Amric’s jaw clenched. He was about to put his life and his sanity in the hands of a creature consumed with demonic hunger. The less temptation at hand, the better.
Directly opposite him, perched upon the outermost rim of rock, was Bellimar. Whether he sat as Amric did, or crouched like some great black bird of prey, the swordsman could not say. A pallid face, a leering nightmare apparition, hovered amid the enveloping shadows at a height that could have been either. Red eyes remained fixed upon the warrior in an expectant stare.
Syth stepped in front of Amric, breaking his line of sight. The troubled winds swirling around the man sent cool night air washing over him. “This is a terrible plan,” Syth insisted.
“And yet, we have no other,” Amric returned quietly.
“You cannot let that––that thing into your head,” Syth spluttered, gesticulating at Bellimar.
Amric sighed. “You know the situation as well as I, Syth,” he said. “Xenoth means to activate this Gate device and destroy our world. It would take us several days to ride there, even if we manage to recover the horses. On foot, it would take us much longer, and we would be without the provisions we lost in the packs that left with the horses. The land between here and there is crawling with Nar’ath and worse, and we have seen almost no water or game. We could detour to Keldrin’s Landing for mounts and provisions, but the city may be overrun. If the Nar’ath queen words were true, we would be marching right into the bulk of her returning forces as well.” He lifted his eyes to the other’s face. “When we rode to Stronghold, the forest became more and more dangerous the further in we went. According to Bellimar, the ruins of Queln are deeper yet into that forest. And if we survive the journey, we would likely be too late to stop Xenoth.”
Amric watched objection and doubt war in the man’s expression. “Do not misunderstand me, Syth,” he said. “I would be walking even now, if there was no other alternative. But Bellimar says he has another way, and I have to try.”
“By laying yourself open to him?” Syth asked in disbelief. “Are you mad? Do you even believe he can make you a match for the Adept?”
“I never made that claim,” Bellimar interrupted, his voice a raw, guttural growl. “I mastered sorcery over years––nay, centuries––of study and use. No, I can only implant a minute portion of my knowledge in the time we have, and even at the height of my powers I could not have faced the likes of Xenoth directly. I can give you the means to seek out the Adept, and perhaps the basic tools to live a few seconds longer than you otherwise would. The rest will be up to you.” He grinned. “You have a penchant for the unpredictable, swordsman, and for surviving against all odds. You will need it.”
“And what of you, Bellimar?” Amric asked. “Will you not fight with us at Queln?”
Bellimar shook his head, the death’s-head grin fading. “Regrettably, I cannot. I can no longer endure the direct touch of sunlight, as my protection from its effects was removed with the last vestiges of my curse. Dawn is mere hours away now, and we will consume most of that time in your preparation. I would be of no use to you, there.”
Amric’s eyes narrowed. “Then where will you go?”
“There is something more I must do, before I become lost entirely,” Bellimar said.
Amric regarded him in steady silence for a long moment. “I cannot let you become a plague on this world again, Bellimar. I will not stop one monster only to free another.”
The red eyes brightened, blazing with defiance, and the shadows gathered and rose to spread over them all like huge black wings. Valkarr and Sariel dropped into crouches, swords flashing free, but Amric did not move. Bellimar shuddered, faltered, and then sank back, his eyes dimming to their low, feral glow once more. “It will not come to that, warrior,” he said in a strained whisper. “You have my promise.”
Syth stared at Bellimar, and then rounded again on Amric. “Look at him! See the monster he has become, the fiend of legend once more. If you let him in, how do you know that he will not strike at you while you are vulnerable? What assurance do you have that he will ever relinquish your mind once he is in there?”
“Only my word,” Bellimar hissed. “And the fading strength of my will. We should be about this, before I lose even that. Look to the east. Our time draws short.”
