Lost mark 3 The Queen of Death:

by Matt Forbeck

"I_”

  "I remember Deothen saying you came looking for a 'lost mark,’ ” said Burch.

  "Only one mark has ever been lost,” Sallah said, struggling to keep her tone even.

  "That you know of,” said Xalt.

  Sallah opened her mouth to respond, but Greffykor cut her off. The dragon snorted puffs of icy air from his snout. "There are other dragonmarks beside the true marks. Sometimes these aberrations resemble the true marks. There is something unusual about the mark on this girl, but I am no expert on such matters. Whether or not it is the Mark of Death is not important. No one has seen that dragon-mark for centuries, and most of those souls have long since passed on. While the memories of dragons are long, they are not always without fault. It may be impossible to tell for sure.”

  "If it’s not the Mark of Death, then Espre can come—” "If it is the Mark of Death, nothing changes, boss,” Burch said. "Even if it’s not, it’s still something everybody wants, and nothing changes again.”

  Kandler closed his mouth. "Why do you always have to be right?” he asked.

  "Force of habit.”

  "I’ll be safe here,” Espre said. "I can study sorcery under Greffykor. We can research my dragonmark together and learn how to harness every bit of its powers.”

  "It may only be a century or two before we learn enough to set you free,” Greffykor said. "The time will pass swiftly.” "I’ll be lucky to live another forty years,” Kandler said softly.

  The dragon stiffened then gave Kandler a woeful look. "I can barely imagine a life so short. Other than elves and dwarves, you people seemed doomed from your hatching.” "I’ll miss you,” Espre said, reaching out and caressing her stepfather’s unshaven cheek.

  Kandler refused to mourn losing the girl in front of her. "It’s all right, Espre,” he said, his voice brimming with affection. "We both knew I’d end up leaving you sooner or later. I just always hoped for much, much later.”

  He leaned down and kissed Espre on the cheek then used his thumb to wipe away the single tear that rolled down her face. He smiled at her as his heart shattered inside him. "Your mother would be so proud of you,” he said.

  Chapter

  62

  As dawn rose over the Dragonreach, Kandler stood on the bridge of the Phoenix, staring toward the rising sun behind them as it chased the night away. The wind ruffled his hair and curled around him like an old friend that wanted to carry him away to show him all the new things it had discovered since he’d been gone.

  Burch and Monja were sleeping in the hold. They’d been up for most of the night, letting the spent Kandler and the battered Sallah get some much-needed rest. Xalt had orchestrated the switch between shifts when he noticed Monja falling asleep on top of the wheel.

  "You did the right thing,” Sallah said, curling an arm around him, keeping her other hand on the airship’s wheel.

  With Espre and Te’oma gone, only she and Monja were left as decent pilots. Kandler or Burch could handle the airship in a pinch, but they were rank amateurs when compared to the skill the two ladies showed with the Phoenix.

  Xalt had no aptitude for flying the airship at all. The one time he tried, the craft bucked so hard that Monja had almost been sent flying off the ship to drown in the surf far below. The others never let him near the wheel again.

  "I know,” Kandler said. "At least I think I do. Who can tell for sure?”

  "Do you regret it already?”

  "I regretted it the moment I agreed to it. I just didn’t see any other way.”

  Sallah stared out at the fading stars toward which the airship ran. "Time will grant you the perspective you need.” "How do you know that?”

  "I have my faith. It serves me well. You were not the only one to lose a loved one on this quest.”

  "Was that what it was?” Kandler asked. "It seemed more like a chase to me." He kissed her on the cheek. "I’m sorry about your father.”

  "So am I. At least I know his troubles are over and that he has found rest in a better place.” She gave him a sidelong glance then pecked him on the lips. "Perhaps you could say the same of Espre.”

  Kandler nodded silently as he held the woman in his arms and tried to enjoy the moment. It would be at least two weeks before they would see the coast of Khorvaire. There was no need to bring up any burning issues now. It would be better to let them lie, to savor what he had right then instead.

  He just couldn’t do it.

