The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept

by Michael Arnquist

  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 tones, 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.

  He felt, rather than saw, the Sil’ath warriors lying in wait. He sensed the massive Nar’ath queen sliding through the center of the chamber, and he noted as well the smaller masses of her brutish minions as they groped blindly in the murk, seeking him. He frowned. No, that wasn’t quite true. It was more accurate to say that the Nar’ath were each voids in his perception, rather than felt directly. They were roving holes in what should have been.

  A distant part of him was bewildered at the clarity with which he knew all this. The positions of the Nar’ath were all so obvious to him suddenly that he could throw a rock and strike any one of them. Another part of him insisted that there could be nothing more natural, that this and more was at his fingertips, and he had only to embrace it…

  A burning sensation fought its way up through his chest and all of a sudden his head felt like it would split asunder. He gasped, staggering to the side before he caught himself. The strange clarity faded along with the pain, but not before he sensed the sinuous form of the queen hesitate at the sound and spin in his direction.

  Perfect, he thought. Let us give her another whiff of the bait she has been anticipating.

  Amric coughed.

  He pitched it low, made it muffled as if he meant to conceal it. At the same time, he lightly dragged the tip of one sword along the coarse stone of the floor at his feet to make a gentle rasping sound. With luck, it would sound to her as if he had stumbled for the briefest of moments, grown careless or distracted.

  She came at him like a lightning bolt, hurtling across the intervening ground with a speed that was stunning. Amric had a few seconds to crouch and brace himself, and then the Nar’ath queen burst through the churning wall of sand and was upon him.

  He waited until the last moment, holding his ground with his blades crossed before him, and then he threw himself to the side. He had been hoping that she, in her eagerness to reach him, would be unable to slow her great bulk before colliding with the sheer wall of the chamber a pace and a half behind him. In this he was disappointed, however, as she evidently knew the bounds of the chamber she had created too well to fall for the simple trick. The countless small, clawed appendages that fringed her serpentine body dug into the ground, slowing her with a high-pitched grinding noise. She slid to a stop, almost brushing the wall.

  Quick on the heels of that disappointment came another: he had waited an instant too long to evade her charge.

  Her black talons lashed out at him. One set scored the sandstone, leaving angry furrows behind him as he rolled away, while the other raked across his mail shirt and caught. The force of the blow lifted him from the ground and slung him against the wall, wringing all the air from his lungs in one explosive grunt. Amric slid to the ground and struggled to draw a breath. Huge hands seized him immediately, wrapping around his torso and constricting until he thought his ribs would surely crack. Darkness washed over him and was peeled back just as quickly, and he knew that he had lost consciousness for a fleeting instant. His hands closed on empty air, and his stomach plummeted as he realized that his swords had fallen away from nerveless fingers. He began prying at the claws that held him tight, even as he felt himself being lifted through the air.

  Amric gasped, trying desperately to fill his burning lungs. His entire body felt as if it was on fire, and the world spun around him in a dizzying cyclone. He craned his neck to see the triumphant visage of the Nar’ath queen drawing closer and closer. As he watched, the huge outer jaws began to flare open and separate.

  In unison, Innikar and Sariel attacked from either side of the queen. Appearing out of the swirling sand, they each lunged forward to ram a single blade into her body, all the way to the hilt. The queen’s expression twisted from gloating to furious in a single spasm. With a shriek to freeze the blood, she swept her lower set of forelimbs at them without relinquishing her grasp on Amric with the upper arms. The warriors darted back from her attacks, withdrawing their swords from the bloodless wounds. Such minor injuries could not have greatly troubled a creature of her size, and yet she issued a roar of raw hatred as she whirled first one way and then the other, indecisive as to which of the troublesome pests to pursue.

  A shadow appeared overhead, indistinct amid the churning clouds of sand, and plummeted down to land astride the thick, curved neck of the Nar’ath queen. It was Valkarr, leaping from the stairway above them in a strike afforded by the distraction of the others. The Sil’ath warrior landed with a grunt and grasped at the overlapping armored scales that ran up the queen’s spine with one hand while the other brandished bare steel. He aimed a tremendous cut at her exposed throat, looking to put a decisive end to the battle, but as quick as he was, the Nar’ath queen was quicker. She twisted about like a dervish, coiling her torso forward and then surging upward in place as her long, serpentine form thrashed behind her. Valkarr’s blow struck a shower of sparks from the plates of armor but failed to bite into the more vulnerable flesh in front. He was nearly dislodged, forced to scrabble wildly at her scales with his free hand in an effort to keep his perch. One of her lower arms shot across
her torso to seize his exposed lower leg. She tore him loose with a single sharp jerk and then flung her arm wide to hurl him away. Spinning out of control, he vanished into the murk like a stone from a sling.

