Lost mark 3 The Queen of Death:

by Matt Forbeck

  Kandler strode to the elf and raised his sword. While Ledenstrae posed little threat at the moment, Majeeda had only been checked for a moment by the bolt. As soon as she could remove it and regain her voice, she would help the elves of Aerie track them down. She had some kind of tie to the airship that only her death could sever, and Kandler meant to solve that problem in the most direct way.

  As the justicar charged, he heard a strangled cry behind him. He ignored it for the moment and swung his sword in a flat, level arc that connected with devastating force.

  Majeeda’s head sprang free from her shoulders, almost as if it had been waiting for a chance to do so. Her body collapsed to the cold, stone floor, her bones rattling loosely in her papery skin.

  A trio of elf guards clambered out of the vertical shaft and into the room beyond the balcony. Getting into a fight with them would only cost Kandler time, but he guessed he’d already spent more of it than he had to spare. Rather than challenge the guards, he turned and raced toward the balcony’s edge.

  As Kandler sprinted for daylight, he had to bound over Ledenstrae. The elf lay in a widening pool of his own blood, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest. In one hand, he clutched a throwing dagger by the point.

  Ledenstrae swept a feeble hand at Kandler, but his grasp had no strength to it and fell uselessly away. The justicar ignored it and vaulted over the balcony’s railing to the deck of the airship beyond.

  He rolled with the landing and sprang to his feet, his sword still in his hand. As he rose, he snapped his head toward the bridge and saw Sallah standing at the wheel. He drew a great breath to shout, "Go!”

  Before the word left his lips, the Phoenix shot forward like a ballista bolt, pulling Kandler from his feet.

  Chapter

  27

  Kandler’s tumbling came to a stop at the base of the main deck beneath the bridge. As he jumped to his feet, the airship’s deck pitched hard, and he had to fight to keep standing.

  A fiery ball of pitch soared past the airship. It had come close enough to pierce the ring of fire like a stone thrown through a hoop, but it hadn’t hit a thing. Then something smacked into the aft of the ship and Kandler found himself on his knees again.

  He dove for the nearest gunwale and stuck his head over the edge. Below, it seemed like the entire fortress had mobilized to attack them. Ballista bolts and balls of burning pitch sailed through the sky toward them from every direction.

  "Get us out of here!” he shouted.

  Sallah didn’t say a word. She just bared her teeth and concentrated on what she had already been doing.

  Kandler scanned the deck. Back toward the port-rail, Burch stood crouched over Espre, who huddled beneath him, still holding Xalt by the arms. The shifter had his crossbow out and seemed to be training it on any incoming attacks, as if he thought he could knock them from the sky with a good shot.

  Espre seemed unhurt, which was the most important thing to Kandler. She started to crawl toward the wall under the bridge, which offered just a hair more protection than the middle of the open deck. Xalt crept along with her, ready to throw himself into the path of any attack if need be.

  Toward the bow, Monja knelt over a still form that seemed to smolder where it lay. It took Kandler a moment to recognize it as Te’oma. As he watched, the changeling sat up.

  The justicar dashed to the aft of the ship and yanked himself up on to the bridge. "Where’s Duro?” he asked Sallah.

  "He sacrificed himself,” she said, not turning to look at him. The ship’s nose pitched forward then, and another ballista bolt skipped off the prow.

  "What?”

  "He dove into the guards on the dock so we could cut the ship free.”

  Kandler grabbed the wheel. "What happened to him?”

  "I don’t have time for this now!”

  Kandler wanted to object, to pull Sallah’s hands from the wheel and make her tell him what had happened, but right then a ball of pitch soared into the Phoenix’s ring of fire.

  The elemental fire incinerated most of the pitch at once, but what was left exploded out from the ring and spattered down like flaming drops of rain all over the fore section of the main deck.

  Espre screamed. She’d been climbing on to the bridge when the ball of pitch had burst open.

  "Take the wheel!” Sallah said to Espre. "I need to help Monja!”

  Espre nodded and dove for the wheel, wrapping her hands around it and taking control of the willful airship. The instant the girl’s fingers touched the wheel, Sallah shoved herself away from it and leaped down to the main deck.

