Lost mark 3 The Queen of Death:

by Matt Forbeck

  "No, thank you.” She hesitated for a moment. "For everything. For taking me in after my mother died.”

  "You’re my stepdaughter.” Kandler couldn’t conceive of having done otherwise for her.

  "Yes, but that’s not always enough, is it? Don’t you know all those stories about wicked stepfathers?”

  "That’s stepmothers.”

  "Well, I don’t have one of them, so I can’t speak to that. I just know you came through for me at a time when you had to be suffering a lot too.”

  Kandler grimaced. "Don’t worry about that,” he said in a rough voice. "Helping you out got me through he worst of it. You were there for me just as much.”

  "And—and thank you for coming after me. You didn’t have to do that.”

  Kandler stepped back and held Espre out at arms’ length. "Are you mad? I’d never let anyone run off with you like that.”

  "I ... I know.” Espre refused to meet Kandler’s eyes. "When Te’oma first took me, though—when she was posing as my aunt—I wondered if you’d bother to come after me to say good-bye. I know I’ve been a horrible burden on you—” "That’s not true—”

  "Let me finish. Please.”

  Kandler took a deep breath, then nodded. He wanted to see where it was she planned to take this conversation, even if he didn’t like its direction.

  "You married my mother, not me. You’ve been a fine father to me, the first real one I’ve known.”

  "When I asked your mother to marry me, I knew you two came as a package deal. That didn’t stop me.”

  "The best part of that package is missing now.” She held up her hands to cut off Kandler before he could protest. "I know. It’s silly, but it’s how I felt.”

  Espre turned and looked back down the deck at the fire over which Monja, Burch, and Te’oma were roasting the soarwing. Sallah had the wheel, and Xalt stood on the bridge with her to keep her company and to help with the navigation.

  "When I figured out who Te’oma really was—or wasn’t, I suppose—I resigned myself to my fate. I didn’t dare hope that you’d come after me. The last I’d seen of Mardakine, it had been going up in flames, and I had no idea if you’d been killed or not. I figured I’d have to start doing things on my own.

  "That didn’t work so well. I never would have survived if you hadn’t come after me. I’d have been stuck in that tower with Majeeda forever—or at least until she contacted my father and arranged to accompany me back to Aerenal. Then I’d have ended up in the hands of the Undying Court, or the Stillborn, or worse.”

  "You underestimate yourself. You always did.”

  "Sure,” Espre said with a weak smile. "I might have managed to get away on my own, I suppose, but they would have just tracked me down again. Even with you, how many times did Te’oma alone snatch me in those first few days?” Kandler smirked. "I think I lost track. She’s a tenacious one.”

  "Right up until Ibrido broke her neck, at least.”

  "She held on right through that too. A lot of people would have given up and died.”

  Espre shrugged. "The point is that I would have never made it through all this without you. I just wanted to thank you for that.”

  "You should thank the others too,” Kandler said, trying hard to not sound ungrateful. "They had just as much to do with it as I did.”

  "Don’t fool yourself,” Espre said. "Without you, they’d all be dead.”

  "Even Burch?”

  The girl grinned. "Maybe not Burch.”

  Espre wrapped her arms around Kandler and pulled him into a long hug. "I love you, Kandler,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

  "I love you too.”

  Chapter

  36

  Lightning cracked the sky so close that it left an afterimage like a tree trunk in Kandler’s eyes. The thunder sounded more like an explosion than the distant rumbles that had echoed around the Phoenix for most of the day, ever since the storm had swallowed them up.

  The hair on the back of Kandler’s neck stood on end, despite the rain lashing him. Although he stood straight under the airship’s ring of fire, which vaporized any rain that fell near it, he could not avoid getting wet. The wind brought the water down almost horizontally, spattering against the justicar’s front as he stared out past the ship’s bow.

  Xalt said something to Kandler, but the justicar’s ears still rang from the lightning strike that had barely missed the ship.

  "What?” Kandler said, squinting at the warforged standing next to him.

