Amric leapt forward, raising his blades to cut down this ghostly predator before it could complete its sinister objective. The figure spun to meet him with appalling speed, those grasping hands reaching for him once more––and Amric froze in shock. The figure was wholly human, and its features were his own.
The figure offered no resistance, and its features––his features––were settled into unfamiliar lines of sorrow and resignation. Determination flickered there, and his double took a sliding step to interpose his body before the alcove at his back, blocking Amric’s view. There was a dizzying moment as Amric was wrenched from his own body, and he saw as if through the eyes of his double. From there he beheld himself, a hard, frightening, vengeful man in dark leather and oiled mail, standing with wicked blades upraised to deal the killing blow. He saw his own face twisted into a mask of rage and hatred, with that mask cracked in places to reveal confusion. He reached out with open hands toward the other, not grasping or threatening at all, but rather beseeching. And hopeful, ever hopeful.
He watched suspicion cross the battle-hardened visage, watched the raptor gaze of the warrior dart from his face to his outstretched hands, and from there to the shadowed recess behind him. He could not tell if it was the light of comprehension he saw there, or merely the split second decision in battle of the warrior born, but either way the features closed like ironbound doors and walled away the last of his hope. Hatred and fury blazed in those grey eyes that were mirrors of his own, and the swords flashed toward him.
Amric’s eyes flared open and his fist tightened convulsively on the hilt of the sword lying at his side. He did not otherwise move or make a noise, but instead took shallow, controlled breaths as he drank in his surroundings. The chill night air of the desert washed over him in a questing breeze, and the lean trees of their elevated campsite swayed overhead. The dry whisper of rustling ferns and the slow bubbling of the spring-fed pool reached his ears, punctuated by the occasional grumbling snort from one of the horses.
Rolling his head slightly to the side, he could see Innikar standing watch near the downward trail. The Sil’ath warrior sat cross-legged on a flat rock with one sword bared across his knees; he was motionless except for the occasional swivel of his head. He kept glancing in one direction, and Amric tilted his head to follow the stare. Bellimar stood there, perched on the outer edge of the crown of rock like some great bird of prey, cloak wrapped tightly around him as he gazed down at the wasteland far below. From below, Amric thought, he must look like just another patch of midnight against the scowling peak of rock. He gave a grim smile; he wondered who was more discomfited by the nighttime watch arrangement, Innikar at discovering that the old man never needed to sleep, or Bellimar at Amric’s insistence that an additional person always keep watch with him. The vampire had given no sign that his word––or his self-control––could not be trusted, but even a relaxed tiger was still a tiger.
Amric let the tension drain from him, and he released his white-knuckled grip on the sword. With all quiet at the camp, his thoughts turned to the strange dream. For a fleeting instant upon awakening he had felt near to some burgeoning understanding of what he had seen, but now it escaped him. He struggled to recall the details, which only moments ago had seemed so vivid, before his conscious mind could bury them further. The pursuit over familiar ground, the elusive foe with his features, the alien and yet somehow familiar hidden structure, the jarring shift in perspective at the end; he turned it all over and over in his mind.
There were many troubling aspects to the dream, but most troubling to him were his own actions at the end, when he had clearly seen his quarry to be unarmed and reaching out to him, and yet he had still chosen to attack. He had slain many in battle, but he had never killed in cold blood, and the depth of the hatred marring his expression nagged at him. And what was striking down himself, in essence, meant to signify? Some unsatisfied hostility toward a blood-family he had never known? He had dwelled on such matters as a child, as was to be expected, but in all honesty he could not remember considering the subject for many years now.
He frowned and shook his head, chiding himself for a fool. The morrow would be draining enough without losing sleep to mull over some silly dream. The others were waiting on him to produce a strategy that would get them all safely to and from the hive with their rescued friends in tow, and he had no idea as of yet how he was going to manage that particular feat. He closed his eyes, firmly pushed the lingering remnants of the dream from his mind, and he began sifting once more through all he knew of the hive and the bleak terrain surrounding it.
