Marked for Death: The Lost Mark, Book 1

by Forbeck, Matt

  “I know,” Kandler said in a resigned voice. He shaded his eyes against the lamp and peered up at the ceiling as if he could see through the planks in the ship’s deck. “I just hope Esprë’s not too scared.”

  Burch snorted in disgust. “Bolts through all three hearts before they got near her.”

  Kandler put his hands over his face for a moment then dragged them down past his chin. “We’re here, all right?”

  “We’re going to Flamekeep, not home.”

  “He was right about Mardakine. It’s not an option.” Kandler opened the pack and found some cheese and dried beef wrapped tightly in dry cloths. He helped himself to a meager portion and tossed the pack to Burch, who stopped pacing. “I would have preferred Sharn, but Thrane’s not all bad.”

  “Been there?” The shifter fished out some food for himself and set to it.

  “Once. On assignment from King Boranel.”

  “Kill any knights?”

  Kandler took a pull from the waterskin before he answered. “Not too many.”

  Burch stopped chewing. “That a problem, boss?”

  Kandler sighed. “I don’t think I’m wanted in Thrane. If I was, Deothen would have slapped me in chains days ago.”

  Burch nodded and went back to his pacing. When he reached the bow again, the floorboards groaned. Te’oma’s stomach dropped through the floor, and she held her breath tight.

  Kandler sat up in the hammock. “Step back from there, Burch,” he said. “Quick.”

  “Just a creaky floor,” the shifter said.

  Te’oma measured the distance between herself and the shifter. His back was turned to her now. With luck, she could kill him with one strike, but that would leave her trapped in the hold with Kandler—a prospect she did not relish. Still, the justicar was unarmed, and she had her knife and the power of her mind.

  “That’s where Majeeda’s spell hit the ship,” Kandler said. “It might not have holed the hull, but I wouldn’t walk on it.”

  Burch sidled away from the damaged spot, and Te’oma let out a silent sigh of relief. When the shifter reached the ship’s stern, he sat down on the hull’s rising arc.

  “It’s late,” Kandler said. He took a last pull on the waterskin and tossed it to Burch. “Can you cover that lamp?”

  “You can sleep now?”

  “Burch, it’s been a damned long day. Last night, we fought a pack of vampires and chased that changeling into Majeeda’s tower. The night before, we broke out of prison so we could rescue Mardakine. It’s going to be a while before we make it to Flamekeep, and I could sleep through a war right now.”

  The shifter reached up and pulled the lamp’s cover shut, plunging the hold into darkness.

  “Thanks,” Kandler said before he drifted off.

  Te’oma heard the sounds of Burch munching on a bit more of the food and then climbing into a hammock across the aisle from Kandler. The shifter grumbled to himself a bit and started snoring soon after.

  Te’oma waited until she was sure both Kandler and Burch were sound asleep. She considered knifing both of them, but she feared that wouldn’t help her get out of the hold. If the knights came down here and found their prisoners dead, they would scour the hold until they found her, and she wasn’t ready to take them all on.

  Te’oma was still sitting awake in the dark when the hatchway opened. The sky outside was only a few shades lighter than the ceiling of the hold, but the light from the ring of fire played off the edge of the folded-back hatch and the top of the ladder beneath it.

  “Kandler?” a voice called down. It was Deothen. “Burch? Are you ready to come up and speak like civilized people?”

  “We’re not the ones who tossed their friends into the hold, sir knight,” said Kandler.

  Te’oma started at the sound of the justicar’s voice. She’d been sure he was asleep.

  “I am comfortable with my decision,” the senior knight responded, although an edge in his voice belied his words. “The Silver Flame lights my path, and it is clear.”

  “Then we’re happy down here in the dark,” Kandler said. “And we’re sleeping. I’m not getting out of this hammock to make you feel better about betraying us. Good night, good knight.”

  Deothen sighed and the hatch closed once more.

