“It’s better than stealing other peoples’ lives. What you do is an abomination, and we are here to stop you.”
“Stop us? How do you intend to do that? We have all the power here. You’re just intruders, and weak ones at that.”
Aeo smiled a wolf’s smile. “You underestimate us. Now shut up, release my friend’s mind, and let us get on with the business of killing you.”
“Who are you, to make demands of us?”
He squared his shoulders and raised the double-bladed sword above his head. It glowed with power, and his voice echoed down the corridors more loudly than the Entana’s. “I am Aeo, the Master of the Bok’Tarong!”
Silence.
Embarrassment crept up his spine. What did he think he was doing, standing in this absurd pose like some hero of old? But he couldn’t back down now before he received some kind of response to the challenge.
“I think you scared them,” Dragana said.
“Either that, or they’re giving me one last chance to slink away before I make a complete fool of myself.”
Raeb huffed out something that could have been a laugh. “I think the time for that has passed.”
Dragana helped him back to his feet. Raeb moved stiffly, as if his next motion could shatter his entire body.
“What happened?” Aeo asked, lowering his sword.
“I don’t know,” Raeb said. “It felt like the Entana were attacking, but then nothing happened. It was like they came in but didn’t take anything.”
“Would you know it if they did?”
Raeb leveled such a cold gaze on Aeo he had to resist the urge to defend himself.
“It was an innocent question,” he added.
Raeb’s tone was more frigid than his glare. “You can always tell when the Entana feed on a memory. There’s no missing that gaping emptiness where you know something should be. Feeling that sense of wrongness, but not knowing why. All you know is that you feel incomplete, violated, and terrified you’ve lost something dear to you.” He paused, still glaring at Aeo. “You might not remember what memory it was, but you always know when they’ve taken one from you.”
Aeo didn’t know how to respond. He’d never given much thought to what it must feel like to be a -taken. His focus had always been on the Entana themselves. Now, though, he was faced with Raeb’s unmasked emotions and saw the toll being a -taken had wrought on the man.
As if he’d needed any more motivation to destroy these monsters.
A howl from the Entana hunters roared through the corridors, fracturing the tension between the two men. The sounds of pounding feet followed, and with each second they grew louder.
“Maybe I didn’t scare them after all,” Aeo muttered.
Raeb picked up Sunray and they resumed their defensive position. Aeo’s heart hammered. It sounded like there were hundreds of hunters and not-quite hunters approaching. He hoped it was a trick of this strange environment amplifying the sound, but something told him it wasn’t. They had long since passed ‘outnumbered’ and were well on their way to ‘hopelessly overmatched’. He just hoped they didn’t enter the realm of ‘already dead’ before this was over.
The first of the Entana hunters came into view. Aeo felt Dragana gasp and recoil. He couldn’t blame her. He’d encountered these foul beasts before, killed his fair share of them, and still they disgusted him. The animal-like shapes were almost completely hidden underneath a tangle of Entana tendrils. They reeked of corruption.
But even with all that, they were nothing compared to the not-quite hunters that followed them.
These creatures made bile rise in Aeo’s throat. His palms grew clammy, and for the first time since they’d arrived, the Bok’Tarong trembled in his hands. These hunters were everything the old, familiar ones were—only they weren’t animals. They were people.
It was as if someone had taken the terrible images from Aeo’s spirit-eyes, made them a reality, and then taken those creatures’ nightmares and sent them after him. Arms and legs were disfigured and oily black. Tendrils rose like antennae from their heads and fell like a mane of snakes around their shoulders. Their eyes were flat and empty, even more dead than those Aeo had seen on corpses.
They shambled forward, and Aeo’s back bumped into Dragana’s. He wasn’t sure which of them had tried to retreat, but it didn’t matter. No one could stand firm when confronted with atrocities like that.
The hunters, human and animal, filled whatever space was left around Aeo and his friends. Still more came, crowding each passageway beyond Aeo’s sight. From the sound, even more were piling in behind those.
