The Shard Axe: An Eberron Novel (Dungeons & Dragons)

by Marsheila Rockwell

  Sabira actually laughed at that.

  “Not quite. Though I am going to perform a bit of magic. I’m going to make you disappear into a cell for a very long time.” She smiled at him, feigning concern to match his false astonishment. “Or didn’t you know that interfering with a Sentinel Marshal on official business is punishable by a jail term in Sentinel Tower commensurate with the seriousness of the mission you impeded? And I have to tell you—my business? Very serious.”

  “Problem, Marshal?”

  It was a Defender Sabira didn’t know, finally summoned by both the complaint of the people still being squished up against the hull and the dwindling flow of traffic up the companionway, where he’d been stationed. House Lyrandar sometimes hired members of the Defender’s Guild to watch over the steerage cabins whenever their ships were forced to act as passenger transports, to prevent theft and violence.

  “Not really. Just a pickpocket—not a very good one, I might add—choosing the wrong target.”

  The Defender, an attractive man with brown hair and eyes almost as gray as her own, cocked his head to the side.

  “Hardly seems worth the paperwork.”

  Well, he was right about that. Much as she’d like to see her threat through, she had no idea exactly when Aggar’s trial was slated to begin, and she needed to get to Ferrous House. The building, which resembled nothing so much as a giant lockbox, was located just below the entrance to the Mroranon estate and housed the meeting chambers of the Iron Council. It was going to take her a half bell of fast walking just to get there; she really didn’t have time to mess with the pickpocket, who hadn’t actually succeeded in doing anything more than annoying her.

  “No. But he might have had other targets before me. I’d detain him and search him, just to be sure. Wouldn’t want any passengers complaining to the Lyrandars.”

  The Defender waved the warforged and the other passengers by before answering.

  “True,” he said as she handed the old man off to him. The would-be thief whined a bit when the Deneith man got a handful of hair along with his collar, prompting the Defender to tighten his grip. The pickpocket was wise enough to keep his indignation to himself after that.

  “Galifar’s Peace, Defender,” Sabira said, nodding to the man as she went to move past him and exit the cart. It was a traditional salutation among Defenders and the Sentinel Marshals most of them aspired to become; it referenced the opening phrases of their respective oaths: “I swear to uphold and defend the Code of Galifar, with heart, mind, soul, and steel, until Galifar is once more reunited, and at peace.”

  The Defender didn’t immediately respond; he’d caught a glimpse of her urgrosh when she stood.

  “You’re Lyet, aren’t you?”

  Sabira paused, taking a moment to examine his features more carefully. She was sure she didn’t know him, but it wasn’t really a surprise to find he knew her. Most Defenders working this close to the Holds did, one way or another.

  “I am,” she confirmed, on her guard. She hoped he wasn’t one of those distant cousins of Ned’s—Tilde’s friends—who thought she should have been excoriated from the House when he died rather than being rewarded with the badge of the Marshals.

  “I’m Tobin d’Sark. My sister and I trained with Jayce and Elix for a year back in ’93, before she made Marshal. They both spoke very highly of you. It’s an honor.” He held out his free hand to her.

  She took it, glad there was no one else around. She’d never been comfortable with the accolades heaped on her after she returned from the Maw with Aggar. She may have fulfilled her duty there, but she’d failed a friend, and being congratulated for her actions only made her feel the loss that much more deeply.

  “With training like that, you’ll have a brooch of your own in no time,” she said, not unkindly, but Tobin shook his head.

  “No. My parents have already lost one child to the Marshals. I’m happy here.”

  d’Sark. Of course. His sister must have been Tabeth, the Marshal Elix mentioned they’d lost in the Blade Desert during their ill-fated rescue of the Lyrandar heir. For a moment, looking at Tobin’s curly hair and sculpted features, Sabira imagined what his sister must have looked like and felt an entirely unexpected stab of jealousy.

