The Road to Death: The Lost Mark, Book 2
Page 1
Praise for Marked for Death, the first book in the Lost Mark trilogy …
“A rousing action-packed science-fiction/fantasy novel, full of unknown and wondrous creatures … sword fights, flying ships, magical creatures, and magic that left me wondering what was going to happen next.”
The Arbiter
Three thousand years ago, the first dragonmarks—elaborate patterns on the skin—appeared among the races of Eberron, granting the bearers access to the arcane energies that fill the world.
Twelve dragonmarks have existed for millennia. With the powers granted by the dragonmarks, their chosen few bearers have wrought many wonders in the world, forging a society like none ever seen before.
But tales survive of a thirteenth dragonmark, lost for thousands of years—the feared Mark of Death. For generations, it has been lost, its power gone from the world.…
Until now.
THE LOST MARK
BY MATT FORBECK
Book One
MARKED FOR DEATH
Book Two
THE ROAD TO DEATH
Book Three
THE QUEEN OF DEATH
THE ROAD TO DEATH
The Lost Mark • Book 2
©2006 Wizards of the Coast LLC.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC.
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Cover art by: Adam Rex
eISBN: 978-0-7869-6496-3
640A5939000001 EN
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v3.1
DEDICATION
For my grandparents: Ken and Angie Forbeck and
Ray and Berenice Fink.
They raised great kids.
Special thanks to Mark Sehestedt, Peter Archer,
Christopher Perkins, and Keith Baker.
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Glossary
The chill breeze blew through Esprë’s body like a gust of knives and stabbed her awake. Her head aching and swimming, she first thought she might be back in Mardakine, the town on the edge of the shrouded waste known as the Mournland that she and her stepfather Kandler called home. Sometimes an icy wind came whistling from that barren, time-stopped place that loomed over their house and down through the window of her bedroom, shattering her restless sleep.
Esprë hadn’t slept well for weeks. Since the strange mark had appeared on her back—the dragonmark known as the Mark of Death, she now knew—images of wailing souls had assaulted her dreams, screaming at her to free them, to help them slip this mortal flesh and find peace in Dolurrh, the Realm of the Dead. Then the people around her, people from Mardakine whom she’d known for years—since the birth of the young town—started dying, and the dreams got worse.
Not wanting to think more about the horrible images swimming in her brain, Esprë wrenched her eyes open. The overcast sky above her was a dead-white color. She’d never seen it anywhere else. She was in the Mournland.
The young elf shivered, this time not from the cold, and brought her hand to her forehead. “Ow!” she said, wincing in pain at the bruise she found swelling there, just under the hairline of her long, blond locks. She sat up to hold her head in her hands and saw that she was on the deck of a ship. No, not the deck. She spotted the wheel there in front of her. She was on the bridge.
Memories gushed through her mind. This was the airship, the one that Kandler and Burch had stolen from that crazy elf in her cloud-shrouded tower, the lady with the papery skin and the dead-leaf laugh. They’d escaped there with Sallah, the pretty knight with the long, red hair.
After the rescue, Esprë had thought it was all over, no more vampires kidnapping her in the middle of the night. The insane, deathless elf—Majeeda was her name—had made sure of that, no more changelings posing as a long-lost aunt.
Then they’d gone after the rest of the knights, and the changeling had come and stolen her away again. Images of a horrible battle flashed through Esprë’s mind. Kandler and the others had come after her, chased her to that walking city of warforged—living golems fashioned as soldiers for the Last War—and become embroiled in a fight for her life, for all of their lives.
Esprë remembered flying the airship over the battle, using it to crush the warforged leader, to kill him, she’d hoped, but that was all. Her memories ended there.
“Hey,” a soft voice said from behind Esprë. “How are you feeling?”
Esprë knew that voice, but the throbbing in her forehead kept her from admitting that to herself. She turned slowly, unable to resist the
urge.
There, leaning over the young elf, stood Te’oma, one hand on the airship’s wheel. A slight woman, with pale skin the color of the Mournland sky, her all-white eyes narrowed at the girl as she evaluated her injuries. The wind whipped her white-blonde hair around her soft-featured face, and a hesitant, half-finished smile played across her mouth, which sat like a sharp cut between her chin and nose.
