If she reached the changeling, what would she do? Should she kill her on the spot, finish what she’d started? Perhaps she should take Te’oma’s knife and cut her throat, but she didn’t know if she could bring herself to do it. Mustering the resolve to use the power of her dragonmark—something that was a part of her, a twisted birthright of some sort, whether she liked it or not—had taken all her resolve. To stick a blade into someone’s neck and twist it around until she died seemed impossible.
Before Esprë could even figure out how she could get off the bridge, the sound of clanking armor rang out from the crest of a nearby hill. She snapped her head around to see a handful of figures rising up on the other side of the flames, their forms silhouetted in black through the bright, hungry wall of blazing tongues.
The young elf held her breath as she watched the figures march closer to the fire and then straight through it. They emerged from the conflagration, their blackened, spike-riddled armor rattling loose on their limbs, their helmets perched on their heads at awkward angles, each with a scimitar clutched in its fist.
Esprë peered at them with their strange gaits. Who could they be, and how could they ignore the fire like that? A regular soldier would have been cooked alive in his armor.
When she got a good look at the closest one’s face, her gut twisted inside her. Empty eye sockets stared back at her from a skinless, sun-bleached skull, and the soldier’s grim, lipless rictus grinned up at her.
The young elf screamed.
Below her, on the deck, Te’oma raised her head long enough to see the creatures marching toward them with their relentless strides. As Esprë watched, she tried to struggle to her knees, but she only succeeded in dislodging herself from the hatch’s frame. She moaned in pain and despair as she slid down the pitched deck and landed in a crumpled heap where the bow crashed into the scorched earth. The ashes puffed up around her and settled on her pale skin, and she did not stir.
The closest of the soldiers reached Te’oma and walked right over her. It clambered up onto the ship’s broken bow and climbed up toward the bridge, using the spindles in the ship’s railing as a makeshift ladder. Another soldier climbed after it, then another, the last taking the railing on the port side instead. Within moments, they would be on her.
Esprë shoved back from the wheel and scrambled up the few feet of the bridge’s decking to where the ship’s aft rail had stood before the battle in Construct had demolished it. She considered jumping down to the ash-covered ground, but it looked so far away she feared she’d break a leg in the attempt. Still, as the creatures climbed closer, it seemed the only way for her to get free.
Then another of the soldiers stalked around from the ship’s bow and stationed itself straight under the bridge. It saw her leaning over the empty space and spread its arms wide like a parent encouraging a scared child to leap down from climbing a tree.
Esprë huffed in frustration then turned to see the other soldiers closing in on her. She looked down past the bridge, thinking of leaping past them, sliding along the deck to the ground and then seeing if she could outrun them, even if it meant somehow dashing through the fire, but a fifth soldier stood where she would have landed, right over Te’oma’s body.
Frustrated to the breaking point, Esprë sat down in the space behind the canted console on the bridge and caressed the ship’s wheel as she wept.
Kandler grunted in pain as the clawfoot beneath him leaped over a rivulet and came crashing down on the other side. Bound as he was with his hands around the creature’s neck, he had no way to cushion the impact other than to hold his breath and grit his teeth every time the creature bounded into the air. It did this often as it ran in a straight line over what Kandler could only guess was the same damn stream that kept meandering back and forth across their path.
The halfling riding behind Kandler—a scrappy, deep-tanned hunter who wore little more than a loincloth and an eagle’s feather braided into his hair—laughed every time the justicar hurt. Kandler would have thought he’d have gotten tired of it by now, but the small hunter never seemed to tire of the joke.
Kandler glanced to his right at Burch, who lay strapped to the mount of the halfling riding alongside him. The shifter looked like he might try to take a bite out of the scaly hide of the creature in front of him, just from sheer spite. He watched Burch’s claws extend from the tips of his fingers and start to worry away at the fibrous rope binding his wrists.
Kandler did not doubt the shifter would be free soon, although Burch would choose to reveal this fact in his own time. The thought of the resulting mayhem to come put a smile on Kandler’s face, and he felt glad that the halfling behind him couldn’t see it.
