The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept

by Michael Arnquist

  Lorenth shifted his farsight in a panic, flinching away from whatever grisly end was to come. Another scene swam into focus, and the young man watched in horror as a different horde of the black creatures smashed in a shop door and poured into the building. The light pressing against the windows from the inside guttered, masked by twisting shadows within for a moment, and then went dark.

  The farseer flinched, casting his sight elsewhere in the city, and found a large, embattled knot of the city guard. They were fighting in a protective ring around several huddled families while the black creatures came at them from all sides, constricting around the ring of soldiers in dark waves. With the startling clarity of his magical vision, Lorenth took in the drawn but resolute faces of the guards as they fought, the tear-streaked faces of the children clinging to their parents, and the depthless eyes and gaping maws of the attackers. There was no sound, of course, but all the mouths stretched taut in silent screams was almost worse, somehow; the unheard screams seemed to batter impossibly at his senses, clawing at him for supplication.

  Lorenth convulsed, jerking his sight away again and again, only to land on scenes of similar mayhem all over the city. At last he dropped his farsight and fell back with a moaning cry, staggering for a moment as he returned to himself. The lavish interior of the chamber at Morland’s estate drew in close about him, cradling him with its warmth. He felt a rush of relief mingled with guilt that he was here in the tower and not down below in the city streets. He sucked in a shuddering breath.

  “M-My lord!” he gasped. “The city is besieged, overrun by some strange force!”

  Morland stood a short distance away, regarding him with a hooded gaze. The man made no immediate reply, but instead turned away from the farseer and strode to a tall chair, where he sank into its red velvet cushions. Morland placed his hands in his lap and laced his fingers loosely together. “Go on,” he said.

  “There are thousands upon thousands of these strange creatures within the city walls, like black statues of twisted men come to life!” The young man gesticulated wildly at the tower window, as if the others could somehow bear witness to the same things that his farsight had allowed him to see.

  Morland studied him with dark, deep-set eyes. “And how fare the city’s defenders against these invaders?” he asked quietly.

  “The creatures show no pain and shrug off what should be mortal blows,” Lorenth said. “They are overwhelming soldier and citizen alike!”

  The merchant nodded, pursing his lips. “The outcome is decided, then?”

  Lorenth blinked, darting a glance to the tower window and then back again. Did the man not hear what he was saying? Did he not comprehend the danger that faced them all? “I-I do not know, my lord,” he said. “The battle rages on, and though I am no military expert, I do not see how the defenders can––”

  The words froze on his tongue as he watched a cruel smile spread across the hard, aquiline planes of Morland’s face. Lorenth’s eyes widened. The man knew! He had somehow anticipated this evening’s events, and had brought the farseer here tonight to confirm them from the remote safety of his estate. He stared at the merchant in shock. Morland, for his part, simply watched the young man for a long moment as he sifted through the implications that came with the awareness.

  “Do we continue to have an understanding, farseer?” the merchant asked with the cold smile still twisting at his lips. “I would hate to think that you had reached the end of your value to me.”

  Lorenth opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out. His eyes flicked to the powerfully built guards standing in the shadows on either side of the chamber’s only door. Their hands did not stray near the sword hilts at their hips, but they regarded him with pitiless, clinical stares. Lorenth snapped his mouth shut and looked back to the merchant. At last, he gave a tight nod.

  “Excellent,” Morland said. “You will monitor the events in the city tonight, and you will inform me immediately of any occurrences that might change the outcome.”

  With that, the man laid his head back on the high-backed, blood-red velvet chair and closed his eyes. His slender hands remained clasped comfortably before him in his lap. Lorenth swallowed a lump in his throat. Numb inside, he turned back to the tower window and stared out into the night, his eyes going unfocused.

  Captain Borric shook his head to clear the sweat from his eyes. His vision remained blurry, however; a glancing blow from an ebon fist had left his head ringing and his left eye nearly swollen shut. How long ago had that been? It seemed like hours, but he knew how the chaos of battle could wreak havoc on a man’s sense of time; it had probably been only minutes.

  He looked around at his remaining men. Brave men all, they fought like tigers against their implacable foe, but one by one they were disappearing. Even as he watched, one stout soldier raised his shield against a rain of blows and clove the skull of an attacker. A score of strong black fingers snaked around the edge of his shield, however, ripping it away and staggering him off balance. In the blink of an eye, the man was pulled from his feet and dragged on his back across the cobblestones and into the dark wave of creatures. The man to his left, exposed by his comrade’s sudden absence, gave a muffled cry as dark limbs wrapped about his head and shoulders. His neck broke with a sharp crack as he was jerked from his feet, and his struggling form sagged in their grasp. A pair of creatures pulled him several more feet before slowing, evidently noticing his condition. They released their hold, and he slid to the ground in a limp pile. They stepped upon him as they returned to the fray, taking no more notice of his discarded corpse than they would a loose stone in the roadway.

  These blasted things want to take us alive, Borric thought. He shouted orders, and two more guards closed the gap immediately with blades flashing, but their protective ring was thinning by the moment.