Amric followed his gaze. The clouds extended in a ceiling high above, churning like a storm-tossed sea. In the wasteland, the cover had thinned, and fitful gaps had appeared, permitting the light of the moon and scattered fragments of star-flecked night to show through. Far to the east, however, the clouds were knitting together, growing dense and dark. An ember glow flickered there among them, and Amric might have thought it the first touch of dawn if it were not still some hours too early. As he watched, he felt a curious tugging sensation, akin to the inexorable pull of the earth below him, but pulling at something within him toward that distant site. The wilding magic stirred, uneasy.
“Yes, you can feel it,” Bellimar murmured. “What has been a slow, steady stream is becoming a torrent. The magic of the land is being drawn to Queln, even stronger than before. It seems Xenoth has made good on his threat to activate the Essence Gate. We have very little time now. It may already be too late.”
Amric swung back to face him. “We had best get to it, then.”
Valkarr looked down at Amric, his lean, reptilian features pinched with concern. “You mean to go through with this, then?”
Amric’s jaw tightened as he nodded. Syth threw up his hands with a snort of disgust and stalked away.
“Very good, swordsman,” Bellimar said. “Let us begin.”
The vampire fixed upon him with a rabid gaze, and Amric met it, unflinching. Glowing red eyes narrowed to pinpoints, burning with new intensity, and then began a slow widening, like a rising pool of flame. The warrior felt himself drawn into their depths. Every instinct flared at him to break the contact, but he fought the impulse and forced himself to remain steady. Bellimar’s voice rolled out of the shadows, and the raw edge to it was gone. Instead it was rich and deep, smooth and purposeful.
“We will enter a trance state together, you and I. When you are ready, I will enter your consciousness. You must lower your defenses and allow me in. I must go deep enough to implant knowledge where you will retain it, at least long enough to serve you in your battle against the Adept.”
There was a soothing, hypnotic quality to the man’s voice, something lacing his speech that numbed the senses and made Amric’s eyelids grow heavy. It stole over him so quickly that he had to shake himself to alertness in order to focus upon what the other was saying. The wilding magic stirred within him, uneasy.
“With most anyone else, I could just force my way in,” Bellimar continued. His words fell in a steady, rhythmic cadence. “But you, my friend, represent a unique challenge. In any event, there can be damage incurred in such a boorish, aggressive approach. No, our situation demands an expert touch, and fortunately for us both, I can provide one.”
Amric drifted, sinking into the molten pools that were the old man’s eyes. There was a note of anticipation, of hunger in the vampire’s tone that triggered a small warning at the back of his mind, but it was a distant annoyance and easily ignored.
“You must realize that there is no small risk to me in this venture,” Bellimar murmured as his mesmerizing voice dropped ever lower. “While you know the necessity of this, your wilding magic may not react well to the perceived intrusion. If it acts on its own to strike out at me while we share your mind, the consequences could be disastrous for us both.”
Amric swayed where he sat, his eyes half-lidded.
“Are you ready, swordsman?”
He mumbled something that might have been an affirmative, and there was a hiss of muted triumph in response.
Bellimar entered his mind like a knife.
The pain was sharp and sudden, a sliver of ice stabbing into his skull. Amric jerked upright, and a bestial growl escaped through his clenched teeth. An unfamil
iar presence writhed in his mind, something dark, cold and unclean. Foul tendrils snaked through his consciousness, lodging there with thousands of tiny hooks like a creeping vine laden with thorns. Anger rose within him, primal and powerful, burning away rational thought. His wilding magic roared its outrage. As if from a great distance, he heard the exclamations of those around him, and the keening edge of bared steel.
“Warrior!” hissed Bellimar’s voice, and this time it came from within his own head. “Amric! Remember our purpose here! I cannot afford to be gentle in the time we have, not against a mind as strong as yours. Even though you try to leave yourself open to me, it is like trying to worm my way in through a crack in a fortress wall. Call them off, or all is lost!”
Amric hesitated, the pyre of gathered power burning in his chest. He grunted something unintelligible, but the sounds around him stopped. He tried again. “Wait,” he gritted. His voice sounded harsh and alien in his own ears. “Do not interfere.”
