Skein of Shadows (dungeons and dragons)

by Marsheila Rockwell

  Fire burst out of the broken orb, washing over the sand in a molten wave. Steam rose in a great cloud, too thick for even the rising winds to disperse and Sabira watched from the safety of her perch as the sand began to melt and fuse into a vast block of glass.

  “Was that… alchemist’s fire?” Greddark asked in amazement, and Brannan laughed.

  “More or less,” the Wayfinder replied with an exultant grin. Catching Sabira’s eye, he added, “The dragon was probably counting on us not being able to attack it with magic. I’m sure it wasn’t counting on this.”

  Sabira turned back to the transmuting sand, which was just beginning to reach their wagon. Guisarme was still only halfway up the side, the damage done to his legs by the dragon’s flaywind making it difficult for him to climb. She was just moving over to help the others haul him up when Skraad let out a small cry. Sabira was too far away to see exactly what happened, but suddenly Guisarme was dangling from one arm, his foot mere inches from the molten sand as Greddark and Xujil struggled to pull him back up.

  And then the warforged was falling, his ungainly weight too much for the two to bear alone. He landed in the liquefied sand with a plop, and his heavy body sank about halfway in, so that only his face and upper chest were free. His jaw hinged open, but no sound escaped, and the light in his purple crystal eyes went dim.

  “No!” Sabira shouted, and she would have leaped down to help him if Brannan hadn’t grabbed her from behind and pulled her bodily backward.

  “Do you have some sort of death wish, Marshal?” he hissed in her ear, his hold surprisingly strong as she struggled against him. “Just wait. When the sand cools, we can dig him out, and maybe your artificer can revive him.”

  She relaxed in his arms, feigning acquiescence, but the Wayfinder wasn’t fooled. The strength of his grip didn’t lessen.

  “How long?” she asked sullenly, unable to take her eyes off of Guisarme’s inert form.

  Brannan hesitated. When she tensed again, he answered, “That was one of the strongest batches I’ve ever seen. Days, probably.”

  She sagged against him at the news, and this time his hold did slacken. She jerked out of his grasp and turned to face him.

  “You know we don’t have that kind of time,” she spat at him, furious at his matter-of-fact tone. She could see the dragon encased in the massive block of translucent, glowing glass, and even at this distance, its amber eyes burned with hatred. “Was this wagon carrying water, or just a lot of magical toys?”

  Brannan’s lips compressed into a thin line.

  “Don’t be foolish. All the wagons carry food and water, along with weapons.”

  “Good.” She made her way over to where the others were gathered above Guisarme and put a hand on Greddark’s shoulder. The dwarf looked up at her with anguished eyes.

  “His hand slipped off Skraad’s.” A quick glance showed Sabira why; the orc’s forearm was covered in blood. “Then when he saw that his weight was going to pull the drow and me down with him, he just… let go.”

  Sabira squeezed his shoulder in sympathy.

  “We might still be able to help him. I need you and Skraad to climb down into the wagon and hoist a couple of barrels of water up to us. We’ll pour it out on the sand-that should make it cool faster, and we can get him out sooner.”

  Greddark looked uncertain.

  “That sudden a change in temperature could very well crack the glass-and Guisarme with it.”

  Sabira’s gaze was unwavering.

  “Would he be any worse off than he is now?”

  The dwarf didn’t hesitate.

  “No.”

  “Then get moving. I don’t think this sand-to-glass trick is going to slow the dragon down for long, so we need to move quickly.”

  “You can’t possibly mean to waste two full barrels of water on one warforged.” Brannan’s voice was sharp with disbelief and anger.

  Sabira didn’t bother to turn.

  “Yes, actually, I can.”

  “I won’t allow you to-”

  She rounded on the Wayfinder.

  “You won’t allow me?” she repeated, her tone low and dangerous as her hand hovered meaningfully over the release for her urgrosh’s harness. “How exactly were you planning on stopping me?”

  She felt Xujil stir, but didn’t turn. Greddark was there to handle him if the drow really felt defending his employer was worth getting disemboweled over.

