“Don’t worry about me, Hunter.” She gave a dismissive wave, then winced as the pain flashed through her recently dislocated shoulder. “I can handle myself. You just find the boy.”
“I can’t just leave you in here,” he told her. “This is…”
“Inhumane? Barbaric, cruel, revolting?” Kiara nodded. “That’s why I’m going to find a way to bust out of here. If I can get out, it means there’s hope for the poor bastards trapped in here as well.”
Her strength and determination still surprised him. Though her features were the same as the woman he’d known as Celicia, the Fourth of the Bloody Hand, she’d changed a great deal in the last few months. She had said Sir Danna saved her, helped her to find a purpose in life. That purpose had been hunting demons, which had brought them back together. Even in this terrible situation, she would not stand by and do nothing. It was one of the things that had drawn him to her in the first place.
“Here.” The Hunter shoved one suit of Elivasti armor into her hands and the daggers he’d brought with him. “Keep these hidden, but at hand. Be ready for when I return, but don’t do anything that’ll get you killed.”
“What are you going to do?” Kiara asked.
“I’m going to walk through the front gate and figure out how to get you out of here.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t much have the look of an Elivasti. And it’s not just the eyes.”
The Hunter grinned. “That’s the least of my worries.” He turned away and, gritting his teeth, forced his features to shift to match those of the dead Elivasti. The pain of the lightning crackling through his face still set his head pounding, but he’d grown accustomed to the sensation.
She gasped when he turned back to her a moment later. “Watcher’s teeth!”
The Hunter grinned, and Setin’s fleshy lips pulled into an ugly grin. “We’ve all got our tricks,” he said in his best imitation of Setin’s voice.
“That’s a bloody handy one!” Kiara shook her head. “And here I thought those disguises you wore were all alchemical flesh.”
“They were.” He turned away and let his features return to his normal face. “It’s a new trick.”
“So that face’ll get you out the front gate. Then what?”
“I’ll scout the Elivasti’s defenses, the gate, everything that stands between us and freedom.” The Hunter’s brow furrowed in contemplation. “The first chance I get, I’m coming back to break you out of here.”
“And what of all these people?” Kiara asked in a quiet voice. “What will you do for them?”
“I…don’t know.” The Hunter drew in a deep breath. “I want to get them out, but my first concern is Hailen and…” He stopped himself from mentioning his daughter, and instead finished with, “…you. Plus, I’ve got to kill the Sage before he uses the power of Enarium to free Kharna.”
“Keeper!” Kiara breathed. “That’s quite the full dance card you’ve got.”
“But I’ll make time for you,” the Hunter said. “You have my word that I will get you out of here. And, if I can, I’ll find a way to help these people.”
“I’ve got this,” Kiara told him. “You’ve got your work cut out for you.”
The Hunter nodded and stood. “Anything I can do for you? Maybe bring you a pillow, or a glass of Snowblossom wine?”
Kiara scowled. “Rot in hell, Hunter.”
The Hunter chuckled. “At least being in here hasn’t affected your pleasant personality.”
“I can feel it, you know?” Kiara said, and her voice grew suddenly serious. “Like the Pit is sucking the life out of me.”
The Hunter paused. He hadn’t felt any different, but he’d only been in the Pit for a few minutes. Yet he could understand how the listlessness of the people trapped here could sap the will from anyone.
A thought struck him. “The pack I gave you, what did you do with it? Did the Elivasti take it from you?”
She shook her head. “When I spotted the bastards coming for us, I tucked it out of sight behind the city gate, against the wall. I don’t think they saw me.”
“Good!” The Hunter nodded. The story of the Swordsman and his magical blades might be a lie, but two more daggers—daggers of iron, no less—would come in handy for killing Elivasti and Abiarazi both.
“I’ll be back as quickly as I can,” the Hunter told her. He gripped her left hand in both of his, heedless of the foul-smelling mud that stained their fingers. “Stay strong.”
Kiara smiled. “No one stronger in the world, Hunter.” She gave him a little shove. “Now off with you. I’ve got a daring escape to plan, and you, well, you’ve got a whole bloody world to save.”
