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  “There are too many of them!” Lock’s voice was a hoarse shout of despair. “They’re everywhere.”

  With a feeling of desperation, Xairn realized he was right. Even if the entire lot of silent, deadly soldiers dropped dead that moment, their bodies would still block the way to his father. Why is he doing this? he thought, looking through the seething mass of bodies to the open doors of the throne room. He wants me here—he lured me back himself. This must be some kind of a test.

  “How right you are my ssson,” the voice of the AllFather hissed in his head. “The question is, can you passs it? Can you find your way to the foot of my throne before your darling mother isss no more?”

  Xairn cursed aloud in his harsh native tongue. His father’s mocking laughter echoed in his head in reply. Clearly the AllFather was enjoying himself immensely. Suddenly Xairn’s eyes grew hot and he felt something swell within him—some power beyond the physical realm. He opened his mouth, uncertain of what might come out.

  “Listen to me, soldiers of the Scourge,” he shouted and his words rang with the power that was building up inside him. “Cease fighting and listen.”

  As one, the vat grown soldiers stopped fighting and stood motionless, their empty, soulless eyes fixed on Xairn.

  “This is not your fight,” he told them, still speaking with the resonance of power. “You are little more than animated corpses—bodies grown from ancient DNA harvested long ago. You are kept alive and breathing by the cruel will of the AllFather, forced to fight in order to serve his whims.”

  The ranks of the vat grown swayed toward him and Xairn could feel their silent agreement. They might not have much intelligence but they knew enough to know they led a miserable existence. They never knew kindness or comfort or love—only the endless grind of a daily existence devoid of anything but pain and monotony.

  “Go,” he told them, his voice ringing through the metal corridor. “Go from here and do not return.”

  “Nicely done, my ssson,” The AllFather laughed in his head. “And most humane—letting them live instead of killing them. It must be the human DNA in you, making you so weak. You could easily have had them turn on each other, you know.”

  “I know that but I choose not to. And I’m not done yet,” he sent back grimly. Looking at the silent hordes which were already beginning to disperse, he raised his voice once more. “Go to the flesh tanks, the vats where you were grown,” he told them. “Rip them apart! Make certain that no more like you can ever be made again!”

  He heard the hiss of anger in his head but the vat grown soldiers were already on the move and Xairn didn’t think that even the AllFather would be able to stop them all before the damage was done.

  Baird let out a breath as the soldiers shuffled away, leaving their dead and dying behind without a backward glance. “Very impressive, Xairn, but how do we know they won’t come back again?”

  “They won’t.” Xairn nodded in the direction of the throne room. “There might be more guarding my father, though. If so, leave them to me.”

  Deep shook his head as they began to advance again, stepping over the fallen bodies. “How in the seven hells did you do that, anyway?”

  “I don’t know.” Xairn shook his head. “It is a power that has been growing inside me. Being with Lauren seems to have…unleashed it somehow.”

  Sylvan smiled. “Then she must be an amazing female, Brother.”

  “She is,” Xairn said seriously. “As soon as I’m done here, I’m going back to her.”

  “As we all will return victorious to our females,” Baird grinned. “Come, brothers, the true fight awaits.”

  They charged forward into the throne room but as they passed the threshold of the immense double doors, they were immediately enveloped in a cloud of dread. Xairn had lived with it so long that it barely affected him but he could see the unease on the faces of his companions. The feeling of horror and panic was part of the AllFather’s personal aura—he carried it with him everywhere but it was strongest here, near his seat of power.

  “Steady,” he heard Baird tell the others. “You’re not going crazy—this is just the way it feels in here. Ignore it.”

  “You ignore my warningsss at your own peril, warrior.” The AllFather’s hissing voice filled the vast, echoing room.

  Xairn looked up the vast set of broad black steps leading to the green etched throne and saw his father standing at the top. The AllFather was flanked on both sides by his personal guard—eight foot tall monstrosities of the flesh tanks which stayed with him at all times. Xairn tried to look around them, to see if the cage containing his mother was sitting at the foot of the throne, as it had been in his dream. But there was no seeing anything past their bulk.

  “Where is she?” he said, looking up at the skeletal figure in the billowing black cloak. “What have you done to her?”

  “Nothing that ssshe did not richly dessserve for giving me sssuch a weak and cowardly ssson.” The AllFather’s eyes blazed crimson and Xairn felt his own eyes growing hot in return.

  “If you hurt her—”

  “Come and see for yourself.” The AllFather looked at his head guard. “Alpha, you and the othersss engage the Kindred in combat. Allow only my ssson to passs.”

  The huge guard seemed to be thinking hard. “But Master…that will leave you unprotected.”

  “I need no protection from my ssson,” the AllFather snapped. “The human DNA he carriesss makes him weak. He hasss neither the sssavagery nor the ssstrength to overcome me. Now go!”

  Nodding obediently, the Alpha guard and the other three vat grown soldiers that made up the AllFather’s personal bodyguard, came lumbering down the steps.

  “Get ready, brothers,” Baird said in a low voice. “They’re coming for us.”

  Concentrating, Xairn called the power to him again. “Stop!” he commanded the Alpha guard but the huge soldier kept coming. From the top of the steps, the AllFather laughed.

  “Nice try my ssson, but these are no ordinary guardsss. I had each of them grown ssspecially, as you know and I am ssshielding their mindsss with my own. You cannot use your fledgling powersss on them any more than you can ussse them on me.”

  “I wasn’t going to use my powers on you.” Xairn held up the cryo-knife, showing the deadly pale blue blade. “I’d rather use this.”

  For a moment the crimson eyes of the AllFather widened, then he threw back his skull-like head and laughed. “Do you really expect me to believe you’d try to kill me? I’m your father, Xairn.”

  “Yes, you’re my father.” As he spoke, Xairn began to climb the stairs. “Also my torturer, my jailer, and my most constant oppressor. You made my life a misery from the day of my birth.”

  “And yet you ssstill come running back the moment I call,” the AllFather taunted.

  “I came back for her—for my mother.” Xairn could hear the sounds of battle as the AllFather’s guards clashed with the Kindred warriors but he had eyes only for the foot of the throne. There stood the cage, just as it had in his dream. Also as it had been in his dream, the cage was covered by a black cloth. “And to stop you from ever getting to Lauren,” he added, meeting his father’s burning gaze.

  “What makes you think I have any interessst in your little female?” the AllFather hissed.

  “You’re still trying to fulfill the prophecy,” Xairn said, still climbing as he spoke. He was nearly to the top step now, nearly to the cage… “You even took girls who looked like her, but they couldn’t fulfill your purpose.”

  “On the contrary, my errant ssson, they fulfilled my purpose nicely—sssince my purpose was only to make you think I wasss ssstill interested in Lauren.”

  Xairn frowned. “If you don’t want Lauren, then who do you want?”

  “You.” The AllFather’s eyes suddenly went pitch black, the red bleeding out of his irises to be replaced by a dark void. “You, my ssson! It is you that I want.”

  Xairn was taken aback by the wave of pure evil he