  Innikar and Sariel appeared at her sides again, charging in with swords raised, but the queen was ready this time. Her serpentine form lashed back and forth, and the fringe of claws raked at Innikar, trying to pull him down under a crushing coil. He was forced to backpedal, swatting away the hooked appendages. Sariel darted in, and then threw herself flat as the tail end whipped past her, missing by less than a hand’s breadth. She was on her feet again in an instant, spinning with an almost weightless grace away from the return stroke of the tail that hammered down upon the place she had been.

  Sariel danced back, bracing to attack again, when black tentacles snaked out of the murk behind her and sought to draw her in. Drawn by the rage of their queen, the lumbering forms of several Nar’ath minions emerged from the swirling sand, and Sariel’s blades licked out to deflect grasping limbs as she was forced to retreat further or be surrounded.

  On the other side, the queen sent her tail lunging around Innikar, encircling him. The coils spun, tightening like some huge fist in an effort to crush him, but Innikar was no longer there. Vaulting high in the air, he leapt for the queen’s scaly back. Once more the monstrosity moved with astonishing speed, lashing out with her tail to strike him from midair. The Sil’ath warrior was propelled to the ground, tumbling end over end as he disappeared from sight. The dark, hulking shapes of more minions converged there and vanished after him in pursuit.

  Amric struggled to retain consciousness in the crushing grip of the Nar’ath queen. He pried weakly at the talons that dug into his flesh even through his oiled mail shirt, trying in vain to loosen them enough that he might draw a full breath.

  “Now, Adept,” she said with obvious relish. “Where were we?”

  The thick, protruding structures of her outer jaws flared wide, exposing the cold and eerily feminine countenance beneath. A blood-red mouth parted to reveal rows of glistening fangs, grinning in wicked triumph. Amric bared his own teeth and glared his hatred back at her. He fixed upon the slanted, glowing green eyes, and resolved to cling to awareness long enough to strike out at those orbs when she brought him close. Perhaps he could blind the fiend before she destroyed him. His vision darkened dangerously, a descending blackness threaded through with veins of white fire, and he blinked it back with a groan.

  Fighting for consciousness, he cursed himself for underestimating the sheer power and ferocity of the Nar’ath queen. Sometimes the most difficult part of a trap was not in the catching, but in dealing with what one caught.

  “Well?” Morland demanded. “Tell me what you see, farseer.”

  “A moment more, my lord,” Lorenth murmured. He was a young man with a thin brown beard that matched the hue of his unassuming robes. He peered out the tower window into the night with unfocused eyes. “It is dark outside and the grounds of your estate are quite extensive. I am still finding my range.”

  “Be quick about it then,” Morland snapped. “It is imperative that I know what transpires in the city tonight, and I am not a patient man.”

  “Yes, my lord,” said Lorenth. “You have made your point.”

  “Have I? I wonder. I can usually tell when I have succeeded in making my point, as I either achieve the results I desire, or the person who has failed me provides a highly motivating example for others. Which will be the case with you, farseer?”

  The young man shivered without blinking. Even without the merchant’s ruthless reputation, there was the ice in his tone and the ominous leather creak and metal rasp of his guards to lend credence to his words. Lorenth kept his breathing even and clung to his focus with an effort. Whatever else might be said of the man, he paid well for results, and Lorenth desperately needed the coin.

  “I will not fail you, my lord.”

  “See that you do not, farseer.”

  “I must remind my lord that my farsight cannot penetrate solid barriers––” Lorenth began.

  “I am well aware of your limitations, farseer,” Morland interrupted. “And I would not have hired you if they would be an issue for this task. Now, we are in the tallest tower of my mansion to provide you the least obstructed view over the bluff’s edge and into the heart of the city. I suggest you make use of it, before my patience wears any thinner.”

  Lorenth bit back his frustration, all too aware that ill-chosen words with this man could prove fatal. A severed hand collected no coins, after all. “Perhaps if my lord would indicate what he seeks to find––”

  “And have you merely echo whatever I wish to hear?” Morland snorted. “I think not. I am paying a sum greater than you would see in half a year or more, and I am paying it for the talents of a true farseer, not some charlatan fortune teller who would twist the gleanings from my own words into false pearls of wisdom. I would be most disappointed to find that you had misrepresented your skills.”