An hour later, when Valkarr rose from his bedroll to relieve Innikar at watch, Amric was still lying awake as his mind chewed relentless circles around the problem.
“Is it a trap?” Sariel whispered in the Sil’ath tongue.
Amric gave a slow shake of his head without glancing at her. They were lying prone, pressed to the stones like a coating of moss as they peered over the edge and onto the wasteland below.
“It is an unnecessary ruse,” Innikar replied in a low tone from the other side of Sariel. “If they knew we were here, they could have swarmed up even that narrow path and overwhelmed us by sheer force of numbers by now.”
“Still, the timing is suspect,” Sariel mused.
Innikar grunted assent. The trio fell silent, squinting into the gritty, biting wind blowing at them from the north. In the distance, the last of the cloth-wrapped black creatures were disappearing into that swirling haze of sand.
Innikar cleared his throat with an oblique glance toward Amric. “The old man was awake throughout the night,” he said.
“I know,” Amric responded.
“He said that he requires no sleep. Is he truly a…?”
“Yes. Is or was, and not even he knows which anymore.”
Innikar rested his chin on his fist and pondered that for a moment.
“Then,” put in Sariel, “he is likely telling the truth about the rest, about what he saw last night.”
“Yes, I believe him on that count as well.”
“I can think of only one destination to the north for them to march against in force,” Innikar said after a moment.
Amric met the Sil’ath warrior’s eyes with a grim nod: Keldrin’s Landing. A veritable army of the creatures had swept over the wasteland in the hours since dawn’s first light, issuing forth from the hive in determined batches ranging in size from a handful to as many as twenty. The sun hung directly overhead now, struggling to pierce the tempestuous haze, and he estimated that more than three hundred of the strange creatures had passed within sight of their perch over the course of the morning. Even more troubling was Bellimar’s report after a long night’s vigil that the exodus had been going for many hours before daybreak, such that they had seen only the trailing portion of it, and the lesser portion at that. The creatures all seemed to be headed due north, and there was not much in that direction to offer as a target save the city itself. If indeed their path went so far, then Keldrin’s Landing was likely in for a concerted attack, and that assault could come as early as nightfall.
“We cannot know the minds of such alien creatures,” Amric said. “They might be abandoning one nest to create another elsewhere. We should not draw conclusions until we see inside this hive for ourselves.”
Sariel nodded, her expression tight. Amric placed a hand on her arm and smiled gently.
“You are right to think the city is in jeopardy,” he said. “It is still the most likely explanation. But there is little we can do from here. We cannot get ahead of that ragged army of fiends in time to warn the city’s people. There are now far too many foes between here and there, and even though a good horse can outrun those things for a time, they never seem to tire.” It was true; they had seen it before, and every group that had burst forth from the hive that morning had traveled at a dead run, soundless and unflagging, until disappearing over the horizon.
“You misunderstand,” she said.
“I am indeed concerned for Keldrin’s Landing and its people, but I am troubled by something else as well. The creatures bore no captives in their departure.”
“Yes, I noted that as well.”
Sariel turned a stony gaze upon him. “This implies that sufficient forces remain behind to restrain the captives,” she said. “Or that the captives no longer require restraining.”
Amric’s jaw clenched. “We shall know which is the case soon enough.”
He narrowed his gaze against the stinging wind. The black creatures were lost to view, leaving the rippling dunes as unblemished as a vast, crumpled sheet of canvas. He lowered his head and slithered down and backward until he was safely out of sight from below, then sprang to his feet and padded to the other side of the grassy bowl, skirting the pool as he went. He slid into place beside Valkarr and looked down upon the wasteland from the southwestern edge of the tall crag’s crown of rock.
