Adept (The Essence Gate War, Book 1) - By Michael Arnquist Page 0,158

out there. Many things, actually.”

“It’s probably just some merchant’s caravan,” Horek said with a dismissive wave. “Fool merchants have more greed than sense, to be traveling overland at this hour. Bloody vultures, anyway! I can’t decide if I more want to strangle them or admire them, as prices continue to rise and they all grow fat off the profits of us trapped here––”

“It was not a caravan,” Sivrin interrupted. “It was in the grasses, away from the road. Besides, the trade caravans all come by the western coastal road these days. No one tries the wasteland any more. There is something skulking about out there, like a host of shadows––There! I saw it again!”

Horek rolled his eyes and pushed to his feet, shifting his sword belt as the scabbard rattled against his chair. “What’s this, then, lad? Some kind of joke at my expense, because I have an answer for each of your foolish theories?”

“Just get over here and look for yourself,” Sivrin urged.

The grizzled guard heaved a sigh and crossed the room. He stood shoulder to shoulder with the younger man, craning his neck to stare out the window. The grey of evening had settled over the countryside, made thick and oppressive by the low-hanging storm clouds. The tall grasses rippled and swirled beneath fitful breezes, and the sea of motion served to baffle his vision as he squinted into the twilight gloom. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, though he had to admit that his sight was not what it had once been, for he found a blurring in the distant detail that owed as much to his eyes as to the gathering shroud without.

“There, did you see it?” Sivrin exclaimed.

“I saw nothing,” Horek replied with a frown.

“Keep watching, it will happen again.”

He stared, his eyes beginning to water as he strove to keep them open for fear of missing anything. He kept expecting the youthful guard to elbow him and burst into laughter at his expense, but Sivrin’s attention was focused outside with an unwavering intensity. If this was a joke, the lad was carrying it much too far. He was about to tell him so, in fact, when he saw it.

His gaze caught on a small ripple of the grasses within a larger one, like a riptide moving counter to the crashing waves surrounding it. At first he thought it nothing more than some strange whim of the wind, but then he saw that it was accompanied by a score of shadowy, man-like figures rising from the grass to dart toward the city and then disappear again into the thrashing sward. His breath caught in his throat.

“What are they?” he breathed.

“I do not know,” Sivrin said, vindication and resolve tight in his voice. “But we need to tell the Captain at once.”

“Tell the Cap’n what?” came a raspy drawl.

Both guards whirled, their hands flying to the hilts of their swords. Two men stood casually framed in the doorway. Horek relaxed when he saw that the attire of the newcomers matched that of himself and Sivrin, the armor and tabard of the city guard, but he frowned when he realized he did not recognize either of them. New mercenaries still arrived at Keldrin’s Landing from time to time, and he made a concerted effort to know all the experienced ones by sight. These men looked more hard-edged than most, and yet he was certain he had never met them before.

“Who are you lads?” he asked, his gaze narrowing as he regarded them.

“Funny you should mention the Cap’n,” the fellow in front drawled in a voice that was almost hoarse. The man had an angry scar running from forehead to jawline, just missing his left eye. He stepped into the room, glancing about with a bored expression. “Cap’n wants to see you both. We’re here to relieve you.”

Horek hesitated. “It is not yet time for change of shift. Do you bear anything in Captain Borric’s hand? Or can the men below vouch for you?”

The scar-faced man shrugged. “They were relieved as well. Cap’n said it’s urgent.”

“Why would he send you?” Horek demanded. “You cannot have been with the guard long, or I would know you both. Something is amiss here.”

“We should go, Horek,” Sivrin urged. “Maybe the Captain knows about whatever is out there, and wants to know what we have seen.”

The newcomers exchanged a glance, and the second fellow moved into the room. He was a heavyset man with arms as thick as a blacksmith’s, and