  Seeing Burch and Xalt race up after Espre to protect her, Kandler snapped a salute at them and chased after Sallah. Looking around, he saw that they had just cleared the east wall of the fortress. Within moments, they would be far beyond the reach of even its most powerful weapons. They just had to hold on a few moments longer to escape.

  When he jumped down to the main deck, Kandler saw that the burning pitch had clumped into little fires all across the bow. Because of the nature of the source of the airship’s power, the Pfioemxhad been magically fortified against flame. The blazes would not spread.

  One of them, though, had landed on Monja. As the halfling burned, Te’oma knelt over her, trying to beat out the tongues of fire with her bloodwings. The pitch proved to be a stubborn fuel though, and it kept scorching the young shaman in its sticky grip.

  Kandler smelled the horrible stench of burning flesh as he got nearer. By the time he reached Monja, Te’oma had managed to put out all the fires on the halfling, although many splashes of nearby pitch still crackled along.

  "Is she dead?” he asked.

  Te’oma turned her face up toward him—her own face, not that of Shawda or anyone else—and he saw nothing but desperation there. "I don’t know,” she said.

  Sallah shouldered the changeling aside and knelt down next to the halfling. Monja’s skin had blistered all over—at least where it had been exposed—and large, black flakes already peeled off it in the wind from the airship’s rapid flight. For a moment, Kandler thought she couldn’t possibly be breathing, but then she let loose an agonized scream.

  "She’s not dead yet,” Sallah said. "With the grace of the Silver Flame, I may still be able to save her.”

  The lady knight put up her hands in supplication and bowed her head. She murmured a soft but sincere prayer to her distant deity, and her hands began to glow with a silvery light. As she spoke, though, Monja cries turned to a horrible, hacking cough, and blood started to spurt from her mouth.

  "Hurry!” Te’oma said. "You have to hurry,”

  Sallah gave no indication she even heard the changeling’s words. Instead, she finished up her prayer and brought her hands down to cradle the halfling’s crispy head.

  Much of the hair had been burned off it, leaving only blackened scalp behind. Kandler guessed that the burned flesh mijrht still be hot enough to scorch Sallah’s fingers, but if the lady knight felt any pain she showed no sign of it.

  The silvery glow flowed from Sallah’s hands and engulfed Monja’s head. As it did, Sallah continued to murmur prayers to the Silver Flame, praising it for its mercy as she petitioned it for yet more aid for her fallen friend.

  Burch came up behind Kandler and stood mute as he watched the halfling heal. "Damn,” the shifter said. "I’m about ready to thank the Flame myself.”

  Kandler looked over at his friend. The shifter sighed and said, "Telling a friend his child is dead is one of my least favorite things.”

  Kandler frowned, then patted Burch on the shoulder. As he turned to go back to the bridge, he said, "Then it’s a good thing we don’t know Duro’s father.”

  When Kandler reached Espre, she said, "We have to go back for him.”

  The justicar squeezed his stepdaughter’s shoulder and shook his head.

  "We can’t just leave him there,” she said, her voice rising as she spoke. "They’ll kill him."

  Kandler put an arm around Es
pre shoulders and hunched down next to her. He spoke softly into her ear, to make sure she could hear him. "You see what happened to Monja down there?”

  Espre nodded.

  "If we go back, that could happen to any one of us— maybe to all of us—and even if we got through all that, we’d have to fight our way through an entire fortress filled with elf warriors to even get near to Duro. That’s assuming we’re not already too late.”

  Espre looked like she wanted to throw up. "I—I know you’re right,” she said, "but I just can’t stand it. The thought of him lying there dead on the dock, maybe hacked to bits like—like Shawda . . .”

  "We don’t know he’s dead,” Kandler said. "Valenar elves are a hard but fair people. If they capture him alive, they’ll bind his wounds and nurse him back to health.”

  He didn’t mention that it would likely only be so that the dwarf would be well enough to stand trial. The justicar didn’t know much about the Valenar system of justice, but he suspected that Duro might find a death sentence to be getting off easy. A dwarf could live a long time, and even if Kandler had the fortune to die in bed with his boots on, Duro might still be rotting in Aerie’s prison when it happened.

