The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept (51 page)

A wave of heat washed through him, and his vision went white at the edges
. He fought it back, trembling and shaking his head to clear it. This was no time to succumb to whatever strange illness was plaguing him. He needed to retain control, as there were still lives to save. And lives to avenge. His fist tightened around the hilt of his sword until his knuckles creaked.

He threw his head back
, gasping for breath, and found the captives climbing the stairs. Some moved under their own power, scrambling weakly up the twisting steps. Others were pushed or half-carried by his Sil’ath warriors. He had to buy them a few more minutes. Whatever he chose to do with his own life, he could not commit theirs to the reckless act of vengeance that was burning at him from the inside. He met Valkarr’s stricken gaze as the Sil’ath hesitated, then ducked under the outstretched arm of one of the men to hasten him up the crude steps.
He saw
, Amric realized.
He knows, and yet he does what must be done. I can do no less.

“What
desecration is this?” the Nar’ath queen screeched. “Have the Adepts grown so craven that they cannot face us directly now, but instead resort to preying upon our young?”

He whirled toward her, baring his teeth
. “They are not your young,” he spat. “They are not
yours
at all. They are
my
people.”

Her head drew back in confusion
. “Your people? What matter to the Adepts if we harvest them before you harvest their very world? And what matter to such inconsequential beings? They are like blades of dry grass before the spreading flame. Their tiny lives are not their own, either way. At least we offer them existence, and purpose, where you offer only annihilation.”

The queen
leaned forward once more, her eyes narrowing to burning slits. She swept out one arm in a violent gesture toward the retreating captives. “And when did the Adepts become concerned with the fates of such lesser beings?”

As before, he was not certain what reply to make and so he
stood, seething with anger, and made none. This time it gave him away.

“False Adept!” she hissed in
sudden accusation. Then she paused, cocking her head to the side. “No, you are indeed an Adept, for I can taste your power from here, and it stands apart from the weak magics of this world’s inhabitants as clearly as the full silver moon from the flickering stars. But you do not react as an Adept should, and you hesitate when no Adept would.”

He stood motionless, staring back at her
. From the corner of his eye he watched the painstaking progress of the Sil’ath warriors ushering the weakened, stumbling captives up the stairs. His mind raced, trying to think of what sufficiently cryptic statements he could make that would buy them the time they needed to reach the top.

“You would test your strength against
the Adepts?” he asked again, putting a measure of disdain in his tone when a fierce part of him wanted only to hurl himself against her. “Tread with care, dark one.”

“Perhaps you are a youngling,” she
mused as if she had not heard him, “still uncertain of your powers. Whatever the reason, you seem unable or unwilling to use them. Long have the Nar’ath wished for the day we would test our newfound strength against the Adepts, and long have I wished for the day I would taste the peerless life force of your kind.”

The shoulders of the
Nar’ath queen bulged as her body bowed and tensed, and a spider’s web of cracks shot through the stone surrounding her. Her eyes were narrowed to a painfully bright razor’s edge of eldritch green as her head slowly lowered and extended toward him.

“I think, Adept,” she
said, “that this will be that day.”

With a scream of
primal fury, she surged upward and burst from her containment. A sound like a peal of thunder tore through the cavern as huge shards of rock exploded outward. Amric threw up an arm to shelter his vision against flying debris. He had a split second in which to see the retreating group on the stairs high overhead, staring downward and frozen in shock. Through the rain of rock and the billowing cloud of dust, he had a fleeting moment to glimpse a mammoth serpentine form fringed with countless angular, grasping arms, writhing free of the gaping hole in the ground. Then the Nar’ath queen was hurtling toward him, and he had time for nothing else.

“I’m telling you, there has to be something guiding them.”

Horek paused with his fork midway to his mouth
. “What’s that you say, lad?”

The younger guard shot a glance
at him over one shoulder before returning his attention to the narrow window. “They were all wild, fierce creatures. What else would possess such a horde to attack in unison? Something is organizing their efforts, it has to be.”

Horek
groaned and shoveled the meat into his mouth, chewing noisily as he drew the back of his other hand across his bearded chin. “Not this again, lad,” he said. “Can we not share a single watch without flogging the same old discussion?”

At the window, Sivrin’s squar
e, clean-shaven jaw tightened. “It can’t be that old a topic,” he muttered. “The attack came only a few days ago, and there has not been another since. Do you not find it strange?”

“A swarm of maddened, magical creatures throwing themselves at the city walls
? Of course it is strange. Hell’s breath, the whole business is strange. But you’ll not find me complaining that they have not returned.”

“They
will
return,” Sivrin insisted. “And mark my words, I will wet my blade in their foul flesh, if I am not stuck on watch again here at the southern gate instead of the eastern one on that night as well.”

“The southern gate is every bit as important an assignment, lad
. The next attack could come from any direction, not necessarily the east.”

“Bah, you don’t believe that any more than I do,” Sivrin said
. “The eastern gate is where the action will be. The Captain knows it as well. He has over thirty men at the eastern gate, and just a few of us here.”

“
Six of us,” Horek corrected him. “Two at the gate, two in the room below, and the two of us up here to man the portcullis. That is more than a few. You saw what those fiends did to the great wooden doors of the gate itself. Quick action on the inner portcullis may be all that keeps them out of the city streets next time.” He gestured at the huge, squat winding gear affixed to the stone floor on the other end of the room, its thick system of chains trailing upward into slots in the wall. “It is an important duty, lad, whether you enjoy it or not.”

