The Road to Death: The Lost Mark, Book 2

by Forbeck, Matt

  Brandishing her blade before her, Sallah followed in Xalt’s path then sprinted by him toward the bridge. As she went, the warforged picked up Esprë and started to carry her aft.

  “How foolish—I mean, ‘brave’—of you,” Ibrido said. “With three of you working together against me, you might have stood a chance. Sequentially, I shall dissect each of you with my blade and leave you for the carrion fowl to testify to my handiwork.”

  “Shut up and fight,” Kandler said, readying his notched blade. He wanted to make this quick, to kill Ibrido before the dragon came back, while he still had a chance. Esprë came first, of course, but faced with the dragon-elf and his mysterious sword, he felt as alone as he ever had.

  Ibrido stepped forward and slashed out at Kandler with his blade. The justicar sidestepped the blow and returned it with a quick stab to the dragon-elf’s ribs. The point of his sword skittered off Ibrido’s hide, slicing open the creature’s shirt but little else. He realized to hurt Ibrido he would have to land a much more solid blow.

  The dragon-elf swung his sword back, and Kandler had to hurl himself to the side to avoid the blade. It slid off the edge of his sword, just missing slicing off a bit of his ear.

  “First blood!” Ibrido said.

  Kandler rolled back to his feet and saw that red fluid covered the tip of Ibrido’s bone-colored sword. He brought his hand to the side of his head, and it came away the same color. The dragon-elf’s blade was so sharp, his strike so fast, that the justicar had not even felt it.

  Kandler wanted nothing more than to wipe the smug look from Ibrido’s face. Instead of pointing out, though, that his own touch would have brought blood on anyone not covered with scales, he gripped the hilt of his sword even tighter and launched his next attack.

  The ferocity of Kandler’s assault drove the dragon-elf a few steps back. Try as he might, though, the justicar could not penetrate Ibrido’s defenses. Every time he tried a new angle, Ibrido’s blade leaped out to protect him, almost as if it had a mind of its own.

  Eager to put an end to this fight, Kandler shifted to a two-handed grip on his sword’s hilt and brought it down in a sweeping overhand motion designed to smash the dragon-elf’s blade aside. A mighty clang sounded as the two blades met, and Kandler smiled as his sword met little resistance past that. As he pulled back from the fight, hoping to find that he’d sliced into Ibrido’s scaled flesh, he realized he held only half a blade in his hand. The upper portion had gone sailing off after smashing into Ibrido’s amazing sword.

  The dragon-elf cackled with glee.

  “My blade is superior to yours in every way,” he said. “It was a gift from the dragon kings, forged in furnaces stoked with their own fiery breath, from an ancient dragon’s own fang. No weapon can stand against it. No armor can hope to stop it.”

  As Ibrido launched his own counterattack, Kandler raised what was left of his blade and swore.

  “Is she all right?” Sallah asked, glancing down to where Monja and Xalt huddled over Esprë’s body. Duro gave her a thumbs-up sign and then went back to peering over the aft railing, looking for any signs of the dragon’s return.

  “She’s still breathing,” Monja said, “but just barely.”

  Xalt cradled the young elf in his arms as the halfling shaman began to pray, a warm, golden glow washing over her arms.

  As a member of the Church of the Silver Flame, Sallah believed that there was only one true god, the Silver Flame itself. All others were mere pretenders, unwitting reflections of the Flame viewed through a cracked prism. Watching the shaman work her prayers to the Sovereign Host, though, she felt a moment of doubt. Monja connected to her gods so effortlessly that it seemed churlish to think that her relationship with them was somehow less than that of Sallah or the elders in her church.

  Now was not the time to worry about such things though, Sallah told herself. Her main concern was keeping the ship away from Nithkorrh. An enraged roar from somewhere below told her that Burch’s shockbolt hadn’t put the great beast down for good. Since she couldn’t see the creature from that angle, she figured the best thing she could do was push the airship to its top speed and hope the dragon would never catch up.

  The elemental in the ship didn’t like the idea much though. It fought against Sallah’s control, perhaps sensing that the dragon in pursuit could damage the ship enough to finally free it.