The justicar shifted his head to the left and spied Sallah atop the clawfoot racing along on that side. He marveled at the creature’s raw power and grace. For a moment, their surrender stopped galling him. If they’d tried to fight the Talentans, their mounts would have torn them apart. Having a giant carnivorous lizard feasting on his liver was not how Kandler wanted to go.
Sallah scowled at him. She and Brendis—especially Brendis—had been all for fighting to the last, but Kandler and Burch had overruled her by giving up on their own. When Xalt had followed suit, the two knights had no choice. Even they weren’t foolhardy enough to try six-to-one odds against the hunters and their deadly clawfoots.
“Where are they taking us?” Sallah shouted over the pounding of clawed feet.
Kandler noticed that the creatures’ vicious middle claws on each foot dug into the ground as they ran, making them as sure-footed as any warm-blooded mount. They also tended to spit out dirt behind them as they ran, which explained why the hunters moved in a wide-swept line rather than single file.
“Why don’t you ask them?” Burch said.
The one astride Kandler responded in a grave voice and a thick accent. “You’ll find out soon enough.” Then he rattled out a long set of orders in what Kandler recognized as the native halfling tongue. The riders all dug their heels into their clawfoots’ sides, and the massive lizards sprinted on even faster.
“What did he say?” Xalt called from the other side of Burch.
The clawfoot he was strapped to labored hardest of all.
Not only did the warforged weigh more than anyone else, but his rider was the pudgiest of the halflings too. Their nomadic life made most of the hunters into lean, muscular mites, but this one seemed softer than the others in every way.
Burch bared his teeth. “Literally? You don’t want to know.”
“I do not fear their words.”
Burch chuckled. “Halflings like to hear themselves talk. They use a dozen words where one’ll do.”
“So what did he say?” The warforged’s curiosity would not be denied.
“ ‘Hustle!’ ”
The halfling riding behind Burch smacked him in the back of the head.
“I don’t know,” Kandler said. “Seems that one prefers action.”
“We are taking your soft, worthless hides to the Wandering Inn,” the halfling behind Kandler said. “There, we and our elders shall determine what fate shall befall you each.”
“The wandering what?” Kandler asked. He stretched his neck around to see the halfling sneering down at him. The hunter jerked his chin out before him as they topped a large hill.
“The curious can see for themselves,” the halfling said.
Kandler craned his neck around the clawfoot and saw a small city of colorful tents sprawled out in the plain before him. They came in all colors and sizes, from a green and gold specimen large enough to house a platoon of soldiers all the way down to tattered brown sleepers that even a halfling couldn’t stand up in.
From high up on the hill, Kandler could pick out some sort of order to the place. Paths wove their way through the tents, some wider than others but none of them straight enough to let a rider stampede through the place unimpeded. The largest tents collected in the central part of the town, clustered around
a large open space that served as a public square. Farther from there, the tents grew progressively smaller until they reached a series of eight tall, thin tents that surrounded the town in a rough circle. A halfling warrior stood on each of these, facing outward, scanning the horizon and the sky for friend and foe.
Overhead, a flight of leather-winged, long-headed lizards circled in the sky, riding thermal updrafts like living kites that might never decide to come down. Kandler spotted tiny heads peeking out over the edges of those wings, prodding the creatures to greater heights. Then one of them spun out of the formation in an acrobatic swoop that brought it gliding down to land in front of the green and gold tent that faced the main square. Kandler guessed the rider had to be strapped in or would have fallen to an untimely death.
As the clawfoot riders neared the camp, the halfling on the nearest lookout post sounded three long blasts on a horn that looked like it had been taken from the skull of a massive beast. Halflings of all sorts poked their heads out of their tents, looking south toward the riders, to see who or what approached their homes.
When the clawfoots reached the edge of the tent city, the riders brought their mounts to a canter and fell into single file behind the mount on which Kandler rode. Many halflings stood along their path and stared up at the hunters and the newcomers. Most of them wore the same nomadic clothes as the hunters, but some of the fatter ones were dressed in more civilized garb.