The hive was quiet, with nothing more than a black, yawning hole atop a massive dome of sand to reveal its presence. At first glance the structure could almost blend with the more natural landscape surrounding it, but its height and the odd uniformity of its conical shape soon exposed its subterfuge. Upon further observation, it became evident that this eerie monarch of the dunes was the only one among its brethren seemingly immune to the capricious, clawing wind that frayed the mounds around it. Here the wasteland shifted and remade itself continuously; only the hive remained unchanged.
Amric watched the hive for long, crawling minutes, and then made his decision. He sprang to his feet and strode for the horses, tethered and hooded against the blowing sand.
“Mount up, everyone,” he said.
Gone was his waking plan to send the stealthiest among them on foot to the entrance of the hive in order to get an undetected glimpse inside. That plan had never satisfied him, but it was the best the situation had offered. The Sil’ath were renowned for their ability to fade like ghosts past enemy fortifications, and he and his warriors were some of the best among a race who excelled at such things, but the terrain offered precious little cover and he doubted even their odds of getting close enough against the swarm of activity around the hive. The circumstances had changed, however, and trap or not, coincidental timing or not, he would have that closer look at their enemy now.
The riders left the crag and picked their way down the treacherous trail. They rode instead of leading the horses, as the prospect of being thrown by a stumbling horse seemed preferable to being beneath one, tugging at its reins. Sariel rode with Amric on his bay gelding, and Innikar sat behind Valkarr on his blue dun. If they were forced to outrun an ambush, the horses would still offer far more speed over a short distance than being on foot, even with the extra weight. Amric’s mount lost its footing and began to slide, dropping its haunches and bracing all four hooves on the rocky path. The warrior’s stomach took a sickening plunge, but he kept a steady hand on the reins and the beast recovered.
When they reached the sands below, he exhaled slowly and wheeled about to await the others. He patted the bay’s shuddering neck and murmured into its flicking ear. He realized with a mild start that the horse had no name; he had not asked after any existing name when he bought it, and he had never given it one. He had not expected to spend so much time on horseback. The animal had a courageous heart, and he decided it deserved a good name as soon as one came to him.
It took the better part of an hour to reach the base of the hive. Looking up its sloping height, Amric was struck by the sheer size of the structure. He had known it was huge in comparison to the more ordinary mounds around it, but here, at its foot, it seemed to stab at the very sky. The surface was hard and unnaturally smooth. It was not the slickness of water-worn stone, or the polish of a cut gemstone, but rather an unbroken, unblemished expanse of sand somehow welded together into a curved surface as hard as granite. There was an abrasive tooth to it, such that even the iron-shod hooves of the horses were able to find purchase on its steep slope.
Amric scanned the rolling hills again, finding them still devoid of life. He motioned for the others to spread out, and then he took the lead up the slope. The incline proved too steep for the horses to make a direct ascent, but he was able to guide his bay gelding in a more gradual circuit of the thing, making a slow spiral to its peak. From its towering height, he was afforded a panoramic view of the surrounding desert, and he stopped more than once to survey the land. The swirling winds still limited sight distance, but nothing stirred in any direction aside from the shambling dunes themselves.
They reached the peak and found that the outer lip marked the outline of a broad crater with a gaping hole at its center. Descending from the edges of the maw were numerous crude stairways which appeared to be carved from the interior wall of the structure. They twisted away into the darkness far below. The entire thing was hollow, Amric realized; given its mammoth size, there was no telling how many more of the creatures might still be contained below.
Amric slid from his horse, and Valkarr did the same. They left the reins with the others and crept forward to the edge of the opening, crawling in silence for the last dozen paces. They peered over the rim, tilting their heads at an angle such that only the barest sliver of silhouette would show to any observers below.
It was afternoon and the sun was no longer at its zenith. Skewed now in the sky, it sent a slanted shaft of thick, muddled light into the hive to pool off center on the floor of the cavern far below. Thus it was that, as Amric’s eyes adjusted to the darkness inside, he was able to pick out details of the room’s perimeter there first.
