The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept (11 page)

Amric
knelt in the blackened section of the barn to pluck a mangled knot of metal from the floor with his forefinger and thumb, and he held it up for inspection. An oil lamp, he realized. That explained the meager plume of smoke they had seen from the main road, and the several charred varkhul corpses they had found here in the barn. He pictured the vile fiends running about ablaze, feeling the terror they so relished inflicting on others, and he bared his teeth in a grim smile.

The swordsman turned
away, and his gaze slid over a broken pike and an old saber, taking in the scene they framed. Scraps of clothing and fur were scattered about, and splinters of bone and flesh jutted from the deeply churned, blood-soaked mud. From the remains, it was impossible to tell how many creatures the varkhuls had overwhelmed here, but nothing living remained on the farm now. They had already searched the house, and though the spiny creatures had violated that as well, there were no signs of a struggle there.

B
ellimar stepped up beside him. “Whoever they were, they did not go quietly,” he said, inclining his head toward two more varkhul corpses, hacked apart but untouched by flame. The bodies gave off a sharp putrescent odor that somehow registered above the rest of the stench. It was the ichor, Amric knew; devilish hard to cleanse from one’s weapons and armor, as well.

“Died facing
the enemy with blade in hand,” Valkarr said from the open doorway in a voice like shifting gravel. “All one can ask.” The words echoed the Sil’ath ethos, but Amric read the seething anger behind them in the way his comrade’s tail lashed and his breath huffed through narrowed nostrils.

“
At the risk of sounding greedy, I can think to ask for more,” Amric said with a rueful smile. He walked past Valkarr, clapping him on the shoulder as he passed. “Come, my friend. We have learned all we can, and can do no further good here.”

The swordsman stepped out
into the long daybreak shadow of the barn and kept walking. He drew several deep breaths when he reached the quickening sunlight, allowing the crisp morning air to cleanse and rejuvenate him.

Thirty yards from the barn, Halthak stood with the horses
, and Amric watched him as he approached. Despite the pall hanging over the morning, he had to smother a chuckle as Halthak skipped away to avoid a nip from the bay gelding and fixed the animal with a reproachful glare. Amric and Valkarr were only fair riders themselves, for the Sil’ath seldom used mounts for travel or in combat, but the Half-Ork sat the saddle with all the grace of a sack of rocks. Whether indignant at his lack of skill or reacting to his anxiety, more than one of the horses had taken to goading the hapless healer at every opportunity.

Amric sobered
. It was a measure of how shaken and saddened Halthak had been by the slaughter within that he had elected to remain outside with the animals.

Amric accepted the bay gelding’s reins from a grateful Halthak, speaking soothing words to the horse and patting its neck before vaulting into the saddle
. It was a beautiful animal, swift and strong; Bellimar had proven his resourcefulness again by calling in another favor to procure these fine mounts. With a firm hand, Amric guided the gelding in a circle and to a stop again, to continue accustoming it to his control. The time might come very soon when their mutual familiarity and trust would mean the difference between life and death for them both.

Valkarr arrived a moment later, and swung into the saddle of a blue dun gelding
. Bellimar approached, and all but one of the horses grew restive. They were no fonder of the old man than they were of Halthak, and it had in fact taken some searching to find a horse that would tolerate him. Bellimar had at last found an elderly sway-backed dun mare, and though Amric was skeptical of its endurance and speed, they had exhausted their available options. In any event, it would outpace their walking speed. Bellimar took the reins for his horse, which stood still, either placid or oblivious, and he mounted as well. Halthak was left with the reins for his chestnut mare, a steadfast creature that endured his fumbling attempts to climb into the saddle without a ripple to its serenity.

“Are you well, Bellimar?” Amric asked
. The old man’s cheeks held a slight flush and his eyes were fever bright.

“
As well as can be expected,” Bellimar responded with a tight-lipped smile. “It was stifling in that barn, and I am pondering the implications of what we have just seen. This is not the first reported presence of varkhuls in the region, but it is the closest known occurrence to the city, and in no small numbers. This gives credence to the accounts from the wall-watch of larger things approaching within bow shot of the city at night. Frequency, proximity and numbers; it all portends the city itself under siege within mere weeks.”

Amric nodded
. “That is how I read the situation as well. And of more immediate import to us, the danger is rumored to increase as one continues east. We have almost three days’ ride ahead of us in that direction, and if things have progressed this far, how much worse will they be a day or two hence?”

He squinted
to the east, looking into the rising sun as it spread a mantle of gold over the primordial forests that eventually engulfed the main road from the city. It would take a full day’s ride without incident to reach the edge of that forest, and their objective lay deep within it. He turned in the saddle to study Keldrin’s Landing to the west, lustrous in the morning light and unspoiled, from this distance. The four of them had ridden out in the pre-dawn darkness and past the abandoned cottages outside the city, all silent as the grave. They had crossed a broad bridge spanning a river inlet from the sea, and were on the road past this, the closest farm to the city, when they spotted a thin tendril of smoke from one of its buildings. Amric had decided to check on the residents, since public opinion in the city held that the countryside was entirely deserted. Upon arrival, the riders had been greeted by the bloodshed inside the barn.

“Having second thoughts, warrior?” Bellimar
asked.

Amric
swung back to his companions and shook his head. “Valkarr and I are resolute on the path ahead, but no one else need be. We have fought varkhuls before, and while they are deadly in numbers, they are far from the most dangerous things we may encounter. We will seek to remain beneath notice and to avoid what we can, but it will not always be possible. The varkhuls and other creatures out there can smell the very blood in our veins, and may well pursue us with such speed and determination that we have to stand and fight. Let us not mince words here; there may well be no more perilous path in all the lands than into the forest ahead.”

