Marked for Death: The Lost Mark, Book 1

by Forbeck, Matt

  “Bastard!”

  The warforged leader’s head snapped up at the mention of his name. He stopped mutilating the woman beneath him and climbed to his feet, Sallah’s burning blade still running through his middle. The flames from the sword scorched the creature’s front and back, but its tight-fitted plates of armor kept the fibers beneath from catching fire. Bastard grunted as he pulled at the hilt and tried to remove the length of hot steel from his body, but the warforged’s fall onto the blade had wedged it in tight, and it would not budge.

  Kandler reached Bastard and leveled a devastating cut at the creature’s head. The warforged blocked the blow with his arm, but the justicar’s blade bent back a few of its bloodied spikes and bit under the creature’s armor. Bastard howled in pain and danced back from Kandler’s attack.

  “At last,” he said, “a worthy foe.”

  The creature’s admiration was little comfort to Kandler as he glanced down at Sallah. She coughed once and rolled on the ground, clutching at her wounds. Kandler prowled away to the right, his sword at the ready before him, drawing Bastard away from the fallen knight.

  Bastard growled, then lowered his head and charged. The spikes rising from the creature’s head stretched toward the justicar like the horns of a raging bull. The points on these were far sharper.

  Kandler dodged to the right, and as Bastard barreled past he tried to gore the justicar with his spikes, but they only tore at the fabric of his shirt. Bastard spun about to face the justicar again, the raging fires glinting off his sharpened and polished tips.

  The justicar shook his head and took a deep breath to calm himself. The warforged’s anger could work for him here, but not if he was mastered by his own.

  Bastard lowered his head and charged again. The justicar spun away at the last second, but this time the creature sliced open a gash along Kandler’s left shoulder.

  “First blood!” Bastard crowed in delight as he spun back around several yards beyond the justicar.

  Kandler cleared his throat and looked down at his blade, which wore the warforged’s blood. “Did you forget?” he asked. “Or are you just stupid?”

  “I only count the blood I draw,” Bastard said, waving an armored hand over his bloodied spikes. “I have plenty of the woman’s. Soon I’ll have the rest of yours.”

  Kandler tapped the floor between them with the tip of his sword. At first he dragged it in a semicircle in front of him, then he jabbed the end of the blade into the wood of the arena’s floor.

  “Come and get it,” he said.

  Bastard bent down his head, exposing his spikes again, and charged forward, faster than ever. This time, he flung his arms wide. As the warforged came at him, Kandler pushed his own blade aside. Bastard barked out a mirthless laugh and stretched his arms wider. Kandler waited until the last moment then fell on his back and stabbed out his hand to grab the hilt of Sallah’s blade, still jutting from the warforged leader’s front. The sacred sword firmly in his grasp, he shoved up on the hilt and leveraged it over his head.

  Kandler slid underneath the stampeding Bastard, and the creature’s momentum carried him somersaulting over Kandler’s head. The justicar let loose the hilt of Sallah’s sword as Bastard sailed past, then he twisted over on his front to watch the results.

  Bastard flipped entirely over Kandler and landed flat on his back. The burning sword jammed through the creature stabbed into and through the floor beneath him. The sword stopped Bastard’s forward roll by tearing through the fibers in its chest harder than any human hand ever could. He screamed in agony as the blade tore through his midsection.

  Kandler scrambled over to where his own sword lay on the ground and scooped it up. He strode over to where Bastard lay wriggling on the blade that pinned him to the floor, and he hefted his weapon over the warforged leader.

  “Do you know where warforged go when they die?” Kandler asked. His voice trembled as he spoke.

  The warforged leader hauled on the hilt of Sallah’s blade. With more of its fibers exposed by the growing gash, Bastard was starting to burn.

  Kandler smacked the warforged across the top of his head as he circled around him, hunting for the perfect spot for a killing blow.

  “Do you?” he said.

  Bastard glared up at Kandler through its sapphire eyes. “No.”

  “Well,” Kandler said, “you’re about to find out.”

