Gathering Of The God-Touched (Book 4) (5 page)

“You are weak,” she said.

“I’m just waking up.”

“You know what I mean. Your life force wanes.”

“Then the plan is working,” he joked.

“Stop it,” Sunathri replied. “You need something. Everyone can see it. You can’t make it all the way up the mountainside like this.”

Garrick nodded, surprised to have to fight hunger again. Suni was right. He would feed soon regardless of his efforts. He shrugged. “Maybe so. All I can say for sure is that Braxidane’s curse does not much appreciate its cage.”

“Take me,” she said.

“What?” He grimaced.

“Use my life force to defeat the orders.”

He felt the horror of her idea etch its way up his face. “I’m not going to kill you, Sunathri.”

“It will be worth it. If you don’t feed soon, our entire quest is doomed. You need this, Garrick. Why not take one who fully chooses to go?”

Her grip grew firmer on his knee, and he felt each of her fingers. Did he love her? How could he know? What was love? All he could say for sure was that she was beautiful, that he did not want her to leave, and that suddenly his words would not flow.

“I can’t,” he said.

She moved even closer. He felt her nearness as a painful, glorious pressure.

“No!” He pushed her so hard she fell off his cot.

She hesitated, then stood and walked to the opening of his tent. “Then we are lost,” she said.

She left the flap free to flutter in the morning breeze.

Chapter 10

God’s Tower rose like a sentry above them, a massive peak of white, brown, and green that seemed to be chiseled into the sky. As planned, they arrived days prior to the confrontation.

The guard set about immediately to prepare the land, digging trenches and setting pike traps. They built platforms for their archers, and bunkers for their foot soldiers.

Darien commanded nearly five thousand of them, and Sunathri claimed over a hundred wizards. But these numbers would pale against the numbers the orders would bring. Their scouts had spotted spies from the Koradictine and Lectodinian camps throughout their march, so Darien and Sunathri assumed the orders were aware of their numbers—in fact, their deception relied upon it.

Suni split her sorcerers into three groups.

Under cover of darkness, two smaller teams of twenty-five mages looped around the mountain to position themselves in locations where they could hide away, the goal being that each would slip behind the orders’ armies and attack to create disarray. To support this maneuver, Darien asked for warriors to volunteer to be outfitted in black—one for each of the mages that left the main force. It was a dangerous duty because the Torean mages would be the orders’ obvious first targets, but volunteers were found.

Garrick had little to do but appear confident for the benefit of the army, and dwell upon his upcoming battle. He was tired, so drained he could barely move, so exhausted from fighting his hunger he was beginning to lose track of events. He still had no plan for his confrontation beyond forcing the two orders to work together. So Garrick spent his days hiding away and fighting anxiety that built with each passing moment.

He was ready to have this over with.

The sky was overcast, the clouds darkening as the evening faded toward nighttime. Garrick, Darien, and Sunathri sat before a warm fire that cast orange fingers across the clearing.

It would all begin tomorrow.

Garrick sat stoically, bracing himself against the need to rip energy from everything that moved, and listening to the echoes of Braxidane’s amused laughter clutter his mind. He was so close, he thought—so close to losing everything. No one else knew the depths of this pain. How could they? He was more alone than anyone could know. He was a solitary island of corruption in a sea of humanity.

“It’s time to put our plans into action,” Darien said.

Sunathri nodded. She looked tired, her gaze oddly indifferent, mesmerized by the flame of their fire. It had been a long and stressful trip. Preparations had taken much from her.

“Our mages should be in place behind the orders’ lines by morning,” she finally said.

Garrick smiled with the corner of one lip. He and Sunathri had not been alone since she offered herself to him. She had been distant and aloof since then. The flavor of her rejection was sharp and bitter.

“I’ve assigned roles and we’ve run our practices,” Darien added. “Tomorrow we’ll have fifty warriors cloaked in Torean black. They know what is expected of them.”

“Everything sounds good,” Garrick replied.

An awkward silence ensued. The fire crackled.

Sunathri chewed a piece of dried meat.

Darien’s gaze flitted to Sunathri and back again, the unspoken communication between them clear.

“I am concerned for you, Garrick,” Darien finally said.

“Why is that?”

“You need to be agile and quick-witted to face the orders’ god-touched mages. But I’ve seen you like this before. You are too weak. I think it bodes poorly.”

“I’ll be fine,” Garrick said.

“Perhaps. But, as a commander of this army, it worries me that one of my weapons is unreliable.”

“Is that what I am to you, Darien? A weapon?”

Darien glared at him.

“Be reasonable, Garrick. You do realize that everything depends on you being at your best tomorrow, right?”

“I said I’ll be fine.”

The curtness of his response created more silence during which the intensity of Darien’s gaze was like an anvil pressing down on him.

“What do you want me to say, Darien? That the hunger is intense now. Is that it? That it eats at my soul. Is that what you want to hear? Because if so, then let me tell you all of that is true. Let me say that it burns and aches, let me tell you that if I let this hunger free this very moment, I could reach out and destroy you all.”

The fire crackled.

“Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Darien sighed and rubbed his eyes. The past weeks had been hard on him, too.