  "Smells like a forge doused with a bucket of rusty water,” Xalt said as he sniffed at the air. He wiped the rain from the surfaces of his obsidian eyes. "The lightning does, I mean. It’s as if it burned the air.”

  Kandler nodded as his hearing returned. The hiss of the rain evaporating as it passed too close to the ring of fire let him know he hadn’t been deafened forever.

  He glanced back and saw Sallah at the wheel. He waved at the lady knight, but she ignored the gesture. Standing there on the bridge had to be miserable, but she had not complained or asked anyone else to relieve her during her shift at the airship’s controls. He wondered if the Silver Flame was all she needed to keep herself warm.

  "Burch, Monja, and Espre are still below?” Xalt asked.

  "Until the storm lets up,” said Kandler. "We re not all as durable as you when it comes to the weather.”

  "Then why are you up here?”

  Kandler grimaced. "I thought I heard something.” "What?”

  "If I knew that, I wouldn’t be up here.”

  "What did it sound like?”

  Kandler stared at the warforged for a moment. "Wings. It sounded like beating wings.”

  "I heard that too. Do you think it could be dragons?” "Possibly. We should be close to Argonnessen by now.” "What do you think they want?”

  Kandler ran a hand over his face. "I don’t know.”

  Xalt pointed over Kandler’s shoulder with his onefingered hand. "That's unusual.”

  The justicar turned and saw what the warforged meant. Something out in the depths of the black, roiling clouds glowed soft and reddish. It flared brighter for a moment then disappeared.

  "That didn’t look like lightning to me,” Kandler said, his voice barely loud enough to pierce the blustery wind.

  Xalt shook his head. The water sluiced off the war-forged’s hard outer surface.

  Then something large smacked into the bottom of the airship, hard.

  Kandler fell to his hands and knees. As he landed on the deck, he heard Espre scream. The board between them muffled the sound, but he knew it was her.

  He pounded on the slick wood beneath him. A quick series of knocks answered—yet another of the signals that he and Burch had worked out between themselves over the years. Everything seemed all right in the ship’s hold, at least for now.

  Kandler scrambled over to the gunwale, Xalt right behind him, and thrust his head over the railing. "What was that?” he asked.

  "It wasn’t lightning,” Xalt said.

  Kandler ignored the warforged and scanned the dark sky below. Despite the light from the ring of fire, he couldn’t tell how high up they were. The swirling material below seemed like clouds rather than the sea’s black waves, but he couldn’t be sure.

  "Whatever it was, it wanted to get our attention,” Kandler said.

  "It did that,” Burch said as he slinked up behind the others.

  "You left Espre down below?”

  The shifter jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "She’s up on the bridge with Monja and Sallah.”

  Kandler glanced back and spied the trio standing there at the aft of the ship. Espre gave the justicar a quick wave before duckingbehind the console, out of the wind and away from the terrors of the night. It took everything he had not to race over to comfort her.

  Lightning crashed all around the ship, slashing down in different places. None of the strikes came as close as the one that had nearly deafened Kandler. Instead of blinding
him, they cast fogged illumination into bright pockets in the sky, although only for a split-second each.

  "Did you see that?” Xalt asked.

  Kandler raised an eyebrow at the warforged. Xalt pointed a finger straight up.

  At first, all Kandler saw was the ring of fire arcing over them like a hungry, orange rainbow. Its light made it hard to see too far beyond it.

  "What am I looking for?” Kandler asked. He peered at the restraining arc that held the ring of fire in place, inspecting it for widening cracks.

  "Wait.”

  Rain ran down Kandler’s face and into his eyes. As he blinked it away, lightning flashed overhead, and he saw it — a long, wide, winged shape silhouetted against the clouds in the brief instant of light.

  Kandler wiped the rain from his eyes. "What’s it doing there?”

  "Not much yet,” said Xalt.

  Kandler stared up into the darkness a while longer. When the lightning flashed again, the silhouette no long hung over the ship.

