“Could,” the Hunter snarled. “You would gamble all those lives on something that might work?”
“Yes.” Cerran replied without hesitation. “I spent four and a half millennia locked away to feed Kharna, the bargain we all struck long ago. But I am free now. I will not be trapped in that empty existence for a moment longer, not if there is another way. If this boy’s blood will suffice, I will gladly trade his life for my freedom.”
“But don’t you see?” Anger burned in the Hunter’s chest. “Long ago, we swore ourselves to serve Kharna. We made a choice to sacrifice. But you cannot choose for someone else. Saying you are willing to trade his life for your freedom is precisely what our forefathers would have done. By your words, you prove you are no better than the Abiarazi that we swore to hunt down.”
“I am nothing like our forefathers!” Cerran’s black eyes flashed. “I have killed, but in the name of protecting this world, of upholding the oath we swore to Kharna. But what of you, assassin?” His tone was sharp, edged with vitriol. “You who killed for gold and for pleasure. Of any of us, you are the one who bears the greatest resemblance to the monsters that brought us into this world.”
Once, that accusation would have cut the Hunter to the core of his being. He hated everything about the Abiarazi and hated that their blood ran through his veins. Yet now he knew the truth about the Abiarazi, about the Devourer’s taint in their minds. More than that, he knew enough truth about himself to understand why he had done what he’d done.
“There is truth in your words,” he told Cerran. “I am a killer, and I will not pretend my motives were pure. I killed because I had no choice, I killed for gold, and I killed to protect those that mattered. I killed because it was in my nature to do so and because I was good at it…so very good.”
He lifted Soulhunger. “I will never be able to atone for all the lives I took. It doesn’t matter that their deaths were in service of Kharna, for I did not do it to save the world. Yet now my eyes have been opened. I have seen the truth, but still I cannot believe that forcing others to die for our own sakes is the right choice. If we have the power to sustain Kharna, then we are the ones that should do so. We will be the ones to sacrifice—we cannot demand others sacrifice in our place.”
Cerran’s face twisted into a snarl. “I will never be imprisoned again. Not after thousands of years. If you are so willing to throw your life away, so be it! But I will do what needs to be done.”
The Hunter turned to Kalil. “And you? Will you kill hundreds of thousands to save yourself?”
The smaller Bucelarii hesitated for just a moment, indecision warring in his midnight eyes.
Hope surged within the Hunter. “We can find another way.” He stepped toward the man. “There has to be another way to—”
“There is no other way.” Kalil’s expression hardened, and he shook his head. “I, too, have spent too long locked away from this world. I will not return to my prison. If you are so keen to sustain Kharna, we will be happy to lock you away.”
The Hunter’s gut tightened. Fire burned through his chest, but it was a heat of sorrow rather than anger. For decades, he had believed himself alone. When he discovered the truth of his heritage, he had learned the Cambionari hunted his kind to extinction. Yet here, in Enarium, he had found others like him. He was not the last of his race. Yet facing these two, he knew he had no choice but to stop them, even if it meant killing them. He could not let them harm Hailen or kill the people still within Khar’nath.
“Please,” he said in a quiet voice. “I don’t want to do this, but I will stop you if I must.”
Kalil stepped forward and raised his spikestaff. “You can’t stop us. There are three of us against you.”
The Hunter arched an eyebrow. “Three? Looks like there are only two of you against…” He trailed off, and dread sank like a stone in his gut. He turned to Taiana in disbelief. “No.”
Remorse filled her eyes, but she nodded. “I’m sorry, Drayvin. I know how much the boy means to you, but it is the only way to seal the rift and save this world. To save Jaia.”
Her voice, so quiet and sorrowful, hit him like a blow to the gut. “Think of Jaia, Taiana. Think of what you would do if her life was the only thing standing in the way of the end of the world. Would you sacrifice her then?”
Tears sparkled in Taiana’s eyes. “I…” She trailed off, at a loss for words.
“Enough of this!” Cerran snapped. “If you are too soft, too deluded by your time among the humans to do what needs to be done, we will not let you stand in the way of what we have worked thousands of years to accomplish.”
