Lost mark 3 The Queen of Death: (2 page)

"Thought you said it bottomed out in Khyber?” Burch smiled. "Either way, it doesn’t matter if it’s a hundred feet down or a hundred thousand. You fall that far, you’re dead when you land. A longer fall just gives you more time to think about it.”

Duro’s eyelids twitched. "Can’t we just resupply someplace else? Why bother with Gaptown?”

"It’s right out there in the open,” Kandler said. "It’s easy to reach by airship. Anything else in this area means a dwarf settlement, and that means crawling deep under the mountains.”

"My people will welcome us at any of our homes along the entire range. You would be my honored guests. As the slayers of Nithkorrh, we would be welcomed as heroes and treated like kings.”

Kandler shook his head. "It’s tempting, but if we stop moving, we become a target. We can’t afford to waste that much time.”

Duro looked hurt. "Time spent in a dwarf city is never a waste—it’s an investment. If you could see the halls of Krona Peak, you would find yourself drawn to spending hour upon hour contemplating their stark beauty. The works of mankind have nothing to compare.”

"Time to meditate upon the wonders of dwarf society is exactly what we don’t have.”

"Krona Peak lies right along our path. If we proceed along the Ironroot Mountains here, we will practically pass over it.”

Kandler gazed down at the dwarf for a moment. "If you want us to drop you off there—”

Duro cut him off with a sharp snap of his head. "Not at all. I would only suggest—”

"Why not?” said Burch. "Come with us, and the best you can hope for’s to choose which kind of dragon tears off your head.”

Duro snorted. "I am not some child to be frightened by such talk. If you thought so little of our chances, would you bring the elfling along with you?”

Kandler glared at the dwarf. "There’s no safer place for her than with me.”

"Even when you fly into the dragons’ collective maw? We could leave her with my people. They would care for her as their own. Then we could assault the dragons, free from the fear that she might be killed in the effort.”

"You’d still come with us then?” Kandler asked, trying not to sound so surprised.

Duro smiled wide beneath his bushy beard. "I am no coward. I spent years guarding the den of that damned dragon beneath my clan’s mountain. Now that job is over, and I find that I have an itch to see the world beyond. I can think of no better calling than to save a youngling by battling even more dragons in open combat.”

"You’re sunstruck,” said Burch. "I’ve seen it in dwarves before. All that time stuck in those dark caves, you get a taste of fresh air and you go mad.”

Duro’sgrin never slackened. "Thinkwhat you will. Some of my clan might agree with you. I might once have too, but if my insanity can serve a greater purpose, then so be it.”

"We’ll try Goradra first,” said Kandler. "If that doesn’t pan out for supplies, we’ll make a quick stop at Krona Peak.” He glanced between the dwarf and the shifter. They both nodded at him, content for now.

"You don’t have to listen to him, you know,” Sallah said to Espre.

The girl stared up at the lady knight. Up in the thin, cold air, the warmth of the clear, bright sun only managed to take the edge off the chill, but Sallah never seemed to notice it. Did the knight’s Silver Flame burn so warmly in her as to ward off all such discomforts?

As Espre shuddered in the open breeze swirling around and through her, Xalt came up from behind her and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. "I found this in the hold,” he said. "Some of the workers at Fort Bones must have been sleeping there between shifts.”

The elf smiled her thanks at the warforged and reached out to caress his metallic cheek.

"You are older than he,” Sallah said. "You are ready to come of age yourself and make your own decisions.”

Espre nodded. She heard the wisdom in Sallah’s words, but the knight’s clear desire to bring the elf back to Flamekeep made her wary.

"Do you love him?” Espre asked.

Sallkh froze. She wore her defiance on her taut lips and her jutted chin. When she spoke again, though, her face relaxed, and she looked more human in a way that Espre knew that Xalt could never have managed.

"I believe I do,” said Sallah. "My head swirls about as if caught in a whirlwind when I am with him.”