  The justicar glanced back at the bridge and saw Espre peering over the console at him. The thought that the dragons might come to them now and destroy the airship without even accosting them, like predators cruising the skies for their next meal, infuriated him. He refused to let this happen.

  Kandler hadn’t come all this way just to let some flying, scaled monster knock him out of the sky. He headed for the bow. When he reached the ship’s stem, he grabbed the gunwale with both hands then threw back his head and shouted at the creature stalking them.

  "I know you’re out there! We’re coming to your home.

  Even if you knock us from the sky, I’ll swim the rest of the way to your lair, and I’ll shove my sword right through your front damned doors!”

  Kandler fell silent for a moment. He’d hoped that the dragon—if that’s what it had been—would show itself. Nothing—only the raging storm and the hiss of rain dying on the ring of fire.

  "Come out, you coward!” he shouted. "Show yourself so I can tear off your wings like the gnat you are!”

  "What do you hope to accomplish?” Xalt said.

  The warforged’s interruption startled Kandler, and he stepped back from the rail.

  "I figure we can either wait for the bastards to try to kill us, or we can shame them into leaving us alone.”

  "Do dragons feel shame?”

  Kandler grinned. "I’m not sure, but I know I don’t—at least when it comes to this.”

  Xalt stared at Kandler with his unblinking obsidian eyes. Then he tossed back his head and shouted, "Come out, you coward!"

  Kandler joined right in. As far as he could tell, the dragon never came back.

  Chapter

  37

  Boss,” Burch said, popping his head in through the open hatch. "Got dragons dead ahead.”

  Kandler leaped out of the hammock in the hold in which he’d been trying to sleep. He’d not had much success. As they grew closer to Argonnessen, the idea of closing his eyes, even for a moment, seemed insane. Now, with the call to action finally being sounded, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  The justicar clambered up onto the main deck and trotted after the shifter, who led him straight to the bow.

  "Xalt spotted it a few minutes ago,” Burch said, pointing off toward the southeastern horizon. "Took me a while to figure out what they are.”

  Kandler shaded his eyes and spied what the shifter meant for him to see instantly. Two winged shapes spiraled about in the cloudless sky. From their silhouettes, they seemed to be dragons, but from such a distance Kandler couldn’t be sure.

  "Positive?” Kandler asked.

  "About three quarters,” Burch said. "Either way, it’s trouble. If they’re not dragons, they’re still something we’re

  going to have to deal with. They’re right in our path." "Can’t we just go around them?”

  "It’s a big sky,” Sallah said, as she strolled up the deck behind them. "Trying to avoid them would add dozens of miles to our trip.”

  Kandler met her eyes. She’d kept her distance from him ever since the Phoenix had left Khorvaire behind. He couldn’t help but think she blamed him for the fact that they were out here crossing the Dragonreach. He doubted she gave Espre much credit for having her own mind.

  He would have talked with her about it, but he’d wanted to do so privately. She’d always managed to find herself other company, though, and she’d pointedly refused to acknowledge his hints that he’d prefer to speak with her alone.

  "I didn’t thinkyou were that eager to reach Argonnessen,” he said to her.

  She grimaced. "We are doomed to die on this fool’s quest. Where it happens does not matter much.”

  "I never thought you to be so casual about your death.” Sallah shrugged. "Death by one dragon’s talons is just as good as another.”

  "It’s all in the timing,” Burch said. "I prefer to put it off as long as possible.”

  "Think there’s any chance they haven’t spotted us?” Kandler asked the shifter.

  Burch pointedly looked up at the ring of fire that encircled the airship. "Doubt it.”

  "The Phoenix is a wonderful craft,” Xalt said as he joined them, "but she is not subtle.”

  Kandler stared off at the dragons. They already seemed to be coming closer. Sometimes they flew toward the airship, sometimes not, but they never went farther away. They didn’t seem to be in any hurry to reach the Phoenix, but

  Kandler supposed they had all the time in the world.

  "You’re wondering if we can take them,” Sallah said, astonishment tainting her voice. "You’re insane.”

