by Matt Forbeck
Monja had spent much of her life soaring through the air on the back of one glidewing or another. Since childhood, she’d taken to the sky whenever she could find one of the winged lizards ready to give her a ride.
Soaring above the waving grasses of the Talenta Plains gave the halfling the kind of perspective she could find nowhere else. In the air, she could leave her earthbound problems—which were mostly other people’s problems— behind and revel in the vibrancy of life.
Flying the airship didn’t feel the same.
A glidewing flew in concert with the winds. It rode the updrafts and downdrafts and currents and eddies of the sky. It danced with nature.
The airship represented power. She did not respect the weather but defied it. Nothing stood in the way of the Phoenix.
Monja recognized the irony that a fiery elemental—the quintessence of a natural force—powered the airship. Trapped in the rune-crusted restraining arcs, the ring of fire had been harnessed to allow the craft to own the skies. Up here in the air, it could challenge anything— even a dragon.
To have all that power in her hands intoxicated Monja. She took every spare shift at the helm that she could cadge from the others. Even though she had to stand on the middle spars to be able to see over the bridge’s console, she spent almost all of her moments behind the wheel with a gleeful grin on her face.
To have all that power now, it seemed a shame not to use it. Monja felt the Phoenix edge forward again, and she reined the airship in hard.
From somewhere in the tower, she heard a strange bellow. It could only be the sound of a warforged’s scream.
"Are you a coward?” the dragon-man asked.
Wondering what her father would think of her, Monja felt sick. What would he do in such a situation? Would he tolerate the dragon-man’s taunting? Or would he make the vicious creature pay?
As lathon of the tribes of the Talenta Plains, Halpum knew all about war. He had fought bitter struggles in his youth to prevent other ambitious laths from destroying their tribe or bringing it to heel, but in his elder years, he had shunned the horrors of the battlefield for the comforts of the campfire.
It had been he who had represented all of the Talenta tribes at the peace talks that brought an end to the Last War. He had brought his fractious peoples together not through strength of arms but force of will. He had used that same skill with others to help forge the peace that now held over most of Khorvaire, ever since the signing of the Treaty of Thronehold.
He was no coward. Nor was his daughter.
Monja smiled as she wiped her hands on her shirt and then readjusted them on the airship’s wheel. Despite removing her fingers from the controls for a moment, the fire elemental had not moved the ship an inch. It knew who held sway over it—at least now that she held sway over herself.
"I am content as I am,” Monja said, the words flowing from her like wind under wings.
The dragon-man scowled.
Chapter
56
Kandler felt his heart stop.
Until that moment, he’d been able to hear his blood pounding through his veins. Despite the fact that he could not move, that Espre had paralyzed him with her deadly powers, his heart had hammered away in his chest, faster than ever.
When he saw his daughter reach for the rope and begin the long climb back up to where the dragon queen rampaged, his heart halted in mid-beat. To have come all this way and fought so hard to save the girl, he couldn’t bear to watch her charge off to sacrifice herself on his behalf.
"No,” Kandler rasped, bringing his arms to his chest. The thrill he felt at being able to move again, even so weakly, paled at the pain he felt spreading across his tightening ribs. It felt like someone had sat on his sternum, meaning to crush the life from him.
The justicar wanted to say more, to call out to Espre, to ask her—beg her—to stop, but he couldn’t suck enough air into his lungs to do more than whisper, "No.”
Espre didn’t hear him. If she did, she didn’t look back.
He knew she couldn’t be that cold-blooded to him, not after all the years they’d lived together as father and daughter. He suspected that she feared she might lose her resolve if she turned around and saw him lying there on the floor, dying. If that was true, then his only hope right now was to get her to do just that.
"Espre." He tried to shout the words, but they came out as barely more than a whisper. He tried again, but with results no better.
Clutching his chest, he rolled over and spotted Burch. The effort took everything he had. When he tried to say the shifter’s name, nothing came out.