  Brannan’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t answer immediately. Weighing his options and running the numbers, no doubt.

  “Each barrel of water holds enough to keep ten men alive for a day. Do you have ten men who are volunteering to cut their ration short for two days for the sake of this warforged?”

  “There’s one less camel now,” Sabira countered, “and the gnomes won’t be using their share, assuming it survived the wreck of their wagon. And if need be, yes, my men and I will gladly reduce our rations for the sake of ‘this warforged.’ Whose name, by the way, is Guisarme.”

  Brannan shrugged.

  “Very well. Rest assured that I will hold you to your word, if it comes to that.”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Sabira replied.

  With Jester’s help, Greddark and Skraad were able to lift up a pair of heavy wooden barrels and hold them in place on one of the steel ribs. Directly below the barrels, Guisarme’s body lay partially encased in cooling glass. Sabira set her feet as best she could on the taut canvas, unharnessed her urgrosh and brought the axe-head down on the first barrel as hard as she could. The wood split like a kobold’s skull and water gushed out, running down the side of the waterproof fabric and onto the sand below. For the second time today, Sabira was engulfed in a cloud of steam as heat and cold battled for supremacy. Greddark and Skraad tossed the remains of the empty barrel off the wagon and moved the second one into place, and Sabira cleaved that one in twain, as well.

  As they waited for the resulting steam to dissipate, Sabira frowned. The wind from the storm should have torn the billowing clouds to shreds, but they still hung in the air, a bizarre pocket of humidity in the arid climate. Come to think of it, the wall of wind-driven sand should have overtaken them long before now.

  She turned back to regard the dragon’s dust storm, only to see that it was battering itself to pieces against an invisible wall a few hundred feet beyond the line of wagons. The unnatural storm must have hit the edge of the zone that had warped all their spells thus far. The magic that propelled the sand and wind could go no farther, and so low dunes were forming along the boundary, like a row of burial mounds. Nice to see the Traveler’s Curse working in their favor for a change.

  There was a soft thud below her. Sabira whipped her head back around to see a large melon rolling lopsidedly across the hardened glass, a wet bruise visible intermittently visible as it rotated.

  “I think it’s safe now,” Greddark said. “Jester found a pick and some shovels. Let’s go dig him out and we’ll see if I’m as skilled as I like to claim I am.”

  At her nod, the warforged handed her a shovel; Skraad was already holding one. Sabira felt a momentary pang when she saw that his arms were bandaged. Jester had apparently found more than just mining equipment in his foraging. She should have been the one to see to it that the orc’s wounds were treated, but her guilt was overridden by satisfaction at the knowledge that she’d chosen wisely, with men who didn’t need explicit orders from her to do what needed to be done, quickly and efficiently. She’d been on her own for so long as a Marshal that she’d all but forgotten what it was like working with a unit of well-trained warriors.

  Greddark grabbed the pick and jumped down first, followed quickly by Jester and then Skraad. Sabira came down last; though she wanted Guisarme freed just as much of the rest of them, she knew they were driven by more than just camaraderie. She knew the great weight of guilt and grief that came from having a partner who’d been hurt because of your actions, or lack thereof. She’d carried that burden h
erself-still did, in many ways, though it was no longer as heavy as it had once been. She understood their urgency and let them take the lead, because, while she wanted to rescue Guisarme, they needed to.

  “You do realize that when you break the glass surrounding him, you’re also breaking the glass around the dragon? The glass that is currently the only thing keeping it from resuming its rather devastating attack?” Brannan asked from his place at the top of the overturned wagon.

  “Well, I guess you’d better make sure the caravan is ready to move the moment we’re finished, then, hadn’t you?” Sabira answered, not bothering to hide the disgust in her voice. Though it wasn’t directed at the Wayfinder, so much as at the fact that he always seemed to be right.

  Greddark kneeled down to examine Guisarme, then the glass around him, trying to find a point where he could start chopping at the transparent block without causing further injury to the warforged. After a moment, he chose a spot about a foot away from the construct’s right side. The dwarf muttered something under his breath, and Sabira thought she caught the words “Onatar,” “Canniths,” and “show them how it’s done,” but she couldn’t be sure. He swung the pick up and back and then brought it forward with a grunt of effort, the muscles in his arms bulging.

