Skein of Shadows (17 page)

Sabira briefly considered offering him the bulk of his pay in the form of rocks and excrement, but then thought better of it. With her luck, he’d agree, and she’d be left to scrape his fee off the walls of bat caves while the tiny flying rodents nested in her hair. Host, but she hated the furry beasts! She still remembered the time Tilde’s pet bat had attacked her. What was that awful thing’s name, anyway? Scarwing? No, that would be too logical for Tilde, naming the creature after the jagged scar it bore on one of its wings, a remnant from some predator who unfortunately hadn’t finished the job before Tilde arrived on the scene to save the day in proper Deneith fashion. No, Shieldwing, that was it. It had happened shortly after she and Ned had become partners. Tilde hadn’t approved of her brother’s new assignment and had let Sabira know about her displeasure in no uncertain terms. Though the sorceress later claimed the bat had acted on its own, Sabira was sure the woman had set the little animal on her purposely, knowing she wouldn’t dare lift a hand against Ned’s sister’s familiar.

Funny. She’d give anything to see that stupid flying rat now, even if the damned thing was about to bite her on the cheek.

They left the sulfur deposits behind and soon reached the end of the ledge, though they were still fifty feet short of the canyon rim. Ropes dangled down from the edge, knotted at regular intervals to make climbing easier. But the warforged ignored them. Instead, one by one, they fiddled with some switches on the sleds’ control panels and the laden disks began to rise slowly toward the top of the gorge. As the sleds reached shoulder level, the warforged handlers would reach out to grab a second tether on the opposite side of the disk, then let the sled lift them up into the air, their bodies forming dangling metal Y’s beneath the crystalline circles. Sabira watched them float up into the air, almost like dandelion fluff blown by a wishful child. At the rim, unseen hands pulled the disks out of sight, presumably to unload them. Within a few moments, the only ones left on the ledge were her, Greddark, and ir’Kethras.

She reached for one of the ropes, but Brannan stopped her.

“Patience, Marshal. No need to climb when we can ride.”

Sure enough, three sleds soon came floating back down, a warforged handler guiding each, though this time from the top instead of the bottom. The trip back up the canyon wall was much quicker than she expected; the sleds rose faster now that they were no longer burdened by barrels of water and crates of food and other supplies. Sabira was glad she’d had some time to digest her breakfast beforehand. She didn’t think Brannan would find her puking over the
edge of the disk particularly impressive.

A caravan of twelve camel-drawn wagons waited near the rim, sheltered in the lee of some large boulders. Several hands reached out to pull the sleds in as periodic blasts of wind screamed by thick with stinging sand. She could see now why the Lyrandar had been unwilling to bring Kupper-Nickel’s airship up this high—it would take a skilled pilot indeed to keep the vessel’s bound air elemental from heeding the siren call of its lesser, freer brethren.

As she and Greddark rejoined Guisarme, Jester, and Skraad and introduced them to ir’Kethras, Sabira noticed a drow hovering off to the side. Unlike Calyx or the Sulatar Sabira had faced, this elf bore no scars, tattoos, or war paint. His dark skin was perfectly smooth, as though it had been carved from a chunk of obsidian.

“Ah, Xujil!” Brannan said when he noticed the elf. “Come join us, and meet Donathilde’s friends! They’re the ones you’ll be guiding back down to try and rescue the poor girl.”

The elf moved forward, his black eyes taking them all in with unblinking intensity, but before he could speak, one of the warforged hurried over.

“Boss, I think we’ve got a problem. Dust storm moving in.”

Sabira looked to the north where the construct was pointing. Squinting, she realized that what she had at first glance assumed was a distant cliff was actually a towering wall of windborne dust, headed their way.

Brannan frowned.

“Back down?”

The warforged caravan master shook his head. “We
could save the supplies and the party, but we’d have to leave the wagons and the camels up here, and it’ll take weeks to replace them.”

The Wayfinder’s frown deepened.

“Shelter here, then, or try for the Bones?”

“We’ll take losses here. The Bones are big enough to house the whole caravan, but we might not make it in time.”

Brannan smiled, grimly amused.

