Marked for Death: The Lost Mark, Book 1

by Forbeck, Matt

  “Do not deny me now, my daughter!” Deothen said. “I want this creature to know who is killing him and why!”

  Bastard threw back its head and rasped out a laugh. “You see,” he said, pressing his blade against the lady knight’s neck again, “I am right.”

  Kandler shook his head in confusion. This was one thing he’d never suspected.

  “Father!” Sallah said. “No!”

  “Now!” Deothen shouted at Brendis. “Full speed ahead!”

  The airship lurched forward—straight at Bastard’s box.

  Bastard dropped its sword, and the guards holding Sallah and Burch let their prisoners go and dove for their lives. The airship sped forward, her hull looming larger than a moon before the people on the box’s platform. Burch glanced around, desperate for any way to escape.

  “Stop!” Bastard said through his golden horn.

  The two titans hauled back on the airship’s rope ladder and mooring line, and the craft came to a shuddering halt. Deothen pitched forward off the bridge and went skittering along the deck until he came to a stop at the railing across the bow. Still anchored by the two titans, the side of the ship bounced off the arena floor shy of its mark, the ring of fire causing the wooden panels to burst into flames.

  “More power!” the senior knight shouted as he scrambled to his feet.

  The ship rose back into the air as she strained upward and forward, and Deothen reached out over the railing as if he wished for nothing more than to strangle the gloating warforged below with his bare hands.

  Burch took advantage of the distraction to scoop up Kandler’s blade where it lay near his feet and vault down onto the arena floor. He turned and beckoned Sallah to follow, but Bastard reached out and snagged the lady knight by her sleeve.

  Burch was about to race back into the private box when he heard a roar from behind. He looked back to see Kandler raising the blazing blade he’d borrowed high over his head in a two-handed grip as he dashed the few steps toward the mooring line. The titan next to the justicar spotted him coming and smashed at him with its hammer-hand, but it miscalculated Kandler’s intent and the blow went wide.

  The vibration in the floor from the falling hammer might have caused Kandler to stumble, but he leaped into the air before the shockwave hit him. Stretched as far as he could go, the justicar slashed down at the mooring line with every ounce of strength in his arms.

  The long rope snapped. The titan holding on to the loose end tumbled backward to the hole its hammer blow had just made. It tried to stop its fall, but its hammer-limb disappeared into the hole. There was a terrible crunching sound as the arm was twisted around under the moving city in a direction it was never meant to go.

  The mayhem in the stands drowned out that noise. The weight of the titan no longer pulling it back, the airship darted forward and crashed into the stands like a meteor falling from the sky. As the ship came careening in, Sallah tore her arm away from Bastard, leaving him holding an empty sleeve of her shirt. Free from the warforged leader’s grasp, she dove out of the box and toward the arena floor.

  The airship’s bowsprit lanced into Bastard’s reserved seats, and Deothen hurtled over the railing. He landed amidst the wreckage of the box. Only his armor saved him from being impaled on the collection of jagged boards on which he landed.

  The titan still attached to the rope ladder sailed along after the ship, yanked off its feet by the sudden change in momentum. It crashed into and through the bottom of the airship’s hold, its top half wedged in the hole it made. Its legs landed in the airship’s ring of fire and were incinerated.

  The airship’s restraining arches held, although they creaked with the effort. The lower arch broke through the arena floor like a plow cutting through a field. The stands beneath the airship burst into flames as the ring worked to reestablish its natural shape by turning everything in its path to ash. Burch grabbed Sallah’s arm and dragged her away from the fiery ring.

  The warforged in the stands trampled over each other as they tried to escape the disaster. Some near the top opted to leap over the exterior wall to the platforms far below rather than brave the flames or the stampedes. Some of these crashed through the platforms to the earth moving beneath.

  “Hey!” Kandler said, as he dashed up behind Burch and Sallah. “I think you have something of mine.” He held up Sallah’s sword.

  Burch handed Kandler’s blade to him, and the justicar returned the sacred sword to Sallah.