He paused and met each of their stares in turn, then raised his arm to point at
Keldrin’s Landing in the distance. “The city still lies within sight, and the ride back is still safe. Past this point, that will not be the case. You see now the least of what we face ahead, but Valkarr and I will not turn back until we are successful, even to escort. Now is the time to reconsider your involvement, and we will take no offense if you wish to return to the city and await us there.”

Halthak’s gnarled hands knotted about the pommel of his saddle, but he jerked his head to the side in terse negation and murmured, “You will have need of my skills, out there.”

“Let us hope not,” Amric said, smiling. “But your company is welcome.”

Bellimar cleared his throat
. “Have you considered that your friends may be dead?”

Valkarr bristled, an angry hiss escaping him.

“Incessantly,” Amric said. “But I presume you are courting a point?”

“The party you are following consisted of how many?” the old man pressed.

“Five.”

“Tales of Sil’ath battle prowess are legend,
and those tales enjoy a strong basis in truth,” Bellimar continued. “As skilled as your warriors undoubtedly are, however, they have journeyed into the teeth of what amounts to an advancing dark army. And now you choose to follow them down its gullet.”

“I sense that point nearby,” the swordsman said in a wry tone, “but I grow weary of the chase.”

Bellimar sighed. “A party of five Sil’ath warriors of consummate skill, and they have not returned. You are now two more such warriors. Even with the considerable talents of an old man and a half-breed healer, how can you hope to prevail where they did not?”

“
There is something you should understand,” Amric said. “The Sil’ath are feared not just for their skill in battle, but also because they cannot be deterred. They will sacrifice themselves to the last man to defend or avenge one of their own, and even rival families or entire tribes will put aside their hostilities to band together over this racial principle. Call it loyalty or call it pragmatism if you wish, but no one wrongs a Sil’ath lightly. I sent my warriors here to determine the source of the corruption that has spread so far as to assail our home to the south as well. Their task needs completing, even if they can no longer do it. Defense alone is a losing strategy, as the spread is increasing unabated. We must find the source.”

Amric paused
, and when he spoke again, his grey eyes were shards of ice and his words rang with an iron conviction. “I will know what became of my warriors. I will find them alive, or I will avenge their deaths. But with them or without them, I will find the source of this darkness. It must be found and understood, so that forces can be united against it. If it is not stopped, I fear this remote region will be but the first of many to fall. I do not ask you to follow me, but I will not turn aside.”

Valkarr grunted assent, his
lifted gaze a challenge. Bellimar regarded Amric for a long moment, and then broke into a sudden grin. “I came here to study this mystery as well, so what better way than at its root? And I still wish to unravel the riddle of your aura. After all,” he said, spreading his hands, “what have I to fear of death? Let us proceed.”

Amric looked
over them all, and found each unwavering. Bellimar seemed relaxed and even amused, while Halthak sat taller in his saddle and stared back with increased resolve. Valkarr fidgeted at the reins, impatient to be off. Amric gave a grave nod and swept his gaze over the house and barn one last time before guiding his bay gelding onto the road that joined the farm to the main thoroughfare that ran from the city to the eastern forest. They passed between expanses of fallow field, and Valkarr rode ahead while Halthak fell a dozen paces behind, struggling to provide direction to his mount. Bellimar, appearing well accustomed to riding, guided his sway-backed dun alongside Amric’s horse. The old man had raised the cowl of his cloak and kept his head tilted against the morning sun, still cresting the horizon to the east, so that his face was in shadow. Peering back at the healer, he spoke to Amric in a confidential tone.

“You mask it well, swordsman, but every time you turn to check on our hapless
Half-Ork rider back there, your eyes linger overlong on the city in the distance. What do you see there?”

Amric chuckled
. “Those old eyes miss very little. I thought I saw a lone rider departing the city long after we did, but it vanished from sight in a valley of the road and has not reappeared.”

“
How curious,” Bellimar mused. “Traveling alone out here would be folly.”

“My thoughts as well.”

“Surely not following us, since the price on your heads has been suspended.”

“
Hard to unfire a bow,” Amric muttered. “It could be that word did not have time to spread before we departed.”

“Perhaps it is merely someone retrieving possessions from the abandoned residences outside the city’s walls,” Bellimar
suggested.

“Perhaps,” Amric said
. “In any event, we have ground to cover, so there is little we can do except continue onward and wait on his intent.”

The
four travelers reached the wide eastern road and rode into the embrace of the new sun.

Night had long fallen when at last they found a suitable place to camp.

The rolling plains had risen in altitude as they traveled, and
finally gave way to a more stern landscape as they neared the forests. From the maps Amric knew that, to the north, great cliffs fell away to the Vellayen Sea. Their destination was more east and southward, however. Here the gradual rise of the plains met the spare and rocky foothills which climbed further into the mountain range cradling the desert to the south. It had been a long, hard day of travel, and Halthak was swaying with fatigue such that Amric feared he would soon tumble from the saddle. Camping in the open was a dangerous proposition, for they would be exposed and visible from a distance, and then a fire would be out of the question.

So they pressed on in the hopes of finding a more defensible location, and at last
Valkarr’s keen eyes picked out a cave set into a large hillock and high up the slope of the foothills. Its only visible approach was a narrow, winding trail. They scouted the cave and found evidence that it had once been a large animal’s burrow, but the faded scent and spoor indicated it was long unused. It had no other entrances, was deep enough to house them all and the horses as well, and the slope of the ceiling would permit the smoke to escape if they built a fire. All in all, Amric decided, a very fortuitous find.