There was no way three people, enchanted swords or no, could fight a mob like that.
They were already dead. They just hadn’t quite gotten there yet.
Instead of despair, a rush of strength and hatred flooded through Aeo. It burned through his blood. He felt the world sharpen, clarify, crystalize. He was the Master of the Bok’Tarong, and he had never been this close to his mortal enemy before.
The blades in his hand started to glow.
Stillness settled into Aeo’s soul. This was his purpose. His every desire revolved around destroying these creatures. It was as simple as that. They lived to devour others’ lives. He lived to avenge those lives.
His muscles twitched with eagerness. If he didn’t have his friends at his back, relying on him for protection, he would have leapt into the midst of the hunters. As it was, he met the first charge with a fierce grin and an enthusiastic swipe of the Bok’Tarong.
The afterimage of the double-bladed sword’s glow burned in his eyes. The hunter squealed, flailed, and evaporated into oily smoke.
Another hunter, possibly a lion at one time, pounced in the other’s wake. Aeo lifted his sword to block, but the hunter collided with the lingering light of the Bok’Tarong’s trail. It paused there for the briefest of seconds, stuck like a fly in sap, then disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Aeo’s grin widened. It wasn’t an afterimage he saw. The Bok’Tarong was trailing light, and any hunter in its path was instantly purified.
He swung the blades in wide arcs, creating barricades of light around him and his friends. Many hunters were able to duck under or jump over the deadly light, but many more were pushed into the light by those behind them or too stupid to realize they walked into death. The air around them was soon thick with oily smoke, no matter how fast it dissipated.
The barrage of hunters slowed enough to allow them some breathing room. Still, it wasn’t enough. If anything, there were even more hunters crowding around them.
Aeo met the dead eyes of a human, a woman. She was naked under the Entana tendrils, but any eroticism was erased by the grotesque disfigurement they caused. Aeo didn’t hesitate to take her head.
Raeb and Dragana were lost in the Taronese sword-dance, weaving in and out of each other’s defenses flawlessly. He noted, with some sadness, that Dragana’s Bok’Tarong didn’t trail the same deadly light his did. Oh well. I guess we can’t expect too many miracles in one day.
Aeo’s eyes watered from the smoke and the dazzling light trails of the Bok’Tarong. He could feel his blood pulsing through his body like a drumbeat. He was too deep in the fight to feel much pain, but he knew his muscles would punish him for the exertion as soon as he stopped.
And still more hunters sought their blood.
He moved and spun and stabbed, but a small voice in Aeo’s mind was insisting there was an easier way. [This is the spirit world], it seemed to say. [The rules are different here. You don’t have to do everything with muscle.]
Aeo couldn’t devote any concentration to the concept. There were too many enemies surrounding him. He kept killing.
[Come on, Aeo, think! Our power isn’t bound by physical limitations anymore. Look at yourself. Look at what you’re doing. We can extend outside of the blades, just as you do. You can send our power out to the enemy instead of waiting for them to come to you.]
He knew the voice. It
was the tiny, niggling instinct—almost more like a conscience—he’d inherited when he became the Bok’Tarong. Its knowledge would seep into his mind and give him the insight that had saved his and Dragana’s lives so many times. No matter how preoccupied, exhausted, or scared he felt, he knew better than to ignore its advice.
He didn’t think about what he was doing. He just let the voice of the Bok’Tarong guide him.
Ignoring the snarls and claws of the hunters, Aeo turned the blades sideways and swung it in long, broad strokes. The Bok’Tarong’s magic walled him in. It wouldn’t last for long, with the hunters beating—and dying—on it, but hopefully it would give him just enough time.
He gathered his strength, channeling it through the power of the Bok’Tarong. His hatred of the Entana burned in him like a fever. He fueled the fire, stoking the rage with his fear, his pain, with everything he had. He poured it into the fire and let it consume him until his body shook and his vision went black and he lost all sense of anything other than the incandescent hatred.