  “That’s a fine blade,” the justicar said.

  An amplified voice called out from the burning wreckage of the stands. “To me, my people!” It was Bastard. “Kill the intruders! Save me! Save—! No!”

  The voice stopped, and Burch led Sallah and Kandler around perimeter of the ring of fire to where they could peer through the smoke engulfing the stands. As they watched, two silvery forms came flashing out of Bastard’s private box, their polished surfaces glinting in the angry light of the airship’s blazing ring.

  “Father!” Sallah screamed.

  Deothen landed atop Bastard and pounded the creature’s face with the pommel of his sacred sword. The warforged leader snarled and shoved the senior knight off his body.

  “Look!” Burch said, pointing at Bastard. “It’s stuck.” The spikes on the creature’s back had pierced the floor onto which the creature had fallen, pinning it there.

  As Bastard struggled to break loose, Deothen circled the creature, looking for the perfect opening for his sword. Before he could strike, the warforged twisted its body free. The action wrenched a large part of the flooring behind it away, and it fell through the hole it created.

  “You’ll not evade me so easily!” Deothen shouted as he leaped through the hole, following Bastard down into the nether region beneath the city’s moving platforms.

  “No!” Sallah shouted as she watched her father disappear. Before she could race across the arena floor to join him. Burch grabbed her by the shoulder.

  “We have a bigger problem,” the shifter said.

  Sallah turned to see what Burch was talking about. Before her, the titan with a remnant of the airship’s mooring line still wrapped about it tore free from its mangled hammer-arm and climbed to its feet.

  Burch leaned over to Kandler and said, “What do you suggest we do about that?”

  “Only one thing seems to have worked so far,” the justicar said, grabbing Sallah and Burch by their arms and shoving them before him. “Run!”

  The three raced off across the arena floor. They avoided the hole through which Deothen and Bastard had disappeared and gave the burning section of the stands a wide berth.

  When the trio reached the far end of the arena, they looked back to see that the one-armed titan was still lumbering after them. “It’s following Bastard’s last orders,” Sallah said. “It’ll run us down until we die or it’s destroyed.”

  “See that?” Burch said. He pointed to one of the ballistae mounted on the low walls on each corner of the arena. The crew that had been stationed at it had abandoned it when the fire began. The weapon stood loaded and ready, pointed outward as part of the city’s defenses against invaders. It looked very much like a giant-sized version of Burch’s beloved crossbow.

  “Bet it turns this way too,” the shifter said.

  “Get up there,” Kandler said to Burch. “I’ll keep this moving mountain of armor busy.”

  Burch slapped the justicar on the back and then raced away, looking for a way to get on top of the wall.

  The one-armed titan stomped up to Kandler and Sallah and raised its axe high. The two scrambled away in opposite directions. For a moment, the towering warforged hesitated, unsure which of the pair to attack first, then it swung down at the justicar.

  Kandler realized he wasn’t going to be able to run away fast enough. Wedged in the corner of the arena as he was, there just wasn’t enough room. Instead, he charged the warforged, and the creature’s blow smashed down over his head. The swing came close enough
that he could feel it brush against his hair, but Kandler rolled forward unharmed.

  As the titan’s axe landed, Sallah spun around and slashed at the back of its legs with her burning blade. The creature rasped in pain and kicked out to shove the lady knight away. Its foot caught Sallah in the hip and knocked her to the ground. Her sword spun out of her grasp.

  Kandler fought the urge to run to her side, knowing that it would only doom them both. His best option was to press the attack, although it was nearly impossible to find a chink the titan’s armor.

  The titan turned its attention to the lady knight as she scrambled across the arena floor, reaching for her weapon. As it spun about, Kandler saw a slim chance. It was the only one that had presented itself so far, so he took it. He sheathed his sword and leaped upon the titan, finding a handhold on the many spikes sticking out of the creature’s back. He pulled himself up on them, crawling up the titan’s metal carapace, scratching himself on the sharp-tipped spikes, until he came to the creature’s neck.

