by Matt Forbeck
"Got you!” A voice from above rang out, echoing off the nearest wall of rock, which blurred by, only scores of feet away.
Then slim, white hands reached out and grabbed Monja under her shoulders and brought her up close as a body slammed into her, knocking the wind from her lungs. The halfling wondered if she’d somehow managed to summon the spirit of a great glidewing to her aid. She couldn’t believe that the spirits would favor her so, no matter what happy evidence to the contrary, but she wasn’t about to refuse their good will.
She craned her neck to look back over her shoulder and saw Te’oma’s face twisted with strain as she wrapped her arms around Monja’s chest. The changeling’s wings were angled tight and near her shoulders.
"Hold on!” Te’oma said. "This is going to hurt!”
Monja drew in a big breath and held it tight. The wound on her side—which had to still be trailing blood behind them as they plummeted toward the canyon’s unseen bottom-stabbed her with pain as she fought to expand her lungs, but she ignored it as best she could.
Then Te’oma spread her batlike wings, stretching them out as wide as they would go. The wind filled them like a sail unfurled into a storm, and they whipped open with a crack that sounded like the snapping of bones and enveloped Monja and Te’oma in their shadow.
For a moment, Monja thought the changeling’s grip on her might give, and she clung to Te’oma’s ghost-pale arms hard enough to draw blood with her nails. The changeling refused to let go, though, despite the fact her wailing told Monja that her weight must nearly have pulled Te’oma’s arms from their sockets. The halfling wondered how well the bloodwings attached to the changeling’s back would hold up.
It didn’t seem like they had slowed at all, despite the deployment of the wings. However, Monja could feel a change of momentum. Instead of heading straight down, they now angled up just a bit.
Te’oma folded her wings back again, and they started to drop as fast as ever. Now, though, they headed closer to the wall.
"Is this helping?” Monja asked, trying to keep the panic from her voice. She knew that Te’oma could have just let her fall to her death—and still could—but she couldn’t help but be dismayed at how little the changeling seemed to have been able to do.
"Quiet!” Te’oma snarled, not looking down at the half-
I
ling at all. Instead, Monja saw her gaze had locked on the sheer wall nearest to them.
The halfling looked at the wall and noticed how near it was. She followed the changeling’s gaze down and spied a wide shelf of rock jutting out from the wall below.
"No!” Monja said, clutching Te’oma’s arms in a desperate grip. "We’re still going too fast!”
Falling into a bottomless pit now seemed like a far better choice than smashing into that shelf. Monja didn’t doubt something just as solid awaited her in the canyon’s depths, but at least she wouldn’t hit it for a little while longer. In a way, she thought, her fall through the canyon was a metaphor for life. Once you started it, you were going to die either way, but later had to be better than sooner.
"I said, quiet,” Te’oma said. "Don’t make me regret this.”
Monja closed her eyes and began to pray again. If the spirits had sent Te’oma to help her, then she should do her best to accept that aid. She prayed for the serenity to accept her death.
Gravity tugged at her even harder, and Monja squeaked in fear that it might tug her right from the changeling’s arms, which had to be getting tired. She clung to Te’oma tighter than ever and opened her eyes.
Then she screamed.
The canyon wall rushed toward her nearly as fast as the shelf below. A startled mountain goat bleated as Te’oma and Monja zipped by.
The shelf zoomed up from the depths as if it wanted to smack the pair of them right back out of the canyon. For an instant, Monja wondered just how high they would bounce. She wanted to close her eyes again but found she couldn’t.
Then Te’oma flung her wings wide and flipped her body backward. The wings caught the air hard, and Monja felt the changeling’s arms pulling her back up into the sky. Would it be fast enough, hard enough, to keep her from smashing into the rocky shelf?
The changeling’s wings not only caught the air this time but rode it. Monja felt the pair of them hook from a plummeting fall into a tight, brief rise, and the air left her lungs.
