Adept (The Essence Gate War, Book 1) - By Michael Arnquist Page 0,130

thrown by the torches caught on a lighter hue against the thing’s hide: strips of tattered cloth, caught amid those protrusions and draping across its back. Morland caught the flinch his body tried to make, and gave an inward sneer at the almost-weakness.

“There is one more matter,” that unnatural voice grated in a basso drone. “The queen requests a demonstration of commitment, now, tonight.”

“I expected as much,” the merchant replied with a humorless smile. He turned to Vorenius, who swallowed hard and tore his round-eyed gaze from the creature. “Cousin, it is time for you and your men to prove your worth. Give our new ally what he requires.”

Morland turned on his heel, Nyar and Nylien fell in behind him as he strode toward the carriage. The thin, stammering voice of Vorenius floated after him.

“W-What does it want? What am I to give it?”

The merchant paused at the carriage door, lifting the richly embroider hem of his robes in preparation to step up into it. He glanced at the handful of men clustered around the vehicle. Their eyes were forward and resolute, and their features might as well have been carved from solid stone for all the emotion they betrayed. He then turned his gaze back toward Vorenius and his dozen or so hand-picked men, standing on the road with torches clutched in white-knuckled fists.

“Do not worry, cousin,” he called. “This is one job you cannot fail.”

Even as he said the words, a chorus of rustling sounds arose all around them. Scores of man-like figures rose from the tall grasses on either side of the road, black as jet and swathed in ragged cloth. They scuttled forward like converging waves of chitinous black scarabs, encircling the cluster of men in the road with silent and implacable efficiency.

“Morland!” cried Vorenius, ripping his sword from its sheath at his side. “It is an ambush, we are betrayed!”

The merchant did not reply, but instead took an unhurried step onto the rail of the carriage, still staring at the mercenary. Vorenius cast a bewildered look around as his men turned their blades outward at the foe. His frantic gaze shifted from the approaching Nar’ath to Morland, and then to the small cluster of men about the carriage who were making no move to draw their own blades. Comprehension dawned, and shock and disbelief gave way quickly to rage.

“You black-hearted devil spawn!” he screamed, his voice cracking. “You would sell out your own kind, your own blood, in some unholy pact with fiends such as this?”

A steady string of epithets followed as Morland looked on, his face a frozen mask. The Nar’ath gathered around the trapped men, and like a swarm with a single mind, they pounced as one.

Blades rose and hacked as wiry limbs struck and enfolded the men. Vorenius ran one of the creatures through the chest, but though his sword jutted from its back, the thing was not slowed. It lunged toward him, pinning the mercenary’s arm between them, and wrapped steel-strong limbs about him. Morland’s last view of the man as he disappeared under the seething mass showed him screaming in fury toward the carriage, his teeth gleaming in the torchlight amid his dark beard. Then a black hand covered his mouth and most of his face, and drew him to the ground, and he was lost to sight.

The battle lasted only moments, for the Nar’ath greatly outnumbered the unprepared men. One by one, the torches tumbled to the hard-packed road and were snuffed out below the press of bodies. Cries of pain and anger echoed through the chill night air, but swiftly dwindled in number until only the sound of scuffling remained. The horses, which had been shrieking and jerking against their bindings throughout, were at last brought under control by the remaining guards around the carriage.

On the road, the Nar’ath wasted no time in hoisting their unconscious prey to black shoulders and threading away like a chain of otherworldly insects, moving at a dead run.

The Nar’ath lieutenant, as Morland had come to think of the larger ones that could speak, faded back into the blackness and was gone. Aside from the brutish lieutenant, the Nar’ath had made no sound whatsoever during the encounter. Morland suppressed a shudder as he watched them disappear into the darkness. In mere moments, the only signs of what had transpired were the unlit torches strewn about like charred bones. The merchant considered the agreement he had made and felt an odd twinge, but he