SIGNED – Savior (Darkblade #4)

The Hunter could not outrun the storm.

Lightning flashed all around him, so bright it pained his eyes. The very air seemed to sizzle and come alive with the force of the tempest. The storm clouds billowed high above him like an enormous beast of darkness and fury, filling the sky with an endless cacophony of bellowing thunder. It had earned the name the locals whispered in fear: the Shattering Tempest.

The Hunter's eyes fixed on the solitary "island" of stone in the middle of the Whispering Waste. It stood at least half a league away; the black clouds loomed closer with every thundering heartbeat. But he had to reach the shelter of stone before the lightning struck them.
Not for his sake, but for the sake of the small figure riding behind him.

Hailen rode with his head buried in the Hunter's back. The sound of his whimpering was faint, drowned out by the pounding of the horses' hooves.

The Hunter cast a glance over his shoulder. The massive wall of clouds reached dark, smoky fingers toward him, as if seeking to drown him in their boiling, windswept embrace. The Whispering Waste belied its name; the thunder rolling across the vast expanse of emptiness could shatter mountains. Bolts of lightning struck the ground all around, sending shards of the salt-covered earth spraying like a hail of darts. A piercing, shrieking wind set his cloak flapping and tugged at him, as if seeking to drag him from the saddle.

Yet no rain poured from the clouds. The boiling, seething frenzy of the storm seemed hell-bent on punishing any travelers who dared to brave the torturous crossing.

The Hunter bent lower in the saddle and urged Elivast to greater speed. The horse stumbled for a moment before taking off into a full gallop. Elivast was tiring, but the Hunter couldn't slow. If those blazing spears of lightning and hurricane winds caught them in the open, they wouldn't survive. The horses could rest in the shelter of the stones.

The sharp, pungent tang of lightning hung on the air, and the Hunter's heart lurched as a massive crack shattered the ground twenty paces to his right. The echoing thunderclap nearly deafened him. His head rang and the brightness stung his eyes.

The small island of stone drew nearer one heart-rending pace at a time. Elivast's flashing hooves ate up the ground at a gallop, but the Hunter recognized the signs that the horse was on the edge of collapse. Ash, Hailen's stocky desert horse, pounded alongside them, on the verge of panicking. The Hunter couldn't change horses now; he needed Elivast to carry the extra weight of Hailen's little body.

Come on! He gritted his teeth. Just a little farther.

An ear-splitting BOOM echoed from behind him a heartbeat after blinding light split the roiling sky. Shards of salt showered across the Hunter's back with stinging force. The Shattering Tempest had caught them.

The air crackled and sizzled as lightning speared into the ground all around him. A deafening symphony of thunder roared past him, swallowing him in its ear-splitting fury. Howling winds whipped shards of salt through the air with enough force to shred skin.

Elivast screamed, and terror drove him faster. The Hunter could do little more than cling to the saddle and hope Hailen held on as the horse raced to the outcropping of stone in the middle of the sea of white.

Lightning split the air in front of them, barely ten paces away. The concussive blast washed over the Hunter, nearly hurling him from the saddle. His head spun with such force it drowned out the voice shrieking in his mind. Elivast staggered, shocked by the lightning.

"Elivast!" The Hunter's shout sounded so faint through the ringing in his ears. "We're almost there!" He dug his heels into the horse's ribs. Slowly, Elivast tottered forward, stumbling into a full gallop to cross the last forty paces to the small island of stone.

The Hunter, blinking away tears and fighting to see, turned Elivast's head toward the only place that would offer them any shelter from the storm. Four obsidian stones stood in the heart of the island of land that rose from the endless sea of white salt-covered ground of the Whispering Waste. Ten paces tall and three wide, the midnight monoliths leaned inward, providing a pitiful windbreak.

Elivast shied from the stones, but the Hunter pushed him onward. The stench of rot and decay twisted the Hunter's stomach. These were Dolmenrath, the creations of the Serenii, whispered to have been used to summon demons during the War of Gods thousands of years earlier. The stones emanated an almost tangible pall of malevolence.

But he had no choice. These stones offered the only shelter from the lightning, the buffeting winds, and the stinging spray of salt.

He leaped from the saddle, whirled to scoop Hailen up, and dashed the last five paces to the circle of standing stones. Stepping into the circle felt like stepping into mire—no earthly mud, but a thick, suffocating miasma of evil.

The Hunter fought the dread writhing within him and ducked into the shadow of an obelisk. The massive stone blocked the worst of the wind, and the Hunter drew his long, dark cloak across his face to protect himself and Hailen.

The monoliths hummed around him as lightning struck at them with sizzling fingers. An eerie wailing pierced the ring of obsidian stones, stabbing into his ears and setting his head ringing. Hailen’s presence pushed back the voices in his mind, but he could not escape the wailing of the wind. It seemed voices whirled all around him, screeching, shrieking, begging, pleading. He could make out no words but could not escape the chaos.

The Hunter gritted his teeth against the pain. Closing his eyes, he forced himself to take slow, deep breaths.

"Hardwell?" Hailen's whimper, so close to his ear, pierced the raging maelstrom.

"We're alive, Hailen." The Hunter gripped the boy tighter—as much for his own comfort as for Hailen's. "We're alive," he repeated.

"I-I'm scared." Hailen snuffled in his arms. "I don't like the wind. The voices…they're…telling me…"

"Don't listen to them. Just listen to me. The voices aren't real. They're just a trick of the wind."

He spoke the words to comfort Hailen, but he knew the truth. He had heard voices for years—the voice of Soulhunger, the dagger he'd inherited from his demonic father; the voice of the demon living in his mind; the voices of the dead in Voramis. The more he tried to ignore them, the louder and more insistent they grew.

Hailen had inherited his own curse: the Irrsinnon, the madness that gripped all Elivasti. The purple-eyed descendants of the Serenii were fated to insanity unless they took the opia, a fruit that grew in two places on Einan. They had left Shana Laal behind in the wake of the chaos stirred up by the enmity between the Warmaster and Sage; now, they had to reach Enarium, the Lost City of the Serenii, to find the cure for the boy before the madness completely overtook him.

The Hunter pulled the cloak tighter about them. The wind whipped at the cloth, trying to rip it from his grasp. Though his forearms and hands ached, he fought to retain his grip. They had to weather the storm.

Hailen whimpered in his arms, terrified.

"Hailen, did you ever hear the story of Agarre the Giantslayer?"

The boy's sobbing fell silent. After a moment, he replied, "No. Will you tell it to me?"

The Hunter smiled. "Of course. Once upon a time, there was a young girl who lived in a small village. Agarre was her name…"

For what seemed an eternity they sat, boy and man huddling together in the man’s cloak, a pathetic shelter from the storm. The Hunter spoke in a soft, soothing voice, telling the boy the story of Agarre, the heroine that killed the giants in the Empty Mountains. He did it to calm Hailen but found it calmed him as well. So long as he remained fixed on the boy in his arms, he did not think about the storm raging around him.

Gradually, Hailen relaxed, and soon his chest rose and fell in the rhythm of sleep. The Hunter marveled; how could anyone sleep at a time like this? Yet, with his arms wrapped firmly around the boy, he felt an odd sense of peace. Chaos and destruction whirled all about, but, like the island of stone amidst the endless expanse of the Whispering Waste, he had a refuge from his tempestuous life with this little boy.