  He promised himself that once all this was over he’d come back to discover Duro’s fate, whatever it might be. He knew the odds against him being able to manage it were staggering, but he tallied it up yet one more mark under the heading "Why I Can’t Die Yet.”

  "Thanks,” Espre said, pressing into Kandler’s arm while still keeping her hands on the wheel.

  "For what?”

  "For trying to come up with a way to make me feel better.”

  Kandler snorted softly and squeezed Espre tight. "It wasn’t just for you.”

  Chapter

  28

  You re still determined to sail for Argonnessen? Sallah said.

  Kandler felt like he’d had this conversation with the lady knight a dozen times before. She already knew what his answer to this question would be, and he didn’t feel like going through it all again.

  He nodded and said, "As soon as we resupply.”

  The sun had set long ago, and the stars and moons shone bright and clear in the night sky. The chill wind carried the scent of the distant seas on it and swept the stench of the remains of the burnt pitch away. A distant screech from an unseen hunting bird stabbed through the roar of the airship’s ring of fire.

  Espre had the wheel now, and Xalt kept her company. The warforged and she had taken a shine to each other, and the justicar had to admit that he couldn’t have picked a better bodyguard for the girl. Without the need to eat or sleep, little could distract Xalt from his chosen duties.

  Burch and Monja huddled near the hatch that led to the hold. The shifter had built a small fire there, and he

  and the shaman sat on the edge of its heat, talking in low, friendly tones.

  Sallah’s healing powers had brought the halfling back from the edge of death, and Monja had called upon her people’s spirits to heal herself nearly as good as new. Still, her fresh-knit skin shone red and smooth, like that of a sunburned baby. Despite her smile, Kandler knew she was all too aware of how close she’d come to death that afternoon.

  Te’oma knelt near the fare, cooking the remains of a tribex that Burch had felled from the deck of the Phoenix just before dusk. He had spotted a herd moving along a stream in the foothills of the Endworld Mountains, and he'd ordered the ship low enough for him to kill it. The shifter had gutted and cleaned the kill before hauling the carcass back up on deck, and Te’oma then set to roasting it bit by bit.

  The changeling steered clear of Kandler and Espre most of the time. He saw her chatting with Burch and Monja every now and then. Te’oma and Burch had formed some sort of a bond during the battle against Nithkorrh, and Monja trusted Burch’s judgment completely enough to be friendly with the changeling too.

  Kandler wondered if she might feel differently about Te’oma if she’d been around when the changeling had kidnapped the girl. The first time Monja had seen Te’oma had been when she’d been tossed from the captain’s quarters of another airship after Ibrido had all but killed her. The changeling couldn’t have looked less menacing at the time.

  It had been Monja who’d brought Te’oma back from the brink of death. This seemed to have forged a bond between them, despite the fact that Kandler had only wanted the changeling to be healed so she could tell him where his daughter was. Once the furor had died down, Te’oma had expressed true gratitude toward Monja, and the halfling had basked in the appreciation.

  Now the seven of them, this motley crew that hadn’t so much been assembled as drawn together, were about to set sail for a continent full of dragons, all of them except Sallah, who still seemed determined to leave.

  "It’s madness,” Sallah said.

  Her hand fell to the hilt of her sword—the one she’d taken from Brendis’s body, actually. Hers had been destroyed in the battle with Bastard back in the warforged town of Construct.

  "I should just take her from you,” she said. "I could bring her back to Flamekeep myself.”

  "Can you at least wait until we grab some supplies? I hate to have you lead a mutiny on an empty stomach.”

  Sallah pointed at the roasting tribex. Kandler shrugged.

  "It’s only mutiny if you’re the captain in the first place,” she said.

  "I’m not?”

  "Didn’t Burch find the ship?”

  "That I did,” the shifter said as he joined the pair at the ship’s bow, "so maybe she’s mine. Unless you think we should bring her back to Majeeda.”

  "She’s dead,” Sallah said as she turned and put her back on the gunwale, leaning on her elbows there.

  Burch spat something over the railing. "She was dead before. We left enough of her behind. They can always bring her back.”