  "She’s not quite as unreachable as your father, though,” he said, testing the waters.

  "True enough,” Sallah said. "I don’t know how wise it would be for you to arrange a visit with her soon though. The less contact you have with her, the safer she’ll be.”

  "Good point,” Kandler said. "That’s not exactly what I meant though.”

  Sallah pursed her lips. "Speak plainly then. Please.”

  Kandler took a step back from the knight. "I need to— What do you plan to tell your superiors back in Flamekeep?”

  Sallah lowered her eyes. "I wondered when you might consider that question. Do you not trust me?”

  Kandler searched for a hint of anger in her voice but found none. "I do. I would put my life in your hands, but this is Espre’s life we re talking about, and keeping her location—or even the fact that she still lives—a secret means you would have to lie to your superiors in your order.”

  Sallah grimaced. "Perhaps even to Jaela Daran herself.” "Can you bring yourself to do that?”

  "Do you expect me to?”

  "Yes.”

  "Why?”

  The question stunned Kandler. "To keep Espre alive. To save her from all the bastards out there who would like to use her for their own ends.”

  "Do you think the Church of the Silver Flame is not to be trusted?”

  Kandler groaned. "Do you really want to get into this with me?”

  "Yes,” Sallah said. "I am a Knight of the Silver Flame. There is nothing in my life that is more important than the Flame itself. I'd like to know how you feel about it.”

  "I don’t care much for gods or churches of any kind,” Kandler said. "I don’t think the Silver Flame is evil, but it’s made up of men and women with lots of different agendas. It doesn’t take much for me to think of a way how one of your church elders might decide that going to Argonnessen to take Espre back to Flamekeep would be the right thing to do.”

  Kandler stopped and stared at the knight. "You considered that yourself, didn’t you?”

  Sallah met the justicar’s gaze. "Of course I did. That was the mission I was given.”

  "Why didn’t you go through with it?”

  Sallah frowned. "It seems that I am a rotten knight.” Kandler softened his stance. "That’s not—”

  "I failed to complete a mission of the utmost importance, not because I couldn’t have done so but because I chose not to. Some would say that such actions are tantamount to treason.”

  "Who would say that?”

  "My father, for one.”

  "You're saying your father would have hurt Espre.”

  "Not directly, but to him, orders were orders, and the law was the law. In his mind, his duty was always clear. He never let anything stand between him and getting his job done. Espre’s welfare would have paled in comparison to that.”

  "You’re not your father.”

  "That’s all too clear, I think.” Sallah looked off toward the darkness again, her lips a tight, straight line.

  Kandler wanted to wrap his arms around her then and tell her everything would be all right. She could give up being a knight and go away with him to somewhere— anywhere—else. They could put all this behind them and forget about it, or at least try.

  He knew it would never work. Sallah loved the Silver Flame. Her vocation, her calling to become a knight, defined her. To ask her to abandon that would be to ask her to abandon herself.

  "You’re a great knight,” Kandler said, moving closer to her.

  "I don’t see how you can say that," she sa
id. He had to strain to hear her words over the crackling of the ring of fire.

  "You’re my kind of knight. You take your beliefs seriously, and you respect your orders, but they do not bind you. You follow your own heart, and you do what you think is right—not what others say is right.”

  He reached out and caressed her cheek, turning her chin so that she would look at him with those sparkling emerald eyes.

  "A knight serves good over all else, right? That’s just what you do.”

  Sallah reached up and took his hand, then leaned in and nuzzled against his neck. He held her close.

  "I would never do anything to hurt Espre,” she said in a whisper. "I won’t tell a soul where she is or what happened to her.”

  "I know,” Kandler said. "I just needed to hear you say

  it.”

  Toward midday, Burch and Monja emerged from the hold and prepared a simple meal for the others. They brought the food up onto the bridge so they could all dine together. Even Xalt, who could not eat, joined them.

  "Our stores going to hold out?” Kandler asked the shifter.

  Burch nodded. "I wasn’t too sure about it when we got to Argonnessen, but we’re a few mouths shy going back. We should be fine.”