  He reversed his grip on his sword and raised it over his head for a two-handed stab. He threw himself forward, putting all his weight behind the blow and driving the point straight for the warforged leader’s exposed neck.

  Bastard released his grip on the hilt of Sallah’s sword and flung up his arms to protect itself. Kandler’s blade caught Bastard square in the forearm, drove through, wedged into the arm’s fibers and caught halfway along its steely length, jarring Kandler’s shoulders in their sockets.

  Bastard roared as he wrenched its arm forward, smashing Kandler in the eye with his own sword’s pommel. The justicar fell back, clutching his hands to his face.

  Surging with fury, Bastard began to roll back and forth on the arena floor. Each time he did, Sallah’s sword cut deeper and deeper. To Kandler, it seemed that the warforged leader was trying to saw himself in half. Perhaps he would have succeeded, but the blazing blade became wedged between two plates of the warforged’s armor and stuck.

  Kandler stumbled back and fell a safe distance away. He pulled his hands from his face and felt the damage. His eye was still intact, but it was swelling shut so fast he could only see out through a tiny slit between.

  Bastard slammed his wounded arm down into the arena floor at an awkward angle, shoving the point of Kandler’s blade through the boards. Using this point as leverage, he wrenched against Sallah’s sword again, again, and again.

  The wet sound of the weapon working its way through Bastard’s artificial flesh turned Kandler’s stomach. He just wished that the creature would do the right thing and die, that this would all come to an end.

  With a snap, Sallah’s sacred sword broke in two, and Bastard came tumbling off the blade, his pinned arm twisting at a horrible angle.

  Kandler heard the fibers and plates in Bastard’s limb crunch and break against each other under the stress. The justicar scrambled back to his feet and watched the warforged through his one good eye.

  Bastard pulled his way to his feet, but his arm was still stuck on the floor. He reached down and grabbed the hilt of Sallah’s sword protruding from his chest. Its flames had snuffed out when the blade snapped, but the remaining shaft still smoked where it touched the warforged’s flesh. Bastard pulled on the hilt, and the sword’s shattered length slid free. The warforged snarled at Kandler, who hung back a respectable distance to see what would happen next.

  “I may have your sword”—Bastard waved the hilt-shard of Sallah’s sword at him, its sacred light extinguished forever—“but you,” he said, “you still have something I want.”

  Kandler stepped backward, ready to run, even though the warforged was still anchored to the floor by its mangled arm.

  “What’s that?” he said.

  Bastard raised the hilt in his hand and brought it chopping down on his pinned arm. The edge of the broken blade sliced through the twisted fibers there, parting him from his maimed limb for good.

  Freed from his ruined arm, Bastard stood up to his full height. He held the shard of Sallah’s blade and pointed it at Kandler’s chest.

  “I want your blood.”

  Esprë stood on the bridge of the airship and watched her stepfather battle the warforged leader. She screamed every time Bastard attacked, and she cheered each time Kandler escaped harm. When he stabbed the creature through the arm, she jumped and squealed.

  The girl’s joy was cut short, though, when Bastard broke Sallah’s blade. Seeing Kandler staring at the creature through his one good eye, without a sword in his hand, Esprë knew she had to do something.

  She cast her eyes about. Burch was gone
and maybe dead, plowed down with the arena wall. Sallah lay leaking blood from a handful of wounds. Deothen had disappeared under the arena floor and never came back out. Brendis was just this side of the grave. Below the ship, the artificer stood over Te’oma, making sure the changeling didn’t get up and start wreaking havoc again.

  “Xalt!” Esprë shouted to the warforged below, a spark of hope fanning to a flame in her heart. “You have to help Kandler!”

  Xalt looked up from Te’oma and Brendis and waved at the girl. “I would like to help, Esprë,” the artificer called, “but …”

  Esprë’s flame of hope began to flicker. She glanced over to see Bastard stand with a fragment of Sallah’s sword still jutting from his chest, and the fire in her nearly went out.

