“When it comes time to fight, can you handle this alone?”
Garnos hesitated. “I…think so.”
The Hunter nodded. “Then I’ll hold them off long enough for reinforcements arrive.”
“There won’t be any from this side.” Sorrow flashed in Garnos’ eyes. “Too many of my brothers have given in to the evil of our situation.”
The Hunter grunted as he cranked the handle as fast as he could. “Then let’s hope Rothia got enough people to the rooftop to weather the storm.”
The gate slowly rose from its resting place with a racket of groaning chains and creaking wood, spilling dust built up over centuries. Like a giant rising from an eternal slumber, the gate lifted into the air. The Hunter cursed as he saw sharp spikes edging the bottom of the gate. They were nearly as long as his legs, and sat in deep holes in the stone. They’d have to raise the gate half the height of a man just to make enough room for someone to slip beneath the spikes.
Shouts of alarm and screams of pain echoed through the opening, nearly drowned out by the deep-throated roar of an angry horde. The Elivasti below would be overwhelmed, and the first of Ryat and Kiara’s mob would surge up the stairs. They just had to get the gate open and hold it until then.
The Hunter’s gut tightened as the thumping from the barracks turned into a loud crash, and the door burst open. Blue-armored Elivasti spilled out with angry cries. Their eyes flew wide at the sight of the opening gate.
“Traitors!” the man in the lead shouted as he drew his spikestaff and charged.
“Garnos?” the Hunter asked.
“Go!” Garnos said. “I’ve got this.”
The Hunter knelt, scooped up the Scorchslayer with his left hand, and dipped his right hand in the blood pooling beneath the nearest dead Elivasti. He pressed the trigger and felt the weapon come alive as the gemstone consumed the blood. Gritting his teeth, he braced himself against the recoil.
The Scorchslayer bucked violently in his hands, and a bolt of lightning sizzled across the short distance to punch into the chest of the foremost Elivasti. This time, the Hunter actually hit what he’d aimed for. The force of the impact knocked the man backward to collide with the Elivasti charging behind him. Six of the fifteen went down in a tangle of limbs, clattering armor, and spikestaffs.
Without hesitation, the Hunter dipped his hand in the blood again and pressed the trigger. For a long moment, nothing happened. His heart stopped, then started beating when the gemstone and runes brightened once more. The lightning bolt slammed into another charging Elivasti. The man’s head exploded in a spray of blood, gore, and bone.
But the Hunter wouldn’t have time for a third shot. The Scorchslayer needed a few seconds to recharge, reload, or do whatever it did when it tapped into the magick of Enarium. In that time, the remaining Elivasti would reach him.
He slid the Scorchslayer along the ground behind him to keep it out of the hands of his enemies, then stood and hefted his spikestaffs.
One against fourteen, he mused silently. This is going to be fun.
Instead of waiting for the charge, the Hunter leapt forward with a blitz attack. His sudden movement caught the nearest Elivasti by surprise, and his lightning-fast thrust drove into the man’s gut before he could evade. The Hunter ripped the spike free, whirled the staff once to block another attack, then slammed the metal-shod end into the side of a second man’s head with bone-crushing force.
Three charged him at once and more came on behind them. The Hunter couldn’t press an advance, but he couldn’t retreat either. He had to keep them from getting to Garnos. Kiara, Ryat, and the others within the Pit needed that gate open.
He grunted in pain as a sharp steel tip punched into the muscle of his left shoulder. The impact knocked him off-balance, and he barely managed to evade another whirling staff as the spike pulled free of his flesh. Twisting from one attack and leaping over another, he spun his spikestaff in a blurring wall of wood and metal.
“Kill them!” a voice shouted from behind the three men facing the Hunter, but he had no time to see who it was. It took all of his concentration to keep his enemies from punching holes in his armor and flesh. He’d spent enough time training with polearms—spear, lance, halberd, even the strange weapon the Shalandrans in the far south of Einan called a glaive—to know which end went where, but he’d take a long sword and Soulhunger any day.
At this moment, he had neither, and wishing he had them wouldn’t help. He’d have to make do with the weapons at hand.
