Son of Khyber: Thorn of Breland (20 page)

“You’re placing your trust in the memories of a child—and a toy child at that,” Thorn said. “I’d be cautious.”

She wondered how long the forge had been operating in the depths of Sharn. It was an impressive facility. Surely they’d used one of the structures from the ancient undercity as the foundation of the hold. Still, to do something like this without alerting the local authorities would take time. Of course, this was Sharn. It was quite possible that a few well-greased palms had ensured that records of goods and transportation were conveniently lost, or that suspicious activities were ignored. Thorn knew that there were all too many in this wretched place who put love of gold above their duty to the nation. The time could come when the houses would just buy the Five Nations, Thorn thought glumly.

The sharp sound of metal against metal drew her from her reverie. Up ahead, the hallway widened into a large chamber in which every surface was painted an unblemished white.

“Testing chamber,” Dreck said softly. “Battle ready.”

Once again, the battle was brutal and swift. Two Cannith magewrights were working with three warforged. The constructs were a strange design, something Thorn had never seen before. They were
covered in thick armor, with barely any gaps she could take advantage of. Beyond this, each warforged warrior possessed four arms. The upper two arms ended in hands and gripped weapons. The lower two terminated in spiked maceheads, clearly capable of dealing massive damage.

Had the warforged been fresh, it could have been quite a challenging fight. But the Tarkanans had arrived at the end of the magewrights’ trial. One of the warforged was already stretched out on the floor, his armor split open to expose a mass of fibrous muscles and alchemical fluids. Another had lost one of his mace arms, and another limb was crippled and useless. Both survivors were covered with dents and moved unsteadily.

Thorn didn’t hesitate. The magewrights were the greater threat. There was no telling what mystical abilities they might possess. And although they were human, they were knowingly operating an illegal facility in her nation.

The female magewright gasped as Steel’s point emerged from her partner’s throat. She reached for a wand at her belt, but before she could pull it free, she cried out and dropped to her knees. This was the work of Koyna, a Tarkanan whose mark attacked its victims with their own worst fears. Thorn sprinted forward, finishing the woman as quickly as she could. She was prepared to kill, but the gruesome powers of Koyna and Ash still turned her stomach.

One of the battered juggernauts turned to Thorn as she severed the magewright’s spine. It moved surprisingly quickly, considering the amount of damage it had sustained. She saw a blur of motion, an iron giant bearing down on her with murder on its mind. Then Brom slammed into it, sending the construct spinning sideways. His war gauntlet rose and fell, each
blow denting the armor of the warforged. It lashed out with a spiked mace, tearing a great chunk of flesh out of Brom’s stomach, but the dwarf never relented. The sound was like a hammer against an anvil, pounding over and over until the warforged lay still.

The final warforged proved to be more of a challenge. Ash sprayed it with fire, but the juggernaut charged through the flames, moving inexorably toward the giggling gnome.

Dreck stepped between them. The aberrant war-forged was no match for his armored cousin in terms of mass or strength, but his mark glowed as he struck. He simply slapped the juggernaut with his open palm, and each blow left spots of rust spreading across the guardian’s armor. One of its arms fell to the ground, the joint rotted through. Ash poured flame into the new gap in its armor, and the juggernaut staggered and collapsed.

“Friends of yours?” Thorn asked Dreck.

“No design that I have seen,” Dreck replied. “But this is a place for the unusual.”

So it would seem
, Steel whispered.
You’re lucky those soldiers were already damaged. If Merrix has the capacity to mass-produce such warriors down here, perhaps there is something to the claims of this Son of Khyber
.

A moment later, they reached the chamber of the creation forge. But there was a problem.

A barrier.

“The child had no memory of this,” Dreck said, staring at the brass gate that stretched across the hallway. It shimmered in the light of the cold fire, and while it clearly was not part of the walls around them, Thorn could see no handle or keyhole.

“Little to fear,” Ash said, chuckling. Even as Dreck raised his hand in protest, Ash unleashed a torrent of
flame against the door. A moment latter, his giggles turned to screams. Though it seemed to be simple brass, there was power bound within it. It sucked up the fire and then unleashed a column of blue light back against the gnome. Even from a distance, Thorn felt a chill. Ash was frozen solid. He toppled as his cry faded. His corpse struck the ground and shattered into steaming chunks.

“Stop!” Thorn cried, before Palmer or Dreck could react. She walked slowly toward the brass barrier, holding Steel before her.

Interesting
, Steel said.
I sense no magical emanations, yet the rippling alone suggests arcane energy
.

“It’s reversing spell energy,” Thorn murmured, intrigued. “Even your divination is a magical act.”

I believe you’re right. Impressive
.

It was more than just impressive. It was amazing. Ash’s fire turned back against him in the form of ice. Steel’s divination returned a false report. Even abjuration was a magical effect. If they tried to dispel the field, odds were good they’d just reinforce it. But there was no lock or handle on the door. Magic had to be involved.

Thorn lifted a ring of crystal-tipped keys from the fallen magewrights, and she tested these against the door. But there was no keyhole nor any sense of mystical resonance between key and gate. As she studied the barrier, she felt a tingle run through the stones in her spine, as if a charge of energy had flowed across her and instantly faded.

Alarm
, Steel said.
From elsewhere. Daine’s team must have run into trouble. We need to act quickly
.

Thorn produced her probes and lockpicks, testing the seal on the door. Nightwater had no effect. Then she had a thought. She turned to Dreck.

“Can you perform a sealing infusion? Lock the door?”

The warforged’s face was a metal mask, lacking any expression. But his confusion was easy to see. “Certainly. But why?”

“Do it. Seal the door.”