“The choice that is no choice. How apropos.” He turned to the warforged who’d clustered about, awaiting their instructions. “You heard him. Finish loading those supplies and mount up! We’ve got a storm to outrun!”

T
he caravan was a mix of traditional wheeled wagons and artificer-created schooners with mechanical segmented legs that skittered across the sand like ungainly, cloth-covered scorpions. The wheeled wagons were drawn by three-humped camels and sported runners on the underside of their wooden beds, much like the modified soarsleds the warforged had used to bring supplies up from Zawabi’s Refuge. A good choice, Sabira supposed, for the terrain—the wheels could be used on rockier ground, and the runners for traveling across sand. A better choice would have been to outfit the entire caravan with the mechanical wagons. An even
better
one would have been to use earth sleds, but apparently Brannan used the considerable wealth he’d gathered through various Wayfinder Foundation expeditions for other things.

Or maybe he just couldn’t find any House Orien pilots willing to work in these conditions, Sabira thought sourly as she pulled the edge of her cloak up to cover her nose and mouth. Sand was already being whipped into a stinging
frenzy by the approaching storm, tattooing every bit of exposed flesh with fine grit. She could only imagine how bad it was going to be when they were inside that towering wall—Brannan’s assurances notwithstanding, she didn’t think they had a chance in Dolurrh of outrunning it. At least the cloud of dust was beginning to obscure the sun, and the wind somewhat mitigated the ovenlike heat, drying the sweat that was already trickling down her back, even though it was barely past the seventh morning bell. Small blessings, she supposed. The only kind she was likely to get on this journey, though from which of the Sovereigns they came, she couldn’t say, and wasn’t sure she really wanted to know.

Brannan directed Sabira and her group into the back of one of the multi-legged wagons at the front of the line, already having to shout to be heard over the wind. The Wayfinder hopped into a seat at the front and took the controls, Xujil at his side. The wagon lurched into motion, humming with magical energy and scrabbling across the sand much faster than Sabira had expected. The other mechanical wagons followed, and the three-humped camels were not far behind, having been specially bred not only to hold water in their third hump, but to move more quickly than their mundane counterparts. Though she had no point of reference to measure by, she’d guess they were moving as fast as an earth sled, and had both more maneuverability and a larger carrying capacity. She revised her opinion of Brannan’s parsimony; the man wasn’t cheap, he was just brutally efficient.

Inside the covered wagon, she was free of the worst of the sand’s assault, though the heat beat through the white
canvas with no wind to temper it, and Sabira was soon sweating again in the close environs. Thankfully, warforged didn’t perspire, so it wasn’t like being confined to the Defenders’ barracks after a morning of tough drills. Yet. She had a feeling it wouldn’t take long for her, Greddark, and Skraad to do a fair imitation of said barracks—especially the orc, who likely didn’t make a regular habit of bathing, so would exhibit the effects of too much sweat with too little air circulation much sooner than either her or the dwarf. She felt a momentary pang of envy as she glanced over at Guisarme and Jester—warforged couldn’t smell either.

Sabira was sure she’d be envying them for a lot more than just their lack of olfactory nerves before this journey was finished. Warforged didn’t sweat because they didn’t drink water, so they were ideal companions in the desert, unlike their flesh and blood counterparts, who wouldn’t last more than a few days without the precious substance. Just thinking about it made her thirsty and she found herself mentally calculating how many barrels of water there were versus how many would need to drink from them. Here again, though, she had to admire Brannan’s efficiency, for the bulk of his men were warforged who needed neither water nor food on the long trek, and who also wouldn’t be as bothered by the heat or the sand. Aside from the “fleshlings” in her wagon, she’d only seen two other groups comprised mainly of non-constructs—probably treasure hunters seeking to plunder the depths of Tarath Marad. Or else scholarly types from Morgrave University or the Library of Korranberg, who were also seeking to plunder the depths below the Menechtarun, but with somewhat less mercenary intentions.

“So, you want to tell us who the Defender was?”

Sabira blinked at the dwarf’s question, uncomprehending.

“I’m sorry?”

