Darkblade Savior

by Andy Peloquin

  Taiana nodded. “I’m certain of it!” Her fingers closed around the lip of the cradle with such force her knuckles went white. “This is the room. This is the Chamber of Sustenance.”

  “Then she got out. Somehow, sometime. She’s alive!” The Hunter he wanted it to be the truth—more than anything else, he wanted to find his child alive—but even if it wasn’t, it was what Taiana needed at that moment.

  “But that’s…impossible.” Her brow furrowed in disbelief. “The Chamber had to be opened from without.”

  “You said Kharna woke you from sleep,” the Hunter said. “How did you get out of your Chamber?”

  “I fought my way out.” Taiana shuddered as if at a painful memory. “I cut my hands nearly to ribbons, but I pounded at the gemstone lid until I broke it enough to get through.”

  The Hunter scanned the underside of the open lid. No blood, no claw marks. “So maybe someone opened the Chamber and let her out.”

  “Who?” Taiana whirled on him. “Who would do that?”

  The Hunter shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know when it happened, either. It could have been yesterday or a thousand years ago.” He gripped her hand in hers. “But our child is alive, Taiana. She didn’t die in this Chamber like so many humans and Bucelarii before her. She got out.”

  “She got out,” Taiana repeated in a whisper. “She got out.”

  “Somewhere, out there in the great wide world of Einan, we have a daughter.” Laughter bubbled from the Hunter’s throat as he entwined his fingers with hers. “A beautiful daughter, with her mother’s smile…”

  “And her father’s eyes.” Taiana smiled, an expression of pure joy. “We have to find her, Drayvin.”

  “We will.” The Hunter whispered and squeezed her hands. “We’ll find her even if we have to search every corner of Einan. But first, we have to stop the Sage.”

  Mention of the Sage seemed to snap Taiana back to reality. She flinched, almost as if she’d forgotten their true purpose for being here.

  “Kharna is counting on us,” the Hunter told her. “All of Einan dies if he unleashes the power of Enarium.”

  Her expression grew hard as the stone beneath their feet. “Then let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  Hand still gripping hers, the Hunter turned and strode from the room. It took all his effort to focus on the Sage when he wanted nothing more than to bask in the knowledge that Jaia still lived. She hadn’t died when the Sage activated the Keeps. Somewhere, he had a daughter.

  But Hailen was counting on him. Hailen, the boy that had become like a son to him. The innocent child, trusting to his own detriment, seeming incapable of understanding the world could mean him harm. If the Hunter didn’t save him, Hailen would suffer at the Sage’s hands. The demon would use him until he no longer served a purpose then discard him like refuse.

  His daughter still lived, but the boy needed him.

  I’m coming for you, Hailen.

  Everything ended here, now. The Sage’s shadowy reign of Einan, his machinations to free Kharna and destroy the world. The threat of the Devourer of Worlds, if he could find a way. He’d found his past—with Taiana, with the hope of one day seeing Jaia—now it was time to ensure he had a future.

  He released Taiana’s hand and drew Soulhunger. “It’s time to finish this.”

  She nodded, tightened her grip on the Scorchslayer, and dipped her fingers into the blood of a fallen Elivasti. “Together.”

  With his wife at his heels, the Hunter charged up the staircase.

  He crashed through the next group of Elivasti like a tornado, Soulhunger and his halved spikestaff carving destruction through their ranks. The discovery that his daughter still lived had filled him with renewed determination, and nothing could stop him. The next four Blood Sentinels died in seconds, and then he was racing up the stairs toward the next floor.

  Though he had no idea how high the Illumina went—the uppermost levels were above the clouds—he forced himself not to think about how much farther he had left to climb. His eyes were drawn toward the seething red pillar to the north. Already, the world had begun to take on a reddish hue as the edges of the cloud reached the fiery sun. The Withering would occur within a matter of minutes.

  “We have to hurry!” the Hunter shouted, and poured more speed into his steps. He leapt up the stairs two and three at a time, barely slowing as he reached the landing and plowed through the Blood Sentinels holding the floor. He bludgeoned one man to death with a single vicious blow to the forehead, drove Soulhunger into a second’s open mouth, and kicked the third’s knee hard enough to shatter bone. Taiana’s bolt punched into the fourth Elivasti’s chest, hurling him backward to clatter against the wall. The Hunter drove the spiked end of his spikestaff into the man’s eye until it struck the back of his skull, ripped it free, and raced onward.

