Adept (The Essence Gate War, Book 1) - By Michael Arnquist Page 0,99

am with you, and for you, until the city and beyond.”

Amric regarded him over the fire. “Good enough, for tonight,” he said. “I will take the first watch.”

With that, he turned and disappeared into the night. Bellimar watched him go with an unreadable expression, and Syth in turn watched the old man. For once the thief seemed without comment.

The fire crackled and danced merrily, oblivious to the troubles of men.

Syth sat cross-legged in the darkness, twisting a long blade of grass between his fingers. He savored the feel of it sliding against his bare skin. His eyes darted from time to time to the black outline of his gauntlets lying on the ground beside him, but he resisted the urge to don them.

The scent-laden breeze skirted him, and he cast his gaze upward. The sky had not yet begun to lighten, but it could not be more than an hour or two away, or so he thought. There was a time he would have known such a simple thing with precision, with unshakable certainty, but the internal clock he had always taken for granted seemed to have deserted him during his long months trapped deep within a prison of stone. It was as if nature held him apart as a stranger now, no longer recognizing one of its own, and a twinge of sadness pierced him at the rejection.

A horse whickered somewhere behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder. The fire had burned low in its pit, a dull red ember sunken amid the copse of trees. Its glow warmed the outlines of the men sleeping there, and he considered the companions thrust upon him by circumstance. Shaking his head, he faced forward once more.

He wondered why he had not already slipped away into the night. He was better on his own, had always been better alone. He had insisted on taking the last watch in part to give himself the opportunity to depart unseen. He smiled, remembering the open suspicion on Amric’s face when he pleaded to do his part and relieve the man. He suspected that the warrior, if he slept at all, slumbered now with one eye open and affixed to Syth’s back.

That alone would not have kept him here, however, and his smile faded as he pondered his own inaction. If he ever owed these men anything, he had repaid it in Stronghold. He had always felt little enough need for the respect or affection of others. Why, then, did he not leave, he who had always chafed in the company of others? There was validity, he thought, in the reasoning that the forest had become too dangerous to travel alone, even for one with his talents, but he was disturbed to find it a partial truth at best. Perhaps being so long in the grasp of his inhuman captor had awakened a deeply buried hunger for companionship. He shuddered. He hoped it was a condition that would pass; in his experience, nothing good ever came of depending on others.

A rustle of grass brought him about, wind coiling beneath him by reflex and lifting him to his feet in a burst. His hands clenched into fists within the black gauntlets, though he did not recall snatching them up when he stood. Syth relaxed. It was the Half-Ork, wending his way between the gaunt trees, leaning on his staff with movements cautious and stiff. He watched the healer’s slow approach.

“I did not mean to startle you,” Halthak said in a hushed tone as he halted a few paces away.

“I am on watch,” Syth responded with a grin. “It is my duty to jump at every sound. Did I not impress you with my vigilance? Or did you expect to find me dozing?”

The healer smiled back, his creased face splitting to display the tusks at the each corner of his wide mouth. Even in the faint light afforded by the glimmering stars overhead, Syth could see the fellow’s tired, drawn expression.

“You should be resting, conserving your strength,” Syth said.

“I will, soon enough,” Halthak replied. “I needed a moment to say something to you.”

“Oh?”

Halthak nodded and hesitated, as if uncertain how to proceed. “I wanted to thank you for your part in rescuing me, and for risking your life for us all, in the end. Amric told me you had a choice. You could have fled with your freedom, but you chose to stay. He said without your knowledge of Stronghold’s layout, the cause might well have been