  With the reminder of the fates of Espre and Te’oma, a silence fell over the meal. After a while, Xalt spoke up.

  "So,” the agitated warforged said, "what is the plan from here?”

  When Kandler noticed everyone looking at him, he managed a wry smile. "I don’t know. I never planned on surviving this long.”

  "I need to return to Thrane,” Sallah said, looking like something bitter had found its way into her mouth. "I must report in.”

  Burch nodded. "I don’t know about you, boss, but I don’t see much point in going back to Mardakine.”

  Kandler rubbed his chin. "Not to stay there, for sure. I might want to collect some of the things we left behind and make a few proper good-byes.”

  "We did leave in a hurry.” The shifter turned toward Monja. "Back to the plains for you? Seems like that would be our first stop.”

  The halfling smiled, her teeth shining white in her sun-browned face. "No hurries for me. Old Wodager will hold that shaman spot a few years more, I’m sure.”

  Monja held her face up toward the sun and grinned, her eyes sparkling.

  "Xalt?” Kandler asked.

  "Yes?” The warforged started a bit, surprised that someone would direct the conversation toward him.

  "We could always drop you somewhere outside Construct.”

  Xalt gave the justicar a look so blank that Kandler could no longer stifle a chuckle. "Don’t you worry,” he said to the warforged. "You’re a good and faithful friend. You have a spot by our side for as long as you want it—if you want it.”

  "Of course I do,” Xalt said. As he spoke, he absently reached for his severed finger, which still hung from a lanyard around his neck.

  "We can have the healers in Flamekeep help you with that,” Sallah said.

  The warforged's stolid face brightened. "Would they do that? ”

  "Not for just anybody,” the lady knight said, "but once they hear the tale of how you lost it while saving several knights from an ignoble death, I’m sure I can prevail upon them to restore your hand to you in perfect health.”

  Xalt cradled the finger in his hand and stared at it with his unblinking obsidian eyes. "Thank you,” he said. "I would like that very much.”

  " How about you? ” Monja asked. "What do you plan to do with yourselves now?”

  At first, Kandler didn’t realize she was talking to Burch and him. When he did, he glanced at the shifter, who shrugged at him.

  "What do you say?” Burch asked. "We’ve been spies, soldiers, and justicars. We spent two years in Mardakine, which has to be the longest I’ve been in one place since I was chewing on my mother’s ankles.”

  "You’re ready to move on?”

  "Where to?”

  Kandler craned his neck back and gazed up at the ring of fire burning and crackling within its restraining arcs. He reached out and put a hand on Sallah’s.

  "A quick visit to the Wandering Inn, then up over the Mournland to Mardakine. From there, on to Flamekeep—at least for a while.”

  Sallah’s eyes glinted at that.

  Burch’s grin showed all his sharp, pointed teeth. "And from there?”

  "Wherever the whims of the Phoenix take us.”

  While the others laughed in agreement, Kandler held up his index finger. "Before we do all that, though, there’s one little stop we need to make first.”

  Chapter

  63

  Duro cursed his fate. To be caught by a pack of stinking elves was one thing, but the bastards hadn’t deigned to grant him a hero’s death. Instead of killing him and putting his head on a pike outside their foul fort’s gates—where he could have spent many more months scaring cowards who came too close—they’d beaten him senseless and tossed him in this awful cell, where he’d spent the past few weeks.

  His captors had interrogated him here atop the tower for days on end, torturing him with devices both painful and cruel. He had refused to break for them under any sort of punishment. All that they had learned from him had been a series of new curses he’d concocted on the spot.

  When the interrogators pushed him past his limits, they left him alone to heal for a few days. As soon as he had seemed ready, they came at him again, striving to break down his irony resolve.

  This last time, though, they’d given up on him. The morning after the torturers left, the fort’s commander came to announce that his execution would be in three days’ time.

  "Why three days?” Duro asked.

  The commander looked down on him. "Think on your doom for three days. Perhaps it will loosen your tongue. If not, we will waste no more time with you.”