As they came out of the short hook upward, Monja looked down and saw that they were still a score of feet over the shelf. She screamed as they fell toward it again, and she felt Te’oma’s arms and legs wrap around her, protecting her like a mother would an infant.
They hit the shelf hard, but Te’oma’s body and wings cushioned the impact for Monja. The halfling heard the changeling’s head crack against the rock behind her, and the arms around her went limp.
When Monja could breathe again, she rolled off Te’oma’s still form and onto the unforgiving rock. She took care to roll toward the canyon wall. The thought of spilling out into the open canyon again terrified her. She’d never been afraid of heights before, but this experience had given her a healthier respect for them.
Stunned to be alive, Monja got up on her knees and stared down at Te’oma. Blood had started to pool under the changeling’s head. She breathed still, but perhaps not for long,
"To think I didn’t trust you,” Monja said as she began to pray.
Chapter
8
Sallah fell back to the floor, the weight of her attacker crushing the air from her. She glared up at his face and saw an ivory-colored skull staring back down at her. Unlike most skeletons she’d seen in her life, though, this one had eyes of the brightest blue.
Sallah gave thanks to the Silver Flame for her well-fitted breastplate and slashed up and out with her flaming blade. The assailant tried to twist out of the blade’s path, but it gouged deep into the side of his head instead.
The thin, gray linen wrapped around the attacker’s skull burst into flames. He flopped to the ground, still bleeding, and tried to smother the fire consuming his head.
Sallah scrambled to her knees. She saw Burch come tumbling in through the window to the right of the doorway, another of the assassins on top of him. The shifter growled and slashed at his attacker with his claw-tipped fingers, but the gray-clad shape had wrapped his legs around the shifter’s throat and then started to squeeze.
Sallah leaped to her feet, ready to force the attacker from Burch’s throat. As she did, two more of the assassins swung in through the window, landing on the ground as lightly as cats. Long, bone-handled daggers appeared in their hands, and each crossed their pair of blades before themselves, ready to tear through Sallah’s defenses.
Burch gurgled something from his place on the floor as he struggled against the assassin sitting on his chest. He would be strangled in a matter of seconds if Sallah didn’t do something, but she couldn’t reach him without exposing herself to the killers before her.
Espre pushed away from Duro and rushed to help Burch. Her hands crackled with a black energy, and Sallah knew that the girl had summoned the power of her dragonmark.
The thought that such a young creature could wield such horrible power chilled the lady knight. When she’d begun her quest to find the bearer of the Mark of Death, she’d thought only of her duty, not of the unknown soul who’d been branded by powers beyond her ken.
Now,'though, as her love for Kandler blossomed, she’d come to care for his stepdaughter as well. In many ways, Espre was barely more than a child, and now she had to bear this horrible burden that had put her life at risk and the lives of anyone near her. Whenever Sallah felt saddened at her own losses, she had only to think of Espre to put them into perspective.
As Espre charged, determined to kill once more* the object of her attack flicked his wrists out, and a pair of daggers appeared in his hands too. He drew one of them back to throw, and Sallah saw that the killer would hurl the blade into the girl’s chest long before she had any hope of
reaching her target.
Espre skidded to a halt in the face of the assassin’s weapons. No matter what the girl’s powers might be, they would do her little good if she died before she could use them. But as she slid to a stop, she slipped and fell flat on her back.
The assassin smiled at this, drawing back his teeth to expose another set beneath them. Sallah saw then that the first set of teeth had been tattooed across the killer’s lips, part of a mask of death etched upon a living face.
An axe appeared in the center of the grinning killer’s chest. Blood seeped from around the wound as the assassin’s eyes rolled back up into his head. Somewhere behind Sallah, Duro hollered, "Yes!”
As Burch bucked his attacker’s corpse off of him, Sallah moved toward the other two, interposing herself between them and Espre. The girl scrambled to her feet and stood beside the lady knight as the killers reassessed the situation.
Sallah figured there were more than a dozen dwarves in the room, along with her, Espre, and Burch. Four of the assassins lay dead, including the one who had failed to extinguish the flames devouring its head in time.