“Good,” Bellimar assured him. “Now bring your magic under control. I do not like how it is eyeing me.”
Amric took a deep breath, and his throat felt dry and raw. He sent a pulse of reassurance to the bristling wilding, and calmed it over long seconds of effort. It faded back, grudging and tense, still vigilant. Amric had a moment to catch his breath, and then the cold presence of Bellimar flowed the rest of the way into his mind, eliciting another gasp of shock and filling his head until he thought it would burst. More dark coils slithered forth, and lancing pain followed each as it dug in. Amric clenched his jaw and waited.
The agony subsided, replaced by a numbing sensation that flooded his limbs. He tried to curl his hands into fists, and nothing happened. He realized with a flicker of panic that he was no longer in command of his own body.
“Now then,” Bellimar said with a chilling note of satisfaction. “Shall we finally get some much-needed answers?”
“W-what?” Amric demanded. His thoughts were scattered, sluggish, but he forced the fragments together.
The other’s dark presence swirled about. “Mystery is your constant companion, warrior. I believe the answer to one of those mysteries, at least, is buried deep within your own mind, in your earliest memories. I intend to find that answer.”
“Is this a betrayal, Bellimar?” Amric made no attempt to keep the threat from his tone.
Bellimar snorted. “Hardly. Now that I am established, I do not know that you could unseat me, but even so, I have no interest in a contest of wills with you.”
“Then what is the meaning of this change of plans? I thought we had no time to spare.”
“We do not,” the vampire confirmed. “But time runs at a different pace in here, in your mind, than it does out there. And I suspect the information to be gained will prove crucial to your survival in the days to come. I think we have to take the risk.”
Amric hesitated. A sting of anticipation mingled with icy dread coursed through him. “And what if I do not want to know?”
There was a pause, and then Bellimar said, “You may have suppressed an inner magic for the better part of your life, Amric, but I do not think you are capable of turning away from the truth, once you know of it. Even a painful truth.”
Amric grimaced. It was true. He had spent his life in open honesty with all he encountered, and most importantly, always with himself. Or so he had thought. Still, he had never been one to back down from what had to be done, no matter the personal cost. Could he do any less now?
“How do we proceed?” he whispered.
Bellimar made a pleased sound that contained notes of eagerness and what might have been admiration. “As I mentioned, I will not have the luxury of being gentle.”
The hooks constricted, and the pain began again.
Captain Borric stormed through the courtyard in the shadow of the city’s massive southern gate. The wounded continued to straggle in, and his soldiers directed those with the most grievous injuries to a hastily constructed triage station where a handful of weary physicians had been pressed into service. Borric paused at the station and surveyed their work for a moment in silence.
One of the physicians, a slender fellow with a tapered beard, approached to check on the crude sling supporting the captain’s broken arm, but Borric shook the man off with a dismissive growl. The grizzled soldier turned away and surveyed the courtyard.
His soldiers moved among huddled masses of the townsfolk, providing a show of strength and comfort to which they could cling. Very few of the citizens had dispersed deeper into Keldrin’s Landing yet. Instead, they sat in a stony silence punctuated by occasional moans and muffled weeping, as they waited for Borric’s men to finish scouting ahead to confirm that the black fiends were indeed gone. Most were careful to keep their eyes on each other or on the soldiers, and avoided looking at the bodies of the dead, carelessly strewn about the courtyard like leaves scattered before a storm wind.
Borric, however, forced his gaze to linger upon each and every one. Their deaths were on his hands, and he could do no less.
A shout interrupted his grim reverie. One of his men burst into view from an eastern side street, pounding along the cobbled stone of the courtyard toward him.
“What news, Gilsen?” Borric called.
“Captain!” the man gasped as he drew near. “More trouble from the east!”