  The crack of metal on stone reverberated across the sand and chips flew up in a spray of sparks and broken glass as the pick slammed into the block with the full force of Greddark’s anger behind it. A thin line appeared in the translucent surface, spreading out in both directions from the crater created by Greddark’s blow. A second strike widened it a hair, and a third made a gap big enough to inset a shovel blade.

  “You two start here while I go work over there,” the artificer said to Jester and Skraad before stepping over Guisarme’s body to find a similar weak spot in the glass on the other side. The two set to work with gusto, wedging the shovels into the crack and working the blades back and forth to widen it further.

  Sabira joined Greddark on the far side, waiting for her turn. As she did, she noticed warforged braving the sand to scavenge what they could from the ruins of the gnomes’ wagon. After they’d removed a miraculously intact barrel and two mostly intact crates, one of the warforged emerged from the wreckage carrying a small body. Sabira recognized the crossbowman from the driver’s seat. The warforged wrapped the gnome’s corpse carefully with a swath of torn canvas and then laid it out on the ground near the ruined wagon.

  As she watched, he and his fellow constructs began piling pieces of broken wood and other flammables beside the body, building a small pyre. When it was large enough, the first warforged-who Sabira now realized was the gnomes’ driver-picked up the shrouded body and laid it reverently on the wooden mound. Another warforged retrieved the skeleton of the staff-wielding gnome and laid it beside the first gnome’s body. Of the dragonshard-tipped staff, there was no sign, but Sabira supposed the living constructs’ respect for the dead didn’t extend to destroying their belongings. They were Brannan’s men, after all.

  The driver looked in her direction, probably awaiting permission from the Wayfinder. After a moment, the warforged nodded, then pulled flint and tinder from a pouch at his hip. He struck the flint against his thigh and had the tinder smoking in moments. A short time later, the gnomes’ pyre was sending up a trail of black smoke into the sky, an offering to whatever gods of the Sovereign Host the two might have worshiped. The warforged driver stayed for a moment with his head bowed and Sabira wondered for the first time what the living constructs thought about death and what came after. She should ask Jester; somehow, she was sure he’d have given the matter some serious consideration.

  “There.”

  While Sabira had been watching the impromptu funeral, Greddark had finally located the weak spot he needed. As Sabira turned back to him, he brought the pick down in a vicious arc. The second crack was even louder than the first, and this time the pick stuck fast.

  The dwarf struggled to pull it free for a few moments, then glared up at her.

  “I could use some of that legendary Shard Axe strength right about now.”

  Sabira almost snorted at that. If there was anything “legendary” about her, it was her temper, or maybe her stubbornness. Definitely not her strength. Of course, she knew the dwarf was really talking about the enchantment on her urgrosh that gave whoever held it the stability and stamina of his rock-loving brethren, but now probably wasn’t the time to quibble over semantics. Or to remind him of the fact that it might not work, given the nature of the area they were in.

  She pulled the shard axe off her back and then grabbed hold of the pick, so that both the urgrosh’s haft and the handle of the pick were in her grasp. She felt a surge through the leather-wrapped wood, but didn’t know if it was the urgrosh’s enchantment or some Traveler-twisted variant.

  There was only one way to find out.

  “On three,” she said. “One… two… pull!”

  With what amounted to two dwarves yanking on the pick, it was either going to give way or break.

  It broke, and both Sabira and Greddark stumbled backward, the shard axe in Sabira’s hand and what was left of the pick handle in Greddark’s. The head of the pick remained firmly lodged in the glass, its recalcitrance proving even more noteworthy than Sabira’s own.

  But not for long.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said impatiently as she regained her footing. “Move.”

  Greddark obliged, opting not to bristle at her tone when he saw the dark look on her face.