  "That’s not the point,” Sallah said with a scowl. She glared at Burch, "Why is it? Why do you follow this man? Why is Kandler in charge?”

  Kandler raised his eyebrows at his friend in mock surprise. The shifter winked at him.

  "Someone has to be,” Burch said, "but no one's in charge of me. I am my own.”

  "You call him 'boss,' and you follow his orders.”

  Burch seemed to consider this for a moment. "I listen to what he says. Don’t you?” Before Sallah could protest, he continued. "As for 'orders,’ if what he says makes sense, I go along with it.” He shifted his gaze to Kandler now. "If not,

  I don’t.”

  "Like telling Espre about her father today," the justicar said. He tried to keep the anger from his tone, but Burch knew him too well for him to hide it that well.

  "Like that.”

  "We lost a good dwarf today.”

  "A good friend,” said Burch.

  "He went willingly,” said Sallah. "We couldn’t have stopped him.'’

  "If you’d kept your mouth shut, that wouldn’t have happened,” Kandler said to the shifter. "We’d have restocked our supplies and been on our way.”

  "Maybe.” Burch spit on the deck this time. "Maybe not.”

  "You think Majeeda and Ledenstrae would have just let us go?” Sallah asked Kandler. "Just let us sail off with our hold laden with elf goods?”

  "There’d have been a fight either way,” Burch said.

  Kandler cocked his head at his friend. "Are you telling me you did that to get Espre out of there before the fight started? How could you think she’d be safer in that tower? ”

  Burch shook his shaggy head. "Either way held trouble. This way, she got to see her father.”

  "And that’s good?”

  The shifter peered back over his shoulder at the girl. Espre stood at the wheel, framed in the bright light of the ring of fire that encircled the ship. She laughed at something that Xalt said to her. The warforged seemed

  confused for a moment, then joined in.

  When Burch turned back, he glanced at Sallah. "A girl should know her father."

  The lad
y knight nodded at that. "When else would she have ever had a chance?” she said, almost to herself.

  "Espre only knew about her father from what you and Esprina told her,” Burch said. "She had to have some doubts.”

  "We told her the truth,” said Kandler.

  Burch shrugged. "Some things you got to see for yourself. Stuff like, 'Your father’s one bad elf,’ No one takes that all on faith.”

  "You never knew your father,” Sallah said. "Did you?”

  Burch gave her a wry grin. "It doesn’t always work out that neat, does it? He died before I was born.”

  "Your father was a good man,” Kandler said to Sallah.

  Grief threatened to fill her eyes, but the lady knight pushed it back. "He was a great man and a great knight.” She pursed her lips. "Not always a great father, but a great knight.”

  "I still think she’d have been better off not knowing him,” Kandler said of Espre. He wanted to deflect the conversation from talk about Deothen, both for Sallah’s sake and because he was still mad at Burch. "I’m her guardian. You shouldn’t have done that without talking with me.”

  "She’s older than you.”

  "You know it doesn’t work that way. She hasn’t even come of age yet.”

  "Is that ever going to happen? We’re a long way from Aerenal here, and we seem to have worn out our welcome in Valenar.”

  "Elf ceremonies aren’t the only way for a girl to grow up.”

  "You’re missing the point, boss.” Burch shot Sallah a sarcastic look as he hit the last word. "She’s already grown. She’s figuring it out. It’s time you did too.”

  Kandler felt his temper rise. He quashed the urge to punch his best friend in the snout. "Her mother just died—”

  "Four years ago. That’s a lot, even for an elf.”

  Kandler stopped cold. He knew Burch was right, but he couldn’t bring himself to yet admit it—at least not right now.

  "Just look at her,” the justicar said. "Does she look full-grown to you?”

  "She has a dragonmark. Those don’t show up in children.”

  Kandler winced. "Dragons below,” he whispered. "You got me there.”

  He peered past Burch at Espre again. In the warm, flickering light from the ring of fire, she seemed as young as ever, but Kandler knew that was just an illusion. Despite the fact that she’d barely seemed any different than the day he’d met her—that she might not look much different the day he died—she was growing up.