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Sabira replied, nodding in understanding. “We all serve; we all bring honor to the House.” She curled her hand into a fist and brought it up to her chest, twice in quick succession.

  Tobin repeated the gesture with his free hand.

  “Galifar’s Peace, Marshal.”

  It wasn’t until she was exiting the docking tower that she realized that the money pouch on her belt was missing.

  Twelve bloody moons! The old man had had a partner; going after the pouch in her boot had been a ruse to distract her while the other thief—probably the warforged, who was long gone by now—divested her of the larger pouch.

  Luckily, she’d expected something of the sort, and had carried only copper crowns in the pouch at her waist; all the coins of real worth were stashed in her boot-pouch. But having planned for this contingency didn’t make it any less annoying.

  She was debating going back to Tobin and having the oldster arrested after all—a few well-placed kicks might just convince the thief to give up his accomplice—but then she noticed a cluster of dwarves standing outside the city gates. They were all staring at her and murmuring among themselves. She couldn’t make out their words, but she didn’t have to.

  It had started already.

  At the gates, when she showed the guard her travel papers, he took longer than necessary examining them before handing them back and deferentially waving her through. She could hear him talking about her to the other guards as she passed under the great black ramparts and into the city. It was only a matter of time now.

  Though she hurried down Mror’s Walk, still word traveled faster, and soon she could see dwarves ahead of her in the crowd turning back to look in her direction. The murmurs and whispers started getting louder.

  “… saved Aggar Tordannon from Nightshard …”

  “… never expected to see her here again …”

  “… must have come back for the Tordannon trial …”

  And, finally, the phrase she’d dreaded hearing since the moment she knew she’d be returning here.

  “The Shard Axe! The Shard Axe has returned!”

  It became a chant as dwarves began falling in line behind her. Members of other races moved back out of the way, confused and curious, as the procession swelled. By the time she arrived at Ferrous House, there were hundreds of dwarves in her wake and the buildings rang with her name.

  “Sabira! The Shard Axe! Sabira! The Shard Axe!”

  She hadn’t acknowledged the growing crowd up until now, but as she walked up the stairs to the huge iron doors, she turned and held up a hand for silence. Amazingly, the throng quieted in an instant. Then Sabira turned and pulled her travel papers out, handing them over to the Iron Council guards.

  “I’m here for the trial of Aggar Tordannon,” she said, loud enough she knew her voice would carry to the listening mob. If she were going to be leading a parade everywhere she went while she was here, she might as well take advantage of it.

  The whispering behind her began again.

  The guards perused her papers. One of them, a surly looking Mroranon with an urgrosh like her own—minus the Siberys shard—eyed the crowd warily before responding.

  “The council’s in closed session. You’ll have to come back when they’re in open session, three days from—”

  He didn’t get any further. The murmuring got louder, and started to turn ugly.

  “… the idiot Mroranon’s not letting her in …”

  “… that’s ridiculous; they can’t keep her out …”

  “… the Council wouldn’t be that foolish …”

  Sabira let the noise build for a bit before turning and raising her hand once more. The crowd settled again, more re
stlessly this time.

  She looked back at the Mroranon, whose jaw was set stubbornly beneath his well-beaded beard.

  “I am the Sentinel Marshal Sabira Lyet d’Deneith,” she said, raising her voice and ignoring a cry of “Shard Axe!” from behind her. “I am here on official Marshal business, and I demand that you let me in to see my client.” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “And I’m really not sure how long I can control them,” she added, jerking her head toward the crowd.

  She could see the guard calculating how much trouble he might get in for starting a riot and just how many people he’d be able to finish off before he was overwhelmed.

  The crowd was just starting to get unruly again when the doors suddenly swung open of their own accord.

  A female dwarf dressed in long gray robes stood just beyond the threshold.

  “Sabira d’Deneith of the Marshals, welcome. We’ve been expecting you.”

  Flashing the Mroranon guard a smug smile as she collected her papers from him, Sabira turned to wave her thanks to the crowd, who responded with a cheer and a roar.