  Te’oma waited, stretching her limbs where she sat in the dark. She heard footfalls overhead, but they soon tapered off. When the ship had been silent for many minutes, the changeling slipped from her perch and tiptoed over to the ladder below the hatch. Reaching out with her mind, the changeling visualized the restraining bolt holding on the other side of the hatch. Once she had it, she tapped it with her mind. Above her, the bolt slid aside, unlocking the hatchway. Te’oma nudged the hatch upward an inch and then another. When there was just enough room, she peered out through the narrow gap she’d made and surveyed the airship’s deck.

  The bridge stood above and behind the changeling. She knew that anyone up there could not see the hatchway. The console on which the ship’s wheel hung blocked the view straight down.

  She opened the hatch just enough to see down the length of the rest of the deck, all the way to the bow. Three forms lay huddled near that end of the ship, perhaps trying to escape the heat of the fiery ring for comfort as they slept. One of them was dressed in white. At first she thought it was Esprë, but upon closer inspection she realized it was too large and bulky. A newcomer then. The others had to be knights, although the changeling could not tell which.

  Beyond the bowsprit stood the Mournland’s mist-shrouded border. Clouds of the same color and texture filled the sky above. Te’oma smiled, baring her blackened teeth.

  “Burch?” a voice behind her whispered. “Is that you?”

  Te’oma froze.

  Kandler rolled out of his hammock and padded toward the ladder. “How did you get the hatch open?” the justicar whispered.

  The hatch flew open, and in the sudden light that poured through from the ring of fire surrounding the ship, Kandler could see that whoever was on the ladder, it was not the shifter. The figure was far too lithe and held herself with a distinctly feminine grace.

  “Hey!” Kandler shouted and charged.

  The intruder hauled herself up the ladder and onto the deck. Just as the figure was about to clear the hold, Kandler’s hand stabbed out and caught an ankle.

  “Come back here!” he said.

  The justicar yanked the intruder halfway back through the hatchway. As she landed with her belly on the edge of the hatch, she lashed out with her free foot and caught Kandler across the chin. Determined not to let go, the justicar held on through the first blow, but the stranger knew where to find him now. A second kick in the face smashed his nose flat. With a third kick, the intruder wriggled free and pulled herself out through the hatch.

  Blinking away tears, Kandler wiggled his nose and decided it wasn’t broken. He lunged for the ladder, but just as he reached it the figure slammed the hatch shut.

  “Huh?” It was Burch, stirring from sleep. “What’s going on?”

  “The changeling!” Kandler said as he climbed the ladder. He shoved his head and shoulder up against the hatchway and pushed with all his might. He managed to leverage the lid up and back, and the intruder jumped away.

  As Kandler stuck his head through the hatch, he saw the changeling standing above him, her form silhouetted against the raging ring of fire, the light of which reflected warmly on the gray clouds of the Mournland sky above. The thought that the creature had been on the airship with them—down in the hold with him!—made him roar with rage.

  As Kandler scrambled through the open hatch, he heard Esprë’s scream from the bridge above him. Kandler stood and scanned the deck. Deothen, Sallah, and Xalt sat near the ship’s bow where the justicar guessed they’d been dozing. Kandler glanced up at the circular blaze. They were so close to the layer of clouds overhanging the Mournland that all he could see was the gray above and the black emptiness along the ship’s sides, as if
they were floating through some nether realm far beyond the world he knew.

  “Kandler!” Esprë screeched when she spotted the justicar from her spot on the bridge.

  He turned and flashed a quick grin at Esprë then snapped his head about to look for the changeling. His daughter seemed safe, but no one on the airship would be out of danger until the changeling was dead. It was hard to pick the creature out in the dim light and flickering shadows, but the sound of Brendis drawing his blade brought Kandler’s gaze back to the bridge. There! He saw the changeling facing off against the knight.

  She feinted a charge at the knight, and Brendis stepped backward, maintaining his guard.

  “We finally meet,” the young knight said to the changeling. Even to Kandler’s ears, his bravado seemed strained.

  The changeling smiled at Brendis. As she did, she let her gray cloak unfurl around her. The edges of it splayed out farther, wider, and as the fabric thinned it became leathery and more formed.

