Shadow Hunters (31 page)

“Zamara doesn’t need me anymore, so I’m going to the front,” Rosemary said, almost casualy, reaching for her rifle and running with a lithe, even gait toward the makeshift bunker wals. Jake watched her go, wanting to cal her back, yet knowing that she was too valuable not to utilize. He wished he could do something. It wasn’t his world, but it had become his battle.

Ulrezaj came on. Implacable and inevitable he was, and Jake despaired to see it.

Even if the templar could coordinate in time, how could anything short of a nuclear blast stop this thing? It was huge, and awesomely, devastatingly powerful. Adun had caled upon the powers of both Aiur and dark templar to weave a protective shield about those he had sworn to keep safe as they fled into the xel’naga ship. Jake knew a very little bit about the dark templar, but not what had happened to them after that pivotal moment in history. Where had they gone? What had they learned? How had they come to Shakuras? Zamara hadn’t told him that story yet. He was sad to think that he would never live to know it. Never live to know so many stories of these people he had come to respect and love. Never know what it was like to kiss Rosemary Dahl. He—

It was like a song.

For a few seconds, he couldn’t fathom what was happening. And then he understood.

They were doing it.

Those Who Endure and the Forged were now joining minds, one group grounded in the Khala, which had served them so wel when they were in desperate need of order, the other disconnected from that ancient place in the mind and heart, but linked secondarily to it. Dumbly, Jake stood, mouth slightly open, and let it wash over and around and through him. The screams of dying zerg and wild creatures of this world, the boom of exploding vessels, the sound of weapons fire—it al receded before this
song
of unification. He didn’t hear it with his ears, but he felt it, felt it down to his cels, felt it pulse through him with every contraction of his heart.

And then the song took a wild turn.

Energy rose up like a blue mist from the huddled figures, and Jake’s breath caught.

Their bodies arched, from ecstasy or pain or both commingled. The mist swirled like a little galaxy before his eyes, coalescing and crackling and growing stronger.

Then Ulrezaj paused.

Hope shot through Jake with an almost painful intensity. And then he felt the powerful focus of the monster’s intense regard. The blue swirling galaxy, the nascent psionic storm, shivered and al but dissipated in the face of the dark archon’s directed wil.

Jake cried out—what, he did not know; but it was a plea, a prayer.

And then the cloud split, and split again, and again, until each psychicaly joined pair of protoss had their own smal, comparatively weak energy field. As Jake continued to watch, every heartbeat a wild plea, some of the clouds were extinguished as if a careless hand were pinching out a candle flame.

Those protoss fel, crumpling silently.

But others did not fal. They redoubled their efforts, and their energy fields increased.

Swirling, spiraling, growing, pulsing. Again Jake felt the monster’s angry attack, and more protoss died in silence.

Suddenly Jake realized what had happened. The protoss who had passed had not done so in vain. They hadn’t been snuffed out, erased, as he had thought. They had freely given their life energies to the others in this moment, in this union that the protoss had never before attempted.

My life for Aiur.

Ulrezaj realized it as wel, and Jake staggered from the force of the creature’s anger.

But this time, the remaining joined pairs did not waver. The smal galaxies that enveloped them suddenly surged, and grew stronger. A wind came out of nowhere.

Jake shivered and his hair stood on end, crackling with static electricity and something other, something more than simple physics could explain. He thought of Adun, standing to protect the dark templar, of the energy that flowed in and around and through him.

And suddenly the song reached a crescendo.

A huge crash deafened Jake for a moment as he was blown off his feet. He hit the earth hard. His body felt almost burned and he couldn’t breathe for a moment. Power surged and snapped above him, and for a moment he thought the protoss had lost control. These storms were beasts they sought to tame and the creatures had turned against their masters, struggling and straining to break free, and for a second—the briefest, longest second in Jake’s life—they succeeded. Then the protoss regained control, corraling the power of the mental storms and sending them to attack.

Ulrezaj halted as the blue nimbus of the storm began to feed on his dark energy. As it grew, he shifted back, and began to fight it in deadly earnest.

Now!
cried Zamara, as the gate behind them came to life. Those protoss who were not actively engaged in the fight were galvanized into action. They turned and raced through the gate, running with that lithe, graceful speed that Jake remembered from his time as Temlaa. Half of the protoss ships that were attacking Ulrezaj curved smoothly in mid-flight, disappearing through the gate as wel. The other half remained, the attack not slacking, engaging the enemy from al sides as to split his attention from the wildest, deadliest weapon the protoss could manage—the one created from joined minds and spirits. Jake realized they weren’t planning to retreat at al. He was looking at flying, golden coffins.

The storm grew in force almost faster than the pro-toss could flee to safety, and Jake wondered if they had cut it too close; had inadvertently created their own deaths.

Some of the protoss worried about that too.

We are protoss. We cannot be divided any longer. Stand strong and focus!

Jake felt Ladranix and Alzadar respond then, their unique mental voices blazing in his mind. The storm sweled, roiled, heavy with lethal energy, and then—

They finaly released it.

Dozens of zerg screamed in agony as they seemed to explode from the inside. The storm cut the very air with its power, the sonic boom rattling Jake’s bones. The breath seemed to be sucked out of his lungs for a moment as he watched, unable to tear his gaze away.