  The titan drew back its axe-arm to level a blow at Sallah. As it did, Kandler drew his sword, held it high, and threw all of his weight into driving his sword into the back of the creature’s neck. The blade jarred in his hands only a few inches into the creature’s exposed fibers. Panic shot through Kandler’s mind, and pain lanced through his shoulders. He growled and shoved at the blade again. It slid to the left, making its way around whatever iron bands the creature used for a spine.

  The monstrous warforged tried to reach back with its missing arm but ended up flailing the shattered stump at Kandler instead. The justicar screwed his sword back and forth in the hole he’d made, sawing through the thick, raw fibers beneath the titan’s armor. Dark fluid spurted up from the wound and spattered across Kandler’s arms and chest. The quantity surprised him, as did the fact that the crimson liquid was hot.

  The titan swung at Kandler with its axe, but its blow glanced off its own armored head instead. The resultant clang set the justicar’s ears ringing, but he kept at his horrible task, churning his sword in and out of the creature’s savaged neck.

  Infuriated, the titan threw itself backward on the arena floor in an effort to crush the justicar with its bulk. Kandler felt the creature start to topple and leaped free, barely clearing the creature’s massive body. The spikes on the titan’s back and shoulders tore at the justicar, slashing his flesh. Kandler cried out in shock and pain.

  The impact on the arena floor knocked the wind from Kandler, and he lay there on his chest for a moment. He hadn’t the strength to get back on his feet, and the titan’s fall had trapped the justicar in the same corner again. As he heard the titan start to rouse, he willed himself to move.

  Kandler rose to his knees and turned. The titan rolled off its back like a gigantic bear. It growled and threw itself back onto its knees where it could raise its axe-hand over its head. It aimed another blow at Kandler, but before it could slam down its weapon, flames erupted along its back.

  “Get off him, you monster!” Kandler heard Sallah shout from the creature’s other side. The smell of burning fibers filled the air.

  Still on its knees, the titan whirled about. The move wrenched Sallah’s sword from her fingers but left the blade embedded in the titan’s back, its flames devouring the creature from within.

  Kandler dashed around in front of the titan as it climbed to its feet. He grabbed Sallah by the arm and led her across the arena floor in a dead sprint.

  The titan leaped into the air after the retreating duo and came down hard on all three remaining limbs. The floor beneath Kandler and Sallah bucked like a wave, throwing them from their feet. The titan was on them in an instant. It smashed down at Kandler with the stump left over from the ruin of its hammer-arm and pinned his leg to the ground. Sallah pulled on Kandler’s arm, striving to drag him free, but it was like trying to drag an anvil chained to an anchor. There was no escape.

  The titan lined up its axe-hand over Kandler’s head, like a butcher measuring a cut of meat. The creature raised its arm to deliver the killing blow—

  A bolt the size of a lance slammed into the back of the titan’s arm, and the axe-hand went spinning into the air. It landed inches from Kandler’s face, embedding itself a full foot into the floor.

  The titan screeched in frustration. Still pinning Kandler to the floor, it turned its head about to see who had dealt it such a telling blow. Kandler looked over too and saw Burch grinning from behind a ballista as the shifter rushed to reload the device.

  The titan swept Kandler and Sallah away with the stump of its hammer-arm. Tangled in each other’s limbs, the pair spun across the arena floor, toward the airship still resting in the stands.

  The justicar saw the ring of fire rushing at them, and he flung himself between Sallah and the fire. When they spun to a halt, Sallah was clear of the blaze consuming the floor of the arena, but Kandler found himself lying in the flames.

  The lady knight pulled Kandler from the edge of the fire, his clothes already burning. She wrapped her arms around him in an attempt to smother the flames, then rolled them around on the sawdust-coated floor until the tongues of flame licking at Kandler vanished.

  When the flames were out, Kandler lay on the floor on his face with Sallah lying on top of him. His skin was flushed from the fire, and his eyes were squeezed closed tight.

  “Kandler!” he heard her call. “Kandler!”