Dreck stepped forward and set one palm against the door. He wove patterns in the air with his hand, leaving shimmering trails in the air. At last he gripped the glowing pattern and thrust it against the door.

The door slid open.

Reversing the energy
, Steel whispered.
So “close” becomes “open.” Clever
.

“Clever enough,” Thorn said. “Brom, take point. Dreck, we need you to destroy the forge. Stay back with Palmer until we’re sure the room is clear. Koyna, with me.”

They had entered the heart of the forgehold. Where the earlier halls had reused old walls, here the architects had broken down the ancient structures and built anew. Walls and floor alike were built from a dark green stone. Linear patterns were carved into every surface and inlaid with different metals, creating a dizzying labyrinth of designs spread around them. Soon the hall opened into a vast circular chamber with a domed ceiling, large enough to serve as a sporting arena. A massive pillar dominated the center of the room, built from the same green stone. The lines from the floor ran up along this central column. But the post was also studded with dragonshards—a pulsing mosaic of golden Eberron shards, shedding a brilliant light across the room. Large coffins were spread in a ring around the central pillar.

It
is
a forge, Thorn thought. The warforged must emerge from the coffins when the work is complete.

But at the same time, the image of the shard-studded pillar sent a shiver through her. These dragonshards were embedded in the column, not whirling around it. But looking at the pillar and knowing she was there to destroy it, she couldn’t help but think of Far Passage.

“Dreck,” she said. “You know what to do. Palmer, Brom, stay with him. Koyna, stay on watch. Anything comes through that doorway, send it screaming out again.”

“Yes, Dreck,” said a new voice. A man’s voice, deep and stern. “You know what to do.”

Flames engulfed Dreck. He cried out as the fibrous cords that served as his muscles strained and snapped, and cracks and spots of corrosion bloomed on his metal plates. There was a rasping gurgle, and he was gone. Nothing was left, not even ashes.

“Strange.” The man was standing in the shadow of the central pillar. A tall man with short, dark hair. One hand rested against the stone column, while the other held a long metal rod tipped with the sculpted head of a gorgon. The stranger was reaching his middle years, but he was still handsome and confident. It wasn’t easy to forget that face, and Thorn had seen it before.

Merrix d’Cannith, baron of the house.

“I don’t know what that thing was, but it wasn’t one of my children,” he mused. If he considered them a threat, he didn’t show it. “I wonder what I could have learned from his corpse.”

“You’d best be looking to your own corpse,” Brom said. Thorn knew he was waiting on her word to charge, and he might not wait much longer. “You may have done in poor Dreck, but there’s four of us to the one of you.”

Merrix laughed, and as he did, the silvered lines in the floor burst into brilliant light. Thorn and the others shielded their eyes, and in that moment of distraction, Thorn could feel the lids sliding off the coffins. Six figures rose from these cradles. Blades extended and locked into place. Warforged soldiers, armed and ready for battle.

“Let’s finish this,” Merrix said. “And then we’ll see what I can learn from your corpses.”

Ashblack

T
horn studied the two closest warforged, gathering as much information as she could in the seconds before they could act. The first was the same type as the juggernauts they’d encountered in the testing hall, a heavily armored warrior with blades and spikes bristling from its four limbs. But it was the second one that worried Thorn. This unusual warforged was lean and quick, and Thorn found that its slender build and graceful movements caused her to think of it as female. Dark enamel armor covered the warforged. The blade of a short sword extended from each of her arms, and the metal had the dark sheen of adamantine. And there were three more just like her, closing in.

“Pull together!” Thorn cried. “On me!”

Too late. To this point, the Tarkanans had done well when it came to following her lead. But none of them had known her for more than a day, and faced with this unexpected threat, each of her comrades acted alone. Brom crashed into a juggernaut, bringing the construct to the ground. Palmer lashed out
with tendrils of energy, as though her dragonmark were stretching off of her ruined hands to entangle her enemies. And Koyna turned on Merrix himself, the purple and black strands of her dragonmark gleaming as she sought to unlock the fears hidden in the mind of the dragonmarked lord.

They’d done well in their initial assault and in the training hall. But now they were outnumbered, acting on impulse, and they’d lost the element of surprise.

Brom pounded at the juggernaut, leaving dents in its armored shell. But focused as he was, he didn’t see the lean warforged as it slipped up behind him and plunged both adamantine blades into his lungs.

Palmer was holding two warforged at bay with her lashing tendrils, but countering their attacks was as much as she could manage.

Koyna fell to the spiked fist of the juggernaut. If her psychic blow had any effect on Merrix d’Cannith, it didn’t show. He stood by the central pillar, smiling as the blood began to flow.

One of the slender warforged left Brom and slashed at Thorn with her adamantine blades, and Thorn dropped beneath the blow. He’s made his own Dark Lanterns, she thought. Nothing good can come of that.

The warforged was swift, and her adamantine blades could slice through Steel if Thorn was careless. She had to time every parry perfectly. But less than twelve hours had passed since Thorn had fought Xu’sasar, and as quick as this warforged was, she was no match for the drow. Thorn began to see the rhythm of her enemy’s attacks. Warforged could learn and improve, but this one had just emerged from her
cradle. It was impressive to see such skill in what amounted to a newborn, but Thorn quickly saw the patterns. The next time the warforged made a thrust, Thorn stepped in close, pinning the construct’s arm. Before the warforged could get the leverage for a thrust with her second blade, Thorn drove Steel into its throat. This time, the sudden surge of strength came without any conscious thought; it was just a natural part of the blow. Backed by her inhuman strength, the thrust tore through the construct’s neck. There were many differences between warforged and human, but the ability to survive decapitation wasn’t one of them. The warforged stiffened as it fell to the ground.