Only two stood in here, although only the Flame knew how many others might be lurking outside. She had to presume that some of them had kept Kandler too busy to join her and the others inside the inn.
The two killers seemed to realize their odds at the same time as Sallah. They spun and fled.
Six more battle-scarred axes spun through the air and struck the killers down before they reached the door. Two of the weapons clanged into each other and off their mark, but the others all hit deep in the assassins’ bodies, and they fell without a sound.
Sallah glanced down at Espre.
"Kandler!” the girl said, already rushing for the dock.
Kandler lashed out with his fist. It smashed into the killer’s jaw, and Kandler felt the satisfying crunch of smashed teeth.
Kandler kicked free from the stunned assassin’s grasp. He spied his fangsword on the far side of the deck, but the other two killers would be on him before he could do more than gain his feet. Instead of scrambling for the weapon, he reached back and ripped a dagger from the hand of the assassin sharing the floor with him. When the killer offered resistance, Kandler slammed his elbow into the assassin’s nose, and the blade came free.
Just in time, Kandler brought the dagger up to parry a thrust from the first of the two other killers racing up the gangplank. As the attacker’s blade turned wide, Kandler punched out with his left fist with a blow that cracked the bone around the assailant’s eye.
As Kandler shoved the assassin off him, the other flung a dagger at his chest. The justicar threw up his arm to protect himself, and the blade went right through his arm, its point stabbing straight in and out of his muscle. The pain forced him to drop the knife in his hand.
Sensing that Kandler might be ripe for the kill, the assassin leaped atop the justicar, stabbing at his belly with his other knife. Kandler wrenched himself out of the way just in time.
As the killer landed on the deck, Kandler reached back and slashed at the assassin’s neck with the blade still embedded in his arm. Pain lanced straight up through his shoulder with the move, but his aim struck true. The tip of the knife punctured the killer’s throat, spilling his blood across the deck.
Kandler staggered to his feet, the knife still stuck in the flesh of his dripping, red arm. Two of the killers were still alive and hungry for his death, and they stood now too, tlieir blades flashing as they readied to take the fight to him once more.
Kandler left the knife in his arm. He’d seen too many battles in which men had pulled free a weapon in their body and watched their lifeblood pour out after it like wine from an unstoppered bottle.
He went for his fangblade instead. One of the assassins hurled a dagger at Kandler as he scooped up his sword, but it just grazed his shoulder, laying open his shirt and tracing a shallow, crimson line along the flesh.
Kandler swung around, bringing the fangblade up in a wide, slashing arc. It caught one of the killers in the chest and nearly cleaved the man in two. It sprang free just as smoothly as it had entered the killer’s form, its ivory blade now turned crimson.
The last assassin stared at Kandler as his compatriot’s corpse slumped to the deck. He cursed then, a single word under his breath in Elven. Then he flung both of his daggers and Kandler at once.
The justicar dodged one of the blades and knocked the other out of the air with his sword. The assassin hadn’t even bothered to see if the knives would strike their target. Instead, he turned and raced back toward the gangplank. When he reached it, he stutter-stepped once, betraying perhaps an instant’s hesitation. Then he leaped out into the open air between the airship and the dock and disappeared.
Chapter
9
As Kandler reached the gangplank, Espre burst from the inn, calling his name. He glanced below, looking for the killer. Seeing no trace of the assassin, he stumbled down to the deck and took his stepdaughter in his good arm.
"You’re hurt!” Espre said, staring at his injured arm.
Kandler nodded as Sallah came up behind Espre, relief and concern warring on her face. She took the justicar’s wounded limb and held it up to inspect it. As she did, Burch emerged from the inn with Duro right behind him. Krangel poked his aged nose out of the door after them, and the other dwarves in the inn peered through the open windows, each of them jostling for the best positions near the sills.
"That all of them?” Burch asked, nodding at the two cooling bodies lying on the airship’s deck. He cocked his crossbow as he spoke.
