The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept

by Michael Arnquist

  “Like my skull was used to toll the great bell of some cathedral,” Halthak answered in a rueful tone. “But as soon as I can concentrate, I can heal it. I will be fine.”

  Amric clasped the healer’s shoulder as he strode past, and he dropped to one knee near Bellimar, who was examining the corpse of one of their assailants. It looked as if it had once been a man, or was cast in the shape of a man, but all hair had been removed and every exposed inch of its flesh was a glistening black. And black to the core, Amric noted, as he observed the cross-sections where its arm and head had been severed. There was no blood seeping from the wounds, no bone or red flesh visible within. It was swathed in coils of some filthy canvas material that were falling away from it in tatters, as if it had been bound tight in layers of ceremonial cloth at one point. It appeared to be otherwise naked underneath.

  Amric’s gaze raked over the other bodies, and found them all identically garbed and featured, except that they had not all been of the same race; three were human, two were beast men, one an Ork, and one he could not place, some slender and angular creature with a long beak-like snout. They were all like twisted golems cast in the shape of actual humanoid races.

  “I have seen many dark creatures as the corruption touched our homeland,” Amric muttered. “But these I have not seen. What are they?”

  Bellimar shook his head, his brow furrowed as he ran the cloth between his fingertips. “I do not know. I have never seen these either, and I thought I had seen every misshapen thing wrought of magic this world had to offer.”

  There was an undercurrent to his statement that gave Amric a fleeting chill. He studied Bellimar a moment before speaking again. “They are strong, fast and impervious to pain. They fought without any regard for their own welfare, ignored the horses in favor of pursuing us instead, and appeared intent on capturing rather than slaying. For what possible purpose, I wonder?”

  “We can only guess at this point,” Bellimar mused. “Though I would wager Halthak is very fortunate to be pondering that question here with us right now.”

  The Half-Ork gave a vigorous nod as he pushed himself to his feet. His color had returned, and there was no longer a swelling bruise along the side of his face. He walked past them and bent to retrieve his staff.

  “Is anyone injured?” he asked. “I can heal you now.”

  “Nothing but bruises and scrapes here,” Amric said. “All of which can heal on their own without need of magic.”

  Valkarr nodded at this, and folded his arms.

  “Do not be so certain, swordsman,” Bellimar warned. “Come, you should see this.”

  The old man rose and walked from the trail, and Amric followed. The head of the creature which had snatched up Halthak was lying on the grassy sward a few feet from the hard-packed earth of the path, facing away. Bellimar nudged it with one foot, and the head lolled toward them. Amric growled an oath and had a hand halfway to sword hilt by reflex before he caught himself. The head’s grim mouth was still working in a morbid parody of speech, gaping and grimacing at them in soundless fury. Like the rest of its body, it had no hair; there was no beard or stubble, no hair atop the head, and no trace of brows above eyes which rolled to fix upon its intended prey like twin pits of midnight.

  “Whatever force powers these creatures appears to be housed in their heads, as you noted during the battle, for the bodies are unmoving,” Bellimar said, staring down in pitiless scrutiny. “The skulls you split are inert as well. Any head merely severed, however, is still animated.”

  Amric stifled a wave of revulsion as the thing leered up at them, still straining to reach them. “Unsettling, but what has this to do with trivial abrasions––”

  Even as he said it, he saw what Bellimar meant. The head had come to rest on the grassy sward beside the trail, and the vegetation was dying beneath it in a spreading circle. As Amric watched, several more broad blades of grass bent to the ground in slow curls, brown corruption crawling up the stems to overwhelm the green. On the solid trail, devoid of flora, there had been no visible effect, but here the putrefaction was unmistakable. Amric inspected a scarlet scrape on his forearm, and frowned to himself. There was no hint of corruption yet, but did he imagine a strange itching at the edges of the wound?

  “You suggest that the wounds, minor though they might be, could fester if not treated,” he said in a quiet tone.

  “Worse yet,” Bellimar insisted. “Their auras appear similar in signature to Unlife, and I fear their energies will spread through your system in a manner that is more than mere physical infection. If that is true, then no poultice will cleanse it from you.”