  “Shard Axe! Shard Axe!”

  Then she turned and walked into Ferrous House, holding her breath until the doors closed behind her and shut out the last echoes of the horrible, hated name.

  Sabira had only been inside the Iron Council’s meeting chambers once before, and found the outside of the utilitarian building far more interesting than the inside. The exterior of Ferrous House, though plain and functional from a distance, was actually a work of extraordinary beauty when viewed up close. From its wide base to near its slightly tapered top, the building was inscribed with delicate interlocking runes no more than a fingertip in either height or width. The runes spiraled up the ironwork façade—which had been spelled against the elements—and recounted the entirety of dwarven history. The lowest loops of the spiral told vague stories of the race’s murky beginnings in either the depths of Khyber or the icy expanses of Frostfell—not even the dwarves themselves were completely certain on that count. Their emergence in Khorvaire and the names of the thirteen great clan leaders began roughly at the knees, and ten thousand years of feuds and feats wound their way up to well past the third story. The subjugation of the dwarves under the rule of Karrn the Conqueror and their declaration of independence during the century-long Last War followed, taking up another story and a half. A thin band of purple mournlode, invisible from the ground, marked the destruction of Cyre and the enactment of the Treaty of Thronehold, which had effectively ended the great war. The spiral made a few more loops after that, and ended a good ten feet short of the roof, leaving the walls a blank canvas for all the history yet to be written.

  It was something of a rite of passage for young dwarves to come here and trace their clan’s achievements in the finely wrought iron. For several hours on Sar and Sul, members of the Iron Council’s staff would staff miniature soarsleds, one for each wall. Dwarves could pay a fee and use the crystalline disks to fly slowly upward in pairs—usually a parent and child—and examine the spiraling runes for names from their own family lines.

  Sabira had been told that Nightshard’s brief reign of terror had been included in one of the final loops, but there was no mention of her name, or Leoned’s. Which was fine by her. She already had more than enough fame in the Holds.

  Although the exterior of Ferrous House was remarkable, the interior was anything but. Once beyond the huge iron doors, the structure could have been any of a hundred other government buildings located anywhere in Khorvaire, save that the statues and tapestries all had dwarf subjects, and the overall level of craftsmanship was, of course, just that much better.

  The one exception was the Iron Council’s meeting chamber.

  Located beneath the building, the main audience chamber had been hewn from solid rock, with no attempt made to finish the stonework. Thirteen stone chairs, reminiscent of thrones, sat in a raised semicircle against the easternmost wall, with the associated clan banners hanging behind them. A large circular area separated these seats from the gallery where spectators and those waiting to address the Council sat on curved benches that had likewise been carved from stone. Set within the floor of the speaking circle was a large eye of Aureon. The Sovereign God of Law and Lore, Aureon’s sigil adorned the face of the mithral seal, and anyone standing upon it was compelled to answer the Council’s questions truthfully.

  Aside from the seal and the banners, there was nothing in the room to suggest that this was arguably the wealthiest nation on Khorvaire. Instead, it was stark, cold, and downright uncomfortable. Aggar had told her that the audience chamber served as an object lesson to all who entered: It harkened back to the dwarves’ uncivilized past and was an unsubtle reminder that the only thing that kept the dwarves from returning to that state was the authority of the Iron Council.

  “It must be difficult to perform your duties as a Marshal with such a large entourage,” the gray-robed dwarf remarked as she led the way to a wide marble staircase. Sabira thought she detected a note of disapproval in the comment, and bristled.

  “I didn’t ask for the escort,” she replied sharply, then gave a sardonic chuckle. “Besides, if you think that was bad, you should see it when I visit Frostmantle. Your guards got off easy.”

  The dwarf woman frowned at that, apparently not sharing Sabira’s amusement.