Chapter Fifteen
When the Hunter emerged from the shelter in which he’d laid Kiara, no trace remained of the two Elivasti he’d killed. Even the prints of their boots had been churned into the muck by bare, filthy feet. To any who hadn’t been around when the Hunter killed them, the Elivasti had simply never been here.
The tall Al Hani man was there, however. He sat on a stone, his back against one rickety post of his shelter, his eyes fixed on the muddy ground. He didn’t look up at the Hunter’s exit, but his low voice drifted toward the Hunter.
“They’ll hurt us for it. Hurt her.”
“What?” The Hunter’s eyes narrowed.
Now the man lifted dark brown eyes and fixed the Hunter with a glassy stare. “Two came down, none went back up.” He shook his head. “They’ll think we did it. Make us pay.”
Realization dawned on the Hunter. The man was talking about the Elivasti he’d killed. Their comrades would wonder what had happened, and when they came looking, they wouldn’t hesitate to beat the truth out of these poor souls. The Hunter’s gut clenched. His actions would simply compound their torment.
No, he wouldn’t let that happen. He’d make sure no one suffered for it.
“One is going back up,” he said, his voice grim. He gritted his teeth and forced his face to change shape, to match the fleshy lips, heavy jawline, and drooping jowls of the Elivasti he’d killed. Lightning crackled through his cheeks, jaw, forehead, nose, and eyes as he imposed his will on the flesh and bone of his face.
The man’s eyes widened a fraction, the most emotion the Hunter had seen from him.
“I’ll make sure to explain it away.” The Hunter spoke in a brutish voice to match Setin’s tone. His voice wasn’t quite perfect, but it’d be close enough for all but the Elivasti’s closest friends. “This won’t come back on you.”
The man gave a little grunt and a barely perceptible nod, and his eyes returned to their glassy, unfocused stare.
“What’s your name?” the Hunter asked.
“Those who care about my name call me Ryat.”
“How long have you been here, Ryat?”
“Long?” Ryat’s voice was heavy, dull, a tone to match his vacant expression. “Don’t know. Never been anywhere else.”
Horror roiled in the Hunter’s gut. “Your whole life, you’ve been trapped here?”
The man gave a little shrug of his shoulders. “What else is there?”
The words sent a shudder of disgust through the Hunter. He couldn’t imagine a life like this, a life of…nothing. These people sat in their filth, living and dying with nothing. Ryat could be anywhere from his twenties to his fifties—impossible to tell beneath all that muck. Without a purpose, even a single reason beyond survival to drive him, he and all the others in the Pit had nothing to live for.
No wonder they’re all half-mad. The Hunter clenched his fists, and the wooden baton he’d taken from Setin creaked in his grip. The sheer boredom and emptiness must be mind-numbing. He couldn’t imagine even a month of this, much less a year, a decade, or an entire life.
Hatred at the Sage, the Warmaster, and their Elivasti roiled in his gut. He turned on his heel and hurried through the camp, aching to be free of the smells, sounds, and sights of the misery around him. Yet everywhere he turned, he found on
ly more suffering, more people enduring their meaningless existences.
His steps led to the north and west, toward the massive dark grey-and-red fortress of Hellsgate that towered above Khar’nath. Through a gap in the shelters to his right, he saw a long line of ragged people formed in front of a handcart laden high with bread long gone moldy. Three Elivasti handed out the meager food while another seven beat anyone who stepped, shuffled, or collapsed out of line. One of the Elivasti was so fat he could barely fit into his suit of blue armor—an insult by comparison with the emaciated wretches he fed.
A few minutes later, he nearly ran into a patrol of Elivasti storming through a section of shelters and ripping down the canvas walls, taking the ragged blankets, and harassing the men and women living there. One guard even tore off a young man’s clothing, then trampled the threadbare garments into the muck. The violet-eyed man laughed as the youth scrambled to recover his mud-stained clothing—his only possessions.
Anger burned in his gut, but the Hunter forced himself not to intervene. If he did anything now, it would harm any chances of breaking Kiara—and perhaps a few others, like Ryat—out later. The thought of standing by while these people suffered rankled. He had to get out of here before the reek of misery and the sight of such abject suffering overwhelmed him.