"That’s just the altitude,” Te’oma said as she slipped up behind the others.

Sallah scowled at the changeling. "You are fortunate that we didn’t dump you overboard the moment the dragon died. After all you’ve done—”

"That’s gratitude for you,” Te’oma said, arching a pale eyebrow. She ran a finger along Xalt’s back, right where she had plunged a dagger into him back in the warforged city of Construct. "You’d think saving everyone’s lives would change a few minds.”

"Burch brought down that dragon,” Sallah said. "You only saved his life because he clung so tightly to you that you had no choice.”

Te’oma’s face blurred for a moment, and Sallah found herself staring into her father’s eyes. "Does the Silver Flame not teach us to forgive?”

Espre stepped between the two as Sallah’s sword leaped from its scabbard and burst into flames. She knew that the knight would not harm her, but she didn’t know how long she could manage to keep the pair apart.

Sallah held her blazing blade before her. "You desecrate my father’s memory,” she spat at the changeling, "and you tempt death by mocking me with it.”

"Perhaps,” Te’oma said, taking Sallah’s own form instead, "you’d prefer to look your hypocrisy in the face.” Espre flung her arms up to protect herself from the enraged knight. As she did, she felt the changeling’s presence behind her disappear. Then something heavy thudded against the ground.

Espre spun about and spied Te’oma lying face down on the deck, Xalt’s heavy form atop her. The warforged had the changeling’s arm twisted behind her back, and her face—her own face now—contorted in pain.

"You shall cease to take our forms,” Xalt said, "or those of people we love. If you do so again, I will be forced to mark you so that we can always tell you apart from those others.” "How will you manage that?” Te'oma said, sneering through the pain as the warforged gave her arm a terrible wrench.

"I do not think your powers allow you to replace a missing limb.”

"That’s enough,” Espre said. She felt the dragonmark on her back start to itch. "You made your point.”

Xalt looked into the elf’s eyes and let the changeling go.

He jumped back to his feet and let Te’oma pull herself up on her own.

"We need to work together,” Espre said. "When you hope to take on a force made of dragons, you need all the friends you can get.”

Despite this, Espre refused to lend Te’oma a hand up. She recalled too well how the changeling had kidnapped her and intended to trade her to the Lich Q^ueen in exchange for the resurrection of her own long-dead daughter.

"True,” Sallah said, "but we also need to remove every other enemy in our way.”

With that, the lady knight stalked off, sheathing her blade as she went.

"Thank you,” Te’oma said to Espre.

"Don’t," the elf said. "I don’t like you any more than she does. In other circumstances, I’d let her and Xalt toss you overboard.”

"Why don’t you?” Te’oma asked.

Chapter

3

We’re here, boss.”

Kandler woke at Burch’s touch and lowered himself from one of the hammocks hanging in the
Phoenix’s
hold. He reached out into the dim light streaming through the open hatch and touched the edge of Espre’s hammock. It swayed light and loose on its anchors.

"She’s up top already," Burch said. "Got the wheel.”

Kandler grunted, wondering if he’d been the only one to sleep so late. Despite the healing magic Monja had worked on his flesh, his muscles still ached from the battle against Nithkorrh. He felt the new-made scars, marveling at them. He’d felt his lifeblood flowing out through them yesterday, yet here he stood. He’d been given another chance at life, and he intended to make the most of it.

He took Ibrido’s fangblade sword from where he’d hung it next to the hammock, and he strapped its belt around his waist. As he pulled on his boots, he saw Duro, Monja, and Sallah rousing themselves.

"Where’s the changeling?” Kandler said as he followed Burch up through the hatch.

"Scouting duty,” the shifter said, pointing at the sky. "Wanted to stretch her bloodwings.”

"You left her out here with Espre?” Kandler tried to keep the irritation from his voice. Even though he knew he couldn’t fool Burch, the shifter would appreciate the effort.

"Xalt’s with her.”