A moment before it would devour him, he released it.
A shockwave of light and power erupted from him. It tore from his spirit like a tidal wave, blinding him and drowning everything in its wake. The hunters barely had time to squeal before the light of the Bok’Tarong’s power destroyed them.
Aeo collapsed to his knees. The world spun around him. His vision darkened, his ears rang, and though he didn’t have a physical stomach from which to vomit, he heaved.
Ominous silence, so thick he could feel it, filled the room.
“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” Aeo told the Entana. It took nearly all his strength to make his voice more than a whisper.
There was a pregnant pause, while the Entana seemed to consider him. “Very well. Come deeper into our consciousness, if you dare. We grow more powerful the closer you get.”
Great, Aeo thought. I nearly killed myself with their opening attack. What are we going to do once we reach them in person?
He groaned and pushed himself up, fighting against the most profound sense of exhaustion he’d ever felt. Every muscle in his body felt like it had been riddled with holes. He could hardly support his own weight. The pain in his head was tremendous.
“I have got to stop doing this to myself,” he muttered.
“By the gods of Taron, Aeo, are you all right?”
He levered himself onto his knees and grasped Dragana’s hand, hoping to encourage her. But even to him, it felt more like he was clinging to her for life itself.
“I’m all right,” he said. His throat was parched, as if he’d never before tasted water. “I’ll be fine.”
“What on earth was that?” Raeb asked. Under the gruffness, or maybe because of it, Aeo could tell he’d worried the man.
“The power of the Bok’Tarong. It doesn’t have to be confined to the blades in the spirit world. I just released it.” He paused, lifting his head and looking around. They were alone. Not a single hunter lurked in the shadows, and no sound of them could be heard. “I guess it worked.”
Raeb and Dragana helped him to his feet. He swayed for a moment, unsure which way was up, until at last he steadied.
“It more than worked, Aeo. As soon as that pulse of light hit, the hunters just dissipated. Gone.” Raeb snapped his fingers. “Poof.”
Dragana glared at him from around Aeo. “He saved our lives and destroyed hundreds of Entana hunters with light and magic, and the best way you can describe it is ‘poof’?”
Raeb shrugged, a satisfied grin plastered on his face.
Aeo laughed, and even Dragana’s glare melted into amusement.
“Come on, we’ve got a long way to go,” he said.
He took Dragana’s hand in his, then looked around at the tunnels leading away. “Which way, intrepid leader?” he asked, looking over at Raeb.
The man stared back at him. “Since when am I the leader? You’re the one with the great and powerful hunter-obliterating magic.”
“But this was your idea, your plan, and you know the Entana better than any of us. If anyone could lead us to the heart of the hive, it’s you.”
Raeb seemed stunned by Aeo’s statement. It was as if the man never expected to be handed leadership of anything, especially by the spirit—Master—of the Bok’Tarong. Maybe he hadn’t, Aeo didn’t know. But he did know that he, Aeo, was not the right man for the job. Raeb was.
They didn’t speak, but Raeb seemed to understand. He nodded once, then turned away from Aeo to survey their choices.
“I guess one path will be as good as any at this point,” he said. “If the Entana wanted to keep us out, they could do it with a thought.”
He chose a tunnel at random, one slightly to their left, and led the way down. In all this time he’d never sheathed Sunray, and he didn’t seem eager to do so any time soon.
Aeo and Dragana followed. Aeo tried to be wary of their surroundings, watching for traps or more hunters, but his head was still throbbing and the thrill of having Dragana beside him was intoxicating. He found himself looking over at her, feeling her hand in his, reveling in the memory of their kiss. She wanted him. She’d chosen him, and even though his life had been saved by the bracelet he now wore, he knew she’d given it to him gladly. What had he ever done to earn the love of someone like her? Whatever it was, he was forever grateful for having done it.