Burch lay there before him, curled in a ball, his eyes clenched shut. Frost tipped the shifter’s dark mane and furry arms, and he shivered as if someone had turned his insides to ice.
Kandler reached out and slapped Burch’s arm. The shifter’s yellow eyes popped open. They burned with determination.
Despite the cold that gripped him, Burch unfolded himself and rolled onto his back. Kandler saw the shifter’s eyes light up when he spotted Espre climbing the rope.
"Esp-pre!” Burch growled.
Kandler fell back and stared up at the girl. His vision had been closing in on him since his heart had stopped, and now it seemed that he gazed up at her through a long dark tunnel. She was the only light at the end of it.
She’d gotten almost halfway to the upper floor by now, but she’d stopped climbing now. Her shoulders shook, and Kandler feared that she might lose her grip and come crashing down on the unforgiving stone. He tried to call out to her once more, but he couldn’t find the breath.
"Save them,” Espre said, her voice raw. She did not look back down. "Don’t let them die.”
Then she started climbing upward again.
Greffykor nodded at the girl’s words. Then he chanted a few phrases in his native tongue. As he did, one of his claws began to glow.
The silver dragon reached out with a talon on that claw and tapped Kandler in the chest just as his world went dark. It felt like the tip of that talon might stab right through the justicar’s ribs. Instead, the glow flowed from the talon into Kandler’s form.
His heart started beating again. It felt weak at first, but within three beats it pounded as strong as ever. He opened his eyes and saw that Espre had nearly made it to the upper floor.
He tried to leap to his feet, but his arms and legs would not work the way they needed to. He felt as powerless as a newborn child.
"Espre!” he called out. The word felt strange on his tongue, but he tried it again. "Espre!”
The girl did not stop.
Kandler flung his head to the side to see Greffykor leaning over Burch, his claw glowing once more. The dragon touched a silvery talon to the shifter’s shoulder, and the color that fled from his claw enveloped Burch’s form.
Where the glow touched, the frost covering the shifter melted away, leaving him soaked through. Soon, Burch stopped shivering, and his mouth twisted into a snarl.
"Don’t do it!” Burch shouted after the young elf.
Kandler’s stomach flipped when he saw the girl hesitate near the top of the rope. "Espre!” he called. "Come back!”
Then he noticed the black glow spreading over the girl’s hands as she reached for the lip of the upper floor.
At first, Kandler couldn’t understand what she might be doing. Had she changed her mind about sacrificing herself to the dragon queen on behalf of the others? Would she try to kill the creature instead?
Then Te’oma’s white oval of a face appeared leering down over Espre’s shoulder.
"No!” Kandler said.
He flipped over on to his belly and pushed himself to his knees. He spotted his fangblade on the floor in front of him and snatched it up in an unsteady fist.
The feel of the hilt in his hand gave Kandler hope. He was not a diplomat but a fighter. He solved problems not with his head but the edge of his sword. With a blade like this in his hands, anything could be possible.
The justicar didn’t think about how tired he was or how much the effort to get back up hurt or about the dragon standing next to him. He focused on Espre and her alone. He had to get up there and stop her. He had to save her somehow, whether that meant finding a way to abscond with her on the airship or just killing every damn dragon that crossed his path.
Kandler staggered to his feet and looked up to see what had happed to Espre. The silver dragon towered there before him like a moon blocking out part of the sky.
"Get out of my way,” Kandler said.
"I will not kill you,” Greffykor said, "but you will not interfere. The girl has made her decision—the right decision—and you cannot stop her.”
Kandler brought his sword over his head and slashed out at the dragon. Greffykor plucked back its claw but not fast enough. The fangblade hacked off one of the dragon’s talons, which clattered on the floor like a dropped dagger.
Unperturbed, the dragon stood up on its hind legs, stretched its wings, and buffeted the air with them. The resultant wind knocked Kandler from his feet. He managed to keep hold of his blade, but only by sheer determination.