Kandler squinted as he climbed into the morning sun. The crisp breeze swept away the warmth of the hold that had surrounded him. Mountains loomed to the east, closer now than they had been at sunset. An eagle spun in the sky off the port bow, circling over a wooded plateau, hunting for prey.

"Where is it?” Kandler said.

Burch pointed over at the port rail and hooked his finger down. Kandler waved at Espre as he followed his friend over to the ship’s edge, and she and Xalt waved back. Kandler hadn’t seen her smile so freely in months, since before the strange killings had begun in Mardakine. The sight warmed his heart.

Kandler reached the railing and peered over it. All thoughts fled from his head.

The Goradra Gap stretched below them like a gigantic wound in the earth, inflicted during some horrible war among gods. Even at its narrowest point, it had to be a mile across, and it stretched east to west across the mountain range for several leagues, so far that Kandler could not see the end of it, despite how high the
Phoenix
sailed.

Snowcapped mountains surrounded it in all directions, but nearer to the edge of the gap the land turned green and fertile. Then it fell off into nothing, as if the world was hollow underneath and had given into gravity’s insistent pull. The land had sheared away here, exposing striated layers of rock stacked on each other forever.

Kandler stared down into the abyss and realized he could not see its bottom. It fell away from him for what seemed like a mile or more before the shadows there swallowed it whole. Just looking into it made Kandler’s head spin.

"Quite a drop,” Burch said.

Kandler shook his head and looked back at the shifter, aware that he had been leaning over the railing just a bit too far. "Where’s the settlement?”

The shifter pointed a clawed finger at the Gap’s northern wall. There, about a hundred yards or more down from the Gap’s edge, hung a series of scaffolds, ladders, and platforms strung together with rickety stairwells or rope bridges that hung in a perpetual breeze that gusted up from the depths of the gap. From this distance, the buildings looked small and fragile, something that could be brushed from the wall like dust from a window.

"The buildings front a series of tunnels that run through the cliff,” said Burch. "Place is like an anthill. Can’t see all the activity underneath.”

"What do they call it?” Sallah asked as she joined Kandler and Burch at the railing.

"A classic example of reckless idiocy,” said Burch, turning to smirk at the knight. "It wouldn’t take much to bring that whole thing down.”

Duro, who stood next to Sallah scowled. "The dwarves of Clan Nroth are renowned as some of the finest architects of our age. That place has more buttresses flying about it than one of your flimsy cathedrals.”

"I’d stay within a quick dash to the
Phoenix
at all times, and don’t tie the mooring lines too tight.”

"Always on the look for a quick getaway, eh?”

"Rather not see the ship pulled down with the rest of the place.”

"I meant, what is its name?” Sallah said.

Kandler noticed the airship had turned so that her prow aimed straight for a prominent terrace that jutted out from the largest of the buildings attached to the gap’s north wall.

"Durviska,” Duro said, still glaring at Burch.

"That’s Dwarven for 'Watch that last step,’ ” the shifter said.

"It means 'Overlook,’ flatlander!”

Burch smiled down at the dwarf, showing all of his fang-like teeth.

"Let’s get those mooring lines ready,” Kandler said to Burch. He grabbed the shifter by the shoulder and pointed him toward the stern.

Burch winked at the justicar and trotted off. Kandler glanced at Sallah, but she looked away. He shrugged and made for the line near the bow.

Kandler respected Burch’s advice. They’d only use two lines to tie off at the side of that terrace, which looked more and more like a dock as they approached it. Ropes this thick would hold the airship in place as she floated there above the Gap, but a few quick hacks with a sword would get the
Phoenix
moving again in a pinch.

Kandler thought of the dragonfang blade riding on his hip, the one with which Ibrido had nearly killed him. A single slice from that blade would sever the rope’s fibers like a scythe cutting hay, he guessed. He wondered what dragon had given up a tooth for the weapon or what another dragon might think to see it in a human’s hand. If his plans worked out, he’d have the chance to find out.