The storm surrounded the dark archon—Ulrezaj, the “Benefactor”—in a cocoon of destruction. Jake felt a visceral stab of deep satisfaction as he saw the thing lurch to a sudden halt and falter, taken aback by the intensity of the assault.

“Sir, they’re escaping through the gate.” Starke’s voice revealed his strain.

“Stop them!”

“It’s al we can do to stop this dark archon from kiling them. The protoss are doing something—I’m not sure what, but it’s giving the thing pause.”

Valerian stared at the various screens that were flashing jumpy, static-flawed information. It was obviously madness down there. He couldn’t tel what was going on even as he saw it unfold.

Suddenly al the screens went dark. Whittier gasped and let out a sound perilously close to a squeal of horror.

“Starke, what just happened?”

Silence.

“Starke? Devon!
What’s going on?”

Ethan went flying. The whirlwind had slammed into him and the beast he was riding like a blow from a giant’s fist. Pain shuddered through him and he fel, tumbling down, bound by gravity despite the fact that he was the consort of the Queen of Blades, had been made glorious and nearly perfect. He felt his flesh shivering, puckering, and it was only the several-deep piles of zerg corpses that broke his fal. As it was, he was bruised and battered, despite his vastly increased strength and resilience.

Feet and hands and scythe-blades sinking into carnage, Ethan struggled to rise. He cried out in rage.

The gate had been opened, and the protoss were fleeing in a mass exodus. Ramsey was stil there, for now.

Enough of relying upon beasts. He would leave such machinations and manipulations for his queen, whose skils were best suited to it. He rose, scythe-arms flashing, hungering as if they had a wil of their own, and moved purposefuly forward. He would slay Rosemary Dahl and bring Kerrigan Jacob Ramsey himself.

We must go, Jacob.

Zamara reached out to Rosemary as wel. Jake saw the assassin’s head whip up before she fired one last time, clearly reluctant to leave without seeing the enemy destroyed. Jake shared her feelings. He hesitated, watching the battle continue to rage, watching the legacy of Adun unfolding before his very eyes. Ulrezaj had been brought to a ful halt now, his attention entirely focused on defending himself from the onslaught of unified, fiercely directed protoss mental energy.

The image of the drained protoss husks and the briefly-glimpsed creatures in the tanks flashed in his mind. The knowledge of what the Sundrop had done to Rosemary, to Alzadar and al the others—

Fall over, you glowing dark bastard. I want to see you topple.

Jacob!

Zamara’s thoughts cracked like a whip in his mind, and Jake started violently. She was two heartbeats away from physicaly commandeering his body and forcing him to flee. Rosemary raced toward the gate at a flat-out run, pausing only to turn and yel over her shoulder, “Jake, come on!”

Then she, like the protoss, was gone.

Stil, Jake could not bring himself to move. His friends were dying out there.

Dying to save me and the knowledge I bear. Dying to save you. Do not let their
sacrifice be in vain!

“Ladranix—”

No words met Jake’s mind when it brushed Ladranix’s. Nothing so confined or limiting as that—just a feeling, of respect, and affection, and pride.

Then Ladranix was gone.

“No!”

Alzadar’s grief and fury sang in Jake’s mind as the remaining protoss fueled the storm with everything they had. Zamara’s thoughts grew harsh and Jake gasped as pain shot through him and his body was usurped by the preserver. His legs began to move, bearing him closer to the blue mist that whirled within the oval confines of the warp gate.

He fought her as he had not done for a long time now, not since the beginning, and if for only an instant, he was stronger, Jake turned his head just in time to see Ulrezaj’s whirling motion turn erratic, the fierce blackness fluctuate. Had they gotten him?

He guessed he’d never know. Al he knew was that the bitter gamble had paid off, and that the cost was dear indeed.

But Zamara was right—he couldn’t let their sacrifice be in vain.

His head aching, his eyes filing with tears, and his heart sweling with pride at the courage of the people who had made him so welcomed, Jacob Jefferson Ramsey raced toward the warp gate and jumped through.

The Dark Templar Saga wil continue in

AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR CHRISTIE GOLDEN HAS written thirty novels and several short stories in the fields of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

Golden launched the TSR
Ravenloft
line in 1991 with her first novel, the highly successful
Vampire of the Mists,
which introduced elven vampire Jander Sunstar.

Vampire of the Mists
was reprinted in trade paperback as
The Ravenloft
Covenant: Vampire of the Mists
in September 2006, fifteen years to the month after its initial publication.

She is the author of several original fantasy novels, including
On Fire’s Wings
and
In
Stone’s Clasp,
the first two in her multi-book fantasy series from LUNA Books.
In
Stone’s Clasp
won the Colorado Author’s League Award for Best Genre Novel of 2005, the second of Golden’s novels to win the award.

Among other projects are over a dozen
Star Trek
novels, including
The Murdered
Sun, Marooned,
and
Seven of Nine.
She’s authored the
Dark Matters
trilogy, and continued the adventures of the crew of
Voyager
in
Homecoming, The Farther
Shore, Spirit Walk: Old Wounds,
and
Enemy of My Enemy.

An avid player of Blizzard Entertainment’s
World of Warcraft
MMORPG, Golden has written two novels for their game,
Lord of the Clans
and
Rise of the Horde.

And no, she won’t tel you her characters’ names.

Golden has had the remarkable opportunity of writing much of this current trilogy in a place that to her feels alien indeed—Flinders Island, Tasmania. In her more sedate life, she lives in Colorado.