Adept tegw-1

by Michael Arnquist

  The cloud of dust and sand washed over Amric, and behind it came the Nar’ath queen.

  The blast of grit blinded him momentarily, and he threw himself to the side on pure instinct. The huge serpentine form hurtled past with an explosive hiss of rage, the black claws scraping the ground. The force of the creature’s passage was a hot breath across his skin as he rolled to his feet and drew his second sword. Blinking the sand from his eyes, he whirled and crouched in time to meet the next charge.

  The Nar’ath queen burst from the haze, coming at him from a new direction. He ducked low beneath the sweep of her long forelimbs and spun away in a flurry of glittering steel arcs. His blades bit into some part of her massive torso, and the resulting shriek of outrage pummeled at his ears, disorienting him. Her sinuous tail whipped at him as she passed, and he ducked. The tail’s fringe of small, sharp claws raked along his mail shirt and bit into the flesh of his arm, pulling him off balance for a dangerous moment before tearing free. Then she vanished again into the swirling dust.

  Amric dropped to one knee, panting as he listened. His ears were still ringing from her unearthly cries, however, and the heavy scraping sounds seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. The queen was out there somewhere, planning her next attack.

  The sand continued to swirl and eddy in the air, like dark thunderclouds furious at their imprisonment within the vast chamber, and the eerie green light from the pools danced in their midst like flickers of lightning. It was obscuring all vision; even the opening far above was nothing more than a faint grey halo through the haze. The sand was hanging in the air far too long, he realized as he squinted against its bite. It should have been settling to earth again, but it showed no signs of doing so. The Nar’ath queen must have some sorcerous control over it. For that matter, the entire hive might well owe its unnatural construction to that same control over the wasteland.

  Not just control, he corrected himself; the Nar’ath also seemed to be causing the spread of desolation. They were quite literally draining the life from the land somehow, and making use of that stolen vigor to spread their infection to the land’s peoples as well. Perhaps most troubling of all, the queen had been vehement in her accusations against the Adepts, insisting that they were no better than the Nar’ath. Who were these Adepts, then, and what were their designs on his world?

  Amric shook his head. Now was not the time for such ruminations.

  He rose into a low crouch and glided through the haze on noiseless feet, careful to skirt wide around the edge of a nearby pool, lest its light betray his location. The game of cat and mouse had moved past words, and had begun in earnest.

  The Nar’ath forces passed through the southern gate of Keldrin’s Landing, and flowed into the city like a black river.

  The invasion was eerily quiet at the outset. There were none of the exulting cries one might expect of an attacking force gaining entrance to their prize; none of the fierce, startling sounds made to frighten the defenders into fleeing or freezing for precious seconds. There was no clash of metal or clink of armor, no crackling flame or rumbling machines of war. There was not even the harsh, labored breathing of mortal men charging into the teeth of their enemy with their nerves keyed to the breaking point, incensed to the very precipice of a crimson frenzy. Instead, there were only the torrential, rapid-fire slaps of tens of thousands of bare black feet upon the cobblestones, and the whisper of tattered cloth fluttering behind sprinting forms.

  The imposter guards had performed their task well. There was no one to bar the passage of the creatures or even to raise an alarm until the broad southern courtyard was filled to overflowing. The Nar’ath did not hesitate for an instant. Without visible communication, they divided their forces evenly and drove into the city’s streets and alleyways, infiltrating further and further, pumping like the blood of midnight into empty veins.

  The silence could not last for long. Darkness was falling and, consciously or not, the city’s inhabitants had sought to distance themselves from the outer walls and whatever might be lurking beyond them. Most had moved indoors for the evening, wherever they had chosen to weather the coming night. The city was crowded, however, and the Nar’ath had come with a purpose. Dark forces continued to stream through the southern gate, and the creatures had penetrated deep into the city when contact was made at last.

  Then, just as the scar-faced man had predicted, the screams began.