“The Defender who survived the marilith attack,” Greddark supplied pleasantly enough, though there was a calculating glint in his eye. “Seemed like you had a little more venom than usual in your voice when you were talking about him, and somehow I don’t think it was for the Keeper or the demoness.”

Host
damn
it. She’d known the inquisitive was too observant for his own good; she should have kept that part of the story to herself. Though if he really thought he had any idea of her normal amount of virulence, he was going to find himself not only sadly mistaken, but badly in need of antivenom.

Sabira considered her options. She could ignore the question or try to brush it aside, but she doubted Greddark would let it go. The dwarf had been chewing on it since they’d left the djinn’s refuge; he’d only become more insistent the longer he went without a satisfying answer.

She could bluff, but he not only knew she was a card player, he played himself. He would be expecting that, and it would only serve to whet his appetite further.

Or she could do what she always did on the field of battle, whether she fought with words or with weapons: Meet the blow on the axe-end of her urgrosh, turn it aside, and follow up with the spear tip to her opponent’s gut.

“My father,” she replied shortly. “Who should be safely back in Dreadhold now, where—with any luck—he’ll rot for the rest of his miserable life.”

Her answer caught Greddark—not to mention her other
companions—by surprise, but she didn’t give him time to regroup before she countered with her own attack.

“So,” she said, mimicking the dwarf’s earlier tone precisely, “you want to tell us why you stole a book from the library in the Catacombs?”

She’d wanted to ask him before now, but he’d holed up in the engine room of Kupper-Nickel’s airship for most of the trip, supposedly helping the warforged Wayfinder improve the vessel’s efficiency. Probably trying to avoid being asked this very question.

Greddark smiled and inclined his head appreciatively at the reprisal.

“Not stole. Borrowed. That
is
what one does at a library, no?”

“Not when that library is under the control of the Silver Flame, no,” Sabira answered. “Unless, of course, you happen to be a Flamer yourself. Or an agent of theirs.”

She waited a beat.

“Are you?”

Skraad leaned forward to hear the dwarf’s answer, a frown forming around his long tusks. Sabira wasn’t surprised; he’d incapacitated one of the Silver Flame guards and was likely now wanted in Stormreach as a result. She imagined the orc wouldn’t be too happy to learn it had all been some ruse on Greddark’s part.

Not that she really thought the dwarf was working for the Church. Though the Flamers would sometimes commit a lesser evil to thwart a greater, she didn’t think that pragmatism stretched so far as to include working with a suspected murderer and the cousin of an Aurum member. And even if it did, Aggar would never have sent Greddark
to help her if he’d known his cousin was freelancing for some Archbishop or another when he was supposed to be working for her.

If
he’d known.

Greddark snorted derisively.

“Despite my friend Andri’s best efforts—no, I am most decidedly
not
one of the Purified, and my temporary appropriation of one of their sacred texts was done without the Church’s knowledge, or approval.”

“Not
quite
without their knowledge,” Skraad growled, rubbing the spot on his arm where he’d taken the Flamer bolt. But the orc seemed satisfied with Greddark’s answer and settled back into his seat on the long bench with a minimum of grousing.

“Fine,” Sabira said, not willing to let the inquisitive off so easily. “So you
did
steal a book. The question remains.
Why
?”

He hesitated, and she imagined he was going through the same list of options that she had earlier. She wondered what his choice would be.

Surprisingly, he went with honesty.

“It’s a dictionary of ancient Draconic,” he said, withdrawing the tome from inside his shirt and passing it to her.

Sabira took the slim volume from him and carefully examined it. The writing on the leather cover, though unfamiliar to her, was crisp and utilitarian, with none of the gilt, scrolling embellishments she would have expected from such a valuable tome. Inside, the pages were thick and yellow with age, and smelled vaguely of old, stale incense. She closed it and offered it to Skraad and the warforged in turn. Only Jester accepted, taking the proffered book and
leafing through it, turning the pages almost reverently.

“Still doesn’t answer the question.”

“It’s that fragment of prophecy ir’Dayne was looking at—the one carved on the chunk of obsidian. Something’s bugging me about the translation. When I heard there was a Flamer library in Stormreach, I figured Olladra was giving me an opportunity to figure it out.”