  All around him, the Illumina began to hum louder. The ground seemed to tremble beneath his feet with such force that he feared he would lose his balance. He couldn’t afford to slow, yet the vibrations coursing through the spire made fast progress difficult. He had to cling to the wall to keep his feet as he pushed upward.

  He found the next group of Blood Sentinels staggering and trying to remain upright as the floor shook beneath them. The Hunter cut them down with quick, efficient strokes of Soulhunger’s blade before they could so much as raise their Scorchslayers or put up a fight.

  Once again, his eyes went to the north, where the crimson pillar reached thick fingers into the sky. All but a fraction of the sun was covered by the cloud. Red light filled the sky, bathing the mountains a deep crimson.

  The Hunter watched in horror as the red light drew closer to the blue-glowing Keeps. The moment the two met, the radiance emanating from the Keeps changed from a brilliant sapphire to a deep violet—the same color as the Elivasti’s eyes.

  As the cloud of red engulfed the sun completely, the glow of the Keeps changed one by one. From north to south, the light changed to the same purple.

  The Withering had come. The Blood Sun was upon them.

  Triumphant laughter echoed through the staircase from the floor above them. The Hunter’s heart leapt—he’d recognize that laugh anywhere. Arrogant, vicious, infernal.

  The Sage.

  He leapt up the stairs onto the landing and came face to face with ten Elivasti. Blood covered their armor, spattered their face, and stained their hands—enough blood to fill a human body.

  The Hunter’s gut clenched. These Blood Sentinels had been the ones to kill their brothers-in-arms to activate the Keeps in service to the Sage.

  A fanatical light shone in their eyes, and frenzied smiles split their faces as they caught sight of him. The Hunter had met men like them before—they had trained their entire lives to sacrifice their lives for the Sage, yet had been denied their glorious calling. They had lived for the sole purpose of dying.

  He was more than happy to oblige.

  A roar of rage ripped from his throat as he charged them. Ten Scorchslayers pointed at his chest, and blue light flared bright on the landing, mixing with the crimson light of the Blood Sun.

  Time slowed around the Hunter as he raced toward the Elivasti. He could see the light of the runes growing brighter as the Scorchslayer prepared to discharge their lightning at him. At the last instant, he threw himself to his knees and bent backward. Ten crackling bolts of energy whipped above his head, a few passing close enough to singe his hair. His forward momentum sent him sliding toward the Blood Sentinels and, before they could recover and correct their aim, the Hunter hit the foremost rank.

  The spikestaff crashed into one Elivasti’s knee, crushing bone. The man dropped with a scream, straight onto Soulhunger’s blade. The Hunter tore the dagger from the man’s groin, spraying blood, and whipped Soulhunger around to hamstring another Blood Sentinel. He lashed out with the spikestaff in his right hand, which cracked into a guard’s forearm. The Scorchslayer dropped from the Elivasti’s hand and clattered on th
e floor.

  The Hunter leapt to his feet, kicked the Scorchslayer backward, and threw himself into the knot of men in one smooth move. Like a whirlwind of wood, steel, and flesh, he laid into the Elivasti. Their armor could resist a lightning bolt, but not the strength of a raging Bucelarii. His bludgeoning attacks crushed skulls, splintered arm and leg bones, and dented breastplates with enough force to shatter the chest beneath. He never stopped moving, trusting Taiana to watch his back as he tore through the Elivasti.

  The Scorchslayers could wreak devastation on a distant foe, but they were next to useless in close quarters. Normal warriors wouldn’t fire for fear of hitting comrades or allies. The Blood Sentinels, however, loosed lightning bolts without hesitation. The loud humming of the weapons gave the Hunter enough advanced warning to leap out of the path of the sizzling lightning. The Elivasti caught in the crossfire weren’t so lucky. Four fell to errant fire before the Hunter disarmed and killed them or Taiana’s bolts tore their unprotected heads and legs to shreds.