The clawfoots threaded their way through the tents until they reached the main square. A phalanx of halflings awaited them there, standing before the largest tent. The ones in the center wore fine clothes: pants, shirts, and waistcoats, most in the same emerald hues as the tent. Lean, shirtless, sun-baked warriors flanked them to either side, each holding a sharp-tipped spear as tall as themselves.
“Greetings, Lath Berlun,” the gray-haired halfling in the center of the line said, a wide and easy smile creasing his chubby face. “What sort of prizes have you brought us today?”
“Larger and livelier sorts than we usually find in the plains, Baronet Walsley, although not, I’m sure, nearly so tasty.” With that, he cut Kandler’s bonds with a small knife and pushed the justicar off his mount.
Kandler landed on his feet and saw that the others managed the same. Burch hit the ground first, as he didn’t have to wait for his bonds to be severed.
“Welcome to the Wandering Inn,” Walsley said, spreading his arms wide and exposing his bulging belly. “Please enjoy your stay with us as our honored guests. I am Baronet Walsley of House Ghallanda, your humble host.”
“I am Lady Sallah of the Knights of the Silver Flame,” the red-haired knight said, her eyes flashing with anger. “I am accustomed to better treatment from those who deign to call themselves my host.”
“My apologies, my lady. Our warriors are charged with the sacred duty of ensuring the safety of all who visit the Wandering Inn and who reside here.” Walsley raised a bushy eyebrow at the one he’d called Berlun. “The lath here can be a bit overzealous at times, but I assure you it’s all in the best interests of those we serve, especially in the case of such illustrious company as we find ourselves in today.”
Burch spoke, stepping forward and flexing his claws, a steely glint in his dark eyes. “What’s your guest’s name?”
The baronet stepped backward a half step, and the warriors on either flank of the line brought their weapons to the ready. Kandler put his hand on the hilt of his blade, but Burch waved him off with a quick flick of his hand.
“Wait a minute!” a deep, gravelly voice called out from inside the tent. “Is that a no-good, yellow-bellied son of a wereskunk I hear out there?”
The baronet cleared his throat before responding, eyeing Burch’s still-popped claws as he did. “Ah, yes. A shifter has accompanied Lath Berlun back from his latest patrol, sire.”
A broad- and bare-chested halfling stepped out through the tent’s front flaps and squinted into the sunlight. He stood two hands taller than any of his fellows and looked to Kandler like he could wrestle one of the clawfoots to the ground all by himself. A few gray hairs wound through his black, rough-cut mane, and crow’s-feet clustered in the dark-tanned skin around his sparkling blue eyes, but all of the halflings took a step back out of deference when he entered their presence. He squinted up at the visitors, his sharp gaze landing on Burch.
“The lath of laths, the most powerful of our great leaders, Lathon Halpum,” the baronet said by way of introduction.
The lathon waved off the civilized halfling’s patter. “People either know who I am or don’t care.” He stepped forward and stuck his hand out toward Burch.
“You shifty old shifter,” he said with a wide, winning grin, “how in all of Khyber are you?”
Esprë gasped to find herself lying in a bed lined with fresh sheets when she awoke. She hadn’t known such luxuries since she’d been taken from Mardakine, and she had begun to despair that she would ever find a place again in which she could sleep undisturbed and awaken refreshed.
For a moment, she thought she was back home in Mardakine, in her bedroom in Kandler’s house, warm and cozy. When it struck her, though, that she didn’t recognize the ceiling, that hope shattered.
She glanced around and saw that she lay in a modest feather-stuffed bed in a high-ceilinged room with rough-hewn wooden walls. Late afternoon light streamed in through a pair of shutterless windows, catching dust motes dancing in the air. Somewhere outside, birds chirped at the encroaching dusk.
Three other beds stretched along the walls of the modest room. Two stood empty, but someone lay snoring softly in the third, farthest away from Esprë.