  Brendis watched in horror, holding his burning blade before him like a shield as the cloak fashioned itself into a massive set of batlike wings.

  The changeling allowed herself a short laugh as she leaped onto the rear railing of the ship. The young knight recoiled, bumping into Kandler as the justicar came storming up on to the bridge.

  “It’s a flying cloak!” Kandler snapped. “Now fight or get out of the way!”

  The justicar snatched the sacred blade from Brendis’s hand. The young knight, still stunned by the changeling’s transformation, did not protest.

  Kandler swung the burning sword at the changeling, but she sprang backward and fell into the inky night. “No!” he shouted. “Come back and fight!”

  The changeling laughed again as she let her magical wings catch the air and bring her soaring back up toward the ship. “How stupid do you think I am?”

  With that, she glided back into the darkness again.

  Frustrated, Kandler snarled at the young knight. Brendis stepped back clear of the reach of his sword, still in the justicar’s hand.

  “Burch!” Kandler said.

  “Right here, boss!” the shifter called as he emerged from the hold. “Where’s my crossbow?”

  “Get back down that hatch!” Deothen said to Burch as he stormed along the deck, brandishing his sword at the shifter. “We have the matter under control.”

  “Saying it don’t make it so,” Burch scoffed. He spat at the senior knight and headed for the bridge.

  Before Burch reached the narrow stairs, Sallah called out to him and then slid his crossbow across the polished deck at him. He stopped it with his foot, then kicked it up and snatched it from the air. “Thanks,” he said as he cocked it. Sallah slid over the quiver of bolts next.

  “Sallah!” Deothen roared. “Stop arming our prisoners!”

  Burch turned and pointed his crossbow at the senior knight. Deothen ducked to his knees, and the shifter’s shot sailed over his head. A cry pierced the black night beyond the ship’s bow, and Kandler caught a glimpse of a winged shadow turning back into the mists.

  Burch snarled and stepped past the knight, swinging his weapon around to cover as much of the sky as he could. “She gets near the ring again,” he said, “I’ll drop her.”

  Kandler lowered the flickering blade in his hand and scanned the darkness. On the ground in the Mournland, the air usually seemed still as a grave, but up here, with the airship soaring along, the wind whipped through him like a cold knife. Only the heat from the fiery ring dulled its edge.

  As Kandler’s gaze hunted through the sky, Brendis stepped forward to take the weapon back from him. The justicar elbowed the young knight back. “Stay out of my way,” he said.

  Sallah drew her own sword and set it ablaze with silvery fire as she raced across the deck, her long, red curls flapping behind her like a battle standard. She clambered onto the bridge where she found Esprë huddled next to the wheel.

  “Don’t let her get me again,” the girl said. “Please!”

  Esprë was gripping the wheel of the airship in white knuckles, and her entire body was shaking. She squeezed her eyes shut, and Kandler saw the red glow of the fire reflected off tears. The airship lurched slightly upward. Perhaps it was only the ship catching a pocket of air, but it was then that Kandler noticed a distinct trembling in the deck. Esprë was terrified, and it was affecting her control over the ship.

  Sallah knelt down next to Esprë and stroked the girl’s golden hair with her free hand. “She won’t get past me,” the knight said solemnly. “I promise.”

  Kandler reached down and patted Sallah on the back. When the lady knight looked up at him, he nodded his thanks.

  Deothen stood in the center of the deck, directly under the crackling ring of fire that propelled the ship through the night. “Where is she?” he asked. “Has she fled?”

  “There!” Kandler stabbed his silver-flame-coated blade past the ship’s rear railing. “She’s out on the rudder!”

  As Kandler watched, the changeling slashed at the rudder’s leathery fabric with a black knife, trying to shred it to ribbons. The material resisted her blade’s edge, but she kept at it.

  Kandler spied a mooring line lashed around a cleat on the rear railing. He picked up the loose end of it and threaded it through the rear of his belt. With a series of deft moves, he tied a tight knot and then leaped up to the rear railing. From there, he stepped out on to the rudder’s top spar and crept forward, balancing on the narrow beam of wood as the winds whipped around him.

