The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept (59 page)

“
Run!” he barked. “Now!”

They raced up the stairway as it eroded and crumbled,
by turns running and scrambling on all fours. When at last they reached the lip of the dome’s opening, Amric could not recall a time when he had been more grateful to stand beneath the open sky. A roar of frustration followed them as the Nar’ath queen continued her climb. Thalya, Syth and Halthak were waiting for them with the frightened horses.

“Where are the captives?” Amric asked.

“Marching back toward that outcropping of rock we camped on last night,” Thalya responded. “They are weak, and the desert may be no friendly place, but the men seemed to find it preferable to remaining near the hive.”

Amric nodded
. “Nice shot, by the way. You have my thanks.”

“You
are welcome,” she said. “And you owe me for that arrow.”

But s
he flashed a smirk as she said it, and he grinned back. Then her gaze strayed to Bellimar, taking in his bedraggled state, and her smile faded. Bellimar met her emerald eyes with an unblinking, unreadable expression. Amric tensed. The huntress had expended two of her powerful ensorcelled arrows, but she had a third remaining. It might look to her as if Bellimar was evincing a moment of vulnerability worth exploiting, but Amric had seen the vampire’s unnatural speed and strength firsthand below. In addition, the Nar’ath queen would reach the top of the dome in short order, and the battle would be resumed. They might need every weapon in their arsenal to stop her, if it was even possible to do so. A confrontation between the two of them here and now would prove disastrous for them all.

Before he could step between them, however, Thalya took a deliberate look up and down Bellimar, her cold expression promising a future reckoning, and then she turned her back on the old man
. She stepped into the saddle of her black mare.

Amric let out a slow breath and
swung atop his bay gelding. Sariel vaulted up to sit behind him. The others mounted their own horses, with Valkarr and Innikar riding together again, and the group began to pick their way around and down the dome as rapidly as its steep slope allowed. The horses seemed to be having an easier time on the descent than they had when climbing the structure, and Amric realized that the slope was less severe. The hive was slowly sinking, settling as it shook, almost deflating. The riders picked up speed, coaxing the horses to a sliding trot over the crumbling surface.

With a shriek like tearing metal, the Nar’ath queen burst from the hive
. Her baleful gaze fell upon the riders, and long black claws tore into the stone as she surged forward after them.

“I hope you have a plan to stop that thing, swordsman,” Syth
called as he cast worried looks over his shoulder. “That arrow only seems to have made it mad.”

Amric turned in the saddle to
find Valkarr.

“We cannot face her directly again,” the Sil’ath said
. “Our blades were little more than annoyances to her. We need to wear her down.”

“
Agreed,” Amric replied. “Ride on to the ground and lure her away from the hive. I think she draws power from this location, somehow. Spread out so that she can only chase one at a time, while the others dart in and out quickly. She’s too big for a single killing stroke. Try to bleed her with smaller wounds instead. Weaken her slowly, and then finish her.”

Valkarr’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded in response as he rode
. Behind him, Innikar gave Amric a questioning look.

“You talk as if you will not be there,” Sariel hissed into his ear
, giving voice to their puzzlement.

“I am hoping it will not come to that,” Amric said with a tight smile
. “But those are my orders––my suggestions––in case this does not work.” He handed her the reins.

“In case what does not––” she began.

Amric whipped a leg over the saddle and dropped from the horse.

Sariel shifted forward into the saddle and pulled back on the reins, slowing the big bay, but Amric waved them all on.

“Go!” he shouted. “I think I know how to stop her, but follow Valkarr’s lead if I am wrong.”

The riders exchanged glances, hesitating precious seconds more before spurring their horses onward down the outer surface of the hive
. Syth lingered last, clearly torn as mad admiration shone in his eyes. Finally, he threw a long look toward the retreating form of Thalya on her mare, and he turned his horse after the others. Amric smiled; he wondered if Thalya knew.

“You are going to need a bigger weapon!” Syth called back as he rode away, and then Amric was alone.

I know, Amric thought. I am hoping I have brought one.

He turned to face the charging Nar’ath queen.

The riders had made good time, aided in large part by the gradual sinking of the dome. Amric now stood significantly closer to the wasteland below than to the top of the hive. The queen had gained ground on them, certainly, but her own mass and the decaying surface was hampering her progress. The fringe of small appendages skirting her huge form dug into the stone beneath her, keeping her from sliding out of control. She released and grabbed anew in a rippling, insect-like crawl. It brought her toward Amric at an alarming pace, but he was grateful to find it was nowhere near the blinding speed she had exhibited below.

He would need the time, if this was even going to work
. If he was not insane after all.

Amric reached inside, searching for the presence he knew was there.

I need you now, he thought. You wanted to fight together. This is our chance.

For long, sickening seconds there was nothing
. Amric watched the Nar’ath queen, radiating power and rage, clawing her way toward him. Then the familiar presence filled his mind, drowning his senses. Feelings of fear and urgency hammered at him, wrapping his own emotions and amplifying them until he was all but crushed beneath their weight. He staggered and almost went to one knee as a wave of dizziness struck him.

No! he commanded
, gritting his teeth. If we fight for control, we will both die. This time we work together.

The pressure receded and the presence became hesitant, confused
. It seemed to Amric like a wild animal, uncertain whether to attack or flee. He needed it to do neither of those, and instead accept a third alternative. His alternative.

I have done my best to deny your
existence, he thought. Well, no longer.

The hive shook beneath his feet, and the Nar’ath queen came on.