Everywhere he turned, people shrank back from him. No, not from him—from Setin, the brutish, fleshy Elivasti whose features he wore. He leaned into the swagger and plastered a sneer on his face, but the pretense barely went skin-deep. The Hunter had never cared much for people. Voramis had been a cruel place, filled with men and women driven by greed, lust, gluttony, wrath, and every other sin imaginable. They stole, deceived those closest to them, betrayed, even killed each other in the name of power, riches, and, in many cases, simple survival.
Yet this…this was something different. The Elivasti had imprisoned these people not out of a desire for wealth, power, even fear for their lives. They had done it on the orders of the Abiarazi, carrying out the commands of cruel masters that saw humans as worthless. Whatever fear had driven the Elivasti to swear their service to the Abiarazi, could it be any more terrifying than this? Seeing people reduced to such a terrible state, barely more than animals. No, less than animals. Men and women treated sheep, goats, milk cows, warhorses, even stray dogs with far more dignity than the people condemned to live in this Pit.
Anger burned bright in the Hunter’s chest. He’d told himself he never cared for humans, but that hadn’t been the truth. He had cared, just for a select few. Humans like Bardin and Old Nan, those discarded by “polite society” and betrayed by their own minds and bodies. Humans like Farida and Hailen, the ones unable to defend themselves from the cruelties of life. Those were the humans that mattered to him. How were these people any different?
He saw men and women too emaciated from starvation, thirst, and inactivity to lift their heads from the mud in which they lay. Children too numbed by life to smile, play with friends, even cry for their mothers. Hollow-eyed people that witnessed horrors on a daily basis—that spent their lives trapped in a hell they could not escape.
A part of him ached to do something, to help these people as he’d helped the beggars in Voramis. His human side cried out at the injustice, and threatened to break beneath the burden of knowing he could not do anything. Not yet, not until he had dealt with the Sage.
If the Sage restored Kharna to this world, these people would die along with the rest. His first priority had to be stopping the Abiarazi from harnessing the power of Enarium. Which meant he had to find a way to get Hailen back from the demon’s clutches. Even if he had to take on the entire army of Elivasti, he would do it.
“Setin!” A voice from his right pierced the pounding in the Hunter’s ears. It took him a moment to realize the voice spoke to him—to the Elivasti whose face he wore.
He turned toward the call and saw a short, squat Elivasti in the same mud-stained blue armor waving to him. “That’s thrice I called you,” the man said, frowning. He had a long, lean face covered in thick stubble, with a nose that had been broken too many times to ever be set right again.
“Sorry, didn’t hear it.” The Hunter mimicked Setin’s thick voice as best he could.
“You gone deaf from all that agor you’ve been drinking?” the Elivasti asked. “Or just got too much mud in your ears?”
The Hunter shrugged. “Might be.”
“Where’s Ardem?” The Elivasti’s purple eyes scanned the crude shelters behind the Hunter. “You left him getting his rocks off with that tart on the west side of the Pit?” The man’s expression turned nasty, leering.
The Hunter’s gut tightened but he forced his face not to reveal his disgust. Instead, he shook his head. “Naw, fucker tried to knife me in the back.”
The Elivasti’s narrow eyebrows shot up. “He what now?”
The Hunter nodded. “Said something about me owing him for Guinda, and he was just collecting the debt.”
The Elivasti winced. “Shite.” He blew out a long breath. “Want me to collect the body? Make it look like an accident?”
“Naw.” The Hunter gave a dismissive wave. “Tossed his damned carcass into the filth where he belongs.” If anyone happened to find Ardem’s body, this would provide explanation enough. Though, he wasn’t certain what would happen if they discovered Setin’s corpse as well.
The Elivasti’s face paled. “That’s cold, Setin. You two was like brothers.”
The Hunter shrugged. “Oldest story in the book, isn’t it?”
“Truth.” The Elivasti sighed. “Bastard owed me two weeks’ rations.”
“Take it up with his corpse.”