  And then there were no more. The Hunter stood alone in a middle of ten blue-armored bodies—or what remained of them. Blood covered him from head to toe, filled his mouth, seeped into his stolen Elivasti armor, turned his hands slick. Not bothering to wipe the crimson away, he turned and stalked up the stairs toward the uppermost chamber.

  Toward the Sage and Hailen.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The Hunter stepped into a world of crimson and black. The walls and floor were made of the same obsidian of the Dolmenrath, and the red light of the Blood Sun made the towertop chamber seem more ominous. Yet it lacked the same eerie malevolence he’d encountered in the standing stones across Einan. The power running through this place, however, far surpassed anything he’d felt when Hailen touched the standing stones in the Advanat, beneath Kara-ket, or even outside Enarium.

  Through the broad windows, the Hunter could see the ocean of white, fluffy clouds below him. It felt like the world was upside down, with only the solid stone beneath his feet to ground him in reality. That, and the massive pillar of crimson that now obscured the sun and painted the world in bloody hues.

  For the first time, the Hunter realized just how high up he was. The Illumina dominated the top of the hill upon which Enarium had been built, and he was nearly twenty floors up—an impossibility by even the latest Voramian and Praamian architectural standards. He stood above the clouds, literally. Nothing but a thin pane of transparent glass stopped him from plummeting to his death.

  The Hunter immediately recognized the room from Kharna’s vision. This was where the Swordsman had made his last stand, where the Serenii—the ones the humans had called gods—sacrificed themselves to seal the rift against the Devourer.

  His eyes were inevitably drawn to the heart of the room. Tendrils of inky, swirling blackness clawed through the portal, drinking up all light and filling the room with ever-shifting shadows. The threads of chaos, the Devourer of Worlds, sought to consume the world and destroy the very fabric of reality. Through the rift, the Hunter glimpsed impossibility, a creature so vast and unimaginable that his mind recoiled from the sight. A shudder ran down his spine, and with effort he tore his gaze from the gaping rift into nothingness.

  The tear in reality was enclosed—if such universe-shattering chaos could be enclosed—within a pillar of what looked like solid sapphires, the same pillar that ran all the way down through the base of the Illumina. The roof was made of the same transparent gemstone, as if the light of the sun could push back the seething darkness of chaos. The light of the Er’hato Tashat changed the glow of the pillar from the usual blue to a deep purple. Pulses of violet light ran through the column like a giant heartbeat, and the Hunter could feel it being pulled downward. This, then, had to be what sustained Kharna—the power of the sun added to the lives of those in the Chambers of Sustenance.

  A waist-high stone table stood beside the central column, connected by those same transparent, flexible tubes. Yet this was no ordinary table. Gemstones like those in the Keeps had been set into the surface, and glowing runes shone along its entire length. It was exactly as the Hunter had seen in his vision below.

  The Sage stood before the table, a triumphant look in his eyes as he held Hailen’s hand pressed to one fist-sized square of gemstone. Blood dripped from the boy’s fingernails onto the altar to be soaked up by the stones, and the runes flared brighter, filling the air with that violet light.

  Hailen’s gaze fell on the Hunter, and his violet eyes, red-rimmed from fatigue and tears, brightened at the sight. “Hardwell!”

  “Don’t worry, Hailen,” the Hunter said without taking his eyes from the Sage. “I’m here.”

  The Sage’s head whipped around, and his eyes narrowed as he, too, caught sight of the Hunter. “Damn you, Hunter!” In that moment, he bore a strong resemblance to the bestial, battle-hardened Abiarazi the Hunter had seen in his vision. “Once again, you prove yourself an impossible thorn in my side. But no longer. You die here!”

  The Hunter grinned. “The First of the Bloody Hand said the same thing. You’ll share his fate soon enough.” As he spoke, his eyes scanned the towertop chamber. No Blood Sentinels were in sight—no one stood between the Hunter and his prey.

  “Ah, ah, ah!” The Sage snarled as the Hunter moved closer. “One more step and I spill the boy’s blood all over the altar. You know I need only a few drops, but I will not hesitate if you force my hand.”