You have hidden from me within my own mind, and sought to overwhelm me by acting on my behalf, he continued fiercely. No longer.

The Nar’ath queen drew near, glaring her hatred from a ruined face
. She crouched low with her torso, squatting with forelimbs outstretched like a massive spider, while the serpentine rear part of her form gathered and tensed for the final pounce.

This time we work together,
Amric repeated, lifting his arms.

Power roared within him, filling him like an ocean of white fire.

The Nar’ath queen’s glowing green eyes widened in sudden fear and outrage. “Adept!” she screamed. “Deceiver!”

With thunderous force that shook the dome anew, she catapulted into the air toward him
. Amric raised his hands, palms outward, and made a sharp pushing motion. The monstrosity struck an invisible force in midair and careened backward to slam into the stone. Fine cracks snaked in every direction from the point of impact. She twisted back into an upright position in an instant, but he was not done. Operating on pure instinct––his or the other’s, he was not certain which––he reached out with hands flared open to send tendrils of power threading through the disintegrating stone of the hive. The dome began to rumble even more violently than before. The Nar’ath queen scrabbled with her talons over the bucking surface, seeking enough purchase for another charge.

“We will destroy your kind, Adept!” she spat
. “My minions will––”

“Let us see if you can command your minions from hell, fiend!” Amric snarled back.

He clenched both hands into fists. A deafening roar shook the hive, and the top half of the massive dome fell away before him in an avalanche of stone. The Nar’ath queen vanished from sight, clawing and shrieking, sucked into a growing vortex of rock and sand. The hive continued to fracture and tumble in after her, and her screeching was lost in the thunder.

A meandering crack split the stone at Amric’s feet
. The vast hole that had been the top of the hive was growing rapidly; the ragged edge crumbled toward him like a voracious, widening maw that meant to consume him as well.

Amric turned and ran.

His body was bruised and battered, his every nerve tingling, and it felt as if he had been somehow singed from the inside. He pushed it all from his mind as best he could. Right now, to run was to live, and the fates be damned but he was going to
run
. He ran down the slope at a reckless pace, hurdling cracks as they yawned before him and skirting the sinkholes that opened like sores in the earth. The surface of the dome was decaying, softening from stone to sand, and seemed to catch at his boots as he pounded over it. His footing was far too treacherous to risk a look back, but his fevered imagination put the collapsing edge at his very heels.

He hurled himself past the last bit, leaping through the air to strike the sand of the wasteland
. He rolled several times and came to his knees, gasping for breath. He was just in time to see the last remnants of the hive vanish beneath a crashing wave of sand, sending a plume of dust high into the night sky. Where the imposing structure had been, there was nothing left but a broad, shallow crater in the desert.

Amric sagged back on his haunches,
shuddering with reaction. The strange presence flitted and circled within him, almost giddy, while he only felt a chilling numbness inside. He turned his hands over, staring down at them as if they were not his own. Wisps of smoke rose in slow curls from his fingers.

The whicker of horses caused him to lift his head
. The others drew rein a short distance away, their eyes wide as they stared at him. Valkarr rode at the head of the group. Amric searched his friend’s expression, seeking any clue as to what he was feeling at the moment: revulsion, fear, anything. But the Sil’ath’s face was frozen in shock, and revealed nothing.

Bellimar urged his horse forward
, edging past Valkarr’s blue dun. Incredulity and triumph warred within his ancient eyes.

“Swordsman,” he whispered
. “Your aura––”

“I know,” Amric mumbled, looking back at his hands
. “I know.”

In truth, he could feel the power still radiating from him like the heat from a bonfire
. He closed his eyes, trying to shut it all out. He had asked for this, had invited it to emerge, had all but demanded that it fully join with him. But it was too much, too fast, and it felt like it was consuming him from the inside. The strange presence within him faltered, sensing his rejection. Its elation faded, eclipsed by rising puzzlement and concern.

Amric heard several
of the riders slide from their mounts, heard the thumps as their boots hit the ground. Tentative steps approached him where he knelt. He felt them gathering around him, but no one touched him, and nothing else broke the silence except his ragged breathing.

Nothing, that is, until a sharp crackling began in the night air.

Amric’s head snapped up. He felt a jarring sense of panic come from the other within him, and that brimming presence fled, winking out of existence so quickly that Amric was left reeling at its sudden absence. He expected to feel an abiding sense of relief to be free of it, and instead he felt only… empty.

A fiery rift appeared in the air a
bove the crest of a nearby dune. It split wide like an opening wound, and through it stepped a man in black robes. The rent closed behind him with a sizzling hiss. The stranger was tall, with a dark beard, and he held himself like a man prepared for war. His gaze swung toward them, and a humorless smile spread across the hard edges of his features. Amric could feel the man’s power even over the distance, blazing like a beacon in the night. Somehow he knew, without the slightest hint of doubt, what type of creature they were now looking upon.

This, then, was a true Adept.

This was the creature that struck fear in the black heart of the Nar’ath queen, the monstrosity that had nearly killed them all.

And
it might well be his own kind.

Borric skimmed a
t the surface of consciousness from the underside. To his fevered imagination, it seemed he was being carried in the belly of some great shuddering beast as it raced over hill and valley, and he wanted to scream out in defiance at his fate. For brief moments he would propel himself upward to crest that surface and steal breath from the waking world. Each time he was rewarded by the cool night breeze whispering across his face and the barest glimpses of tall, rustling grasses waving at him as he passed over them. Then jaws of darkness would close over him once again, and he was back in the belly of the beast.