Free The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept by Michael Arnquist Page A

overturning the merchant’s chair and landing astride him with hands locked about his throat as they slid to a halt on the marble floor. The jeweled goblet hit the floor with a wet clang and skittered away. Amric witnessed a fleeting gamut of emotions flicker through Morland’s bulging eyes: terror, pain, fury, appraisal, scheming. Then they were hooded once more. The man must have ice in his veins, a detached part of Amric marveled, to retain his sneer in the face of his own demise. The explosion of movement occurred with such blinding speed that the remaining guards were rooted in astonishment for a long moment before putting hands to sword hilts and charging forward.
    “Come no closer!” Amric commanded, his grip tightening on the merchant’s throat. “I can snap his neck before you take another step.”
    The guards stumbled to a halt, uncertain, and then fell back as the merchant gave a surreptitious signal with one pinned hand . Morland’s neck was very near its breaking point, and yet he managed a glare through the agonized wince.
    “You,” he said, his breath wheezing through his constricted windpipe, “are a very fast man.”
    “And your indifference to the fate of my friends offends me,” Amric said. He leaned his face closer to the merchant’s, until the tips of their noses almost touched. “All this wealth, all this power, and I can end it right here in an instant. I wonder, does Vorenius stand to inherit it all?”
    “Now you are being purposely cruel, swordsman . You have my attention, but you still need something from me. How shall we proceed?”
    “ Remove the price from our heads, and give us the sum of all information you supplied my friends, so that we may follow their trail. If they live, we will find them, and they will deliver the information they owe you, as per whatever agreement they struck with you.”
    “I will suspend the price on your heads,” Morland countered in a rattling gasp, “ and remove it once the information is delivered to me by your friends or by you. It will be reinstated if you return empty-handed.”
    They remained frozen for interminable seconds, Amric glowering down at the merchant while the latter scowled back in defiance. The guard that Amric struck in the throat thrashed onto his side on the floor, drew one short, whistling breath, and vomited with conviction.
    “Agreed,” the swordsman said finally . “But before I release you, bear in mind that my Sil’ath friend Valkarr is inside your manor at this very moment, having infiltrated unseen earlier this evening, and he is faster than I am. He will depart your estate grounds after we have done so, safely.”
    Morland’s black eyes glittered . “Understood.”
    Amric released him and sprang to his feet . The merchant sat up with a grimace and put ginger hands to his throat, drawing deep, ragged breaths. His angry gaze raked over his guardsmen waiting with their fists curled tight around their sword hilts, then to the weapons piled at the far end of the table, then to Bellimar and Halthak standing before their chairs, and at last back to Amric, poised on the balls of his feet.
    Finally he spoke in a rasp, “Get them the maps, and get them out of my sight.”
     

 
     
    The interior of the carriage was primarily silent on the ride back to the estate perimeter, as the three companions each sat lost in their own thoughts. Amric held tight to the leather satchel containing the merchant’s maps and papers, his mind already racing ahead over the necessary preparations for the coming journey.
    There was but one interlude of conversation.
    “Amric?” Halthak whispered.
    “Yes?”
    “Was it true, what you said about Valkarr?”
    “No, I am slightly faster.”
    “I meant about him being in the manor house, ready to act.”
    “Ah, yes, that part was true.”
     

 
     
    Morland sat in the high-backed chair, tapping the heavy ring on his finger against the base of his goblet. Each tap was accompanied by an