  Borric shot a glance inward at the huddled citizens. It was mostly children now. The able-bodied men and women had already taken up the weapons of the fallen and thrown themselves into aiding the defense. They were not soldiers, however, and had been even quicker to fall before their tireless foes than the members of the city guard. To Borric’s blurred vision, the children were one big indistinct mass of shape and color, clinging tightly together. He felt a traitorous flash of gratitude that he could no longer see their frightened expressions.

  He had a sudden irrational thought for his own son, the boy he had not seen in the years since Borric had taken this job, the boy who would be a tall young man by now. He remembered wiping away the boy’s tears at his departure, his assurances that it would not be as long as it seemed. He remembered his confident promises that he would return one day, laden with his earnings. He had only to accept this important position in a remote outpost for a few years, where the pay was many times what he could earn at home, in a land of untold riches beyond the frayed edges of known civilization…

  Someone was shouting at him. Borric blinked, breaking from his reverie and straining to hear the words over the persistent ringing in his ears. He looked around. The ring of guards had thinned to the point of breaking.

  “Tighten the ring!” he shouted. “Fall back three steps and tighten the ring!”

  The men were quick to obey, their boots stomping and scraping as they backed into a tighter defensive circle. If the ring shrinks much further, Borric thought with a rueful grimace, the men will be tripping over that cluster of children.

  A hole opened in the ranks before him as several of the fiends tried to force their way through in a wedge. Dead eyes stared at him above soundless, gaping mouths, and his men struggled to hold them back. With a roar of defiance, the captain of the guard raised his sword and plunged back into the fray.

  Someone was shouting at him. A strident voice, somehow both distant and yet uncomfortably near, was gibbering at him to wake up, to fight back and, in a seeming contradiction, to give in and let go. Release me, the voice urged. Join me, so that we may fight together as we were meant to!

  Am
ric’s eyes flared open, and he realized with a chill that he had lost consciousness for a fleeting instant.

  The huge visage of the Nar’ath queen loomed before him, and the stench of putrefaction washed over him with her hot breath. Her outer jaws were flared wide, reaching toward him with the hooked prongs that would keep his head frozen in place for the killing kiss. Her ruby lips peeled back to reveal row upon row of tiny glistening fangs that were eager to receive him.

  Something slammed into the queen from the side, eliciting a shriek of pain from the monster. Amric gasped as the claws encircling his torso convulsed from the blow and nearly crushed him. She whirled in the direction from which the attack had come, but all Amric could see were the swirling sands obscuring all. Seconds later came another blow from the other side, and she shuddered, spinning in that direction and sweeping her claws in a blind, furious arc.

  A phantom laughed echoed back to them, seeming to come from all directions at once. It was a rich, smooth voice, mocking as it slid through the murk and circled them.

  Bellimar! Amric realized. The vampire was taking a direct hand in affairs once more, as he had in Stronghold.

  A third blow shook the Nar’ath queen with a sound like muted thunder. She lunged in a new direction, roaring in rage and frustration. Shaking Amric like a child’s doll, she slithered into a wide, rapid turn back toward the center of the vast chamber, prowling after this troublesome new prey.

  Borric recognized his mistake the instant he made the attack that undid him.

  The guard to his right stumbled and went to his knees, and half a dozen black hands seized him in an instant and pulled him headfirst from view. One of the fiends stepped into the gap and lunged at Borric, and the battle-forged reflexes of countless hard-fought campaigns took over. The captain of the guard stepped into a smooth lunge and drove the point of his sword into the throat of the attacker. It was perfectly executed, a lethal blow to any mortal assailant, but Borric knew in an instant that he was undone.

  Before he could withdraw, the gaping fiend seized his wrist in a vise-like grip. It drew itself forward, surging along his blade until the hilt rested against its throat and the full length of shining steel projected from the back of its neck. With a wrench, the creature snapped the bones of his forearm, and his sword tumbled from useless fingers. He was jerked forward, the sheer force of it causing his feet to leave the ground. Something slammed into the back of his skull like an iron sledge, and all was darkness.

  Black hands caught him before he hit the ground.

  Morland cracked an eye and watched the farseer at work. The young man shuddered and flinched from time to time, but his eyes remained wide open and twitched between distant targets that only he could see. Tears ran openly across his face and into his beard.

  What a fool, thought Morland with a curl of his lip. It was not as if this show of weakness would have any effect on the outcome down there. The city was lost. His Nar’ath allies were doing just as they had promised by demonstrating the inevitability of their conquest. Morland felt a surge of pride. The Nar’ath had skulked about for centuries, hiding and evading notice, building their strength slowly; the time for such subterfuge was at an end.

  Not for the first time, he congratulated himself for turning a minor setback into the promise of success. He had been furious when the Nar’ath attacked his trade caravan so many months ago; even though they had left the goods untouched, it had cost him no small amount of time and trouble to replace the men that had disappeared. It had cost him many more after that to track down the culprits, to gauge their strength, and to make careful advances to establish contact with their leader.