  “My forces have moved upon the city, Adept,” the queen’s voice came sliding through the murk. “Even now they are within its walls, coursing through its streets, falling upon its inhabitants.”

  Amric ground his teeth, but he knew better than to reply. She had proven capable of honing in upon the slightest sound he made, and each such mistake provoked a vicious, lightning-swift charge. She was too large and powerful for him to meet head-on thus; he needed to focus on stealth and guile over a direct confrontation, and continue to seek out a weakness. He just hoped something clever occurred to him soon, as he was playing a losing game.

  He sidestepped a pile of rubble, careful to disturb nothing. Briefly he considered hurling a piece of it to one side in the hopes that it would draw her into another blind assault that might bring her within reach of his blades again, but he dismissed the idea. She had fallen for the trick once, but not again after that. He kept moving.

  “The city will fall,” the queen continued after a moment, her sibilant tones echoing from a different direction this time. “Many lives will be lost, but many more will be salvaged and given new purpose. By the morning light, my minions will return with your pets, and I will make those who have lived my own. Does this disturb you, Adept? Does it fill you with impotent rage?”

  Amric said nothing, picking his way carefully through the center of the room where the queen’s emergence had left a ravaged crater. A rumbling slither from across the chamber told him she was on the move again. A tall shape suddenly appeared out of the swirling sand, looming above him, and black tentacles shot toward him. One of the hulking minions the queen had dismissed earlier. He struck the grasping appendages aside, severing one to fall writhing to the ground at his feet. The Nar’ath minion bulled toward him, seeking to bring its powerful forelimbs to bear, but he darted under the sweep of its arms and ran by it, aiming a terrific cut at a thick leg as he did so. Once past, he did not glance back, but instead continued his run, hurdling a jagged piece of rubble and losing himself in the churning sand once more.

  Behind him came the thunderous charge as the queen oriented upon the sounds of the momentary scuffle. He heard a thud as heavy bodies collided. There was a keening snarl from the queen, followed by the skidding tumble of the minion being cast to the ground. Amric chuckled to himself. Perhaps he could force the queen to destroy her own minions out of sheer frustration.

  “Why do you not employ your magic?” she hissed. “The stink of it fills this place, and yet you do not unleash it.”

  Amric frowned. What did she mean? Had he brought contagion from the Essence Fount in Stronghold with him, and she was somehow detecting its taint here? As if on cue with his thoughts, a burning sensation blossomed in his chest and a wave of dizziness swept over him. He staggered, gritting his teeth, and forced it back. She gave a low, harsh laugh, evidently mistaking his silence for some greater comprehension.

  “Oh yes, it is well masked, but I was born to scent your kind. The Adepts have never before feared to abuse their power, so why hesitate now?”

  Amric crept between pools that glowed through the haze like huge green embers buried in the ground. He worked his way toward the outer wall of the chamber. He froze as one of the Nar’ath minions shambled across his path. It was a short distance ahead and facing away from him. It stalked by, unseeing, a dim outline that faded back into the storm. He waited the span of several slow breaths, and then moved on.

  The queen let out an explosive growl, and he flinched to hear how close she was. It was a discordant, dissatisfied sound, and he could not tell ab
ove the subdued howl of the sandstorm whether she was drawing closer or moving further away.

  “Keep your secrets then,” she snapped. “But if you think to catch me in some ruse, know that we have developed certain defenses against your powers. Indeed, you will find us much more capable opponents this time around.”

  Something in her tone rang hollow, and it occurred to him then why she maintained the obscuring clouds even though they seemed to hinder her as much as they did him. She feared him still. Despite her seething hatred, her awesome physical power and the scornful challenge of her words, she still felt he was a very real threat to her. Or rather, she feared the thing she thought he was. She was stalking him with the same caution, and guarding against being caught vulnerable in the open.