  Sallah shoved the elemental along as hard as she could. She sensed that if she relinquished the wheel it would go back to slacking, but for the moment it obeyed her as well as she could hope.

  She peered down the deck and saw Kandler facing off against Ibrido. Over their short time together, she’d come to respect the justicar as a top swordsman. When she’d first met him working as the justicar for Mardakine, that tiny little town in a crater on the edge of nowhere, she’d thought he’d just been the only man in town crazy enough to take on the job.

  Kandler carried his skill with a blade so quietly that few would ever guess its extent. He never went for flashy or showy moves, preferring to get the job done with as few strokes of his sword as possible. “The longer the fight, the more chances for something to go wrong,” he’d once told her.

  Ibrido, though, seemed to be pushing the justicar to his limits. At first, Sallah couldn’t understand it. The only reason she’d agreed to leave Kandler with the dragon-elf was that she figured he’d make quick work of the dragon’s minion. As the fight wore on, though, she knew something was wrong, and she began to regret her choice.

  “No!” she said when she saw Kandler’s blade part on Ibrido’s. It looked like the dragon-elf’s blade had cut right through the justicar’s, leaving him armed with only its remnant.

  Sallah looked down and saw Xalt helping Esprë to her feet. Monja’s prayers had been answered, and the young elf looked fit if yet a little dazed.

  “Take the wheel,” Sallah said, not caring if Monja or Esprë complied with the order, as long as someone did. She drew her blade and leaped off the bridge, shouting, “I have to go save your father!”

  As the dragon spun away from Phoenix, Burch bared his teeth in a wide, toothy grin. Somewhere behind him on the bridge of Keeper’s Claw, the changeling cheered as they watched the winged beast tumble down through the sky.

  “That won’t be it,” Burch called back. “Let’s take the fight to him!”

  The shifter slapped another shockbolt into his crossbow. It was the last of the ones Duro had given him, and he knew he had to make it count. He raced up the ladder to the airship’s bridge and stood next to the changeling, who had her hands wrapped around the ship’s wheel. She’d shoved aside the body of the bosun, who still hung from the bridge’s console by a set of manacles.

  “Nice hit,” Te’oma said, no trace of a grudge in her admiration.

  “Two nice hits,” Burch said, checking the crossbow over again to make sure it was in top working order. “With magic, exploding bolts, and it’s still alive.”

  “What does that tell you?” the changeling asked.

  Burch stared at her for a moment. He didn’t want to trust her, but he’d put himself in a situation where he had no choice.

  “That we’re in real trouble.”

  He strode to the back of the bridge and gazed down over the gunwale. He listened hard as he did, hoping he wouldn’t hear the changeling’s footsteps coming toward him. He knew it would take only a little shove to push him out into the open air. Unless he could sprout wings, he’d be dead for sure.

  “There he is,” Burch said, pointing down below and behind them. “Six o’ clock low.”

  “Six o’ what?”

  Burch scowled at the changeling. “Ever seen a clock?”

  “Of course,” Te’oma said. “What does that have to do—?”

  “Six is behind us,” Burch said, pointing aft. “Noon is ahead. High is above. Low is below.”

  The changeling nodded. “You’ve spent a lot of time on an airship before.”

  Burch shook his h
ead. “Many pints drinking with pilots.”

  He glanced back over the aft rail. The dragon had arrested its fall and was beating its wings once more.

  “It’s heading straight for Phoenix,” Burch said, pointing off to the starboard. “It’ll come up through three o’clock and keep right for them.”

  “What should I do?” Te’oma asked. She gripped the airship’s wheel so tight that her knuckles seemed whiter than ever, almost the same shade as her eyes.

  “Get in its way,” Burch said. “If I get a chance, I’ll do the rest.”

  Te’oma nodded and the ship swung starboard and downward on a rough course to intercept the oncoming dragon.

  From Burch’s point of view, the trouble was that the dragon was now below the ship. He couldn’t see down there—the ship was in the way—and he couldn’t attack something he couldn’t see. This meant he had to wait for the dragon to rise above the ship and give him a clear angle. From which direction the creature would pop up, though, was anyone’s guess.

