Adept (The Essence Gate War, Book 1) - By Michael Arnquist Page 0,187
back up for the trip home would be no easy task. That was a matter for another time, however. At the moment, he was tired and battered, and needed just a few moments of rest before…
He cleared away such drifting thoughts with an abrupt shudder, and quelled a moment of panic as he realized just how close he had come to losing consciousness there, buried in an earthen tomb. He forced himself into motion, clawing in the direction he had last seen the night sky, squeezing his eyes and mouth shut to deny the seeping sand that strove to invade. He had not had time to fill his lungs before being buried, and his chest burned with need. His outstretched hands broke the surface first, followed by his head, and he sucked in a sweet breath. The Sil’ath were emerging on either side as well, gasping and shaken.
Xenoth was still focused on Syth and paid them no more heed than so many insects, swatted away and then forgotten. A throaty bellow from Halthak, however, brought him around with one dark eyebrow raised. The Half-Ork ran forward with his gnarled staff held across his chest, as if he meant to push Xenoth back from the others through sheer force. The Adept’s hard features twisted into a sardonic smile.
“Another scrub talent,” he sneered. “More than a spark, but highly limited in utility. This pitiful world certainly does suffer its share of mongrels.”
He flicked a finger at Halthak, and a sharp snapping report wrenched a scream from the healer even as it spun him from his feet. “Let that occupy you for a time,” Xenoth said, as Halthak collapsed in a heap upon the sand. “And be grateful for my mercy. With your particular talents, I could make your end far longer and more arduous than you could ever imagine.”
Amric pulled himself from the sand and stood just as Xenoth was returning his attention to the struggling form of Syth.
“Xenoth!” he shouted. Inwardly, he was grateful that his voice rang out clear and strong, not at all like the croak he had suspected might emerge. “Let them go. I am the one you are after.”
The Adept spun toward him. He wore an irritated, disbelieving scowl, but then his eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion.
“Could it be?” he mused. “Yes, it just might, at that. I should have spotted you at once, even in that barbarous garb. Your aura is not just weak like these other brutes, but non-existent. You are too perfectly concealed, and that should have alerted me from the start. The right age, yes, and you even look a bit like…. Come here, boy!”
Xenoth thrust one hand toward him in a lunging strike, and a vice-like pressure closed around Amric with crushing, irresistible power. A pulsing arc of force sent the others, including the floating figure of Syth, flying away from the Adept to tumble like so many dry leaves across the ground.
Amric glared at the black-robed man as he glided toward him. Xenoth peered back, his heavy brow furrowed in concentration. The warrior tried to shift and flex, seeking some room to move within his invisible bonds, but there was none to be had; he might as well have been encased in cold, unforgiving stone. His swords, an inviting weight at his back, might as well have been back in Keldrin’s Landing for all the chance he had to reach them now.
As he drew closer, Amric studied his assailant. The cold light from the globe overhead cast a portion of the man’s countenance into craggy shadow, and further deepened the hard planes of his face. Amric was surprised to note the creases of age and weariness woven into those bluff features, and the streaks of iron grey that shot through his dark beard. The man’s eyes, however, remained intense and pitiless; his was the hooded stare of a practiced hunter studying his quarry without a trace of emotion. Almost no trace, Amric corrected himself. There was a smoldering anger to the man, a bitter tightness to his features that he kept behind an outward mask. And, as he stared at Amric, a slight widening of his eyes that betrayed something akin to genuine surprise as well.