she needed him within range without allowing those in front to interfere with her shot.
As she tensed to leap from the cave, the noises came to a sudden stop.
She froze. Had they spotted her tracks on the rocky trail? It seemed impossible, as she had been so careful. Were their senses impossibly sharp, that they had heard some telltale sign from her? She chewed on silent, sulfurous curses as she wondered what had given her away. Shuffling steps and scrapes floated up to her, receding now but strangely unhurried, as if the group had merely lost interest in the cave for some reason.
She ground her teeth. Every step she allowed now would lengthen her shot. Now was the time, and if his back was turned such that he never had an opportunity to evade the lethal strike, so much the better.
Gliding from the cave, she drew back on the bow until her fingers brushed her cheek. She sighted down the arrow shaft and past the curved blades of the head, shifting from one moving figure to another as she sought her target. Several things dawned upon her in an instant: her target was nowhere on the trail below, and the creatures now whirling to face her were not the men with whom he traveled.
Moreover, the creatures were not even human.
There were six of them arrayed on the crumbling path, the nearest less than ten yards from her. They were clad entirely in tattered strips of cloth, and their black flesh shimmered dully in the meager starlight like unpolished obsidian. Bulging eyes and gaping mouths worked in soundless ferocity as the creatures gazed up at her.
Without hesitation they burst into frenzied motion, bounding and clawing their way up the trail. By reflex, she aimed at the one in the lead before she caught herself; she still had one of her three black arrows nocked, and they were far too valuable to waste on random assailants such as these. Cursing the lost seconds, she returned the deadly pro
jectile to the quiver across her back, and, selecting another, she drew and fired.
The shaft slammed into the creature’s chest, staggering it back a step from the sheer force of the blow. To her astonishment, however, it uttered no cry of pain, and instead surged forward with undiminished vigor. In a blur of motion, she sent three more arrows hissing through the air to find their marks. The head of the nearest creature snapped back at an angle no mortal man could survive, and when it hunched forward again a shaft had sprouted from its forehead to match the one in its chest. Its unblinking eyes found her again, and it lurched after her with arms outstretched. The one behind it pawed to get past its cohort on the narrow trail, feathered shafts projecting from both of its legs. The foul thing seemed unaffected, its wounded legs bearing its weight without slowing its progress in the least.
The huntress gave a sharp whistle back into the cave, and then stepped forward to the top of the trail. She set her jaw and took a tight, two-handed grip on the lower limb of her bow. As the first creature reached the crest, she swung the weapon in a vicious arc, hammering it from the path to tumble down the hillside, rolling and clawing for purchase.
She struck at the next figure in line, but it caught at the bow and she was forced to release it. It cast the bow aside and came for her again, and she whipped out her long hunting knife to hack aside its grasping arms. Unflinching beneath the razor-edged blade, the creature grabbed at her first, its crooked black fingers catching at her clothing as she danced back to remain out of reach. She licked out with the blade, and it fumbled for that as well, seeking to grasp the weapon with its bare hands and wrest it from her.
Two more reached the top of the trail and flung themselves at her with the same heedless abandon, and she was forced to leap back into the cave or be surrounded. Yet more of the black things crested the trail, and they closed in, relentless.
The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept Page 24