With a growl of rage, he whipped one spiked end of the staff across and up in a diagonal motion that laid open a forearm, throat, and jaw. Two of the three Elivasti fell back, while the third slumped to one knee, hand clapped on his neck in a vain attempt to slow the gush of blood. The Hunter cracked the end of his staff onto the forearm he’d wounded with enough force to crack bone. Before the spikestaff fell from the Elivasti’s numb fingers, the Hunter bent and attacked low to sweep the man’s feet out from beneath him.
But the movement exposed him to a stabbing strike from the third man. The spike carved a line of fire along his shoulder and down his back. It missed anything vital, but when the Hunter straightened, the sharpened metal tip opened a second gash. The movement also tore the weapon from the Elivasti’s hand, and he fell to a quick jab of the Hunter’s spikestaff through his chest.
The battle cries and roars of the horde below grew louder, and the Hunter fancied he could hear bare feet slapping on the stone stairs, feel a low rumbling in the ground beneath him. He just had to hold for a few moments longer, keep the Elivasti off Garnos until Kiara and Ryat reinforced him.
The Elivasti seemed to sense this as well, for they charged him in a tight-packed knot, their spikestaffs extended like the spears of a Fehlan shield wall. The Hunter had an instant to react. He couldn’t evade ten weapons aimed at his chest and midsection, couldn’t dodge to the right or left. He had only one choice.
He leapt.
Faster than the Elivasti could react, he took a single running step forward and threw himself into the air with all the force of his inhuman muscles. He coiled his body into a tight ball to give him as much height and spin as possible. His jump lifted him, armor and all, over the chest-height spears, then he snapped his limbs outward. His arms, legs, and torso crashed into the line of staff-wielding Elivasti. His weight bore them to the ground with cries of pain.
Had the Hunter wielded Soulhunger and a long sword, he could have made short work of the jumbled mass of bodies beneath him. The spikestaffs, however, were too long and unwieldy for this sort of work. Even gripping his staff as near one metal-shod end as possible, he only had time to lash out with the spike twice before the Elivasti recovered enough to fight back. He drove his elbow into the face of one man as he rolled off the fallen guards.
Horror surged in his chest as he saw a lone Elivasti standing behind Garnos, spikestaff poised to drive into his back.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The Hunter’s blood turned to ice. The Elivasti must have evaded his desperate attack and gotten around him. The Hunter had a single instant to act. Without hesitation, he hurled his spikestaff at the blue-armored man standing over Garnos.
Too late. He knew it the moment his arm whipped forward and his hand released the staff. The world seemed to slow as he watched the spiked tip of the Elivasti’s weapon descending toward Garnos’ back.
Sharp metal punched through the blue armor, and Garnos let out a cry of pain. An instant later, the Hunter’s spikestaff drove through the side of the Elivasti’s head. The man crumpled to one side, his head bounding off the stone wall beside Garnos. His lifeless hand, still clutching his weapon, tore the spiked end free of Garnos’ back.
The Hunter had no time to see the severity of Garnos’ wound, for in that moment, cold steel punched through his side. He felt skin, muscle, and organs tear, and pain raced up his spine as the spiked tip struck bone. His legs sagged for a moment, but he caught the shaft of the spikestaff and used it to hold
himself upright. The Elivasti tore the weapon from his grasp with a yank, and the Hunter grunted at the pain of it pulling free. Even as blood gushed from his side, the Hunter willed his body to heal faster, at least the vital organs.
Another spikestaff punctured his shoulder, and the Hunter barely managed to evade a thrust at his head. He threw himself backward, fists closed around the wooden shaft of the weapon buried in his shoulder, and ripped it from his enemy’s grip. Though the movement sent agony flaring through his still-bleeding side and shoulder, he tugged the spike from his muscle and brought the weapon whipping across in a one-handed blow to knock aside two quick attacks.
He held his ground, whirling his staff with all the speed he could muster. He pushed back against the pain, refused to let it slow him. His body obeyed his commands and flesh re-knit as he imposed his will on his wounds.
