Marked for Death

Chapter 20

Seeing Kandler’s plight, Deothen forced his aging muscles into action. He had not seen this much action since the final days of the Last War, and his body had grown soft in the intervening years. He ignored its pleas to sit, to rest, to slow down. There was no time for such things now.

The knight leaped forward and slashed across the back of the warforged’s knees with his flaming sword, slicing through the fibers there. Unable to support its own weight, the creature fell to its knees, dragging Kandler down with him it.

Deothen shoved his sword through the warforged’s back. Dark fluid flowed from the wound, and the shock of seeing it almost made Deothen lose his grip on his hilt. He pushed the blade in harder, and it jammed against the inside of the creature’s chestplate.

Deothen twisted the sword furiously, trying to slash through something vital inside. He didn’t know if the war-forged had organs like a man, but if it did he was determined to find them. The sweat running down his brow stung his icy eyes and he fought with the creature for its life. After a moment, the creature let go of Kandler’s throat and fell forward onto its face, wrenching Deothen’s blade from his hands as it went.

Kandler rubbed his throat and croaked out a word of thanks to Deothen. The knight nodded a response at the justicar as he scanned the battlefield for more of the warforged. All of the ambushers lay dead or downed around them. No one besides the hunters stirred.

Burch clambered down from atop the broken monument and dashed to one of the warforged with a bolt in its neck. He turned the creature over, and it snarled. “Thought so,” the shifter said. He smacked the warforged with an open hand. “This one’s still alive, boss!”

Kandler strode over to Burch and leaned over the fallen warforged. Deothen followed close behind. The warforged that lay before them growled and snapped its head about like a mad dog as it tried to bite them, but it couldn’t seem to move anything below its neck.

“Stinking breathers!” the warforged said. “One day, the Lord of Blades will turn you all into meat.”

“I thought your kind didn’t eat,” said Kandler.

“We’ll feed you to animals. Your time is over!”

Burch kicked the creature in the ear. It snapped back at him, but its teeth found only air. “Did someone else come this way?” the shifter asked. Burch was still sweating from the exertion of the battle, and to Deothen’s nose he smelled like a wet dog. The knight did his best to ignore it.

“Do you plan to kill them?” the warforged asked. The hopeful tone made Deothen uncomfortable.

Kandler looked at Deothen, and the knight nodded. As a matter of honor, he didn’t care to lie to the creature, but he was ready to let Kandler say whatever he liked.

“They have my daughter,” Kandler said through gritted teeth. Deothen admired the depth of the justicar’s emotion for a child not even of his own blood.

The warforged pulled the edges of its mouth apart in what Deothen could only guess was a smile. “Two breathers on a horse came through earlier today.”

“Did you hurt them?” Kandler asked.

“They galloped straight through.”

“Which way?”

“ If I tell you, will you kill me?”

Before Kandler could respond, Deothen spoke up. “I sense no evil in this one’s soul,” he said, pointing down at the war-forged, “although he is clearly misguided.”

“Does he have a soul?” Kandler chucked the warforged under its jaw with his boot. “Do you have a soul?”

“More precious than yours.”

Kandler shrugged. “Soul or not, makes no difference to me. Which way did the others go?”

The warforged narrowed its obsidian eyes at Kandler. It surprised Deothen to see such a human expression on the creature’s face as it sized up Kandler’s intent. “North,” it finally said.

Burch reached down and picked up a nearby helmet. “Thanks, and good night,” the shifter said. He jammed the helmet down backward on the warforged’s head and strapped it on tight. The creature cursed as loudly as it could, but the helmet muffled the words enough to make them unintelligible.

“Do you have to do that?” Deothen asked the shifter.

Burch shrugged. “You’d rather have him screaming for help? Take the helmet off yourself then-once we’re gone.”

Kandler, Burch, and Deothen walked over to where Sallah and Levritt were looking after Brendis. “How are you?” the senior knight asked the injured young man.

“It hurts, sir,” Brendis said, “but I’ll live.” Deothen could see that the knight was putting on a game face for his leader, and he appreciated the effort.

“And young Gweir?” Deothen turned to look at the other knight’s form where it had collapsed nearby.

Sallah and Levritt looked up at Deothen. Their eyes were puffy, and the streaks of tears mixed with the rivulets from the sweat of battle on their faces. Levritt’s skin burned with shame as well.

“Ah,” said Deothen as his heart fell into his polished, armored boots. He looked at Kandler and Burch. “Please pardon me.”

The elder knight walked over to Gweir’s body. With reverent care, he closed the dead knight’s eyes, then laid him flat on his back and folded his hands over his heart.

When the five knights had left Flamekeep, Deothen had promised the parents of each of his younger fellows that he would treat them each as his own children. He’d seen plenty of death in the Last War, but those days now seemed long behind him. He’d grown close to each of his young charges throughout the journey, and Gweir’s death shook him harder than he cared to admit.

Deothen muttered the last rites of the Silver Flame over Gweir’s body. As he spoke, he pushed back the tears that threatened to overwhelm him. He kept his voice low for fear that it might crack at any moment-and he along with it. The others needed him to be strong now, to lead them, and he refused to let them down as he had Gweir’s family.

