The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept (56 page)

These blasted things want to take us alive
, Borric thought. He shouted orders, and two more guards closed the gap immediately with blades flashing, but their protective ring was thinning by the moment.

Borric shot a glance inward at the huddled citizens
. It was mostly children now. The able-bodied men and women had already taken up the weapons of the fallen and thrown themselves into aiding the defense. They were not soldiers, however, and had been even quicker to fall before their tireless foes than the members of the city guard. To Borric’s blurred vision, the children were one big indistinct mass of shape and color, clinging tightly together. He felt a traitorous flash of gratitude that he could no longer see their frightened expressions.

He had a sudden irrational thought for his own son, the boy he had not seen in the years since Borric had taken
this job, the boy who would be a tall young man by now. He remembered wiping away the boy’s tears at his departure, his assurances that it would not be as long as it seemed. He remembered his confident promises that he would return one day, laden with his earnings. He had only to accept this important position in a remote outpost for a few years, where the pay was many times what he could earn at home, in a land of untold riches beyond the frayed edges of known civilization…

Someone was shouting at him
. Borric blinked, breaking from his reverie and straining to hear the words over the persistent ringing in his ears. He looked around. The ring of guards had thinned to the point of breaking.

“Tighten the ring!” he shouted
. “Fall back three steps and tighten the ring!”

The men were quick to obey, their boots stomping and scraping as they backed into a tighter defensive circle
.
If the ring shrinks much further
, Borric thought with a rueful grimace,
the men will be tripping over that cluster of children.

A hole opened in the ranks before him as
several of the fiends tried to force their way through in a wedge. Dead eyes stared at him above soundless, gaping mouths, and his men struggled to hold them back. With a roar of defiance, the captain of the guard raised his sword and plunged back into the fray.

Someone was shouting at him. A strident voice, somehow both distant and yet uncomfortably near, was gibbering at him to wake up, to fight back and, in a seeming contradiction, to give in and let go.
Release me,
the voice urged.
Join me,
so
that we may fight together as we were meant to!

Amric’s eyes flared open, and he realized with a chill that he had lost consciousness for a fleeting instant.

The huge visage of the Nar’ath queen loomed before him, and the stench of putrefaction washed over him with her hot breath. Her outer jaws were flared wide, reaching toward him with the hooked prongs that would keep his head frozen in place for the killing kiss. Her ruby lips peeled back to reveal row upon row of tiny glistening fangs that were eager to receive him.

Something slammed into the
queen from the side, eliciting a shriek of pain from the monster. Amric gasped as the claws encircling his torso convulsed from the blow and nearly crushed him. She whirled in the direction from which the attack had come, but all Amric could see were the swirling sands obscuring all. Seconds later came another blow from the other side, and she shuddered, spinning in that direction and sweeping her claws in a blind, furious arc.

A phantom laughed echoed back to them, seeming to come from all directions at once
. It was a rich, smooth voice, mocking as it slid through the murk and circled them.

Bellimar
!
Amric realized. The vampire was taking a direct hand in affairs once more, as he had in Stronghold.

A third blow shook the Nar’ath queen with a sound like muted thunder
. She lunged in a new direction, roaring in rage and frustration. Shaking Amric like a child’s doll, she slithered into a wide, rapid turn back toward the center of the vast chamber, prowling after this troublesome new prey.

Borric recognized his mistake the instant he made the attack that undid him.

The guard to his right stumbled and went to his knees, and half a dozen black hands seized him in an instant and pulled him headfirst from view
. One of the fiends stepped into the gap and lunged at Borric, and the battle-forged reflexes of countless hard-fought campaigns took over. The captain of the guard stepped into a smooth lunge and drove the point of his sword into the throat of the attacker. It was perfectly executed, a lethal blow to any mortal assailant, but Borric knew in an instant that he was undone.

Before he could withdraw, the
gaping fiend seized his wrist in a vise-like grip. It drew itself forward, surging along his blade until the hilt rested against its throat and the full length of shining steel projected from the back of its neck. With a wrench, the creature snapped the bones of his forearm, and his sword tumbled from useless fingers. He was jerked forward, the sheer force of it causing his feet to leave the ground. Something slammed into the back of his skull like an iron sledge, and all was darkness.

Black
hands caught him before he hit the ground.

Morland cracked an eye and watched the farseer at work. The young man shuddered and flinched from time to time, but his eyes remained wide open and twitched between distant targets that only he could see. Tears ran openly across his face and into his beard.

What a
fool,
thought Morland with a curl of his lip. It was not as if this show of weakness would have any effect on the outcome down there. The city was lost. His Nar’ath allies were doing just as they had promised by demonstrating the inevitability of their conquest. Morland felt a surge of pride. The Nar’ath had skulked about for centuries, hiding and evading notice, building their strength slowly; the time for such subterfuge was at an end.

Not for the first time, h
e congratulated himself for turning a minor setback into the promise of success. He had been furious when the Nar’ath attacked his trade caravan so many months ago; even though they had left the goods untouched, it had cost him no small amount of time and trouble to replace the men that had disappeared. It had cost him many more after that to track down the culprits, to gauge their strength, and to make careful advances to establish contact with their leader.

It was all worth it in the end, however
. The Nar’ath forces would continue to grow, fueled by this victory, and he would be remembered for his part in accelerating their eventual triumph. He swelled with pride. And of course, once they had taken what they needed, they would establish him as the undisputed ruler over the survivors, just as they had promised. He would at last achieve the power that had long been his goal, but on a scale to which even he had not dared aspire.