The young elf half sat up and stretched her neck to spy a pale-skinned figure nestled among the ivory sheets on the opposite bed: Te’oma. Dark circles dragged under the changeling’s eyes, and a long gash on her forehead bore a neat line of black stitches.
As Esprë sat up straight in her bed, she heard someone shuffling about in an adjoining room. “Hello,” she called. “Is someone there? Can you tell me where I am?”
Fear and gratitude warred in the young elf’s head. Kandler had drilled into her head that anything too good to be true almost always was, especially when it came from strangers, and she didn’t know anyone so far from home, she was sure.
A polished white skeleton in an ivory tunic stepped through a curtain that hung across the room’s only door, a silver cup clutched in its bare, skinless fingers, the sun glinting on its hollow skull, reaching into the shadowy emptiness inside.
Esprë scrambled backward until she smacked into the wall behind her and let loose a piercing scream that started in her toes and rang out through her head.
The skeleton ignored the noise, and Esprë wondered if—how—the thing could hear without any ears. She pressed herself into the corner near the head of her bed as hard as she could as its feet clacked across the wooden floor. It placed the cup down on a table near the bed, then looked up at her.
Esprë saw right through the vacant eye sockets to the rear of the creature’s skull, and she froze in fear. It cocked its head at her for a moment, an all-too-human gesture she somehow found comforting. Then it turned and left the way it came.
Esprë glanced over at Te’oma and saw that her outburst hadn’t caused the changeling to stir a muscle. She sat there, still splayed out against the wall behind her, panting in panic, trying to catch her breath.
Just as the young elf felt her heart start beating again, footsteps—the heavy footfalls of boots rather than bare bones—sounded in the space beyond the curtained doorway. A meaty hand reached through and shoved the curtain aside, and a lady dwarf dressed in blackened chainmail, a double-bladed battle-axe hanging from her belt, stormed into the room.
“You’re awake,” the dwarf said. She had a good, honest face, broad and plain, with a button of a nose, something unusual in a dwarf, as was her white-blond hair she kept pulled back into a long, flowing ponytail. “You were unconscious for days. I thought you migh
t have taken in too much smoke.”
“Where am I?” Esprë said.
“That’s gratitude for you.” The dwarf allowed herself a brief smile. “Welcome to Fort Bones, young elf. I hope your stay with us will be short and pleasant.”
Esprë stared at the dwarf, her eyes as wide as moons. “What am I doing here?”
“Healing,” the dwarf said with a quick glance at Te’oma. “One of my patrols rescued you and your friend over there from a crashed airship. I daresay they saved your lives.”
Esprë stabbed a shaking finger at the changeling’s oblivious form. “She is not my friend. She kidnapped me, stole me from my home.”
Concern creased the dwarf’s wide brow as she rubbed her cleft chin with a thick-fingered hand. “The mystery of our visitors deepens. I wondered where a pair like you might come from. Your ship bears no Karrnathi markings.”
“We’re in Karrnath?”
Dread filled Esprë’s heart. Her mother and Kandler had both fought against Karrnath in the Last War, and their tales of the undead-infested place had always terrified her. To the elves of Aerenal, the land in which she’d been born, undeath represented the worst of the fates that could befall a mortal soul, and any nation that relied on the services of the undead could only be evil at its core.
“It’s not so bad,” the dwarf said, compassion warming her voice. She started toward Esprë but stopped when the young elf tried to press her body through the wall behind her. “My name is Berre Stonefist, the Captain of Bones.” She held her open hand up before her. “You have my word that no harm will come to you while you are here.”
“I don’t know you,” Esprë said. “How can I trust you?”
Berre glanced over at the sleeping changeling. “My poor girl,” she said, “do you have much of a choice?”
Esprë considered these words for a moment, then shook her head, a pout on her lips.
“Where are you—? Pardon me. With so few of the living under my command these days, I sometimes forget my manners. How are you called?”
The Road to Death: The Lost Mark, Book 2 Page 10