  A trio of shadowy figures appeared ahead of him, and he tensed before he recognized the outlines of his Sil’ath warriors. The captives must have reached the top, and his friends had returned. They recognized him at the same instant, unwinding from their crouches. Valkarr drew near with a questioning look and mouthed a single word.

  Plan?

  They eyed him, expressions determined and expectant, eyes slitted against the blinding dust and sand.

  Amric grinned back at them. It was time to bait a trap.

  CHAPTER 21

  Captain Borric strode into the cobbled street, while behind him his men hacked at the last of another pack of the black creatures. When it had ceased to move, the men wearily reformed their protective ring around him.

  Borric raised a forearm to wipe the sweat from his brow, winced at the sharp flare of pain in his shoulder, and used the other arm instead with a rueful shake of his head. Every corner they rounded brought a new skirmish with the infernal creatures, and in this last encounter one of them had seized his arm in a grip like iron and nearly wrenched it from its socket in a frenzied attempt to drag him to the ground. Thankfully it had not been his sword arm injured; from the screams echoing up and down the streets of Keldrin’s Landing, he had not seen the end of his need to swing a blade this night.

  He glanced around, using the pretext of scanning the area to take the measure of the fifteen men surrounding him. Their faces were drawn, haggard, frightened. They had cause to be. When the fighting began, there had been three times as many in Borric’s contingent. The men who remained had seen their comrades overwhelmed and carried away with appalling speed and ferocity. There was not a weak spine in the lot, he knew; every one of these men would face a mortal foe without hesitation. These strange, unliving black creatures that could ignore all but the most crippling of wounds, however, had unnerved them to the core.

  They had learned at last that one had to take the heads of these creatures, had to be certain to cleave it or sever it from the body entirely, to put one down. Otherwise the damned things were nigh unstoppable. The Captain’s fist tightened around his sword hilt. That knowledge had been won at a very dear cost indeed.

  “What now, Captain?” asked one of the men, a narrow-faced fellow the others had taken to calling Mouse for some reason he could no longer remember. Mouse’s dark eyes darted toward Borric and then back to the still forms of the black creatures they had just fought, lying headless and bloodless mere yards away. The lean man’s nose wrinkled in a sudden twitch, curling his lip slightly. It looked like nothing so much as a rodent with upturned nose questing into the wind, and Borric smiled to himself in sudden recollection.

  The smile was a fleeting thing, however, fading like a spark in the darkness.

  What now, indeed?

  Somehow a large enemy force had infiltrated the city-his city-without any warning from the wall or gate guards. Had his men all been slain, wherever the breach had occurred? Were more of these creatures streaming into Keldrin’s Landing even now, hopelessly outnumbering the defenders? It was difficult to know. Borric and his men had been exiting the central barracks to investigate the uproar when they were set upon by a small pack of the creatures, and there had been several clashes since then. They had been fortunate, however, for he had seen much larger hordes running past the far mouth of the street. Facing such overwhelming odds, he and his band would have been swept away before the advancing tide in mere moments. As it was, they could not take many more skirmishes with the smaller groups either, for with each one their own numbers dwindled dangerously.

  His jaw clenched as he recalled the fury of the fighting, their silent and implacable foes hurling themselves upon the guards, raining bone-crushing blows down upon the men and bearing many to the ground through sheer weight of numbers. The guards who lost consciousness had then been quickly hoisted into the air and carried off at that same uncanny run, their bearers appearing no more troubled by the weight than if they were carrying a sack of feed rather than a full-grown, fully armored man. He shuddered. He hoped that a sack of feed was not too apt a comparison. It was only because the attackers had thinned their own numbers by carrying off the fallen men that Borric and his remaining soldiers had managed to overcome the last few creatures.

  He realized Mouse and the others were staring at him. He owed them an answer.

  “We make for the eastern gate,” he said. “We have the most men there at the gate and the eastern barracks. If we start there, gathering forces as we go, we can organize the defense of the city.”