  “I hear more speculation than fact,” Amric said.

  “I realize you want no part of mysterious forces coursing through you, swordsman, including healing magic such as the Half-Ork possesses.” Bellimar leaned close as he spoke, and held Amric’s gaze with his own. “But you can no longer prevent it. The decay you see before you may be no less virulent within your body. You cannot choose magic or not. You can only choose between that which you mistrust on principle and that which you mistrust based on evidence.”

  Amric’s jaw clenched, but he knew the truth in Bellimar’s words. He stared down at the loathsome object, still wild in its unceasing efforts, and found himself speculating at whether its path to becoming the travesty now before him might have begun with a similar infection of dark energies. He imagined its origins as a mortal man, and his disgust became tempered by pity, followed by an unfamiliar sensation: fear. He would not become like this thing. Amric looked up and found his emotions mirrored in Valkarr’s expression. The Sil’ath, like all his kind, had an equally strong aversion to magic, and Amric exhaled in relief when he read in his friend the same resignation he himself felt. He had not relished the prospect of convincing his friend as to what must be done. With an almost imperceptible nod to Amric, Valkarr stepped over to Halthak and bowed his head before him.

  The healer reached out and laid one gnarled hand on the bare flesh of the Sil’ath warrior’s muscular arm, and he closed his eyes in concentration. Amric knew the Half-Ork had healed himself back at the bandit camp on the night they met, but his view had been obstructed as he approached the camp unseen in the darkness. Now that he was witnessing the healer employ his talent in the daylight and in close proximity, he half expected a glowing nimbus of light to surround Halthak as his magic issued forth, but there was nothing so dramatic. In fact, the only indication of something unseen transpiring was an abrupt stiffening of Valkarr’s posture. As for Halthak, his protruding lower lip tightened, and then twisted in apparent distaste. After a few seconds, his hand dropped to his side. Valkarr took a hesitant step back from him, running his fingertips over his skin where a moment before had been a myriad of small scrapes.

  “It feels foul, unclean,” Halthak said. “I am able to absorb and overcome it at this early stage, and it may be that your body’s natural defenses would do the same in time, but I cannot say for certain. I do not know how quickly it will spread.”

  “One cannot be too cautious,” Bellimar insisted.

  Amric nodded, took a deep breath and walked to the healer. As before, Halthak raised his hand to contact Amric’s arm and closed his eyes. The warrior braced for whatever unpleasant sensation had startled Valkarr and felt… nothing. Well, almost nothing. He sensed an odd stirring within for a fleeting instant, but nothing more. He peered at Halthak’s face, watched a frown bloom there, and saw the bushy brows draw down in focus.

  “I do not understand,” the Half-Ork murmured. “I can feel my magic build, but it goes nowhere, as if it is being turned aside.”

  Amric did not see Bellimar actually move, but somehow the old man seemed suddenly to be leaning forward with rapt intensity. Halthak’s face twisted in determination, his forehead creased and eyes squeezed shut. Still the swordsman felt nothing, save for the insistent clutch of the healer’s knobby hand on his arm. Amric glanced at the others. Bellimar was engrossed, flushed with exci
tement and doubtless viewing the scene with his mysterious Sight; Valkarr looked curious and more than a little alarmed, no more certain what to make of this than Amric.

  The swordsman returned his attention to the healer. Sweat beaded Halthak’s brow, and there came an audible grinding of teeth as the muscles bunched beneath the furry tufts of hair along his jaw. Amric closed his eyes as well, questing for the slightest sensation around his scratches and bruises, as well as at the point of his contact with the healer.

  Ever so slowly, it came. Distant and feeble at first, warmth built at those locations, comforting, inviting, suffusing. After gathering moments it withdrew, drawing his injuries along with it, and it left in its void a cool and bracing sense of revitalization. Before Amric’s wondering eyes, the angry welt on his forearm faded, and its twin appeared in the same place on the Half-Ork’s arm. There he saw the grey flesh knit over it and close, and within seconds the injury had vanished. Halthak’s hand fell away and he sagged, leaning on his staff as he gulped in one lungful of air after another.