  Burch expected Nithkorrh to swing around the hull of Keeper’s Claw and head straight for Phoenix. Instead, something large and unseen smashed into the hull and sent him flying from the bridge, to land in a heap on the deck.

  Burch glanced back and saw that Te’oma had managed to keep her feet, but only because of her death-grip on the wheel. Something hit the bottom of the ship again, and this time she screamed.

  “It’s going to tear us apart!”

  Burch didn’t see how the changeling was wrong. The dragon had the right idea. If they couldn’t see it from above, then it was safe below. It could rip the airship to splinters, and they couldn’t do a damned thing to stop it.

  The shifter ran over to the gunwale, grabbed an end of the rope ladder, and tossed it overboard. If he could just get into position, he might be able to get a clear look at the beast and knock it from the sky.

  Then he realized that “if” was way too big. To pull it off, he’d have to get off a clean release while bouncing along like a minnow on the end of a fishing pole. The image reminded him he’d be the bait in that scenario. He wondered if the dragon would be able to resist it, and if it didn’t, where would that leave him?

  A splintering sound below told him he’d better come up with a good idea soon. He charged up to the bridge, shouting to Te’oma, “Take us down! Down, as fast as you can!”

  A moment later, Keeper’s Claw plunged toward the rocky slopes of the mountain below. The dragon bellowed in surprise and then distress.

  “He’s trapped beneath the ship,” Burch said. “Keep going, and we’ll smash him into the rocks.”

  “Are you insane?” Te’oma yelled. “That’ll kill us too.”

  “What’s your point?”

  The changeling goggled at the shifter with her wide, white eyes. “I don’t want to die!” she said.

  Burch raised his bushy eyebrows. “He keeps tearing at the ship, we’re dead anyhow. This way, we kill him too.”

  Te’oma glared at the shifter for a moment then reached out to hold his hand. “All right,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

  The airship plummeted toward the ground, the dragon screeching in protest now. The ship’s ring of fire tried to drown it out with a crackling roar of its own. If the ship was destroyed, the elemental inside the ring would be free, Burch knew, and it seemed happy to do everything it could—within its orders—to help make that happen.

  A terrible tearing sound came from beneath the ship, and Burch saw the dragon break free, flapping away off the port side.

  “Pull up,” he told Te’oma. “He got away.”

  The ship kept falling. “Pull up, I said.”

  Sweat beaded on the changeling’s snowy brow. “I can’t!” she said. “The ship’s not responding.”

  Burch cursed. “The dragon must have damaged the lower restraining arc. The wheel’s useless.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Burch peered down at the ground hurtling up toward them.

  “Die a messy way.”

  Kandler cursed as Ibrido’s sword hacked off another section of his blade. At this rate, he’d soon be left with nothing but his hilt.

  The dragon-elf smirked as he aimed another blow at Kandler’s head. “Give up, human,” he said. “You can’t win.”

  Kandler said nothing as he retreated in a wide circle, trying not to let Ibrido back him into a corner. As soon as that happened, the dragon-elf would have him at his mercy. The justicar’s sword wasn’t doing much to protect him. The only thing he had going for him was space.

  He tried to work his way past Ibrido, to make a break for the bridge. There, he’d have Sallah and Duro to help him, but the Karrn always managed to step into his way.

  Kandler saw Sallah break free from the bridge and come dashing toward him. He just needed to hold Ibrido off for a few more moments, and she’d be at his side.

  The dragon-elf heard the knight’s footfalls pounding up behind him, though, and redoubled his efforts to bring Kandler down. His dragon-fang sword flashed about like a hummingbird, picking away at Kandler’s defenses until he could barely see from the sweat pouring down into his eyes.

  The justicar gave up all conscious thought about the swordplay and let his training take over. The only things left to him were the sound of Ibrido’s sword clanging against his own, the impact of the clashing blades jarring his arm, and the thought that he had to kill this creature to save his daughter.

  Just as Kandler thought his will to keep his defenses up might falter, Ibrido cried out and fell backward, clutching at his back with his free arm. A moment later, he drew a crossbow bolt out of his shoulder, the end of it dripping with his fresh, red blood.