He frowned
. Something nagged at the fringes of his thoughts, a tattered edge to an otherwise perfect picture. How many survivors would be left when the Nar’ath were sated? What proof had they offered of their assertion that they had no long-term interest in this world? Where were they going? These seemed like questions he would have asked, being a shrewd negotiator and a calculating businessman. In fact, he recalled going to his initial meetings with the Nar’ath queen with every intention of learning the answers to these questions and more. Now, however, when he looked back, his memories of that meeting were a fog, and he could not produce the answers to any of these queries. He tried to call forth the details––any details––from those fateful encounters, but they slid away like raindrops down a slate roof.

He forced himself to concentrate harder
. The towering image of the Nar’ath queen appeared before his mind’s eye, and he found his thoughts dulling, laced with a strange sense of loyalty that bordered on complacency. He frowned again. These thoughts fit him poorly, as if he was awakening to find himself wearing another man’s clothing.

He sat forward
. He had no qualms about what was transpiring in Keldrin’s Landing; after all, conquest on the scale he required was never accomplished without some amount of bloodshed. It was unlike him, however, to enter into such a crucial arrangement without an ironclad set of safeguards in place. How had he––

“My lord?” Lorenth interrupted his thoughts in a quavering tone.

“What is it?” Morland snapped.

“Y-you are certain that the creatures will pass over your estate?”

The merchant opened his mouth to snarl an affirmative, and then paused. He had been given that assurance, at least. Indeed, the Nar’ath had demonstrated their commitment to their arrangement by ensuring that his trade caravans were no longer molested, while those of his rivals suffered the fate with alarming frequency. Even with that promise, however, he found himself facing sudden gnawing doubts. “Why do you ask, farseer?”

“
The creatures have torn your gates asunder, and a great many of them have just entered your grounds.”

Morland shot to his feet
. “Are they coming here?” he demanded.

The farseer turned toward him, and Morland gave a start
. The man’s eyes had no pupils! Then, as if bobbing to the surface of a calm lake, Lorenth’s pupils reappeared within his pale blue eyes. Of course, the merchant admonished himself; it was just some effect of his strange abilities. Lorenth blinked several times, and the semblance of calm was broken. The blue eyes focused upon Morland.

“I cannot say for certain, my lord,” the young man said in a voice barely above a whisper
. “They appeared to be headed this way, but once past the braziers at the gate, they passed into darkness and I could no longer see them.”

Morland stared at him for a long moment, frozen
. Then he cursed and spun on his heel, making a curt motion to the guards. The soldiers snapped to attention and pulled the doors open as he approached.

Lulled and betrayed
! He ground his teeth in fury as his mind raced over his options. However he had been ensorcelled by the Nar’ath, he was comforted by the fact that he had at least demonstrated some semblance of his customary caution in establishing certain contingent plans. He had a ship at anchor well away from the docks that was waiting for him to signal it in. He could be away from this gods-forsaken land for good. This, however, was not the time to attempt to reach the sea. No, the Nar’ath were too strong and too many; he would have to weather the night in a safe place and make his escape when the opportunity presented itself, after the chaos had subsided. He had a fortified armory at the center of his massive keep, well stocked with provisions. It would serve his needs nicely. A man with means and foresight such as he possessed
always
had a backup plan.

“M-my lord?”

The thin, tremulous voice of the farseer brought Morland sharply about. He had all but forgotten the meek fellow. His eyes narrowed as he regarded Lorenth.

“What of me, my lord?”

Morland gave him an icy smile. “It seems our business is concluded, farseer. Guards, please see him out the main doors. I believe he can find his way from there.”

Lorenth paled
. “My lord, please––!” he stammered as the soldiers took heavy steps toward him.

The merchant turned to go
. Lorenth’s voice, rising several octaves and into the shrill range, followed him through the doorway.

“My lord, wait
! Wait! I can still be of use to you!”

Morland
paused, half turning. “Make it quick and compelling, or you will exit by means of that window instead.”

Lorenth stumbled forward
, wringing his hands. “You will need a safe route from the city, my lord,” he said in a rush. “I can help, especially if you wait until daylight. I can use my farsight to reveal which roads lead to safety, and which to certain death.”

Morland regarded him for a long moment, and then a slow, vulpine smile spread across his features
. “How very enterprising of you, farseer. I may just make a savvy businessman of you yet.”

Another thunderous blow shook the Nar’ath queen. From the corner of his eye, Amric caught a blur of motion passing by him with inhuman speed before disappearing once more into the swirling sand. An instant later it came again, accompanied by a sharp, cracking report and a keening cry of agony from the queen. One of the claws gripping Amric loosened and fell away from him, and the limb dangled at a broken, useless angle at her side.

Amric took the opportunity to fill his lungs as the crushing grip on his chest
slackened enough to allow unrestricted breath. He was rewarded with a mouthful of choking sand, but his tenuous hold on consciousness firmed and new energy flooded his body. As the queen spat her outrage at her unseen assailant, he expanded his chest and flexed his arms outward, straining against the remaining talons. Then, in a sudden movement, he let all his air out in a whoosh and brought his arms together tightly over his head, making himself as narrow as possible. He fell through and plunged to the ground.