  From below, Xalt yelled, “The ship! Use the ship!”

  “Yes!” Esprë said. “Yes!” She beckoned down at the artificer. “Come up!”

  Xalt looked over to where Kandler and Bastard were still circling each other. “There is no time!” he shouted. “You must do it yourself!”

  The girl nodded and turned to the steering platform. The wheel stood before her, solid and unmoving, although she could almost feel the elemental beckoning to her through it. She stepped forward and wrapped her long, delicate hands around the wheel.

  In the distance, Esprë could see that the warforged who had stampeded from the arena were rallying again. Several squads of warriors were marching her way from the rear of the city. Some were pointing at the ship and shouting orders. She knew she didn’t have long.

  Two streets over, a lone mounted figure was leading a train of horses to the arena. Esprë squinted down at the rider and realized it was Burch, picking his way along the edge of the city on his way back toward the arena. She laughed at the sight, then a ballista bolt sailed up past her from the ground below. As she searched for the shooter, another bolt struck the ship’s hull, shaking the deck.

  The attack reminded Esprë how serious her situation was. Kandler was depending on her—everyone was—and she was not going to disappoint them. She stuck out her jaw and looked for her stepfather again. As she did, the ship began to move.

  On the arena floor below, Kandler saw the ballista bolt slam into the side of the airship, and dread filled his heart. “Esprë,” he said.

  “Do not worry about your whelp,” Bastard said. “I won’t make her suffer long.” Then he charged.

  Kandler scrambled backward from the warforged leader, turning to run, hoping he could outpace him, but he stopped in midstride. This direct threat to his daughter unleashed a thunderstorm of rage in his head. There was no way he was going to let this beast get near Esprë.

  As the warforged reached for him, the justicar pivoted and slammed his fist into the side of Bastard’s jaw with everything he had. Bastard dropped to one knee, stunned by the force of the blow. Kandler shook his hand, convinced he had broken knuckles, but he followed the first punch with a flurry of blows to the warforged’s face, pounding away at the creature without pause or mercy until his fists bled freely and his arms felt like lead.

  Bastard raised an arm to defend itself, and Kandler backed off from the rows of sharp spikes. The warforged used the hilt-shard of Sallah’s sword to keep the justicar at bay.

  His heart beating like a war drum, Kandler wheezed and huffed as he looked down at the creature to survey the damage he’d done. He felt like he’d been the one given the beating, but the adrenaline pumping through him let him ignore the pain. Bastard’s face bore a dozen dents and scratches. One of his sapphire eyes had been knocked from its face, leaving only a dead socket behind. In his left hand, he still held the sword-shard, but his right arm ended in a ragged stump.

  “Ready to give up?” Kandler said.

  Bastard’s jaw dropped. The hinge came down askew to the sound of metal scraping metal. Bastard looked at the justicar through his remaining eye and laughed loud and long.

  Kandler turned and ran. While his arms felt like they might fall off, his legs still had some life in them. As he raced across the arena floor, he heard the steady tread of the tireless warforged close behind him. He dared not look back for fear he might stumble, but the footfalls seemed to grow nearer with every second.

  Something jabbed into the back of Kandler’s thigh, and he tumbled to the ground, clutching his leg. He somersaulted forward several times before he came to a rest. He slammed to a stop on his back and saw that he had the hilt from Sallah’s sword in his leg.

  Kandler hurled himself to the side, and Bastard’s spiked foot came down where he had just been. The warforged leader stomped down again, and once more Kandler rolled out of the way just in time.

  Bastard kicked out at the justicar again. Kandler squirmed out of the path of the warforged’s foot, grabbed the hilt of Sallah’s sword as he came to a stop, and pulled it free. He screamed at the pain and rolled again, just in time. Bastard raised his foot again, Kandler rolled, the foot came down, and Kandler jammed the shard of Sallah’s sword straight down through the warforged’s foot and into the floor below.