  The evening before he was to be executed for his crimes, Duro peered out one of the barred windows in his high cell and watched the sun set for what he believed would be the last time. Having spent much of his life without seeing a sunset, he cherished each one he witnessed, a spectacular example of the beauty and wonder of the world in which he lived. It also served to remind him that Eberron was a large world and that he had only seen a small fraction of it. As the sun sank to the horizon, he wondered what lands it would warm next.

  Most nights, Duro vowed that he would one day explore those distant locales, and the sense of possible and inevitable adventure always gave him vivid dreams. Tonight, though, watching the sunset saddened him instead. He knew he would never see another.

  As Duro sat there on his cell’s floor—fashioned from wood rather than stone—his forehead resting on his arms, he heard the crackling of a large fire. He wondered if the elves had decided to get an early start on the bonfire meant to kill him or if they’d just built such a blaze to celebrate the eve of his death.

  He refused to get up and peer through the window to find out. The damned noise kept getting louder and louder, though, which made it hard for Duro to ignore it. He pushed his head farther into his arms until his biceps covered his ears, and that seemed to work.

  Then something clanged against the window above him.

  "Get back!” someone yelled. "Get away from the window!”

  Duro scrambled away from the window and put his back to the door. Staring at the window, he saw the grappling hook attached to the bars. It dangled there with its hooks wrapped around a pair of the bars.

  "Go!” someone shouted. With a mighty crack, the entire window yanked away at the end of the hook, along with a good chunk of the cell’s outer wall.

  Duro stood up and shaded his eyes with his hand. He saw a ring of fire crackling away from him into the dusk, then backing up and heading straight for him again. He watched it open-mouthed, too stunned to consider fleeing or—given that he had no way to flee—calling for help.

  Then the ring narrowed and turned into a vertical line.

  Down in the fort below, Dur
o heard an alarm. Soldiers shouted, and bells rang out in the gathering darkness.

  The Phoenix drew close enough that Duro could make out four figures standing at the gunwale. From their silhouettes, he knew them. Kandler, Burch, Sallah, and Xalt.

  The dwarf whooped with joy and ran toward the splinter-edged hole that had once been his cell wall. As he did, a gangplank stabbed out from the airship. The end of it slid toward him and came to a rest on the edge of the cell’s floor.

  "Move it!” Burch shouted. As the shifter spoke, a ball of flaming pitch went sailing over the airship’s bow. "They’ll find the range soon!”

  Duro charged straight up the gangplank, willing himself to not look down. If he had, he knew the hundred foot drop would have made him woozy, and this was no place to lose your footing.

  When the dwarf reached the airship’s deck, Kandler and Sallah grabbed him and dragged him the last few feet. As the pair deposited him on the deck, Xalt shouted, "He’s aboard!”

  Duro glimpsed Monja standing at—or rather on—the ship’s wheel. The ship took off so fast that Duro tumbled to the deck. Had Kandler not been there to steady him, he might have gone cartwheeling out over the rail.

  The dwarf sat there awestruck on the airship’s deck as the Phoenix raced off in the direction of the dying glow of the setting sun. "Gods above and below,” he said. "I’d given up hope. I’d have laid odds I had a better chance with the executioner than you lot did in Argonnessen.”

  "Surprised?” Burch said with a toothy grin.

  "That’s a paltry word,” Duro said.

  "Did you think we would leave you behind?” asked Xalt. The warforged’s curiosity seemed genuine.

  Duro laughed. "The thought crossed my mind.”

  Sallah put out a hand and helped the dwarf to his feet. "Honorable people don’t leave friends behind,” she said.

  "So I’ve been with you the past few weeks then? I hadn’t noticed.” The lack of bitterness in Duro’s voice surprised even himself. He was too happy to be free to consider recriminations.

  Kandler clapped the dwarf on the back and joined him in a celebratory roar. "Like rivers to the sea,” the justicar said. "We might run our separate courses for a while, but we always meet again in the end.”