  “I have never felt the like,” he gasped at last.

  “Were my injuries so different than Valkarr’s, so much harder to heal?” Amric asked, perplexed.

  “No, it was as if I was walled away from them. It was like trying to pierce the city wall with a dagger. In the end, as I reached the limits of my endurance, it felt for all the world as if something finally allowed me in. I can find no better words to describe it.”

  Amric faced Bellimar. “Did your Sight reveal what happened there?” he asked.

  “Not with any certainty,” Bellimar replied. “I saw Halthak’s healing energies gather and finally begin trickling across to you, then grow into a flood as it did with Valkarr. Halthak’s aura became vibrant with the exertion, while yours was as absent as ever. There was a bright flash as the transfer began, but it was very brief, and might readily be explained by the healer’s forces being pent up as they were. I may have been given a piece of the puzzle, however, if I can but deduce its place in the larger theory.”

  “Ponder as we ride, then,” Valkarr said. “We have tarried here too long, and more things will be drawn to the commotion, may already be coming. We should put some distance between us and this site.”

  Amric nodded as he stared down at the animate head. “After,” he amended quietly, “we ensure none of these things still stir to greet us on the return trip.”

  He reached over his shoulder to draw forth one gleaming sword, and behind him, a metallic whisper told him Valkarr had done the same. Amric’s grey eyes were like thunderclouds as he took a resolute step forward.

  Halthak rode through a twilight world of deepening shadows, his hand absently patting the neck of his chestnut mare as his restless eyes roved all about. The setting sun drew lingering crimson talons across the heavens and transformed the canopy above to a blood-red blaze. The fiery display did not reach the ground far below, however, where the riders followed a frail, ephemeral path through the ever thickening murk. Halthak’s nerves had been clamoring since they entered this accursed forest, and at a near fever pitch since the encounter with the unnatural black creatures in the morning, but to his immense gratitude they had managed to avoid any further conflicts since then. There had been more moments of acute tension, to be sure, as they led their frightened mounts through the thick, tangling undergrowth, but the preternaturally keen senses of the warriors had allowed the riders to steal through this hellish jungle undetected like so many wraiths.

  Bellimar rode ahead of him, slouching relaxed in his saddle as if he traveled through a scenic country estate. Halthak had no idea how the old man could be so serene in the midst of this place, but he envied the man his composure, whether real of affected. Behind Halthak rode Amric, cool as ice on the surface, but the healer knew he was tense as a coiled spring beneath. He had yet to see the warrior truly caught by surprise, even when faced with the blinding rush of the attack earlier; his whirlwind response, the speed and ferocity with which he had cut his way through that tangled mass of jet-black bodies, had stricken Halthak speechless in wonder. At the head of the column, no less fearsome in dealing death earlier, rode Valkarr. His thick scaly tail extended back over both the saddle and his blue dun’s rump to mingle there with the horse’s black tail. A part of Halthak’s mind, hungry for distraction, wondered if the Sil’ath sitting a horse was as uncomfortable for horse and rider as it appeared to an observer.

  Valkarr twisted around in his saddle, made a short, chopping motion with his left hand and looked a question at Amric. Halthak looked back in time to see Amric nod in return, and then Valkarr put heels to his horse and sped ahead down the trail to vanish into the gloom. Bellimar glanced back over his shoulder at Amric with one delicate eyebrow arched, and then he lounged forward once more. Halthak slowed his mare and fell into step alongside Amric.

  “It is getting dark,” Halthak said in a low tone, feeling foolish even as he stated the obvious. “Will we halt soon?”

  Amric gave a tight nod, his flint-grey eyes flicking from side to side. “We are looking for a suitable place to stop.”

  “I––I apologize for the difficulty in healing you this morning,” the Half-Ork said. “I have spent much of the day considering its cause, and how I might prevent it in the future.”

  “Do not fret over it,” Amric chuckled. “I am not the most cooperative of patients, given my aversion to magic.”