“I’m sorry Garrick. I truly am. If anyone understands your plight, it’s me. But you asked for this. And I command an army of people who have put their lives at stake for you. What I want to hear—what they want to hear—is that you are capable of doing your part. And to be abundantly clear, I don’t see how you will make it up the hill tomorrow when you can barely manage to roll out of bed as it is.”

“I’ll manage.”

“How?”

Garrick felt Sunathri’s stare, but ignored her.

“There is no other choice.”

Darien nodded. Sunathri said nothing. The fire still crackled, and Garrick felt the eyes of the world falling on his shoulders like a hard, pelting rain. He took a deep breath to clear his ache, and he rolled his neck around on his shoulders.

“All right,” Darien said, standing up. “I trust you. I’m going to see to my army, then retire for the night. Sentries are set. Preparations will start in earnest before the sun rises.”

“Good night, Darien,” Sunathri said.

Darien glanced at her as he left. If Garrick hadn’t been paying attention, he might have missed her returning his expression with a nod that was so subtle he wondered if he imagined it. But he felt it in his hunger, too. It was a nod that carried a sense of finality.

t took all of his conscious thought to maintain his composure.

Were his friends conspiring against him?

A breeze blew strands of Sunathri’s black hair into her face. She reached up and brushed them away, then used a stick to prod the fire. The sound of the camp echoed dimly in the distance.

“The mages are speaking among themselves,” she said.

“What are they saying?”

“They say we are lovers, and that you have spurned me. They say that is why I am so angry.”

“I’m sorry,” Garrick said.

“I’m the one who should be sorry. It was wrong to put you in that position. When we communed to contact the orders, our link was strong and clear, and I knew then what you felt for me. But still I asked you to take my life. That was unkind of me.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t take it,” he said.

“It’s all right.”

She moved close and turned his head toward her with one hand. Slowly, she leaned forward.

He felt her lips against his, gentle, and unencumbered by anything but the moment. His hunger surged forward, and he found himself clenching a fist in his struggle to keep it down. They broke the contact, and Garrick looked at her. Firelight reflected off her features. She had always been attractive, but tonight she was truly the most beautiful person he had ever seen.

“You’ve seen what happens to those who love me.”

“You’re learning control. I have faith in you.”

“I wish I was as certain.”

She smiled and stood. “I should go. We both need our rest.”

He nodded. “Good night.”

“Good night,” she replied, and disappeared into the night.

He sat silently, thinking about her words.

Was she right? Was he gaining control?

Perhaps it didn’t matter. Control or none, he was still a man who needed to kill in order to live. Perhaps the only question that mattered was how long he would be able to postpone the inevitable.

Control or not, Garrick would never be a normal man again.

Chapter 11

Sunathri held his hand until they reached the chamber where he expected to find the other god-touched mages. The room was empty. He let his dark powers search out the mages, but found nothing.

His hunger raged, and Garrick turned to her.

Suni’s eyes widened and she backed away.

“I thought you loved me,” she whimpered as Garrick drew near.

“I do.”

He grasped her arms and kissed her savagely, breathing her in, her scent sweet, her lips delicate, their contact savory as he absorbed her energy through every pore of his body until Sunathri fell lifeless to the floor.

He gasped and stared at her lying against the hard stone.

What had he done?

The crunch of a footstep came from behind.

Garrick whirled.

Two mages strode forward, fire blazing in their hands.

Garrick woke with a start. He was in his tent. It was still the middle of the night, dark, and quiet. The pure blackness of his hunger swirled within him, feeding off his dream like a buzzard on carrion.

A light footstep came from outside, twin to the one that first brought him awake. The fabric of his tent rustled. Someone working the ties.

A shadow lined the tent wall. A sharp burst of adrenaline spiked his veins and his hunger became rough against the back of his throat. He rose unsteadily from the cot and peered into the darkness.

Could Sunathri be returning?

Darien?

The figure finished untying the flaps.

A soft whisper came through the night, then the faint, but unmistakable odor of blood-laced Koradictine magic.

Garrick’s throat tightened.

The assassin entered his tent, and Garrick reached for his link to the plane of magic. The flow of magestuff was tepid, and he had no inner force left to bring it with any greater speed. He whispered a word of sorcery and concentrated as hard as he possibly could.

The Koradictine’s arm rose and Garrick saw the dull flash of a dagger.

He grunted, and cast a simple spell of power that caught the mage across the shoulder just as he stabbed. The blade scored Garrick’s ribs with acidic pain, but did not make a serious wound.

Garrick’s hunger struck like a snake.

The Koradictine gave a stifled scream as Garrick devoured his life force in one glorious breath. The mage’s eyes reflected purple magelight as he faded. More footsteps fell heavy outside, running away.

Garrick rose from his cot, already feeling the strength of new life force. His blood pounded as he stepped to the tent’s opening.

It was another Koradictine running away through the brush.

The Dorfort guard was rousing, but Garrick didn’t wait for them. He chased the mage into the woods, contorting his hand and marshaling his new life force to blast energy into the brush. The mage crashed through the thicket, racing for his life and casting magic wildly behind him.