The changeling.
Te’oma reached out toward Esprë’s forehead with a long-fingered hand, and the girl let loose an ear-splitting scream. She scrambled backward, away from the changeling, as fast as her feet could push her along the bridge, until she slammed her back into the railing along the starboard side. Then she drew a breath and screamed again.
The changeling stayed frozen where she was, her arm still reaching toward the girl, and grimaced. “It can’t hurt that bad, can it?” she said.
“Where are we?” Esprë demanded. She was hurt and cold, and she just couldn’t take any more of this. She’d rammed the ship into the warforged leader so she could save Kandler. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
Te’oma looked up at the overcast sky then back at the girl. “We’re still in the Mournland,” she said, “but we’re on our way out. This is no place for a young girl.”
“You brought me here!” Esprë pointed out.
Te’oma frowned. “I never wanted to. That was Tan Du’s idea. He thought the blanket of mists here would protect him from the sun. It did, but even so I argued against it.” She glanced up at the sky again. “I’d rather have taken the long way around.”
“Where’s Kandler?” Esprë asked. She tried to hide the desperation in her voice, but even she could hear it there.
Te’oma’s frown deepened as she rose to her feet, still keeping one hand on the ship’s wheel. She said nothing, just shook her head. As she did, her features shifted, and Esprë found herself staring up at her stepfather’s mournful, dark-eyed gaze under his short-cropped hair the color of polished wood. It was the same look he’d worn when he’d come to tell her that her mother had died on the Day of Mourning, the horrible event that had created the Mournland from the fair nation of Cyre and killed everyone within its bounds.
“No,” the young elf whispered to herself as her soul threatened to freeze solid inside of her. “Burch?”
Kandler disappeared, and the shifter replaced him. Burch was shorter than his old friend and much darker. The blood of werecreatures flooded his veins, lending him a feral, almost animalistic look. Jet-black hair covered his deep-tanned skin almost everywhere but his face, tumbling down in knots past his shoulders and sweeping down from his forearms and the backs of his legs. The nostrils of his wide, flat nose flared as he looked down at the girl. A tear welled in his eye, something Esprë had never seen in the real shifter’s face.
“S-sallah?”
Burch disappeared, and a beautiful, red-haired woman took his place. Her green eyes shone back at Esprë with more than a hint of sadness. A fat tear welled up in one emerald orb and rolled down her soft, pink cheek.
Esprë almost had to remind herself that this was Te’oma looking at her, not the woman who’d fought so hard alongside Kandler and Burch to rescue her. The fact that Te’oma’s clothes remained the same helped. Only the person in them seemed to change.
“Brendis?”
A black-haired young man now kneeled where the fake Sallah had once stood. The tears flowed more freely from his gray eyes.
Esprë began to cry too. “Even Xalt?” she said. She found herself sitting next to the changeling and realized that she’d been inching her way closer to her throughout the transformations.
The mourning youth vanished as Te’oma let the façade fall from her natural form. She knelt there in front of Esprë and reached out a hand to wipe the girl’s tears away, nodding sadly.
“I can’t make myself look like a warforged,” Te’oma apologized. “They’re just too different.”
Esprë buried her face in her hands and wept. The knot on her forehead throbbed as she did. When she was finally able to speak again, she peered up at the changeling and whispered, “They’re all dead? All of them?”
Te’oma nodded. She brushed Esprë’s golden hair back from her face, streaking trails of tears along behind it.
“Say it!” Esprë said. “I want to hear you say it!”
“Yes, dear,” Te’oma said. She swallowed once before continuing. “They’re all dead, every one of them.”
Esprë just stared at the changeling, not wanting to believe her.
“The warforged—there were just too many of them. Once the airship broke free from the stadium, they came rushing back in. If not for my bloodwings,” the changeling shrugged her shoulders, and her bat-colored cloak rustled to life for a moment before falling limp once again. “Well, I would have been trapped there too.”
“What happened?” Esprë asked. “The last thing I remember is aiming the ship for that huge warforged.” She rubbed her forehead. “What happened?”
Te’oma put her arm around the girl. Esprë tensed and considered pushing the changeling away, but she needed someone now. Anyone.