The townsfolk nearest them gasped, and a low murmur built in the courtyard as word spread like fire through dry grass. Borric kept his eyes on the man, letting none of the dread he felt show in his expression. “What sort of trouble?” he asked in a crisp tone.
“Sir, I climbed to the wall-walk and saw it myself,” Gilsen said, still panting.
“Saw what, soldier?”
The man drew a deep, steadying breath. “There is a strange light in the sky, far to the east, like a huge fire in the forest, but hanging high above it instead––”
“Gilsen,” the captain interrupted gently. “We have a ravaged city full of dead and wounded, and our gates lie open to the next attack. Of what import is a distant light in the sky to us, at this moment?”
“Sir, that is not the whole of it,” Gilsen insisted, his eyes wide. “Between that strange fire in the sky and the light of the moon, one can see a fair distance over the countryside right now, despite the dark hour.”
Borric’s breath caught in his throat. “And?” he managed.
“The land to the east is crawling with all manner of twisted creatures. They are coming from everywhere, like before, like the night of the attack on the city gate!”
The captain’s spine turned to ice. He swept his gaze around the courtyard, at the weak and the wounded. Not now, he thought, not now. A bone-deep stab of pain coursed through his useless arm. “How many?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
The man did not appear to hear him. His words continued to tumble out, one atop the other. “Maybe they are all stirred up by this fire in the forest, the way they are gathering, so many more than before––”
“Gilsen!” the captain barked, bringing the man up short. “How many?”
Gilsen looked at him with a haunted expression. “Sir, if I had to guess––all of them. Many times more than before, too many to count, and they are coming fast.”
Captain Borric closed his eyes. He had read the knowledge in the young man’s face. Gilsen expected to die. The soldier felt––knew, with a certainty––that he was describing his own imminent death. The city was not defensible. The southern gate had been breached this night and damaged beyond their ability to repair in time. The eastern gate had been restored since the first assault, days ago, but it had only just withstood then against a smaller force than what Gilsen described was coming now. The mighty perimeter wall of the city, their beachhead against this savage and untamed land, was broken. The wild, it seemed, had decided to strike back at the hubris of civilization.
He was in charge of the city’s defense, and yet he knew he could not stave off its destruction this night.<
br />
But he might be able to save the lives of its people.
“Sound the alarm, Gilsen,” he said. “City wide, and be quick about it.”
“Sir?”
“We will take everyone we can find to the docks, commandeer every available ship, and abandon the city. We cannot stop them from taking Keldrin’s Landing, but if we make haste, we do not have to be here when it happens.”
“But Captain,” Gilsen objected, “there are not enough passenger ships for everyone. Most of the ships at the docks are cargo vessels, loaded with trade goods.”
“Dump it all over the side,” Borric said. “Keep only the foodstuffs. And we will need to take what provisions we can as we flee the city, as well.”
Gilsen gaped at him. “The lords and merchants will not like that, sir.”
The captain gave him a cold smile. “Then I welcome them to take up the issue with the city’s new residents. I, for one, will thank the fates if we survive long enough to lament any lost profits.”
Gilsen squared his shoulders and clapped fist to chest in a salute. His eyes crinkled at the corners, but no other sign betrayed the grin he was stifling. Borric returned the salute, and then pointed back in the direction from which the man had come.
“Carry my orders to the others,” he said. “Have the men sound the alarms. We need to get these people moving if we hope to see the dawn. Now, soldier!”
Amric rose through layers of darkness, cut by the unforgiving shards of memory. The fragmented images assailed him, whirling and spinning, disjoint and out of order.
Scaly Sil’ath features looking down upon him, regarding him with an eye that is skeptical but not unkind.
Fierce, flickering swordplay with his childhood fellows; a cry of triumphant pleasure as he presses the attack, ever faster.
Watching, troubled for reasons he cannot name, as five of his finest warriors––Innikar, Sariel, Prakseth, Varek and Garlien––depart to investigate the source of the disturbances coming from the mysterious north. The last time he would see some of them alive.
The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept Page 49