  “We assume you are here for the Tordannon trial?” she asked as they walked down a flight of stairs to the level of the audience chamber. Sabira looked at her askance, wondering why the dwarf woman insisted on referring to herself in the plural. Then she saw the black-and-white Octogram the dwarf wore on her left hand and realized the woman was a priestess of Aureon. So she was either referring to herself and her staff or herself and her god. Either way, it was irritating.

  “Yes. My services have been retained on behalf of Aggar Tordannon.”

  “This is the first we’ve heard of it,” the priestess said, and Sabira wondered suddenly if she were actually speaking on behalf of the Council and not as some divine mouthpiece.

  “There was some question as to my … availability,” Sabira replied, unwilling to give the dwarf more information than was absolutely necessary. If the Council members wanted answers from her, they’d have to ask her themselves—though preferably not while she was standing on Aureon’s sigil.

  “We wonder that news of the trial reached as far away as Karrnath.”

  Definitely fishing.

  “Word of injustice always reaches the ears of the Marshals,” Sabira answered, her tone mild but her words acerbic. The priestess frowned again, but thankfully made no further attempt to question her after that.

  They came to a set of iron doors, not much smaller than those on the front of Ferrous House. These doors, Sabira knew, opened onto the main audience chamber. But instead of entering, the dwarf woman bypassed them and turned down a side hallway lined with more doors, though these were made of plain, rough wood. Sabira guessed they led to waiting rooms—or cells—where the accused were stowed until it was their turn to address the Council. The priestess led her to the only door boasting a guard—an urgrosh-carrying Narathun whose blond, beaded beard flowed past his waist, where he wore a matching long-handled knife. Sabira wasn’t surprised at the choice of jailor: The Tordannons and Narathuns had a long-standing blood feud that spanned centuries. Who better to ensure a prisoner didn’t escape than his worst enemy? Though now that Aggar was involved with the Aurum, the Narathuns were probably the least of his concerns; they were certainly no longer his deadliest adversaries.

  The priestess nodded to the other dwarf, who stood aside to allow Sabira entry.

  “We will leave you with your client, then, Marshal. But know this: If there have been any injustices committed in this case, it has not been by us.”

  Well, not yet, Sabira thought, but she held her tongue. She’d already pushed the priestess as far as she dared, especially if the dwarf woman was the one who’d be in charge of ascertain
ing the truth of Aggar’s statements before the Council.

  So she just nodded at the priestess and grabbed the handle of the door. Taking a deep breath, she turned the handle and stepped into the room.

  Aggar was on the far side of the cell, his back to her. He was naked from the waist up and rust-colored hair clung in sweaty strands to the nape of his neck. Muscles rippled along his back and gold rings sparkled on his fingers as he went through the motions of swinging an imaginary axe against an equally insubstantial foe. The many beads and trinkets in his beard clattered and chimed with each practiced movement.

  “Finally,” the Tordannon heir said without turning to look at her, not missing a step in a complicated pattern of slices and thrusts. “I’ve been asking for water since midnight.”

  “I’m not here to bring you water. I’m here to haul your carcass out of the fire—again.”

  At the sound of her voice, Aggar stopped so fast he almost stumbled and whipped about as though yanked by an invisible cord. The color fled from his normally rubicund face, and his green eyes stood out like crown gems.

  “Saba? What in the name of Onatar’s huge hairy backside are you doing here?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mol, Nymm 16, 998 YK

  Krona Peak, Mror Holds.

  Sabira narrowed her eyes.

  “What am I doing here? Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

  But Aggar didn’t answer. Instead he rushed toward her, and from the manic look in his eyes, Sabira wasn’t sure if he was intent on hugging her or killing her. She also wasn’t entirely certain which of those two eventualities she found less appealing.

  The dwarf held up at the last moment, regaining a modicum of his proper dwarven composure. Or perhaps he’d simply realized that he would probably knock her on her backside if he didn’t slow down. Either way, he came to a stop just in front of her and reached out to clasp her hands in his own, smiling hugely.