“The airship bounced off the arena’s floor, and you hit your head,” Te’oma said. “It knocked you unconscious. When I realized what had happened, I flew after you to save you.”
“And the others?” Esprë looked up into the changeling’s all-white eyes, trying to keep even a shred of hope from her voice.
“By the time I got control of the ship and turned it around, it was too late. Warforged soldiers had swarmed into the arena.”
“Maybe they took them prisoner,” Esprë said, hope forcing its way out of her despite her best efforts to suppress it. “Maybe they’re still alive.”
Te’oma shook her head and held the girl closer. “I flew over the arena.” Her voice choked for a moment. “I’m just glad you didn’t have to see it.”
“Did I …?” Esprë started. “Did I kill him, that warforged leader?”
“Bastard?” Te’oma said. She sighed. “No, you missed him. You’re not a killer.”
Esprë buried her head in Te’oma’s chest and wept bitter tears. She knew how much those words were lies.
Damn, boss,” Burch said as he chewed a strip of raw horseflesh between his sharp, pointed teeth. “That was one bone breaker of a fight. Thought we were dead for sure.”
Kandler nodded in agreement from atop the horse that rode alongside the shifter’s steed. It wasn’t the short, shaggy lupallo the shifter normally mounted. He perched awkwardly on it, even as he continued to marvel at their escape from Construct, the mobile city founded by the Lord of Blades, the leader of the warforged castoffs who’d congregated in this forsaken land.
Sallah rode behind them, trying to sit tall in her saddle while Brendis slumped against her back. The young knight’s wounds from the fight in Construct had nearly proven fatal. Sallah had used her powers as a Knight of the Silver Flame to heal him as best she could, but she’d only been able to do so much.
“It would be best if we didn’t move him,” Sallah had said to Kandler that morning as the first hints of the daylong false dawn of the Mournland broke against the distant eastern horizon. There hadn’t been a choice though, and she’d known it.
They all hurt, some worse than others. Burch was the best off, just bruised a bit from when the warforged titan had taken down the wall of the arena on which he’d been perched. Consequently, the shifter was in the best mood of them all, flashing Kandler a bloody smile now and then as he shredded bits of the freshly killed horse in his mouth.
Kandler had almost bled to death during the mad gallop away from Construct. Only a scant mile away from the place, Burch had insisted on stopping to tend the justicar’s wounds. The shifter had bound them up tight, calling on his long experiences on both the battlefield and the trail, then Sallah had relieved his pain by laying her hands upon the worst of his wounds.
It had been enough that he could get back on
his stolen horse and ride until the night fell so hard it had been impossible to see. Even so, Kandler had argued they should go on, fearing they’d lose any trace of Esprë’s path through the Mournland’s sky.
“We’ll catch her, boss,” the shifter said. “Just like tracking a wounded bird.”
Kandler knew that Burch’s cavalier attitude masked his deep concern for Esprë’s fate. Years spent in the shifter’s company had taught him that his friend was as serious as a blade through the chest when it came to those he loved. He was just trying to keep Kandler’s own spirits up. The justicar appreciated it, although he couldn’t manage to admit it to his friend. He suspected Burch knew anyhow.
Maybe his own injuries kept him from that. One of his eyes was swollen shut. The skin on his knuckles was shredded, and he thought he might have broken his left hand. He had a stab wound in the back of his left calf and another in his right shoulder. Pain lanced through him with his mount’s every step, but he ignored it the best he could. He knew that Sallah would tend to him again as soon as she could, but taking care of Brendis had exhausted her for now.
Sallah had barely taken the time to help herself. Bastard, the war forged juggernaut who ran Construct, had stabbed her twice in the chest and once in her upper arm. She’d lost a lot of blood and had scarcely been able to gallop away from the warforged city with the others.
Despite being short half a hand, Xalt had carried Brendis on his horse. The warforged artificer had more than proved his loyalty to the others long before then, but Kandler was continually impressed with the creature and his sympathetic ways. While the steel-faced Xalt had been created as a soldier—as had all of the warforged manufactured in the final years of the Last War—he displayed more caring than most “breathers” Kandler had ever known.
The warforged had been injured in the battle as well. Leaping off of the deck of an airship could put a dent in the toughest hides. Still, he bore all his troubles without complaint.