"One of them dove into the gap,” Kandler said, pointing to where he’d last seen the suicidal killer.
Kandler could see the shifter was steaming from having been caught unaware by these assassins. He stalked the dock as if he might decide to stomp down through the
boards to relieve his temper.
"I can help with that,” Sallah said, taking Kandler’s arm more tenderly in her hands, "but we’ll have to remove the knife first.”
Kandler nodded and gritted his teeth, ready for the worst. He focused on the woman’s lidded eyes as she gripped the handle of the blade and prepared to pull it free. As he did, he heard Krangel shouting orders to the other dwarves in the inn, and they leaped into action, their feet now padding along the dock.
Sallah yanked the dagger free in one swift move. Kandler hissed through his teeth, and Espre reached up to hold his free hand to comfort him. As the blood poured from the wound, Sallah wrapped her hands around the injured area, forming a ring with her palms and fingers.
While Kandler’s blood seeped through her fingers, Sallah closed her eyes and said a solemn prayer to the Silver Flame. As she spoke, her hands began to glow with a silvery light. The glow spread out from her hands and enveloped Kandler’s arm, which seared with heat.
Just before the warmth became painful, Sallah released Kandler’s limb. He held the arm out and flexed his fingers. Although his blood still covered it, he felt not a twinge of pain.
Kandler reached with his healed arm around Sallah’s waist and pulled her to him for a gentle kiss. "Thanks,” he whispered.
Sallah started to say something, but before she could complete even a syllable, Burch called out, "Ha!” Then he loosed his crossbow straight into the deck.
The bolt stuck there, half buried in the wood. From below, a horrible scream sounded and then faded away.
"There’s your suicide,” Burch said. "With just a bit of help.”
Kandler glanced up at the roof that overhung the front of the inn. Whoever Burch had hit with his first bolt no longer stood there. The assassin had probably fled after the shifter had wounded him.
For a moment, Kandler considered hunting the would-be killer down, then he thought better of it. If this was to be a war between his friends and those who would take or kill Espre, then it was time to begin sending their foes a message. For that, they’d need a courier, and a wounded witness to
how they’d massacred these assassins sounded like a fine start.
Kandler heard Espre gasp. He turned as she dashed past him toward the airship. There stood Xalt at the end of the gangplank, the tip of an arrow jutting out through his shoulder.
"Monja?” the warforged said, his voice unsteady. "What happened to Monja?”
Monja had thought about pushing Te’oma over the edge of the rocky shelf. Hurt as she was, the changeling likely would never have awakened before she slammed into whatever awaited in the depths of the Goradra Gap.
Monja didn’t care for the changeling at all. Anyone who would kidnap children—even lethally dangerous children like Espre—came low on her list of people she wished to help. To now have to pray on Te’oma’s behalf galled her.
True, the changeling had risked her life to save the halfling from certain death—and succeeded. Monja owed Te’oma for that, but the shaman could save Espre, Burch, and the others a great deal of grief, she thought, by removing the changeling from their lives.
Despite Te’oma’s insistence that she bore no love for the Lich Queen, Monja suspected that the changeling would turn on the others in an instant if it served her needs. However, even if Te’oma was an amoral beast who could not be trusted, Monja knew the same wasn’t true of herself.
She placed her hands on the changeling’s head and prayed. She felt the crack in Te’oma’s skull knit closed, and warmth returned to the changeling’s paler-than-parchment skin.
When Te’oma’s eyes fluttered open, Monja smiled down at her. "Welcome back,” she said, "and thanks.”
"Thank you,” Te’oma said as she sat up and took in their surroundings. She craned her neck all the way back and stared up at the strip of blue sky above. It seemed forever away.
"For saving my life, I mean,” said Monja. "My thanks. Now, though, I think we are even.”
A set of pale eyebrows appeared on Te’oma’s face, and she arched one at the halfling. "I suppose so,” she said, her mouth twisted in a wry grin, "although you only had the chance to save my life because I nearly died saving yours.”