He forced his mind away from the woman beside him. If he wanted to get her out of this alive, he had to do more than get distracted by her beauty. He had to protect her. He’d never tell her that—the warrior-woman would beat him senseless if he even thought she needed protection—but even so. He wasn’t about to let anything happen to her. She was his.
And by every one of the gods of Taron, no matter what the cost, he was going to bring her home.
32
Raeb tried to ignore the fear growing in him. These tunnels were not friendly. The hunters might be gone for now, but even so this entire place reeked of malevolence. Latent violence thrummed in the walls. It leached from them like moisture in a cave. Or saliva in a giant monster’s mouth.
He tried to push that last image away, but it was forever lodged in his brain.
He tightened his grip on Sunray. The Entana blade froze his fingertips, but he welcomed the pain. Anything to distract himself from where he was and what he was doing.
The Entana in his mind laughed. He heard it as a distant echo, perhaps even more like a memory. It was as if now that he was here, as close to the Entana as he could get, they were further from his thoughts than ever before.
Which would explain what had happened earlier. The Entana had invaded, just like they had hundreds of times before. But they hadn’t fed on anything. That unnerved him. The last time the Entana had come and hadn’t taken anything was the day he was given his blade and his terrible mission.
He shuddered to think what the Entana were up to now.
He pulled away from those horrifying thoughts and focused on the path ahead. It was straight, which in this place meant there were no sharp turns that would lead them in a whole different direction. The walls shifted back and forth slightly, so Raeb felt like he was staggering like a drunken man. If he focused on it too much, he got dizzy.
The howls of the hunters echoed toward them. They were still distant, but all three of them tensed and froze in their steps. They didn’t start moving again until several breaths had passed with no additional sound.
Raeb’s fears continued to hound him. The Entana had some kind of plan. They weren’t stupid creatures, nor would they ignore a threat like Raeb and Aeo. So why were they allowing them, enchanted weaponry in hand, to advance further into the hive? There was more going on than just an invitation to get the spirit of the Bok’Tarong killed. His soul may be an invaluable prize, but the danger he carried with them would exact a heavy price.
Unless he wasn’t the soul the Entana were after.
Raeb shuddered. He’d evaded death by the Entana through
no strength of his own. It was only at the mercy—torture—of the Keeper of Secrets. Now Ashwinn was dead, and he was here. Why hadn’t they already killed him?
Because they had something else in mind for him.
And that, more than anything, terrified him.
They came to a fork in the path. The tunnel to the right led up at a sharp angle; the left, sloping downward. At the edge of his vision, Raeb could see that path curve back to the right, so it would follow the same basic direction they were going in now. But was that the right direction? He had no way to know.
Something about the right, upward path caught his attention. He couldn’t pinpoint it, but he felt this was the way to go.
He didn’t move.
“What’s wrong, Raeb?” Dragana asked.
“I don’t like this.”
“That isn’t much of a surprise,” Aeo said. “Which part of this god-awful place are you referring to, specifically?”
“The part where my instincts are pulling me toward a specific path.”
“Why is that a bad thing?”
Raeb turned to the assassin. “Because I still have an Entana in my brain. If they’re trying to lead me somewhere, is that a place I want to go?”
They stood, thinking, for several heartbeats. Raeb cast his eyes between the two paths, though neither looked any more inviting upon inspection. If anything, the undulating, in-and-out-of-existence walls made him more reluctant to go on. He hadn’t thought that was possible.
“The Entana admitted it would be easier to kill us deeper in the hive,” Dragana said. “So why would they lead us away, if it would only risk more hunters and give us the possibility of escape?”
“The Entana won’t care about the hunters,” Raeb replied. “They don’t have any thoughts or memories left to feed upon. They’re just shells. Inedible scraps left over from last night’s dinner. We could kill every one of them in the entire hive and not cause the Entana to even flinch.”
Soul of the Blade Page 29