  Halthak shook his head. “Valkarr shares that aversion, and administering to him felt no different than a thousand times before. No, your case was somehow different.”

  “Have you any theories on the matter?” Amric said, craning his neck to search the vegetation enclosing the trail behind them.

  “At first I suspected your lack of aura, in which our friend Bellimar shows so much interest, as if you have an unnaturally low affinity for magic in general. No matter how much I mull it over, however, it does not quite fit.”

  “How so?” Amric asked, sparing him a quick look askance.

  Halthak frowned, pensive. “Well, I have treated many people with no inherent ability to speak of, and it has never affected the application of my magic on them. I suspect those individuals had very weak auras, if what Bellimar says is true.”

  “Bellimar did not say I had a weak aura,” Amric reminded him. “He said I had no aura whatsoever, unlike any person he has encountered before. You should not be troubled that your talent cannot easily reach someone forsaken by magic.”

  “I have been turning that over in my mind as well, but it does not explain what I felt when it occurred. I could accept it if my magic had seemed to have nowhere to go, as if no vessel existed on the other side of our contact, or even if I had faced a consistent level of resistance. Instead, I was blocked, turned aside as if my best efforts were feeble scratches against a wall of marble. Furthermore, I had the disturbing sense I was being watched, and that I did not break through but rather was allowed in after meeting some obscure approval. After that, it felt as it always has. It is beyond my reckoning, but I am glad it succeeded at last.”

  “And I am grateful for your efforts, Halthak,” Amric returned. “This is no place to fall ill, and having faced those mindless things, I dread the thought of where the infections they carry might lead.”

  Halthak shuddered, for the same thought had occurred to him. They rode on in silence for several minutes, navigating the trail as much by feel as by sight now, in the pressing dusk. Valkarr reappeared on the path ahead, shaking his head at Amric, then tapping a finger below one eye and pointing ahead. He then wheeled his blue dun gelding about and resumed his head position. Halthak turned toward Amric.

  “What did––?” he began, but the swordsman interrupted smoothly.

  “Healer, I saw a spasm of discomfort cross your face each time when you healed us earlier. Do you feel the full pain of the victim’s injury when you draw it into yourself in that manner?”

  Halthak paused, confused. “I cannot know for certain, but
it seems so, or as nearly as I can judge. Though it is quick to fade once I absorb it, for the wound itself never lasts long. Why do you ask?”

  “Curiosity, and regret for having caused you pain,” Amric replied. His hawk eyes rested on Halthak for a moment. “And I regret disparaging your use of magic. Taking the hurt from others is a heroic thing indeed.”

  Halthak flushed, grateful for the mask of twilight, and nodded his thanks. Ahead of them, Bellimar turned and looked at them with luminous eyes that somehow caught the crimson glimmer from above.

  “They come, swordsman,” he said, sharp warning in his tone.

  Halthak’s eyes widened as he looked from Bellimar to Amric. He recalled the question he had been about to ask a moment before. “What did Valkarr’s signals mean, and why did he ride off at speed like that?” he said. “And what is Bellimar talking about?”

  “Valkarr has found a place for us to stop,” Amric said. “And he rode ahead in an attempt to draw away whatever has been hunting us for the better part of an hour.”

  Halthak’s tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.

  Amric chuckled. “Do not look so accusing, healer. There is nothing you could have done, had you known, except worry yourself into a froth. Valkarr sought to lead them away and lose them in the forest while we broke free in a different direction to take a longer way around, but unfortunately they did not take the bait.”

  “Then Bellimar meant––”

  “Yes, they are closing in. Whatever they are, they initially followed at a great distance, but they are growing bolder as darkness falls.”

  Halthak turned frantic eyes to the side, straining to pierce the blackness of the forest. At first he saw nothing as before, and then his spine turned to ice. A scarce twenty paces off the trail, he caught a long shadow slinking low to the ground through a gap between two large trees. He gasped, trying in vain to track it further in the gloom, but as swiftly as he had found it, it was lost again. Ten paces behind where he had seen it, another dark shape appeared for a moment, sleek and swift, and then was gone.