The dragon slunk back down onto its haunches and regarded the two intruders. His silvery eyes shone like mirrors in the light cast by the glowing runes set into the various rings that hung about the cavernous chamber.
Defiant, Kandler struggled to his feet once more, this time using his sword as a crutch to help keep himself standing tall. Locking his legs into a warrior’s stance, he hefted the sword once more and prepared to charge. He meant to save Espre now or die trying.
The justicar felt a taloned hand on his shoulder, and he spun about to find Burch standing behind him, a forlorn look on his face.
"Give it up, boss,” Burch said. "She’s gone.”
Kandler gasped at what he could only see as an act of betrayal by his best friend. He shrugged the shifter’s hand off his shoulder and brandished his sword between them.
"No,” he said. "No one’s going to stop me. Not even you.”
"What about her?” Burch asked, pointing upward.
Kandler craned his neck back and saw nothing. Espre wasn’t there at the lip of the hole anymore, and neither was Te’oma. It took him a moment to spy what else was gone.
The rope.
"We’re stuck down here,” Burch said.
Kandler cast his gaze around the room, scanning the walls for some kind of opening—anything at all. There had to be another way to the upper floor: a set of stairs, a series of rungs carved into the tower’s wall, a flying platform—anything.
"Your cause is hopeless,” Greffykor said.
Maybe he could climb from one rotating ring to the next, Kandler thought. He sheathed his sword and leaped for the nearest one. He caught it halfway up its side, but as it took his weight it spun in midair—suspended in no way that the justicar could discern—so that he hung from its lowest possible point.
Kandler dropped back to the ground and bellowed in
rage. "This can’t happen,” he said. "I won’t let it!”
"The choice is no longer yours,” Greffykor said. "Perhaps it never was.”
Kandler turned to Burch.
"Only one way out of here, boss,” the shifter said. "Besides dying, that is.”
Hope started to spark in Kandler's heart, but the look his friend gave him snuffed it out. Burch pointed over Kandler’s shoulder at the dragon. "We got to hitch a ride.” Kandler scowled. He wondered for a moment if they could kill the dragon and then climb to the upper floor on the creature’s corpse. He knew it was nothing more than a desperate fantasy though.
"All right,” he said in a beaten voice, tinged with desperation. "What will it take for you to fly us up there?”
To Kandler’s surprise, the dragon did not laugh at the question.
"Put down your weapons,” Greffykor said, "and I will carry you up to where you wish to go.”
Kandler hefted the fangblade in his hand for a moment. Without the blade, he didn’t have a prayer of hurting the dragon queen, but the blade would do him no good down here.
He dumped the fangblade onto the floor. Burch’s crossbow and knife clattered there next to it.
"Very well,” Kandler said, feeling as naked as he ever had in his life. "Let’s go.”
Chapter
57
Te’oma backpedaled, dodging just out of Espre s lethal reach. The changeling felt the chill air left behind in the wake of the girl’s fingers as they brushed by her.
"Almost, dear.” Te’oma clucked her tongue. "Though I’m afraid, as always, that you don’t have that killer instinct.” Espre snarled as she pulled herself up over the lip of the hole. "Get a little bit closer, and maybe you’ll find out.” "What makes you so determined to kill me before you kill yourself?” Te’oma asked. "What difference will my fate make to you when you’re dead?”
"It’ll help me enjoy my last moments,” the girl said. As she spoke, she reached back behind her and began to haul up the rope.
Te’oma smiled. The girl had grown a great deal in the past few weeks. Even with everything going on around her, she still kept cool enough to realize that she needed to cover her escape from Kandler and Burch. She looked very much like the girl the changeling had kidnapped in Mardakine, but she acted far more worldly.
Te’oma took some small amount of pride in knowing she had helped make that happen. It helped to balance out the shame she felt for the same deeds.
"Do you really plan to end your life,” Te’oma said, "or is this just a ploy to get close enough to kill the dragon queen?”