  It was all worth it in the end, however. The Nar’ath forces would continue to grow, fueled by this victory, and he would be remembered for his part in accelerating their eventual triumph. He swelled with pride. And of course, once they had taken what they needed, they would establish him as the undisputed ruler over the survivors, just as they had promised. He would at last achieve the power that had long been his goal, but on a scale to which even he had not dared aspire.

  He frowned. Something nagged at the fringes of his thoughts, a tattered edge to an otherwise perfect picture. How many survivors would be left when the Nar’ath were sated? What proof had they offered of their assertion that they had no long-term interest in this world? Where were they going? These seemed like questions he would have asked, being a shrewd negotiator and a calculating businessman. In fact, he recalled going to his initial meetings with the Nar’ath queen with every intention of learning the answers to these questions and more. Now, however, when he looked back, his memories of that meeting were a fog, and he could not produce the answers to any of these queries. He tried to call forth the details––any details––from those fateful encounters, but they slid away like raindrops down a slate roof.

  He forced himself to concentrate harder. The towering image of the Nar’ath queen appeared before his mind’s eye, and he found his thoughts dulling, laced with a strange sense of loyalty that bordered on complacency. He frowned again. These thoughts fit him poorly, as if he was awakening to find himself wearing another man’s clothing.

  He sat forward. He had no qualms about what was transpiring in Keldrin’s Landing; after all, conquest on the scale he required was never accomplished without some amount of bloodshed. It was unlike him, however, to enter into such a crucial arrangement without an ironclad set of safeguards in place. How had he––

  “My lord?” Lorenth interrupted his thoughts in a quavering tone.

  “What is it?” Morland snapped.

  “Y-you are certain that the creatures will pass over your estate?”

  The merchant opened his mouth to snarl an affirmative, and then paused. He had been given that assurance, at least. Indeed, the Nar’ath had demonstrated their commitment to their arrangement by ensuring that his trade caravans were no longer molested, while those of his rivals suffered the fate with alarming frequency. Even with that promise, however, he found himself facing sudden gnawing doubts. “Why do you ask, farseer?”

  “The creatures have torn your gates asunder, and a great many of them have just entered your grounds.”

  Morland shot to his feet. “Are they coming here?” he demanded.

  The farseer turned toward him, and Morland gave a start. The man’s eyes had no pupils! Then, as if bobbing to the surface of a calm lake, Lorenth’s pupils reappeared within his pale blue eyes. Of course, the merchant admonished himself; it was just some effect of his strange abilities. Lorenth blinked several times, and the semblance of calm was broken. The blue eyes focused upon Morland.

  “I cannot say for certain, my lord,” the young man said in a voice barely above a whisper. “They appeared to be headed this way, but once past the braziers at the gate, they passed into darkness and I could no longer see them.”

  Morland stared at him for a long moment, frozen. Then he cursed and spun on his heel, making a curt motion to the guards. The soldiers snapped to attention and pulled the doors open as he approached.

  Lulled and betrayed! He ground his teeth in fury as his mind raced over his options. However he had been ensorcelled by the Nar’ath, he was comforted by the fact that he had at least demonstrated some semblance of his customary caution in establishing certain contingent plans. He had a ship at anchor well away from the docks that was waiting for him to signal it in. He could be away from this gods-forsaken land for good. This, however, was not the time to attempt to reach the sea. No, the Nar’ath were too strong and too many; he would have to weather the night in a safe place and make his escape when the opportunity presented itself, after the chaos had subsided. He had a fortified armory at the center of his massive keep, well stocked with provisions. It would serve his needs nicely. A man with means and foresight such as he possessed always had a backup plan.

  “M-my lord?”

  The thin, tremulous voice of the farseer brought Morland sharply about. He had all but forgotten the meek
fellow. His eyes narrowed as he regarded Lorenth.

  “What of me, my lord?”

  Morland gave him an icy smile. “It seems our business is concluded, farseer. Guards, please see him out the main doors. I believe he can find his way from there.”

  Lorenth paled. “My lord, please––!” he stammered as the soldiers took heavy steps toward him.

  The merchant turned to go. Lorenth’s voice, rising several octaves and into the shrill range, followed him through the doorway.

  “My lord, wait! Wait! I can still be of use to you!”

  Morland paused, half turning. “Make it quick and compelling, or you will exit by means of that window instead.”

  Lorenth stumbled forward, wringing his hands. “You will need a safe route from the city, my lord,” he said in a rush. “I can help, especially if you wait until daylight. I can use my farsight to reveal which roads lead to safety, and which to certain death.”

  Morland regarded him for a long moment, and then a slow, vulpine smile spread across his features. “How very enterprising of you, farseer. I may just make a savvy businessman of you yet.”

  Another thunderous blow shook the Nar’ath queen. From the corner of his eye, Amric caught a blur of motion passing by him with inhuman speed before disappearing once more into the swirling sand. An instant later it came again, accompanied by a sharp, cracking report and a keening cry of agony from the queen. One of the claws gripping Amric loosened and fell away from him, and the limb dangled at a broken, useless angle at her side.