A shudder ran down the Hunter’s spine. Cerran’s words were an echo of what the Sage had just said. The black of the Bucelarii’s eyes seemed amplified by the crimson light filling the black stone chamber.
The Hunter shook his head sadly and raised Soulhunger and the iron dagger. “Then you leave me no choice.” He stepped backward to place all three of the Bucelarii—the two men and the woman that had been his wife—in his field of view.
Kalil tensed, spikestaff held in a low guard position. Taiana held no weapons, made no move. Cerran, however, began sidling toward the altar, one huge hand clamped tight around Hailen’s neck.
The Hunter rushed Kalil, who tensed in anticipation of the charge and prepared to thrust with the spikestaff. The Hunter had no doubt the Bucelarii was fast—like all his kind, his speed far surpassed that of the humans he’d faced. If he had been a soldier during the War of Gods, he had the skill to fight.
Yet none of that mattered. Kalil wielded a weapon of steel, while the Hunter fought with a much more dangerous weapon: determination. He had to stop Cerran from locking Hailen in the Chamber of Sustenance. He would get past Kalil at any cost.
He brought Soulhunger up to knock aside the thrusting spikestaff, then ducked beneath Kalil’s return stroke. The whirling staff cracked into his left arm hard enough to make it go numb, then he was inside Kalil’s guard and driving Soulhunger toward the smaller man’s gut. Kalil twisted at the last moment, and Soulhunger carved a long scrape across his blue breastplate.
The Hunter dodged a vicious knee strike aimed at his groin, only to have Kalil’s elbow crack into his chin. His head snapped backward with enough force to send a twinge down his neck. The room whirled for a moment, and before he could recover, Kalil darted backward, gripped the spikestaff in two hands, and drove the metal tip through his breastplate and straight into his heart.
Pain blossomed in his chest, and dark red warmth spilled down his torso. His heart hammered in his ears as life pumped out through the wound. Yet the Hunter refused to fall, refused to let the darkness take him. He forced his legs to remain upright, staggering forward as the smaller Bucelarii tore the spike free. A numb chill spread through the entire left side of his body, but enough sensation remained for him to feel Soulhunger’s hilt grasped firmly in his hand. With all the speed he could muster, he lashed out with the dagger.
Soulhunger’s edge caught Kalil’s forearm, and the razor-sharp steel opened a long, deep furrow that ran from elbow to wrist. Kalil cried out in agony as the crimson gemstone flared to life, consuming his blood. The spikestaff fell from his hands as the smaller Bucelarii stumbled backward. The Hunter seized the momentary distraction and drove his heavy boot into Kalil’s face. Cartilage crunched beneath the impact, and crimson gushed from the Bucelarii’s shattered nose and split lip. Kalil fell back, unconscious. Without hesitation, the Hunter drove Soulhunger into his chest.
Kalil screamed, and crimson light burned bright in the towertop chamber. A finger of fire etched a line into the Hunter’s chest as Soulhunger consumed the young man’s life force. Not even a Bucelarii could recover from wounds inflicted by an Im’tasi blade, which consumed them to their very souls. Sorrow washed over the Hunter in tandem with the flood of power. He had just killed one of his own kind. One of the last of his kind.
“Kalil!” Fury glimmered in Cerran’s eyes as he watched the
smaller Bucelarii collapse. “Take the boy!” He gave Hailen a shove that sent the boy stumbling toward Taiana, then whipped out his own spikestaff and came for the Hunter.
The Hunter had a split second to whirl before the charging Cerran was on him. The red-bearded man lacked Kalil’s speed, but he more than made up for it with brute strength—strength that surpassed the Hunter’s own. The metal-shod end of the spikestaff slammed into the Hunter’s left arm with enough force to shatter bone, and the Swordsman’s iron dagger clattered from his grip. The spiked tip drew a line of fire across the Hunter’s forehead as it whirled past, then a second line across his right leg.
The Hunter gave ground, gritting his teeth against the pain in his broken left arm and lacerated leg. With Soulhunger alone, the Hunter had no hope of fending off the far longer, heavier weapon. Cerran could simply keep out of reach and bludgeon him senseless. He had to find another weapon, something that could bring down the Bucelarii.