Only eight Elivasti faced him, and they could only come at him three or four at a time. They wielded their spikestaffs like spears, but he kept his moving like a quarterstaff—like the Elivasti on Kara-ket. He just had to hold them off a few moments longer. Garnos almost had the gate open, and Kiara’s horde would be here at any moment. He just had to hold—
And then they were there—Kiara and Ryat in the blue armor they’d taken from the Elivasti he’d killed, men, women, even youths and children in ragged, muck-stained clothing that hung from gaunt shoulders. Once, the emaciated forms that had seemed so weak, so lifeless now resembled a starving lion on the prowl. The angry mob roared in a voice that screamed their hatred and fury as they surged toward the Elivasti that stood between them and freedom. The Hunter fell back toward Garnos and the windlass as the Elivasti were beaten, stabbed, and trampled to death.
Garnos sat slumped against the windlass, his body locking it in position, holding the gate open. Blood pooled around his legs and feet in such a vast quantity the Hunter knew his wound was fatal.
“We did it.” Garnos gave him a weak smile. Pain and loss of blood turned his face pale.
“You did it,” the Hunter said, crouching beside the man. “You opened the gate. You made the choice to save your people.”
“My people.” Garnos gave a bitter laugh. “How many of my people do you think will survive this? There is no putting this beast back in its cage.”
“That is true.” The Hunter nodded. “But there is hope. Hope that some will outlive the bloodshed. Rothia and the others in the garden.”
Mention of his wife brought a worried look to Garnos’ violet eyes. “She’ll be angry, Rothia will.” He shook his head and chuckled wryly. “At me, but you won’t…walk away unscathed. You’ve no idea what she can do…with that trowel of hers.” He seemed to be struggling with the words now.
“I’ll be sure to keep my distance, then.” The Hunter smiled through the lump rising in his throat. “She’d be proud, though. You’ve given your children a chance for a better life. A life free of this horror, the stain on your people.”
“That’s all…a father...could want.” Garnos’ voice grew weaker as his lifeblood poured onto the ground around him. He reached a bloodstained hand toward the Hunter. “Do you…have children?”
The question surprised the Hunter, but he nodded. “Yes.” He gripped the man’s bloodstained hand. “I do.”
Garnos smiled. “May their…future…be as bright,” he said in a weak voice. “And may…you…be...free…” The last word came out in a long, slow breath—his last.
For a moment, the world faded around the Hunter—the sounds of death, the roaring of the mob behind him, the screams of fear ringing through Hellsgate. He knelt beside the age-worn Elivasti and gripped the man’s bloodstained hand as Garnos’ head leaned back against the wooden gate and the light faded from his violet eyes.
The Hunter bowed his head. “May the Long Keeper watch over you. Be at peace, Garnos of the Elivasti.”
In life, Garnos had had a hand in the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people trapped in Khar’nath. In death, perhaps his final actions would earn him redemption. It was all any man could hope for.
A hand gripped the Hunter’s shoulder. “Hunter!” Kiara’s voice snapped the Hunter back to reality. “Hunter, leave him. We need to go!”
The Hunter looked up into her dark, worry-lined eyes.
“Ryat has already gone ahead.” Kiara had to shout to be heard above the din of the roaring mob. “But we need to get out of here as well before someone mistakes us for an enemy.”
The Hunter glanced down at his armor, then up at Kiara’s. Doubtless those following Ryat would recognize him and Kiara, but the others—those that had joined as the revolt grew larger and larger, like a snowball rolling down a mountain—wouldn’t know him on sight, wouldn’t have heard of the blue-armored figures fighting on their side.
With a nod, he climbed to his feet. The pain of his still-healing wounds barely bothered him, but the burden of sorrow weighed heavy on his shoulders. He cast a final glance at Garnos’ silent form and empty eyes, bidding farewell to the man he’d known for two short days, then hurried after Kiara.
All around him, thousands of emaciated, muck-covered figures in ragged clothing charged down the causeway and through the doorways into Hellsgate. The beast had been let loose of its cage—no stopping this now.
As he and Kiara ran through the press of people, the Hunter caught glimpses of blue-armored bodies littering the floor. Some had skulls, limbs, and torsos crushed by crude clubs, while others bled from wounds inflicted by Kiara’s crude spears. Many had simply been trampled by the relentless wave of flesh and fury. Dozens of filthy, rawboned men and women in worn and threadbare clothing had joined them in death. Yet the Hunter knew, no matter how many the Elivasti brought down, they could not stop the death marching toward them.