Espre smirked at the changeling. She’d never looked so adult since Te’oma had known her. Something about her eyes had changed. If not older, they shone with a hard-won wisdom that had been thrust upon her by the turns her life had taken.
Te’oma imagined that the girl could never have dreamed of finding herself here in Argonnessen dealing with dragons who wanted her dead. She’d probably hoped to live for years in Mardakine with Kandler, only leaving once she’d buried him. Perhaps then she’d have made her way back to Aerenal, hoping to connect with her long-lost father.
The changeling wondered how Ledenstrae would have treated the girl if she’d never developed the dragonmark. Would he have refused to recognize her claim on him, or would he have put aside any bitterness toward her mother and taken his prodigal daughter in?
Such questions were pointless, of course. It hadn’t worked out that way, and pondering such possibilities only distracted from how things really were.
Espre seemed to have abandoned any such illusions— along with any hope for a future.
"Do you think I would have a chance?” Espre asked. "I thought you were smarter than that.”
"I used to think so too,” said Te’oma. "The years keep proving me wrong.”
Espre tossed the rope to one side of the hole.
"Come with me,” the changeling said. "We can escape this.”
"How?” Espre said, glancing over Te’oma’s shoulder at where the dragon queen continued to knock against the gigantic crystal on the far side of the chamber.
"The airship—”
"Too slow.”
"My bloodwings—”
"Not strong enough to carry us both—and too slow.” "We can hide. We can—”
"From that?” Espre pointed at the dragon queen as the creature belched another gout of fire from its snout. "From the hundreds just like her?”
Te’oma frowned. "She’ll kill us all anyhow. Your sacrifice will mean nothing.”
"Then either way I’ 11 die. At least this way I get to choose how. I get to stand there before her on my own two feet and ask for it.”
"That’s what you want?” Te’oma couldn’t believe it. This girl had fought so hard to live.
"If I can just spit in her eye, I’ll be happy.”
Then Te’oma remembered how the girl had crashed the Phoenix straight into the Talenta Plains. Even then Espre had been ready t
o die rather than surrender her life to forces beyond her control. She’d nearly killed them both in the process—and had expected to succeed.
"I can’t let you do this,” Te’oma said.
"You don’t have anything to say about it.”
Te’oma gathered her resolve deep in her mind and then lashed out with a mental blast that would have dropped a charging minotaur.
Espre grunted and fell to one knee. The girl had been prepared for the changeling to try something like this, though, and she had her mental defenses in place.
Te’oma cursed. She’d hoped to take the girl out with a single, crushing blow. She didn’t have the time to dance
around the observatory with her. Sooner or later the dragon queen would get tired of trying to kill Xalt and Sallah—or would succeed—and then she’d spot Espre. Once that happened, their dance would come to a crashing end.
Of course, the girl knew that. All she really had to do was shout at the dragon to bring doom down on her head—and Te’oma's too.
Te’oma took a deep breath through her nostrils and lanced out with her mind at a specific part of the girl’s brain.
Espre clutched her head in pain then opened her mouth to scream. Te’oma winced in anticipation, but nothing came out. The girl’s lips curled in frustration, but try as she might she could not speak a single word nor utter even a feeble grunt.
Te’oma charged Espre then. She knew that if she gave the girl a chance to think, she’d come up with some other way to get the dragon’s attention, even if that meant going over and kicking the queen in her red, scaly rump.
Espre had to present herself to the dragon though. Just getting killed wouldn’t do anyone a bit of good. She needed to show the dragon her mark and explain that killing her would be enough to fulfill the dragon’s needs. After that, bothering to chase down the others would only be a waste of the dragon’s time.
As Te’oma came at the girl, Espre raised her arms to defend herself. Her hands still glowed black.
Unlike a wizard or a priest, the girl didn’t need her voice to activate her power. She had no incantations to recite or petitions to pray. She only needed to summon up her powers with her own will.
