Before Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, the other two hunters were engulfed in roiling, black waves of sorcery before they had taken two strides. The magic lacerated their bodies, splashed rotting, acidic stains that devoured their hides. The beasts drove through without pause, to be met by the two mages — both wearing ankle-length coats of black chain, both wielding hand-and-a-half swords that trailed streamers of smoke.
' 'Ware behind us!' Harllo suddenly screamed.
Gruntle spun.
To see a sixth hunter darting through screaming, bolting horses, charging directly for Keruli. Unlike the other K'Chain Che'Malle, this creature's hide was covered in intricate markings, and bore a dorsal ridge of steel spikes running down its spine.
Gruntle threw a shoulder against Keruli, sending the man sprawling. Ducking low, he threw up both cutlasses in time to catch a horizontal slash from one of the hunter's massive blades. The Gadrobi steel rang deafeningly, the impact bolting like shocks up the captain's arms. Gruntle heard more than felt his left wrist snap, the broken ends of the bones grinding and twisting impossibly before suddenly senseless hands released the cutlasses — wheeling, spinning away. The hunter's second blade should have cut him in half. Instead, it clashed against Harllo's two-handed sword. Both weapons shattered. Harllo lurched away, his chest and face spraying blood from a savage hail of iron shards.
A taloned, three-toed foot struck Gruntle on an upward track. Grunting, the captain was thrown into the air. Pain exploded in his skull as he collided with the hunter's jaw, snapping the creature's head up with a bone-breaking, crunching sound.
Stunned, the breath driven from his lungs, Gruntle fell to the ground in a heap. An enormous weight pinned him, talons puncturing armour to pierce flesh. The three toes clenched around his chest, snapping bones, and he felt himself dragged forward. The scales of his armour clicked and clattered, dropping away as he was pulled along through dust and gravel. Twisted buckles and clasps dug into the earth. Blind, limbs flopping, Gruntle felt the talons digging ever deeper. He coughed and his mouth filled with frothy blood. The world darkened.
He felt the talons shudder, as if resonating from some massive blow. Another followed, then another. The claws spasmed. Then he was lifted into the air again, sent flying. Striking the ground, rolling, crashing up against the shattered spokes of a carriage wheel.
He felt himself dying, knew himself dying. He forced his eyes open, desperate for one last look upon the world — something, anything to drive away this overwhelming sense of confused sadness. Could it not have been sudden? Instant? Why this lingering, bemused draining away? Gods, even the pain is gone — why not awareness itself? Why torture me with the knowing of what I am about to surrender?
Someone was shrieking, the sound one of dying, and Gruntle understood it at once. Oh yes, scream your defiance, your terror and your rage — scream at that web even as it closes about you. Waves of sound out into the mortal world, one last time- The shrieks fell away, and now there was silence, save for the stuttering heart in Gruntle's chest.
He knew his eyes were open, yet he could see nothing. Either Korbal Broach's spell of light had failed, or the captain had found his own darkness.
Stumbling, that heart. Slowing, fading like a pale horse riding away down a road. Farther, fainter, fainter.
BOOK TWO