The Elivasti cursed. “Just my luck, too.” He spat, adding a wad of green phlegm to the muck. “You going up?”
The Hunter nodded.
“Shift’s not over for another hour.” The Elivasti’s eyebrows knit together. “You remember what happened the last time Detrarch Honsul caught you raiding the larders on shift.”
“So I won’t get caught,” the Hunter said, and Setin’s fleshy lips and pudgy cheeks stretched into a grin. “Want me to bring you anything? Just to be certain you didn’t actually see me going up?”
The Elivasti smiled slyly. “Roast chicken’ll do, and no one’ll know you left your post.”
With a knowing wink, the Hunter strode away. He let out a slow sigh—his attempt at impersonating the fat Setin had gone far better than he’d expected. He’d worried the man would see through his disguise, but he’d gotten lucky.
Better not press my luck too far.
He shot a glance backward at the Elivasti, and what he saw made him want to vomit. The man he’d just finished speaking to had rejoined a larger group of blue-armored men, who were herding a group of people toward the walls of the Pit. All had white hair, loose-hanging skin, and lines that denoted their advanced age, and were too weak to protest as the well-fed, armed Elivasti shoved them forward—straight onto the sharp crystals. The Elivasti held the men and women there long enough for the bright-glowing stones to consume every last drop of their blood. The pitiful wretches barely screamed before they collapsed.
Dread writhed within the Hunter’s gut. He turned away and hurried along his way toward the exit out of Hellsgate.
Garnos’ words hadn’t prepared him for the horrors of Khar’nath. In his memories, it had been a flaming pit that opened into a fiery hell.
Reality had proven far, far worse.
Chapter Sixteen
Nervous tension thrummed through the Hunter with every step he took. He’d gotten lucky with the other Elivasti, but there was no telling what would happen when he tried to leave the Pit. He wouldn’t hesitate to fight if forced, yet that would make escape utterly impossible. His only hope lay in keeping up the Setin charade.
Relief filled the Hunter at the sight of the broad stone steps set against the western wall of the Pit. The staircase was five paces wide and made of the same dark grey stone as Hellsgate. I
t climbed the thirty paces out of the Pit toward an enormous gate of steel-banded wood set with long, sharp spikes.
Ten blue-armored Elivasti stood at the base of the staircase, hands on their weapons, their stances relaxed.
“Where you off to, Setin?” one of them, a short man with a face like a bloodhound, asked. “Shift’s not up for another hour.”
The Hunter’s gut clenched, but he kept the anxiety from his face. “Running an errand for Honsul.” He gambled on the hope that none of these was the man the other Elivasti had mentioned. Detrarch could either be a name or a rank; he wagered it’d be the latter.
“Errand, eh?” The same man stepped forward and held out a hand. “Show me the orders.”
“Didn’t get any written orders.” Again, another gamble. “Might be it’s an errand he doesn’t want a lot of nosy pricks knowing about?”
The Elivasti looked at him, suspicion written plain in his violet eyes. The Hunter held his tongue and stood his ground. Over his years as an assassin, he’d learned that the most important part of a good disguise was confidence. Any man could sell a ruse with the right amount of bold self-assurance—he could act it even if he didn’t feel it. Every muscle in his body quivered with nervous tension.
After a long moment, the man stepped aside. “Fine.” The Hunter made to walk past, but the Elivasti gripped his bicep. “But when I see Detrarch Honsul tonight, I’ll ask him about the errand. If I find out you’re lying to me…”
The Hunter tore his arm free of the man’s grasp. “Ask him yourself. Might be he tells you, or”—his vicious smile grew—“might be he doesn’t trust you enough to tell you.” He strode up the stairs before the Elivasti could respond.
Only once he’d reached the fifteenth step did he let out his breath. That was too bloody close!
He focused on the way out to keep the anxiety from overwhelming his mind. Though the stairway was five paces wide, the steps themselves were so narrow only half the Hunter’s foot fit on each. It proved uncomfortable to climb, which made it an effective deterrent against a rush or mob. People would trip on the narrow stairs, fall, and be crushed to death.
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