Amric spun toward the crater just as the monstrosity below cast its baleful gaze upward. Alien green eyes fixed upon his silhouette standing stark against the roiling sky, and narrowed in malevolent regard.
He tensed, bracing himself for the rush of enraged minions that would come storming up the twisting stairs. The martial strategist in him insisted they should flee; he had too few warriors to hold so many exit ramps against the number of hulking creatures he had seen below. But the wolf in him had its fangs bared now, and had no intent of leaving those captives behind to their fates.
To his great surprise, however, the giant fiend in the chamber below did not order an assault. Instead, it turned to its minions and made curt motions with its long, jointed arms. The creatures withdrew in obedient silence, backing into the tunnels that honeycombed the perimeter of the cavern. The one which had been bearing forth a new captive simply peeled back its writhing tentacles and dumped the man unceremoniously to the ground before shambling from the room. The man lay where he fell, groaning but otherwise motionless.
The towering monster turned its gaze skyward once more. It spoke in a voice that was alien and yet decidedly female, a lilting and buzzing harmonic that grated at his ears.
“I had not thought to find your kind again on this world,” she said. “Not yet, at least.”
Amric exchanged a puzzled look with Valkarr. He did not know what response to make, so he made none. The creature tilted her savage head at him and writhed in her enclosure.
“Come ahead then, Adept,” she called with a note of impatience. “We have much to discuss.”
Adept? Amric did not recognize the appellation. He glanced back at Bellimar, but the old man was unmoving and expressionless, standing tall and straight with his cloak wrapped about him. The vampire’s eyes burned at him from beneath iron grey brows. The warrior looked to the others. He read anger and determination in the Sil’ath warriors; Sariel in particular appeared ready to leap from the edge at a moment’s suggestion. Halthak looked pale and uncertain, but his white-knuckled hands were steady upon his ironwood staff. Thalya had an arrow nocked to her bow and her veil drawn across her face, revealing nothing but her emerald eyes. Syth’s expression flickered between resolve when he looked at the hive entrance ahead and a protective concern when he glanced to Thalya at his side.
Amric returned his gaze to the pit below, studying the foul creature shifting in place as she glared up at him. He looked again at the prisoners, bent and huddled on the stone floor in that hellish cavern. He could not see any Sil’ath among them, but the distance and the poor light made it impossible to be certain. Regardless of race, they were mortal men, his kind. Soon to become her kind.
He spun on his heel and strode over to the group. He relayed in brief everything that he and Valkarr had seen in the void below. He described the towering creature and the numbers it commanded, and he watched their expressions tighten as he told of the captives and the horrifying transformation one had undergone before their eyes.
“So,” Sariel muttered. “It may not have been a trap before, but it is almost certainly one now.”
“Without a doubt,” Amric replied. His storm-grey eyes were cold and hard, holding an iron promise as they shifted back to the gaping maw in the crater that led into shadow below. “And I am going in anyway.”
A wolfish smile spread across Sariel’s face.
CHAPTER 19
The black-robed man sat, cross-legged on a high parapet, with eyes closed and mind far away. Wan sunlight spilled across his upturned face, giving his dark beard a tinge of gold, but he did not feel its meager warmth. At his back, the colossal fortress hummed with the power that coursed beneath it like a winter river swelling against its ceiling of ice, but he took no note of this either. If not for the shallow rise and fall of his chest and the occasional furrowing of his brow, he could have been one with the stone.
The clouds crawled above him as time passed, and the sun fell slowly in the sky as if it sought a better look at his still features.
At last his eyes fluttered open as he returned to himself, and his face settled once more into hard lines. He drew a deep breath and spat a sulfurous string of oaths. Slamming a palm to the stone, he pushed himself to his feet. He looked out over the walled courtyards surrounding the fortress, and past there to the spreading mantle of forest. He stood rigid, fists clenched, and then his shoulders slumped.
Almost three days he had spent in this wretched place that reeked of musk and death, and the trail was cold. The marks of his quarry’s power were in ample evidence at the core of the fortress, but the lack of guile and restraint employed there was in sharp contrast to the thoroughness of the vanishing afterward. It was a maddening mystery; the cunning and skill required to evade one with his considerable tracking skills bespoke an astonishing discipline, a long practice at the art of concealment that did not match the hasty, brutish splash of power used inside.
Worse, no matter how far he extended his senses, he could detect no further signs of his quarry exercising that power, to any degree. What Adept could go so long without embracing so much as a hint of his potential on this pathetic world? He could be a veritable god among the primitives here.
He sighed and looked down, digging through a pouch at his belt. He brought forth a small, dense loaf of travel bread and a sheaf of dried meat, eyed them both for a moment, and then returned them to the pouch and tucked it beneath his robes. He had hoped to be done with this mission by now, and his supplies were running low. Much longer, and he would have to seek food among the indigenous races here. He frowned in distaste. The fortress still held considerable stores of clean water, for which he was grateful, but what food he had found was either spoiled or revolting in nature. The stench of the lifeless place had grown to such an extent that he dreaded venturing within to scavenge for stores.
For the hundredth time that day, he considered simply striking out to the west in the hopes of following a more mundane trail. He was skilled in such methods, but he would be forced to exercise his power repeatedly to fend off the creatures being driven mad by the draw of magic. Such outbursts could mask the subtle and remote magical signs of his true prey. Worse, they would eventually alert his quarry to his own presence.
He shook his head in frustration. For a mad, impulsive moment he considered returning to Queln and activating the Essence Gate in full. He had the knowledge, as an agent of the Council in a remote and hostile land. No amount of clever hiding would save his quarry from the consequences. Let him go to ground on a sundered world, he thought with savage satisfaction. It beckoned invitingly as the solution to his quandary, but at the same time he knew he would be a fool to do it. It would rather undermine his efforts at redemption, he decided with a regretful sigh, if in the process he committed such an unsanctioned act. In fact, tampering with the Gate without the Council’s express orders would make their fury at his previous blunder seem like nothing more than a frown of disapproval; his life would almost certainly be forfeit.
No, as much as he was galled by the delay, patience was still the key. And until his quarry gave himself away by using his power, he was just another grain of sand lost in a desert.
A sudden itch tickled at the fringe of his awareness. He stiffened and immediately squeezed his eyes shut as he reached out with his senses to seek its source. He found only echoes of a single tantalizing pulse of power, fading before he could ascertain more than a general direction: west, as he had surmised, and a bit south as well. Somewhere in the wasteland, then. He looked at the heavy clouds thickening the sky in that direction, and he fought down the wild urge to rip open a Way and leap closer to the one he sought. The pulse had not lasted long enough for him to get a location with any accuracy, however, and so if another signal followed it would likely force him to open yet another Way in rapid succession. If the awaited confrontation was near at last, it would be rash to tire himself without need.