Sivrin
heaved a sigh and shook his head. “Do not remind me, Horek. Even on the off chance an attack does come to the southern gate, we must man the device and cannot even respond directly. I am doubly cursed. Is the Captain determined to keep me from proving myself?”

The old
er guard tapped the fork against his lips as he regarded the other fellow. He was supposed to be training the lad, taking him under his wing and sharing the benefit of his long years of experience. He could not look upon that earnest, boyish countenance, however, without feeling dismay at how much like children the new recruits looked to him these days. So young, and so eager to prove themselves, one and all. Sivrin devoured every old story Horek had to tell, and hungered for more. It did not seem to matter that some tales held only meager scraps of truth; the lad had ears only for glory and bravery, and seemed not to hear at all the horrors, the pain, the warnings that laced each retelling.

Horek sighed
, scratching at his chin with the tines of the fork. He kept his own beard and scalp shorn close to the skin to conceal just how much grey had shot through the sandy brown. He wondered if the youth standing before him could even sprout a whisker of his own. He dropped the utensil upon the tin plate with a clatter.

“No attack since the first,” Horek grunted, raising the familiar argument
. “Does that not suggest more a freak occurrence than a calculating mind behind it?”

Sivrin spun away from the window
, his clear blue eyes wide and grateful. “What else could draw such a mix of creatures together with a single purpose?”

“Who knows what drives such beasts?” Horek said with a wave of one callused hand
. “The Captain says all the fancy scholars would have us believe the magic deep within the land is being stirred by something, and it is having unpredictable effects on creatures more mystical in nature. I can tell from his tone that the Captain thinks they are guessing as much as we are.”

Sivrin folded his arms across his chest, unconvinced
. “Why did the creatures all come against the city, then?” he demanded. “It suggests organization, a method to it all.”

“That much is easily explained,” Horek said with a grim laugh
. “Those damned things are growing in numbers out there, overrunning the countryside. Now the livestock are gone from the farms, and doubtless there is precious little wild game remaining as well. That leaves us, lad, sitting behind our walls and lighting our torches until the city glows like a beacon in the night. We must look like a giant cattle pen to their sort. It takes no hidden strategic mind to drive animals to fill their bellies.”

“Perhaps not, but they retreated in unison.
”

“And fought amongst themselves, coming and going.”

“They were testing our strength,” Sivrin insisted. “Now that they have taken our measure, they will return in earnest.”

Horek snorted
. “Testing our strength? Lad, they had our measure all right. They caught us unawares, and they broke right through. They had only to press the attack and the city would have been gutted. No, they fled before the light of day, not from any fear of us. Everyone knows such creatures abhor the sun’s pure light.”

“And who tells us this
? The same scholars who a moment ago were just guessing?” Sivrin said in a scornful tone, but there was a tinge of grudging acceptance as well. Horek chuckled to himself; the same conversation each time, clothed in slightly different words.

“
These creatures did not leave themselves enough time to finish the assault, Sivrin. That suggests impulse, not forethought.”

“Perhaps so,” the younger man admitted
. He turned back to the narrow window and crossed his forearms on the ashlar blocks of the sill. “But I still say––”

He fell silent so abruptly that Horek was caught for a long moment, waiting upon his next words
. Sivrin remained frozen in place, however, peering out at the gently rolling lands south of the city wall. Horek opened his mouth to tease the lad, but in the sudden silence he heard a noise from the room below. It was a faint sound, muffled by the distance and by the thick stone construction of the guard house, but something about it struck him amiss. He hesitated, listening for the sound to repeat, but it did not. Realizing his mouth still hung open, he snapped it shut, irritated by his own foolishness. He knew the two men below, veteran soldiers both, and if they weren’t accusing each other of cheating at dice they were probably just engaged in some other meaningless argument similar to the one he and Sivrin were having.

“What is it, lad?” he snapped, returning his attention
to the younger guard.

“I can’t be certain,” Sivrin said in a distracted near-whisper, “but I thought I saw something moving out there
. Many things, actually.”

“It’s probably just some merchant’s caravan,” Horek said with a dismissive wave
. “Fool merchants have more greed than sense, to be traveling overland at this hour. Bloody vultures, anyway! I can’t decide if I more want to strangle them or admire them, as prices continue to rise and they all grow fat off the profits of us trapped here––”

“It was
not
a caravan,” Sivrin interrupted. “It was in the grasses, away from the road. Besides, the trade caravans all come by the western coastal road these days. No one tries the wasteland any more. There is something skulking about out there, like a host of shadows––There! I saw it again!”

Horek rolled his eyes and pushed to his feet, shifting his sword belt as the scabbard rattled against his chair
. “What’s this, then, lad? Some kind of joke at my expense, because I have an answer for each of your foolish theories?”

“Just get over here and look for yourself,” Sivrin
urged.

The grizzled guard heaved a sigh and crossed the room
. He stood shoulder to shoulder with the younger man, craning his neck to stare out the window. The grey of evening had settled over the countryside, made thick and oppressive by the low-hanging storm clouds. The tall grasses rippled and swirled beneath fitful breezes, and the sea of motion served to baffle his vision as he squinted into the twilight gloom. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, though he had to admit that his sight was not what it had once been, for he found a blurring in the distant detail that owed as much to his eyes as to the gathering shroud without.

“There, did you see it?”
Sivrin exclaimed.