  Kandler had to admit that the thought had crossed his mind—but not to her. Not now, at least.

  "We need to speak with them somehow. We can’t assume every dragon we meet is a threat.”

  Monja snorted. "What else can they be? Creatures that large, old, and cruel can crush the bunch of us and barely notice. They’re born threats.”

  "That makes all of this utterly hopeless, doesn’t it?” asked Sallah. Kandler hoped that he didn’t hear a note of sour triumph in her voice.

  "Does anyone here really think we have a chance of beating them, much less surviving this trip?” Te’oma said. "If we’re going to die, I vote for getting it over in a relatively painless way.”

  "I don’t recall anyone asking for a vote on the matter,”

  I

  Sallah said.

  "This is a dictatorship,” Kandler said, "not a democracy— and none of you is in charge.”

  "And you are?” asked Te’oma.

  Kandler shook his head. "Espre’s the one in charge here,” he said. "It’s her fate were all wrapped up in. We should be taking her orders from here.”

  "I agree,” said Sallah. The others nodded as well.

  "So,” Kandler asked, "where is she?”

  As one, the justicar and the others turned around to see Espre, who stood alone at the wheel. She smiled at them and waved when she saw them, and they each gave her a halfhearted wave in return.

  After a tense moment, Kandler strode off toward his stepdaughter. The others fell into line behind him, and soon all of them gathered on the bridge around the girl.

  "What do you say?” Kandler asked Espre. "Do we try to go around them or just head straight in?”

  The girl stroked her chin for a moment. Kandler could see that, despite the horrible danger they might soon be in, she enjoyed this: the attention, the power, the fact that people not only asked her questions but hung waiting for the answers. Then something terrible dawned on her, and she pointed off toward the dragons.

  "I don’t think it’s our choice anymore,” she said. "Look.”

  Kandler turned about to do just that, and he saw that the dragons had gotten much larger. Worse yet, they had given up on the pretense that they hadn’t yet seen the airship. They were headed straight for her.

  The creatures closed with the Phoenix with terrifying speed. Kandler supposed that if they and the airship race
d toward each other it would add their speeds together, a dizzying prospect for sure. He could hardly imagine what might happen to either the airship or the dragons if they collided at such speeds. That was enough, though, for him to start formulating a plan for pulling off just that if need be.

  As the dragons drew closer, they moved from beneath the shadow of a cloud. A brilliant beam of sunlight glinted off their steely scales and splashed across their widespread wings, transforming them from darkened silhouettes into crimson-painted monsters of the mightiest kind.

  Each beat of their wings brought them closer and revealed them to be larger and larger. At first, Kandler had thought they couldn’t be larger than Nithkorrh. As they neared, though, he saw that they were two different sizes, and the bigger one dwarfed the black dragon they’d fought over the Ironroot Mountains.

  Kandler’s jaw dropped as he realized just how humon-gous these creatures were. His mind boggled at the thought of them being any bigger than they already seemed, but they kept coming, growing more and more gigantic by the moment. All thoughts of ramming the dragons with the ship scurried away now, replaced by a fear that the creatures might be able to tear Phoenix apart with their bare claws—or perhaps rip her from the sky like an eagle might snatch a sparrow.

  "Got a plan, boss?” Burch said. The shifter spoke in an awed tone, never taking his eyes from the oncoming creatures.

  "Sallah? Monja?” Kandler said. "You still in good with your gods?”

  Both of them nodded, then cleared their throats and said softly, "Yes.”

  "Then you’d better get praying. It’s the only hope we have.”

  "I thought you didn’t care for the gods,” Sallah said.

  Burch grunted. "Long shot’s better than no shot at all.”

  "The gods don’t care for me,” Kandler said, "but the rest of you might have a chance.” He glanced at the knight and the shaman. "Save your prayers for Espre—and for yourselves if you have any left over.”

  Kandler turned to Burch. "You don’t happen to have any of those shockbolts left, do you?”

  The shifter grimaced. "I played out that hand long ago. This one, with these two, this is a whole new game.”