While Deothen tended to Gweir and composed himself, he listened to Sallah lend comfort to Brendis.

“Levritt and I have done all we can,” she said. “Once Sir Deothen completes his duties, he’ll take care of you.”

“I don’t mind the pain,” Brendis said. “I deserve it.”

“How do you figure that?” Kandler asked.

Deothen glanced over. Brendis started to point toward Gweir, but the pain was too much. He jerked his head in that direction instead. “Gweir and I entered training together. We’ve always watched each other’s back.” The young knight bowed his head. “When he needed me most, I failed him.”

Sallah patted Brendis on his back. “None of us saw it coming,” she said. “Not even our vaunted tracker.”

Anger filled Kandler’s voice. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Kandler said.

Deothen turned from his duties to watch the justicar glare down at Sallah.

Sallah glared right back. “You two are our guides here. You’re supposed to know the land.”

“You’re supposed to have your own special god on your side. Why didn’t it say anything to you?”

Sallah stood up, her emerald eyes blazing. “How dare you blaspheme to me?”

Deothen could see where this was headed. He stood and walked back to the others, ready to intervene.

A full head taller than Sallah, Kandler leaned over the lady knight. Neither backed down an inch. “I didn’t put that blade in that boy’s guts,” he said.

“Your hand wasn’t on the grip,” said Sallah, “but you failed him.”

“We all did,” Deothen said before Kandler could respond. He placed a hand on Sallah’s shoulder to comfort her and hold her back. “I understand your anger here, daughter, but it is misplaced. We are Knights of the Silver Flame, and we cannot expect any to protect us but ourselves. If there is anyone here to blame, it is us.”

“Or him,” Burch said, pointing a thumb at the paralyzed warforged still shouting wordlessly into the helmet bound across his face.

“He is no threat to us now,” Deothen said. Although he did not approve of having to muffle the creature’s shouts, he understood Burch’s reasons. “I applaud your mercy.”

Burch flashed a cold smile that bared his sharp, wolfish teeth. “That thing could live there forever like that, blind and trapped. I don’t call that mercy.”

“Killing the helpless is an evil act,” Deothen said. “You avoided that path.”

“Barely,” Burch said, fingering his crossbow.

“We need to get going,” said Kandler. “Do what you can to get Brendis fixed up.”

Deothen shook his head. “We need to bury our dead.”

“That will take too long. This fight slowed us down enough.”

Deothen remained clam and steadfast. This was not an issue on which he was prepared to negotiate. “Our traditions demand that we dig our fellow knight a proper grave. Under better circumstances, I would insist that we bring his body back to Thrane to find its home in his family crypt. We need to press forward, true, but not before we administer the final rites in full.”

“If we don’t get moving now, my daughter may soon need the same ceremony.” Kandler stared at the knights in disbelief. “The man is dead. There is nothing else to do for him, and a girl’s life hangs in the balance.”

“We have our duty,” Deothen said. He understood the justicar’s anxiety, but the traditions surrounding dead fellows were long established. The knight feared to fail to respect them in such a horrid land.

“Aren’t you so-called knights sworn to uphold the greater good?” Kandler asked, his rage evident in his voice. “Or does your ‘good’ only cover what’s good for you?”

Sallah took two steps forward and slapped Kandler in the face. “You will not speak to Sir Deothen like that!”

Kandler rubbed his jaw. Deothen put his hand on the hilt of his sword, afraid that he might have to step in to defend Sallah from the justicar’s fury. He was happily surprised to see Kandler speak reasonably instead. “You just lost a friend,” the justicar said, “so I’ll let that temporary lapse into insanity slide”

Sallah tried to slap Kandler again, but he caught her wrist. “You only get one,” the justicar said.

This only angered Sallah more. Deothen put his hand on her shoulder. At his touch, she seemed to remember her station and her duties-and neither involved fighting the justicar. She flushed with embarrassment, then pulled her hand from Kandler’s grasp and walked back to look after Brendis.

“Trail’s getting cold, boss,” said Burch. The shifter moved to his shaggy horse.

“We must adhere to our traditions,” Deothen said in a tone he hoped brooked no argument. “Gweir deserves a proper burial, don’t you think? Didn’t you bury your wife?”

Kandler screwed up his face and spit on Deothen’s polished steel boots. The senior knight refused to acknowledge the act, waiting for the justicar to speak.

“My wife lay here for nearly three years before I could come back for her,” Kandler said, growling out each word like a sword on a grindstone. “The whole of the Mournland is an open grave.”

“Not for Gweir.”

“I didn’t realize the Silver Flame was a cult that cared more about the dead than the living.”

“Without our traditions-our religion-our lives are worthless.”

Deothen said a silent prayer that the justicar might somehow understand. When Kandler turned and strode away, Deothen knew the effort had been in vain.

Kandler mounted his horse. He sneered down at the knights before he left. “You’re already worthless to me. Bury the dead, if you like. But you’re on your own.”

The justicar and the shifter spurred their horses toward the black waters of the ford and put the knights behind them.