  Mimicking the dwarf’s earlier stance, Sabira brought her urgrosh up and back and then down. The adamantine axe-blade sheered through the head of the pick and shattered the glass in a two-foot radius, showering her with tiny stinging shards even as the blow freed Guisarme’s left arm and upper torso from their crystalline prison.

  “Does it always do that?” Greddark asked after a moment, his voice registering awe. He was clearly shocked by the damage her blow had caused.

  Almost as much as she was.

  “Not usually.” She wondered if there might be some way to harness the effects of the Traveler’s Curse. She’d take the urgrosh’s enchantment not functioning at times if this is what happened when it did work.

  She was about to pose the question when a deeper crack sounded below her, followed by a rumbling.

  “That would be the glass near the dragon beginning to break,” Brannan said from behind her. While she and the others had been working to free Guisarme, the Wayfinder and Xujil had commandeered another mechanical wagon and its crew. A few warforged were just finishing up transferring the last of the supplies over from the overturned wagon. “We need to leave. Now.”

  She had to give the man credit. He managed to keep all but the tiniest trace of smugness from his voice.

  Now that Sabira’s shard axe had broken most of the glass encasing Guisarme, Greddark was able to clear the rest away. He dug some implements out of his shirt and various pouches, including a vial of what looked like oil and another of what looked like curdled milk. He muttered incantations under his breath, trying this spell and that to resuscitate the warforged, but without success. Finally, he looked up at Sabira, his eyes shadowed.

  “I think he can be revived, but it’s beyond my skill. He needs to go back to Stormreach, to the House Cannith artificers. They’ve got the time and materials there to do what I can’t here.”

  “So who’s going to take him back?”

  Her question hung in the air, much as the steam cloud had earlier. As the warforged’s employer and the group’s leader, Sabira knew the job should fall to her, but she couldn’t abandon her quest. There was too much riding on it.

  She could see similar conflict on the faces of her companions. They all wanted to see Guisarme to safety, and they all knew they couldn’t afford to. Even Jester, whose face couldn’t betray expression, still managed to convey his quandary by hanging his head, as if in shame.

  “I’ll take him.”

  Sa
bira turned to see the driver of the gnomes’ wagon, pulling along a soarsled weighed down by two chests marked “Property of the Library of Korranberg.” Sabira also saw books poking out of the mouth of a burlap bag and, finally, the dragonshard-tipped staff.

  “I have to return these items to the doyen’s family. I can transport your companion back with me, as well.”

  Doyen? The staff-wielder had been one of the luminaries of Korranberg? That wasn’t going to go over well back in Zilargo. She wondered briefly who the gnome might have been, then decided it was probably safer if she didn’t know.

  “Thank you,” Sabira said gratefully, relieved and chagrined at the same time. It didn’t matter that it couldn’t be helped-leaving a man behind still stuck in her craw like a mugful of Old Sully’s gone bad. Which was, she supposed, the difference between her and Brannan. They might both choose the needs of the group over the needs of the individual, but she at least felt bad about it, and money was never a factor.

  “I can give you a writ-” she began, reaching for one of her own pouches, but the warforged waved the offer away before she could make it.

  “I’m taking one of my fallen brethren home, either to be restored to his former glory or to be laid to rest. One does not pay an honor guard.”

  Sabira nodded her understanding.

  “Of course; I meant no offense. But Guisarme no longer has anything to go back to, thanks in part to his decision to join us on this expedition. If the artificers can revive him, he’s going to need money, to pay for the repairs if nothing else. And he’s still owed payment for making it this far.” She dug out their agreed-upon fee from her money pouch, plus a handful of extra platinum. If asked, she’d say it was hazard pay, but she knew in her heart it was blood money. “And maybe you can talk to Kupper-Nickel on the way back. He might be able to get Guisarme reinstated to his old job, if he still wants it.”

  The driver took the proffered coins without comment and deposited them into his own pouch. Then he stood aside as Skraad and Greddark lifted Guisarme’s body and placed it carefully on the sled. There was no ceremony, and no words were spoken as the driver led the laden soarsled away, but somehow it felt no different to Sabira than the funeral she’d witnessed earlier.