  Bastard roared in pain and lashed out with its other foot. His spiked toes caught Kandler in the shoulder and stabbed through to his bone. The justicar spun away, holding his wound and trailing blood as he went. He struggled to his knees and scrambled away as fast as he could.

  “You think this toothpick will stop me?” Bastard roared. The justicar hoped so, but he didn’t say a word. He kept moving at a shuffle and didn’t look back. He could feel his boot filling with blood.

  The warforged tried to raise his foot but failed. He snarled down at the hilt stuck through his armored toes. “This ends now!”

  The area around Kandler grew dark. For a moment, he wondered if the vision in his unbruised eye was starting to fade too, then the world started to grow light again—lighter than even before, but red and angry. A crackling sound filled the justicar’s ears, erupting to a roar. It confused him for a moment until he identified it as the noise of a bonfire roaring straight at him.

  Kandler braved a look back and saw Bastard pull the hilt of Sallah’s sword from his damaged foot. What was plummeting down on top of the creature caused the justicar to leap to his feet and put every last bit of energy he had into racing away.

  The airship slammed down on top of Bastard and smashed the warforged leader flat. The ship bounced, and the ring of fire caught Bastard like a moth in a flame.

  Kandler missed sharing Bastard’s fate by a matter of yards. As the ship hit the ground, the arena floor buckled and hurled him forward. He landed on his injured shoulder and had to fight to keep from blacking out at the pain. He rolled several times and ended up on his stomach.

  Before he could turn his head, the airship took off again. This time, she shot forward, heading for the far arena wall through which the titan had plowed. The ring of fire brushed past Kandler so close that it singed the hair on the back of his head. Once it passed, Kandler worked his way to his knees and from there to his feet. As he stood, he watched the ship sail just clear the shattered wall. She came close enough to set some of the wreckage ablaze, but the gust of wind in her wake snuffed the flames out.

  The ship passed over the wall, and no sooner had it passed than a horse leaped over the lowest part. The rider galloped up to the justicar, leading three more horses behind him.

  “How are things, boss?” Burch said as he rode up to where the justicar stood.

  Ignoring him, Kandler stared after the airship. “Come on. Turn it around. Turn the ship around.”

  The ship kept sailing on in a straight line for the horizon.

  Covered with blood from his shoulder, leg, and hands, the justicar stood there staring after the ship, willing her to turn around, turn around, please turn around. She didn’t even slow.

  Burch leaped down from his saddle to put a shoulder under Kandler’s arm. He took in all of Kandler’s wounds and said, “I’d hate to see the other guy.”

  Kandler jerked his head over to the pile of ch
arred fibers and blackened metal that was all that was left of Bastard. He never took his eyes off the airship.

  Burch let out a low whistle. “Who’s on the ship?” the shifter asked.

  Kandler’s face contorted into a mask of frustration. “Esprë,” he whispered.

  Kandler reached down and smacked the changeling across the face. “Wake up!” he said.

  Te’oma opened her eyes, and the world swam around her. Kandler slapped her again, “Wake up!”

  “Boss,” Burch said, “we can chase her on horses.”

  “We can’t catch an airship from horseback,” Kandler said as he pulled Te’oma to her feet. “We need a way to fly.”

  The changeling felt the justicar start to remove her cloak, and she fought back. She pushed against him with feeble arms, and he growled at her.

  “Just give me that cloak!”

  Te’oma shook her head. “Kill me,” she said, her voice rough and raw.

  “I don’t have time for that,” the justicar said. “Just show me how this thing comes off!”

  “It doesn’t!” the changeling said.

  He kept shaking her, and her cloak unfurled into a limp pair of massive, batlike wings.

  “I’m taking it,” the justicar said, “if I have to rip it off you. I’m not letting my daughter go down on a runaway ship!”

  “That won’t work,” Sallah said. Kandler swung his head around to see the lady knight limping over toward the others. Bloodstains dripped from the many holes in her armor, but she had stopped bleeding. He suspected she’d used her healing powers on herself this time, but they’d barely been enough to get her back on her feet.