  Lorenth’s mouth went dry. The room had gone a deadly kind of quiet, but he resisted the urge to retract his sight from the far-flung darkness in order to glance about him. It was a nervous reflex, difficult to suppress under the circumstances, but he steeled himself with the knowledge that it would not help him anyway. He was no warrior; he could not evade the blades of the scowling guards and win his way to freedom even if he could see his immediate surroundings. Also, the additional delay might in fact prove his undoing. No, his welfare depended solely upon his abilities now, and he had best start providing results.

  Perhaps if he provided a few meaningful details, Morland would trust him enough to reveal the true requirements for Lorenth’s work this evening.

  His eyes focused on a distant point, thousands of yards away. He almost slumped with relief to find the outer wall of Morland’s estate, bathed in amber pools of light cast by wall-set torches. Finally, some light to work with! He focused over the wall and onto the manicured lane beyond, and from there over the bluff’s edge. He could not follow the slope from that point, as the angle from his current vantage point did not allow it. He would be forced to make another leap in focus, but at least this time he had his general bearings.

  There was at least one element of truth to the merchant’s words, Lorenth reflected as he extended his sight again. The man had offered a considerable amount for what seemed a simple enough job, even if the details were lacking in advance. But then, that was not unusual in itself. Lorenth expected that a portion of the fee was to buy his silence afterward about whatever he would see tonight. He was probably meant to confirm a lover’s indiscretions, or perhaps spy on the clandestine dealings of some business competitor. Lorenth sighed to himself. It was usually something terribly tedious like that, some trivial personal or civic matter that was well beneath the scope of his talents, and a far cry from the valorous uses to which he had planned to put them when he first came to Keldrin’s Landing.

  The darkened top of a building swam into focus, interrupting his roaming thoughts. Somewhere in the trade district, it appeared.

  “I have reached the trade district, my lord,” Lorenth said. “Where am I to look?”

  “Look to the streets,” Morland replied, eagerness seeping into his tone. “Anywhere should suffice.”

  “Certainly, my lord, but if I know not where to look or what to––”

  “Just look, you fool!”

  Anywhere? It made no sense. Was the merchant not looking for something specific after all? Perhaps this was an extended interview of sorts, to verify his abilities in advance of a more important job that would come later. Lorenth felt a chill. How would he prove the veracity of what he saw if Morland was looking for nothing in particular? He had to find some convincing detail, something that would allay the suspicions of a powerful and vengeful man.

  He shifted his gaze ever so slightly. This required a finer degree of control than most people realized, to move his sight only a few feet over such a
distance. It was all too easy to jump wildly around and be forced to reestablish his frame of reference entirely. He had managed it over much greater lengths before, however, and the merchant did not seem the type to be impressed with the control Lorenth had practiced so hard to earn, so he swallowed the boastful words he was tempted to utter and resumed his efforts.

  A street scene materialized before him. Dark, deserted. Lorenth bit his lip.

  “What is it? What do you see?” the merchant’s tone was oddly neutral for all its urgency.

  “Nothing yet, my lord,” the young man responded. “The streets nearby are empty.”

  “Empty?” Morland exclaimed. He sounded disappointed, disbelieving. “Keep searching.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  The scene was just fading out of focus as Lorenth began to move his farsight again, when a flicker of movement in the distance caught his attention.

  “One moment, lord,” Lorenth said. “I may have something for you after all. There is something moving further up the lane.”

  “Tell me.”

  The young farseer pushed his sight up the cobbled street. A large group of shadowy figures sharpened into detail, running with long, bounding strides. Something about the way they moved struck him as wrong, unnatural, as if they were somehow lighter upon the earth than the size of their forms suggested. The foremost among them leapt high and hurled themselves upon another group, this one of wide-eyed men––soldiers, by the look of them––brandishing swords and spears. Even with the glow of rocking firelamps held high in the clenched fists of the men, the dark attackers were barely visible against the night. The feeble light cast by the lamps formed a faint golden frost upon the creatures, as if their black flesh greedily drank in all illumination.

  Steel flashed and bodies collided, and Lorenth gasped at the ferocity of the clash. Then the breath caught in his throat with a dry rattle. He saw a spear ram through the abdomen of one of the black figures, but the creature did not falter; instead it grabbed the haft with both hands and wrenched it from the grasp of its shocked owner. The transfixed creature then hurled itself upon the man and bore him to the ground. Another man stepped toward his fallen comrade with sword upraised, but naked black hands wrapped around the blade, heedless of its cutting edge, holding it fast. Two more attackers leapt at the hapless fellow, binding his limbs. It was the same elsewhere, and the battle, if it could even be called such, was over in seconds. Every one of the men was down, and their unflinching foes bent over them with sinister intent.