Angry shouts followed the Hunter and Kiara, and a few hands reached out in an attempt to slow or stop them. Kiara had been right to fear the power of the mob—they had to break free of the throng before things got ugly.
He caught a glimpse of a tall, blue-armored figure at the head of the mob, and he pushed toward Ryat. Something struck him on the shoulder as he shoved through the bodies, but he shrugged off the pain.
“Ryat!” he shouted. “Ryat!”
The tall man didn’t hear him—he was too busy bludgeoning an Elivasti to death with a wooden truncheon. All around him, people swarmed over the few purple-eyed warriors that had been caught unaware on the open street in front of Hellsgate. To the north, a group of two or three hundred people battered at the fortress’ front gate. The wooden doors shuddered and bent beneath the impact of so many bodies. No matter how many died trampled in the press, enough would survive to break through.
“Let’s go!” Kiara shouted. She thrust a finger toward the empty streets to the south. “This way.” The tide of vengeful humans was so consumed by their desire to crush the Elivasti in their immediate path and break into Hellsgate they hadn’t yet flooded the city.
The Hunter shoved his way through the throng after her as fast as he could. He knew the city would soon be filled with angry men and women looking for blood. He had to get Kiara someplace safe, ditch the blue armor, and deal with the Sage. He had to trust that Taiana could look out for herself.
The Sage. Anger flared bright in the Hunter’s gut. Everything that had happened here in Enarium—from Taiana’s desperate hunt for Jaia to the humans locked in the Pit—was because of the demons. He had already eliminated the Warmaster, and the time had come to rid Einan of the Sage once and for all.
The Elivasti in Hellsgate had said the Sage was headed toward the Keeps, no doubt to activate their power in anticipation of the Withering. He would have to hurry to visit the remaining twenty-one if he was to—
The Hunter froze in place, dread turning his limbs to lead.
His eyes traveled across Enarium, and everywhere he looked, the Keeps glowed a bright blue. Not just the three activated the previous day. Not just the eight on the Base Echelon. All twenty-four Keeps on all three E
chelons of the city emanated sapphire brilliance that lit up the pre-dawn sky.
No! Horror roiled within the Hunter’s gut. Jaia!
Power hummed through the city, setting the ground trembling with the force of its vibrations. The Hunter could almost feel it crackling through the air. A sharp tang, like the smell after the Scorchslayer fired but magnified a hundredfold, filled his nostrils. The glowing Keeps pushed back the pre-dawn darkness, and it was as bright as noon on a cloudy day.
The Sage had harnessed the power of Enarium and, in doing so, could have killed his daughter.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Fear thrummed in the back of his mind as he stared at the now-energized Keeps. How many had Taiana managed to search? Had the Sage and his Blood Sentinels caught her, or had she managed to get to safety? Had she found their daughter?
A wave of horror washed over him, and an image flashed through his mind: his child’s body turning to ash as her Chamber of Sustenance consumed her life.
Please. He didn’t know who he spoke to—the gods of Einan were a fabrication of the priests, and he’d never believed in them anyway—but at that moment, it didn’t matter. He just needed someone, something, to hear him. Please let my daughter be alive! The thought that he’d never meet his child would crush him.
He pushed against the image of death with every shred of his willpower. He had to worry about the Sage first. And about Hailen, the child he knew and had sworn to protect.
Is Hailen still alive? The question pounded against his skull with enough force to set his head aching. A few drops of the boy’s blood would activate each Keep, but to power up all remaining twenty-one? The Sage could simply have killed the boy and drained him to use his blood. Everything he knew about the Sage told him the Abiarazi wouldn’t hesitate to kill Hailen if necessary, but something about this wasn’t right.
He forced himself to focus on the problem, to think logically. The Sage had left Hellsgate an hour or two after sundown, well before midnight. He’d activated one Keep every half an hour the previous day. Even factoring in the demon’s urgency, he couldn’t have visited all of the Keeps in the few hours that had passed. The distances between each Keep was simply too great for him to have turned on all twenty-one remaining Keeps.
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