  Kandler spotted Duro standing on the bridge, reloading his weapon. He breathed a word of thanks to the dwarf, then watched as Sallah raced up to the dragon-elf, her blazing sword held over her head, ready for a two-handed blow.

  Still howling in pain from the bolt, Ibrido spun and met Sallah’s attack, parrying her mighty chop with his fangblade. As the swords met, Kandler held his breath. Sallah’s sword was a sacred icon, holy to her and her church. That didn’t mean, though, that it could stand against the amazing edge of the dragon-elf’s weapon.

  Sparks flew as the blades clashed off each other, and both blades held. The magic in Sallah’s blade made it stronger than Kandler’s, the justicar realized. While his had been the finest sword in Mardakine, it was just steel, forged by his friend Rislinto and given its razor edge by hours of sharpening during the dull hours working the town watch. It could not hope to stand against something as marvelous as the fangblade.

  Kandler wondered the same thing about himself. Here he stood, only a man, nothing to aid him but his own skill and determination. He was no knight, no shaman, no wizard, and he had to face monstrous creatures like Ibrido and his magical sword. What hope did he have against such power, much less that of a full-fledged dragon?

  Still, Kandler had never been one to worry about the odds. If there was a way to defeat Ibrido, he would find it, then he’d kill the dragon too.

  It wasn’t for himself that he’d do it. He’d had a full life, seen many things, fought many a foe for all sorts of good causes. He’d loved and been loved more than he’d had any right to expect. If the Keeper came for his soul now, he’d let that dark god take his hand, but to give up on himself meant giving up on Esprë too, and that he refused to do.

  Kandler reversed his grip on the hilt-shard of his sword and hurled himself at Ibrido as the dragon-elf turned to face Sallah full on. He plunged the bit into the dragon-elf’s shoulder, but the weapon turned on the creature’s scaly green hide.

  While parrying yet another blow from the lady knight, Ibrido turned and slammed his elbow into Kandler’s face, knocking the justicar to the deck. As he fell to his knees, Kandler spun toward the dragon-elf, trying to catch him in the back of his legs and take him to the deck along with him.

  Ibrido leaped backward over Kandler ins
tead, and Sallah nearly ran the justicar through. To keep from doing so, she threw herself to the side, away from both him and the dragon-elf.

  This left Kandler on his knees before Ibrido. The dragon-elf wasn’t one to ignore such an opportunity, the justicar knew. He fought the instinct to raise his hands to protect himself. If the fangblade could cut through steel, it would slice through his bones like warm butter.

  Instead of trying to scramble away, he launched himself at the dragon-elf again, this time aiming for Ibrido’s middle. If he could get in under the blade’s reach, he reasoned, he might have a chance.

  Kandler’s tackle knocked Ibrido back, but he couldn’t manage to wrap his arms around the creature’s slippery scales. For a moment, he thought he had a chance, but the dragon-elf stiff-armed him in the jaw and shoved him back again.

  Still trying for a tackle, Kandler stepped forward, but this time Ibrido managed to get his blade up in time, and he ran it right through the justicar’s guts.

  Kandler felt the point of the fangblade stab into the wall of his abdomen and pass through his coiled intestines before passing out his back, just nicking his spine. The pain was incredible, like nothing he’d ever felt before, and he knew right then that he was dead. The only question left was how long it would take for him to draw his last breath.

  Desperate to sell his life dearly, Kandler grasped at the hilt of the fangblade. His fingers clasped over those of Ibrido’s, and the dragon-elf bared its teeth at him.

  “You were a fine foe,” Ibrido said. “Give my regards to the Keeper.”

  With that, the dragon-elf put a boot to Kandler’s belly and shoved him off his blade. The justicar’s hot, thick blood poured out after the withdrawn sword, drenching his clothes as he fell to the deck in a heap.

  He heard voices screaming: Sallah’s and—somewhere far away—Esprë’s too.

  Burch could barely hear himself think, Te’oma was screaming so loud. He couldn’t understand how she could make so much noise when he felt like he could barely breathe. He saw her black cloak flapping around her, the living tissue it was really made out of trying to deploy its wings. He reached out and wrapped his arms around them and her, putting an end to that.