body. He pulled his blade wide, then jabbed it forward and upward, catching a third hunter in the throat and killing him instantly.
First blow—last blow.
Aron’s thoughts rattled against his skull as he yanked his sword free of the dead man.
The fourth hunter growled and thrust his blade toward Aron.
Aron stumbled over one of the bodies on the blood-slicked floor and howled as the broadsword’s tip tore into his left side. Agony sizzled along his hips and back, clawing his senses. Hot liquid belched from the wound, streaming down his leg. He steadied his short sword in one hand and gripped his wound with the other, staunching the flow as best he could. The room lurched and spun, and Aron’s awareness flickered as the hunter lifted his broadsword for a killing blow.
Time seemed to contract as Aron focused on every nuance of the man’s stance and action. The broadsword swung toward him. Aron met the man’s arm with his blade even as he pivoted away from the larger weapon.
His short sword struck bone, and the impact ripped the weapon from his grasp.
The hunter howled as he dropped his own blade, his arm collapsing useless to his side. His blood spurted out to mingle with Aron’s on the stone floor, and they both drew daggers, stepping over the dead as they moved.
“Who sent you?” Aron shouted, trying to ignore the spots flashing in his vision. His hand shook as he pointed his dagger at his foe. “Lord Altar? Lord Brailing? Canus the Bandit—who?”
The hunter only snarled at him, as feral as any desert predator.
The man’s green eyes blazed as he used the full measure of his mind-talents to weigh and measure Aron, but Aron deflected this effort with his own graal.
The hunter flinched backward and shook his head, obviously surprised by the force of Aron’s mental push-back.
Aron lunged forward and shoved his dagger into the man’s chest and pulled it free for another strike.
The hunter brought his dagger up just as fast, cutting Aron’s shoulder.
They both lost their weapons and fell back, slipping on the wet, gory floor.
Aron hit the ground on his backside, but managed to keep his grip on the wound in his side. Pain flared along his ribs, sharp enough to force bile up his throat, but he got to his feet quickly. With numb, stiff fingers, he freed his last dagger from his belt.
The Altar hunter flailed and tried to rise, but he slid in the blood and slammed into the stone floor again, his head sounding like a melon as it struck. Aron staggered to him and dropped to his knees, straddling the man’s chest and forcing the tip of his dagger under the man’s chin until more blood flowed across his fingers.
“Who sent you?” Aron yelled again, this time, putting the force of his graal behind the demand.
The hunter’s unfocused eyes blinked, and his lips moved, but he didn’t make a sound.
Aron shoved aside the man’s failing mental defenses and reached into his mind for the information he needed. The man’s thoughts and fears and emotions seemed like no more than nattering birds in the distance as Aron grabbed for the right images, the right sounds and smells.
What he found were images of the Brother, and of Cayn, bright and vibrant and horrifying. Gods. False gods, and—
And—
Aron rejected the image he saw, certain that the hunter had managed to form a lie for him to perceive.
The hunter grabbed for Aron, then bucked as Aron released his hold on the man’s mind and drove his dagger through flesh and bone, all the way to the stones beneath. The hunter gurgled and twitched once, then lay still as Aron rolled off him and lay panting on the sticky floor. He heard his own pulse, felt his blood pumping through his fingers even as he tried to get his awareness back through the Veil to do what he could to save himself.
Outside the Ruined Keep, moans filled the mists.
The manes were coming.
So much blood.
There would be an army of them.
And Aron couldn’t get up. He couldn’t get himself to the upper floors, or even back to the top of the crates and barrels.
Silver dagger.
Where was it?
Still in his right hand…
He coughed, and knew he was coughing blood.
The sick-sweet smell of death and injury overwhelmed him as he managed to get through the Veil. The energy drained by the transition nearly sent him into darkness, but he held on enough to shut out the wails of the advancing dead, take