He dodged a vicious thrust aimed at his gut and crashed into the altar. His back twinged, but when he caught himself, his hand came away wet. Even as he ducked Cerran’s next attack, he realized what it was. Hailen’s blood, dripped by the Sage onto the stone surface. The blood of the Serenii.
The Hunter dove beneath a swiping attack and grunted as the spiked tip tore a gash into his right shoulder. He rolled to his feet and took two quick steps toward the Scorchslayer Taiana had dropped, only to find himself face to face with Taiana herself. The woman had retrieved the halved end of the spikestaff he’d hurled at the Sage and now held it to his throat. A single twitch, he knew, and she would open his throat. Cerran would be upon him before he could heal himself. It would be over—for him, for Hailen, and all the people still trapped in the Pit far below.
“Please,” the Hunter whispered. His gaze flashed to Hailen, then back to Taiana. “Think of Jaia.”
A single moment of hesitation, then something seemed to click into place within her black eyes. Her shoulders relaxed and the tension drained from her face.
“For Jaia,” she whispered, then pulled back the spikestaff to strike.
Chapter Forty-Six
The Hunter didn’t flinch as Taiana whipped the halved spikestaff forward. But instead of driving it through his chest, she hurled it past his head. Cerran’s cry echoed with more surprise than pain.
“Traitor!” he snarled. Fury turned his face the same flaming red of his hair and beard as he tugged the spikestaff free of his shoulder and dropped it, dripping Bucelarii blood, onto the obsidian floor. “After everything we worked for, you turn your back on us now? You were the one who pulled us free of those Chambers, who recruited us to Kharna’s mission.”
“I know.” Taiana nodded. She took a step forward, placing herself between Hailen and Cerran. “I am willing”—she shot a glance at the Hunter—“was willing to sacrifice all of those people in Khar’nath to accomplish that mission, but maybe Drayvin is right. What if there is a better way?”
“If there was, don’t you think Kharna would have found it by now?” Cerran’s eyes flashed. “He is a bloody Serenii, Taiana. He’s smarter than all of us combined, and he’s had five thousand years to think about it.”
“The Serenii are creatures of logic,” the Hunter said. “They would look for the simplest, most rational solution to achieving their goals.”
“Which is saving this whole damned world from that!” Cerran jabbed a finger at the rift into chaos. “Surely that seems like a fucking logical plan.”
The Hunter shook his head. “Logic alone dictates that killing a million humans is justified if it saves others.”
“I’d bloody say it is!” Cerran snapped. He flexed his shoulder, as if testing to see if the flesh had healed.
“But what if one of those lives was your child’s?” the Hunter persisted.
“Never had a child!” Cerran’s eyes darkened. “Never had the chance before the bloody Cambionari locked me away.”
“If you’d had one, you’d know.” Taiana spoke in a quiet voice. “You’d know there’s nothing you wouldn’t do to protect them. You’ll kill for them. Die for them.”
“What about condemning the world to die?” Cerran shouted. “Is that worth the life of one child?”
The Hunter and Taiana exchanged glances, and he saw resolution in her eyes. “We find another way,” she whispered. “For Jaia.”
“For Jaia.”
The humming in the tower grew louder, so loud it rattled the Hunter’s bones and drowned out all sound in the Illumina. The runes in the altar flared to an impossible, blinding brilliance, filling the chamber with violet light. Cerran’s gaze darted toward the altar, and his eyes narrowed as he caught sight of the blood—Hailen’s blood, not yet dried—on the stone.
Time slowed as the Hunter saw the red-bearded Bucelarii’s body coil like a spring. He knew what would happen if Cerran activated Enarium—he’d seen it in his memories, the white lightning that would rip the people still within the Pit to shreds and consume their life force. It would add to the power of the Er’hato Tashat gathered by the Keeps, but still it would not suffice to feed Kharna. All those people would die for nothing, and the rift to the Devourer of Worlds would remain open.
The Hunter poured every shred of strength and speed into his muscles. He leapt toward Cerran even as the man turned toward the altar. His outstretched arms wrapped around Cerran’s midsection, and he drove his shoulder into the man’s gut with enough force to knock the man away from the block of stone. The two of them crashed into the blue gemstone pillar in the heart of the chamber.