  The justicar peeled open his eyes and looked up at the lady knight. He started to smile at her but coughed instead. “Thanks,” he said between hacks. Then where he was and what was happening struck him. He pushed free of Sallah and said, “Burch.”

  The pair looked back in the direction from which they’d come. The titan had swung out wide so it could get a running start at the shifter, who was still reloading the ballista. He’d gotten the bow winched back and was lifting a bolt into place as the titan lowered its head and charged.

  “Burch!” Kandler yelled, his clothes still smoking, as Sallah helped him to his feet.

  The shifter slammed the bolt home and brought the weapon about to bear on the titan’s new position. Without its arms, the creature couldn’t reach up to tear Burch from the wall on which the ballista was perched. Barreling along at its top speed, it seemed determined to bring down the whole wall instead.

  Kandler’s breath caught in his chest as he watched Burch sight down the bolt’s path and point the weapon to where the titan would be in an instant. The justicar didn’t see how the shifter had any time left to fire, but Burch calmly waited for the creature’s head to fall within his sights and then pulled the ballista’s firing lever.

  The bow-wire snapped forward, hurling the bolt straight at the titan’s head. It slammed into the creature’s face and came splintering out the back of its armor-plated skull. Kandler and Sallah cheered, but their joy didn’t last long.

  The titan’s headless form lost little of its forward momentum. It slammed into the wall beneath Burch’s position and tore through it like paper. The massive weapon and its shifter handler went down atop the titan’s corpse and disappeared in a crush of wood and steel fragments.

  What’s happening?” Esprë said, panic sharpening her voice. “I can’t see Kandler!”

  “I can’t tell,” said Te’oma.

  The changeling tried to peer through the smoke, but it was too thick. From their vantage point at the top of the stands looking down over Bastard’s damaged box, all she could see was the airship, her ring of fire crackling merrily away as it consumed its surroundings. Deothen and Bastard had disappeared over the other side of the ship, and Kandler, Burch, and Sallah had lured the last titan over that way too. The sounds of battle filled the air, but it was impossible to know who was winning the fight.

  The airship still stuck out of the stands, the splintered boards of the seats cradling it like an errant child, keeping it from toppling over backward. The bottom of the hull had been bashed in at several spots, but the fires from the blazing floor seeme
d to leave it untouched.

  The changeling looked back at the child. Esprë was being terribly calm, and Te’oma found it unsettling. She peered into the girl’s thoughts and read her murderous intent. The changeling realized she was lucky to still be alive.

  “Look,” Esprë said to the changeling. “You’d think the ship would be burning too.”

  “The hull must be treated against fire,” Te’oma said. “How else would you keep the ring of fire from destroying it?”

  “I wonder if Brendis is all right,” Esprë said quietly.

  The smoke surrounding the bridge was impenetrable. Te’oma gazed out at the ship. She’d hoped to somehow commandeer the thing and escape. Esprë, she knew, was thinking the same thing.

  The ship seemed like she might be a lost cause now, but Te’oma still couldn’t tear herself away. The idea of hiking to Karrnath on foot held no appeal for her. The changeling stared down at the ship a moment longer and then turned to Esprë and said, “Let’s go find out.”

  The changeling and Esprë picked their way down through the stands until they reached Bastard’s box seats. The entire structure had been knocked askew. Parts of it were destroyed, and flames rising from the floor licked the front parts of the box’s platform. The warforged who had fled from the fire seemed to be in no hurry to come back. With an enraged titan on the loose amid it all, Te’oma understood why. If it hadn’t been for the airship still there, the changeling would have knocked out Esprë and raced off in the other direction.

  “There he is!” Esprë said. She pointed up at the bridge, and Te’oma’s eyes darted after.

  The ship stuck in the stands at an angle. Brendis stood slumped over the wheel on the bridge. The leather strap lashed around his waist kept him from pitching forward into the flames, but the smoke swirling around him was nearly as deadly, the changeling knew. The young knight might already be dead.

  “Let’s go see if we can help him,” Te’oma said. She gathered Esprë into her arms and started down toward the remnants of the airship.