  He said the words with more confidence than he felt, infusing his firm tone with a ring of command that brought immediate comfort to the men. He could see the tension ease from them ever so slightly, and he caught a few quick nods. What he left unsaid was that they were no longer defending the city at all, but instead resisting an enemy who was already within its walls in great numbers. If the cause proved hopeless, they would be forced to head for the docks and try to save as many people as they could with the ships that were available there. If they survived that long.

  Borric set off at a rapid march down the street, and his men followed. He resisted the urge to run; he knew that every moment counted, but at the same time they could not afford to be winded when the next skirmish came. The black fiends were as quick as lightning, and had so far shown no indication of fatigue or pain. He and his men would need everything they could muster to face them again.

  They passed between the squat shadows of empty buildings, tensed against a sudden attack from any direction. A high-pitched scream from the cross street ahead brought them up short.

  A woman and two children rounded the corner ahead, running and stumbling as they cast fearful glances over their shoulders. A few paces behind came a portly, red-faced man in a smudged canvas apron, carrying a small wood axe in one hand and some type of square mallet in the other. Borric squinted; a baker of some kind, unless he missed his guess, though where the man had found a wood axe in the city was something of a mystery. What was no mystery, however, was how ineffective the pitiful tools he was carrying would prove against the dozen black creatures bounding eagerly after him and his family. The mob was forty paces or better behind them, but the creatures were intent on their prey. Given their unnatural speed, it would be over soon enough.

  Borric raised his sword to give the order to charge, but one of the men stepped in front of him with one hand held out to forestall him. It was Mouse, and he stepped close to speak in a hurried whisper.

  “They are as good as lost, Captain,” Mouse said with a grimace. “We cannot take another brush with a pack that size if we are to get through this night ourselves. You saw how many of those things are in the city already. We might be better off lying low in one of these darkened buildings until the creatures claim what they will out here, and then make for the docks and use every able ship there to flee this cursed land.”

  Borric hesitated, meeting the man’s eyes. There was a cold pragmatism in Mouse’s words, and the mention of a seaward escape rang uncomfortably close to his own thoughts from moments before. Several of the men tore their attention from the fleeing family, and turned wide eyes upon him. They may not have caught every word spoken by Mouse in hushed ton
es, but they knew all too well the decision the Captain now had to make.

  The captain had always considered himself a practical soldier. He was no longer afflicted with the kind of irrational idealism that had long ago been honed from his character in the forge of duty. So it surprised him nearly as much as Mouse when his hand shot out and seized the top of the fellow’s breastplate to drag him face to face.

  “You do not need that blade in your hand to hide in some hole and hope this all passes you over,” he said through clenched teeth. “For that, you need only be willing to live with yourself afterward, pretending you no longer hear the cries of those you abandoned to their fates. In my estimation, that is too high a price by far.”

  With a shove, he released his grip on Mouse’s breastplate and swept his gaze over the others.

  “We did not accept the city’s coin only to flee at the first sign of real trouble,” he said. “That coin, regardless of how many velvet pockets it has passed through since, came from the likes of those people right there. Tonight we earn it, or give our lives trying.”

  Borric set off at a run, sword clenched in one fist and a chill settling deep into his stomach at the prospect of another clash with the foul black creatures. He did not look back; nothing he saw there would change his own course. Even so, he was immensely gratified to hear a throaty roar behind him and the staccato drum of boots on the cobbled streets as his men joined the charge.

  Amric stood, alone once again in a swirling cocoon of sand.

  He closed his eyes, calming his breathing as he opened his senses to the vastness of the clouded chamber. Sight, hearing, touch, smell; he could rely on none of them here as he usually did in battle. The Nar’ath queen had ripped them all away from him with ruthless efficiency, using her sorcerous storm to bombard or mask each of his physical senses until they were all but useless. And yet, as he stood amid the howling, biting winds, it seemed as if the clamor fell away and the chamber itself whispered its secrets to him.