Page 293 of Of Empires and Dust
Arden twisted as a black spear thrust at his abdomen. He released his Soulblade and grasped the Urak’s head with both hands and rammed his helmet into its skull. As the creature staggered, Arden slammed his boot into the side of its knee, blood spraying as bone splintered. He ripped the spear from its arms, spun it, then drove it into the howling Urak’s neck, blood spurting around the shaft.
He left the weapon in its place. He pivoted and summoned his Soulblade in the same motion as he cleaved another beast in half, innards slopping onto the stone, blood glistening in the green light.
Arden heaved in laboured breaths, his blood on fire. Lyrin had died because of his choices. He had died because Arden had separated from the others. He would not allow that to happen again.
The sound of crunching rock caused Arden to spin. He released his Soulblade and caught a falling sword with his open palm, the steel clanging against his Sentinel armour.
The Urak before him roared, blood-red eyes wide, spittle flying. Arden grabbed its throat with his free hand and roared back. He jerked his right hand, twisting the beast’s wrist so that it lost its grip on the sword. Drawing all his strength, he drove his right fist into the Urak’s gut, the power of his Sentinel armour snapping bones, and still he roared. The beast clawed at him, howling.
“Is that all?” he screamed. In his mind, memories flitted from Ilnaen to the ambush in Ölm Forest to the battle of The Glade. These creatures had been at the heart of his darkest days. They had taken his closest friends, one after another.
He would not wallow in what he had lost, but neither would he forget them. He would use their memories as fuel. He would tear these beasts apart, and he would paint his vengeance in blood.
Arden placed a closed fist against the Urak’s skull and summoned his Soulblade. The creature went limp in a burst of green light.
He turned just as a monstrous weight slammed into his chest and sent him hurtling across the ground. His head rang from the impact, and it was by pure instinct that he threw himself to the side as a clawed foot crashed down where he had lain.
Arden dragged himself to one knee, a Bloodmarked staring down at him, the runes in its flesh billowing black smoke.
A green Soulblade burst through its chest from the back while a second cleaved its arm at the elbow. When the beast fell, Brother Kevan and Sister-Captain Ruon stood in its place.
Ruon offered Arden an arm and hauled him to his feet. “Not the time for it. Focus.”
She needed no more words. They had spoken at length in the Tranquil Garden. She knew his burdens, knew his loss.
“Yes, Sister-Captain.”
“I need you to lead, Brother Arden. There are many new souls within our ranks this night. You are now a veteran of our number.”
“Yes, Sister-Captain,” Arden said again.
“Forward!” Kallinvar’s voice echoed like thunder, and Arden turned to see the man charging through three Bloodmarked, a score of knights around him.
The other knights moved about through the enormous cavern, their Soulblades blending with the light of the hundreds of gemstones set in iron sconces fixed to rock. The entire knighthood bore down on the Urak hold – a decision Kallinvar had made after Ilnaen.
So many brother and sister knights had fallen since the Blood Moon had risen. He’d lost count. As one fell, their Sigil was granted to another, and so on, and so on. Brother Galvar and Brother Turilin of The Third fell to a Shaman the same night they had lost Lyrin in Ilnaen. And Brother-Captain Darmerian of The Fifth as well. They were stronger together, fighting as one.
Many of the knights Arden fought beside now were faces he had not known a month before, or a week, or even a day. And it was clear in the way they moved in their Sentinel armour, in the way they wielded their Soulblades. Arden had been given two years before he’d been sent on task from the temple. Many of these men and women had been given little more than a day. They had been warriors in their past lives and so were well acquainted with death, but to be a Knight of Achyron was something different entirely. They no longer faced other men and woman but demons of Efialtír himself.
“Come, brothers,” Ruon said. “Let us pray to Achyron this is the night we find it.”
Kallinvar had said the convergence of the Taint in this Urak hold was the largest he had sensed since the Blood Moon had risen. They had spent hours carving their way through, trying to push towards the source. Six knights had fallen already, and many were injured.
As they drove further into the hold, the oily poison of the Taint grew thicker in the air, shifting in pulsing waves. It probed at Arden’s mind, scratching over his skin and setting his hairs on end.
They came to a fork, the tunnel diverging. The core of the Taint lay ahead.
“Olyria, Ruon, Armites, Gandrid,” Kallinvar called out, pointing his Soulblade towards the tunnel mouth on the left. “Take your chapters to the left. Reach through the Sigil if you find anything.”
Ildris and Sylven pulled in beside Arden as the knighthood split, Sister Intara and Brother Endan alongside them. It was a strange thing to feel the pull of Daynin’s and Mirken’s Sigils but to know other souls held from Heraya’s embrace were beneath the helmets.
Uraks flooded from side tunnels, howling and roaring, wielding their blackened steel, gemstones glowing red in the weapons’ hilts. Arden carved through them with a fury, his Soulblade slicing flesh and bone alike. The further they pushed down the tunnel, the harder the Uraks fought and the greater their numbers. But Arden never stopped moving forwards, the others falling in behind him, Ruon, Ildris, and Varlin.
The tunnel opened into a small chamber with many levels rising upwards through the rock, connected by staircases of rough-hewn stone. Iron sconces and braziers stuffed with gemstones bathed the cold rock in crimson light, causing Arden to feel as though he had walked into the void itself.
Arden had never before seen the inside of an Urak hold. He had never even thought of where the beasts slept, where they ate or lived. In his mind, they had been akin to wild animals, sleeping in caves and surviving only for the sake of it. But this place had been carved over centuries, constructed with thought and care. This was their home. Rough-hewn benches of stone and iron were scattered about, along with chairs, baskets of half-rotted fruit, and buckets of salted meat. On the second level, deer carcasses hung from iron hooks alongside those of pigs and sheep – likely stolen from the farms nearby.
But any illusion that these beasts were anything other than monsters was shattered when he looked a little higher and saw the flayed bodies of men, women, and children hanging from more hooks.
