Adept (The Essence Gate War, Book 1) - By Michael Arnquist Page 0,125

perils of the forest, or were entombed in the fortress, but somehow it does not ring true. No, I believe they survived Stronghold, just as we did.”

“We survived by seeing the very heart of the place, along with its rabid inhabitants, crushed in a strange surge of power unlike any I have seen,” Bellimar reminded him. “I am not so certain one can draw parallels to our own experience.”

Amric shook his head. “I can offer no better explanation, and I have no proof one way or the other. All I have is my intuition, and I intend to follow it. I cannot ask anyone else to do the same.”

He fell silent, glancing around the table at expressions that were by turns skeptical and pensive. He noted that Bellimar was studying each of them as well, his dark eyes making a slow circuit of the table beneath iron grey brows. A half smile brushed at the vampire’s lips, and broadened slightly when Halthak cleared his throat to speak.

“Tell us of your suspicion, Amric,” the Half-Ork said. “Where are you going, two days hence?”

“I believe,” Amric said, “that there is more than one force in operation here, possibly working at different purposes. We have seen creatures brought from the depths and barrows of the land, driven mad by the raging essence swelling in the region. Most are like rabid beasts, mindless in their fury, slaying indiscriminately and assaulting mortal life wherever they find it. This is what we faced in Lyden, the distant ripples of the same spreading wave that is engulfing Keldrin’s Landing. Here and in the forest, we are much closer to the source. This wave emanates from the east somewhere, from something so powerful that the Essence Fount at Stronghold was but a symptom, as Grelthus admitted. Whether it lies in the forest or beyond it, we have not found that source, that center, yet. We only know that the magical essence is being drawn that way, becoming more potent the further east we go, and that the corruption of the land and its creatures worsens as well. And while most of those creatures hunger for flesh or life force, there is one type that seems to have a different purpose: the man-like, cloth-wrapped black creatures.”

“They capture rather than kill,” Valkarr murmured.

Amric nodded. “We have faced most of these creatures back home as the attacks worsened,” he said. “These are something we have not seen, something new. And they have fled in the same direction each time, with their prey.”

Thalya and Halthak each shifted in their seats, exchanging an uneasy glance. For both, it was all too easy to recall being borne helplessly along in the clutches of the implacable creatures, before these very warriors had saved them from an unknown fate.

“Yes, you are correct,” Bellimar hissed, sitting forward as he grew more animated. “They are not corrupted spirits or elementals, not dwellers in the dark or enraged beasts. They bear the remnants of clothing or wrappings, as if they have been made by the hand of another, rather than formed of or mutated by magic. Yes! I should have seen it before now.”

“Our friends were wounded,” Amric continued. “Regardless of whether they believed the Essence Fount to be the source of the corruption or understood the source to be further east, they would have been forced to retreat for a time to recuperate. On the way, they may have encountered the same strange man-like creatures and chosen to investigate, or some of them could have been captured in their weakened state and the rest set out to recover them. We have not found any of their bodies or equipment, which implies some or all of them were not taken, since the black creatures have shown no interest in anything but living captives.”

“Your analysis of these peculiar creatures is perceptive, swordsman,” Bellimar said with a slow shake of his head. “The thread of logic concerning your friends, however, is tenuous at best.”

Amric sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “A suspicion, as I said. And it is all I have, so I will pursue it. I intend to trace these black creatures back to their source.”

Syth stared, disbelief and admiration warring in his expression as his brown hair swirled about his shoulders in subdued eddies. “Swordsman, have you ever passed a hornet’s nest without wanting to wear it as a hat?”

Amric barked a laugh. “Well, there you have it,” he said. “We leave after two nights, if