The place was huge and circular, and far from deserted.
Scores of large openings were cut into the wall at ground level along the outside arc of the room, and hulking black creatures vanished into or emerged from their depths, moving with industrious speed. Amric noted that the floor of the place was well below the wasteland’s ground level. His jaw clenched as he wondered how far that network of tunnels extended beneath the desert. Not terribly far, he decided, or the mass exodus they had witnessed earlier need not have taken place above ground.
The creatures were larger than the humanoid forms he had seen from these fiends thus far, perhaps half again the height of a tall man, with elongated heads pulled in tight to their chests. They were heavyset, at least twice as broad at the shoulders as a man, and they moved with ponderous strength. Their arms were overlong, ending in strange appendages that were not hands, and several thick, sinuous tentacles sprouted from either side of a ridge of spikes that ran down their hunched backs. Even so, there were some obvious similarities; many of the creatures trailed the same strips of tattered cloth, and their flesh was the same dull black as the others had been. It was evident that they shared a common nature.
All this he absorbed in the first few instants of observation, and then a cluster of activity at the heart of the chamber drew his eye. He focused upon the shadowy movement there. The uncertain light from above was not the only illumination, he realized with a chill. Murky pools of some green, viscous liquid shimmered in an array around the upraised center of the room, like sinister spokes radiating from the axle of some great wheel. The fluid gave off a spectral light that bathed the cavern from the underside in a subdued greenish hue. Unidentifiable objects were floating half submerged in those pools. The dark, hulking shapes moved tirelessly between the pools, using both their limbs and their tentacles to push the objects below the surface, or to roll them in the fluid over and over, as if they were basting meat on a spit.
The center of the chamber rose like a cone in a smaller scale imitation of the outer shell of the hive. Even dwarfed as it was by the rest of the hollow structure, it was still quite large, as Amric noted when he saw one of the black creatures scurry up the side of it. His eyes traveled to the peak of the cone, positioned directly below its larger counterpart above, and he squinted, trying to discern the movement he saw there.
Then the details of the grisly scene eme
rged from the gloom, and the blood congealed in his veins. A sharp, strained intake of breath at his side told him that Valkarr was seeing the same thing.
A towering creature jutted from the opening in the cone. Only its grotesque torso was visible above the stone, but that upper portion alone was twice the height of a man. It was the same obsidian hue as the other creatures, but it appeared to be covered by the overlapping plates of a thick carapace. It had an elongated, triangular head and a broad, protruding, under-slung jaw. Unlike the others, it had eyes that were not black within black, but instead glowed the same luminous green as the pools.
As Amric watched, one of the hulking creatures hurried up the cone with a squirming bundle enfolded tightly in its thick arms and tentacles. The monstrosity reached out with its four long, many-jointed limbs to accept the offering, and Amric saw in speechless horror that the prize was a half-naked man. The hapless fellow seemed barely conscious, but he thrashed and managed a thin scream as the huge thing raised him to its mouth. Amric tensed in futile rage, certain the man was to be consumed alive, but what followed proved far worse.
The monster’s huge jaws flared open and separated, revealing features beneath that were almost human in shape, if not in color. Full, curved lips that were uncomfortably female in appearance parted to reveal rows of gleaming fangs. The thing brought their faces together, but rather than tear into his flesh, it pressed its wicked mouth to his in a revolting parody of a kiss. The splayed appendages of its jaw closed upon the man’s head, wrapping around it to hold him fast. Its spine arched backward and its chest swelled, and Amric realized it was inhaling deeply, as if drawing the breath from the lungs of its victim. The struggling man stiffened and convulsed, his eyes bulging and fixed upon nothing. The color drained from his exposed flesh, and he grew paler and paler until he reached a ghostly white hue that was striking against the darkness. The creature’s glowing green eyes brightened, and an eerie purr of pleasure reverberated throughout the cavern.
The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept Page 34