The Hunter’s mind recoiled as he felt the presence trapped within that pillar. The reality-shattering creature within was nothing but seething fury, a single-minded hatred of all things living. Life meant order, and order was the antithesis of the Destroyer. That cosmic entity desired entropy above all. The end of all things.
A shudder ran down the Hunter’s spine. Kharna and the other Serenii had sacrificed themselves to stop it, but it hadn’t been enough. The Devourer of Worlds, the Beginning and End of All Things, wanted more.
He would give it more, but not Hailen. Not the innocent people in the Pit.
A sharp pain in his ribs snapped him back to reality. He grunted as Cerran drove a fist into his breastplate again, this time denting the metal. He twisted aside from the follow-up strike, then lashed out with an elbow. The bony point caught Cerran just beneath the eye, tearing flesh and shattering bone. The red-bearded man’s face swelled up, and the Hunter struck the same spot again. Cerran let out a cry and shoved the Hunter hard.
The push flung the Hunter from atop the man, but he managed to stumble to his feet. Before Cerran could recover, the Hunter brought his foot swinging around. The tip of his heavy boot cracked into the side of Cerran’s head. The Bucelarii sagged, unconscious.
The Hunter stared down at the senseless man, breathing hard. Agony flared in his chest—Cerran had to have cracked his breastbone and at least one rib. Added to the injuries in his shoulder and leg, his Bucelarii healing abilities would be reaching their limits. Yet he had a moment of reprieve.
He turned to Taiana. “We need to get him to a Chamber of Sustenance, need to lock him back up to sustain Kharna.”
Sorrow filled Taiana’s eyes, but she nodded. “It is the only way.”
The Hunter crossed to her in two quick strides and took her hand. “You know we made the right choice, stopping them. We couldn’t let them kill the boy or the people below.”
“But what of Kharna?” Taiana asked. “He cannot fight the Destroyer alone.”
“No, he can’t.” As the Hunter said it, he knew what he had to do. “I will fight with him.”
Taiana’s eyes flew wide. “What?”
Peace washed over the Hunter as he met her eyes. He had wandered Einan for five thousand years—how much of that time had been spent lost, aimless, searching for a purpose? Yet now he had a purpose. He had come to Enarium to find his wife, his child, and answers about h
is past. He’d found all of that and more—he’d found a hope for his future. Not a future spent as a killer-for-hire, but a fight that actually meant something.
“It is my turn to sustain Kharna.” With those words, all trace of tension and anxiety drained from his body and mind. “It is your turn to live life as it was meant to.”
“No,” she breathed, horror filling her black eyes. “You cannot mean…”
“I told Kharna I would find another way.” A smile spread his lips, one filled with genuine happiness. “This is the way. Adding my life force to that of the Sage and Cerran, Kharna can continue the fight against the Devourer of Worlds until the next Withering.”
“But that’s five hundred years!” Taiana said.
“Five hundred years for you to find another way to sustain him.” The Hunter squeezed her hands. “You know what needs to be done, and I have yet to meet anyone in the world—man, demon, or god—more stubborn than you. You are the hope for the future of Einan. For the future of our daughter.”
“No, Drayvin.” She shook her head, and tears streamed down her cheeks. “You cannot do this to me. I just got you back!”
The Hunter found his own cheeks wet. “You’ll know right where to find me when the time comes.” He gave her a wry smile. “I won’t be doing much traveling for the next centuries.”
“But Jaia needs you!”
“No, she needs you.” The words tore at the Hunter’s heart, but he knew they were right. “To her, I am a stranger, not even a faint memory. You are her mother. Whatever has happened to her, whatever she has endured throughout her life since being freed, she needs you to show her the way. Show her how to be strong, how to survive, yet how to be as wonderful, caring, and brave as the woman I fell in love with so long ago.”
“But I need you,” Taiana whispered.
“And I need you.” The Hunter pulled her close. “I have spent a lifetime searching for you. If giving up a few hundred years of my life means I can ensure there is still a world we can share, I will do it in a heartbeat.”
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