  The Hunter stopped, his jaw muscles working. He didn’t dare look behind to see where Taiana was.

  “How fitting that you should be here at the end!” The Sage spoke in a loud voice to be heard over the vibrations running through the stones. “To watch me succeed where you, and all the rest of our progeny, have failed.”

  The Hunter shook his head. “We didn’t fail. We did precisely what we promised the Serenii we would.”

  “The Serenii?” The Sage’s face twisted into a snarl. “Those weak-bodied, cowardly creatures were never a match for us. We slaughtered half their race in a matter of hours, and we would have triumphed had not the gods sided with them.” He threw back his head and laughed. “But look at the gods now. Look at what I have done to them!”

  Eleven Chambers of Sustenance lined the circular walls of the room. One Chamber had been opened and its occupant—the withered husk of a too-tall, multi-jointed creature that had once been a Serenii—lay discarded on the stone floor.

  “The gods could not stop me thousands of years ago, and they will not stop me now!” the Sage crowed.

  The Hunter shook his head. “The gods don’t exist. They never did. There was only—”

  Fire flashed in the Sage’s midnight eyes. “There is only Kharna! There is only the Destroyer and the power he promises to those who serve him.” He thrust a finger toward the tear in reality. “And once I restore him to this world, that power will be mine.”

  Confusion whirled in the Hunter’s mind. If the Sage had lived during the time men called the War of Gods, he ought to remember the truth—of the Abiarazi’s arrival on Einan, of the Serenii battle with the Devourer of Worlds, and the sacrifice they had made. Yet it seemed the Sage remembered only a twisted version of the truth.

  The Hunter’s mind flashed to Arudan, and suddenly the Sage’s words made sense. The burden of a long life, Taiana had said. Just like the Bucelarii, immortality had warped his mind.

  Stories became legend with the retelling, and the Sage had spent the last five thousand years listening to people speaking of the war between the gods and demons. Has he come to believe the stories as fact? If, as Kharna said, the Devourer of Worlds had infected the demons’ minds with chaos, that could have hastened the Sage’s mental decay. The cool, calculating façade could cover a mind tainted by the Abiarazi’s inherent rage, bloodlust, and desires and twisted by chaos.

  The Hunter tensed as the Sage turned toward the altar and tapped a glowing rune. He managed two quick steps before the demon whirled back toward him, a slim hand closing
around Hailen’s throat. “I will not let you undo what I have worked two thousand years to achieve, Hunter!”

  “Wait!” The Hunter skidded to a halt and raised his hands. “Don’t harm the boy.”

  Behind the Sage, Taiana crept along the wall, ducking between the Chambers of Sustenance for cover. She had abandoned her Scorchslayer—doubtless the Elivasti blood on her fingers had dried—but held a spikestaff in a white-knuckled grip.

  The Hunter forced his eyes to remain fixed on the Abiarazi. “I will come no closer, as long as you swear you will let Hailen live.”

  Disdain twisted the Sage’s face. “Once I have the power of Enarium at my command, I will have no need of him. But if you so much as twitch a muscle before the city is fully energized, I will tear his still-beating heart from his chest. ”

  Something about the Sage’s words gave the Hunter pause. The Hunter had been so focused on finding and stopping the demon before the Withering occurred that he hadn’t had time to think about what happened if he failed. Now that the Er’hato Tashat was upon them, he had no idea what happened next. Kharna hadn’t told him how long Enarium would take to activate—it could be five seconds or five hours before the power could be harnessed.

  He’s stalling. The Scorchslayers had required a second or two to activate, so how much more time could an entire city require? Either way, the Sage had inadvertently revealed the truth. He needs more time.

  With every shred of speed he possessed, the Hunter brought his right arm whipping up, back, and forward. His fingers released their hold on the halved spikestaff and the weapon hurtled through the air toward the demon.

  The Sage saw the attack coming and instinctively dodged, but the Hunter hadn’t been trying to take him down. As the demon moved, he released his hold on Hailen. In the same instant, Taiana stepped from behind the empty Chambers of Sustenance and leveled her spikestaff at the demon. The Sage caught the movement from the corner of his eye, and his head whipped around to face the new threat.