  “Kandler!” Esprë screamed.

  A crossbow bolt sailed past Kandler and buried itself in the rudder’s frame. The changeling saw it, hissed, and took a step back. Kandler glanced over his shoulder. Burch was coming at them, reloading as he ran. He turned back just in time to see the changeling drop away into the darkness below. Kandler heard the clack of Burch’s crossbow followed by the whisper of a bolt shooting past.

  Kandler looked back over his shoulder as he stood crouched on the spar, Brendis’s burning sword still in his hand. “Did you get her?” he asked Burch.

  Before the shifter could answer, the changeling came around behind Kandler and blind-sided him from his perch. As the justicar toppled into the blackness, he swung about, let go of the sword, and grabbed the changeling, hauling her down with him. Brendis’s glittering blade arced out and away from them and tumbled through the dark toward the unseen ground far below.

  Kandler wrapped his arms around the changeling’s waist, and she battered at him with her fists as they plummeted through the inky blackness, the wind whipping around them as they fell. The arc of their dive reached the end of the mooring line on the justicar’s belt with a tug that bent him in half and knocked the breath from both of them, but his hold on the changeling never weakened.

  The pair’s momentum swung them back and up toward the bottom of the ship’s hull, only feet away from the lower part of the fiery ring. In the blazing light, Kandler could see the changeling’s face clearly for the first time. She was beautiful in her own formless way, her black hair fluttering behind her.

  “Release me,” the changeling demanded, “or I cut this line!”

  She pushed the edge of her knife against the rope that kept Kandler from following the sword down to his doom. Kandler rammed his head into the changeling’s nose. Red blood spurted onto her ebony skin. He reached up, grabbed her wrist, and pulled the knife away from his lifeline.

  “The chase is over,” the justicar said.

  Kandler forced the knife around lower, readying it for a stab into the changeling’s exposed side. As he did, he felt something foreign jab into his mind, probing for a weak spot, a switch that would turn him into a drooling madman or a gibbering fool. He fought with everything he could muster, but he knew it was only a matter of time before the psion battered down his defenses and destroyed his mind. Kandler stopped trying to force the knife lower and swung it back up toward the rope instead. It bit into the line above him, splitting
some of its vital fibers. The pressure in his head spiked, and he growled like a cornered beast.

  “Stop it! These wings won’t hold our weight!” The changeling hissed the words into his ear. “You’ll kill us both!”

  “Fine. With. Me.” Kandler spat through gritted teeth. He had let this creature kidnap his daughter once, and he wasn’t going to let her get away with it again. Try as he might, though, he couldn’t force her from his mind.

  As the pair struggled, they swung back out behind the airship again. A bolt sailed through the air as they hit the apex of their swing. It grazed the changeling’s shoulder, and she howled in pain.

  The pressure in Kandler’s head disappeared. He grinned down at the bloodied changeling in his arms as they swung back under the airship again. “It’s over,” he said as he reached up to pull the black knife from the rope so he could finish her off.

  The changeling lunged forward in Kandler’s arms and sank her teeth into his neck, biting and tearing like a mad dog. He shrieked and shoved the changeling away from him as hard as he could. The changeling kicked off from the justicar and, free at last, arced backward into an elegant dive. She spread her arms, and her wings unfolded around her. They caught the rushing air and buoyed her up again into the sky. The light of the airship’s ring of fire reflected off the wings for a moment, making her seem like some sort of demon, then the mists swallowed her again. Kandler snarled in frustration.

  One of his the rope’s strands popped under his weight. His head snapped up, and he saw the changeling’s knife still stabbed through the rope. With every motion, he pulled the rope against the blade, shredding a few more fibers.

  Kandler reached up and grabbed the rope above the knife. Grunting with the effort, he began hauling himself hand over hand up the long line. After a moment, he realized the rope was moving upward, too—and fast.

  As the justicar reached for the ship’s railing, a mailed hand met his. Brendis pulled Kandler up and helped him onto the bridge.