Marked for Death

Chapter 46

The trail to Construct was not an easy one, but Kandler ignored its challenges. He was too eager to get to the moving city to worry about such things. He’d had Deothen set them down in a hollow out of sight of the warforged capital, and from there they had hiked along in the city’s wide wake.

“Did I have to leave my armor behind?” Sallah said as she hurried after the others, dressed in a large, formless shawl that covered her from chin to waist. Burch walked right in front of her, with Kandler next to him. Xalt led the way toward the mobile city, which grew closer to them with every step.

“We’re posing as Xalt’s slaves,” Kandler said. “Didn’t you hear Deothen explain how a knight would never be a slave?”

Sallah sighed and rested her hand on the pommel of her sacred sword, which she had disguised by wrapping it in a dull cloth she had found in the airship’s hold. “As a Knight of the Silver Flame, I am trained for battle, not subterfuge. This makes me”-she searched for the right word-“uncomfortable.”

Kandler looked up at the rolling sections of Construct as they neared it. The low, gray buildings on the dozens of platforms sprawled away from them like a string of massive barges scudding across the gray-green land. He was thankful that the walkers under the city moved so slowly, but it irritated him that the place was moving away from them at any speed. It made the journey seem much longer than it should.

“If you’re afraid of going into that place…” he said.

“I didn’t say I was afraid.”

“You should be. I am.”

“Me, too,” said Burch.

“How about you, Xalt?” said Kandler.

“Had I skin, it would be white as a sheet.” The warforged gazed along the length of Construct’s platforms. “Even without a gang of breathers tagging behind, I never liked this place.”

“Why?” said Kandler. “It looks like a warforged paradise.”

Xalt shook its head. “This is a place dedicated to conquest and war. As the lady just said, such things make me uncomfortable.”

Burch stared at the moving city as they it grew closer. “Must be heavy,” he said. “Moves slow.”

“When Bastard wishes, the city can move much faster.”

“What happens if we run into one of the warforged from Superior’s camp?” Sallah asked.

“We won’t,” said Xalt. “Bastard does not smile upon failures. None of the patrol’s survivors will be willing to come here to report what happened and risk his wrath. Warforged have been dismantled for far less.”

As the quartet neared the rear of Construct, Xalt waved at a squad of warforged soldiers standing on one of the ballista-bearing platforms that lined the edges of many of the platforms. A soldier draped with a wide red collar returned the gesture.

At the squad leader’s signal-a series of stomps on the platform below it-two of the walkers at the end of the rear platform slowed their strides. As they did, the end of the ramp they were standing under pulled out atop them while the city moved on ahead until the other end of the ramp caught on its hinges. Then the two walkers crunched themselves down as low as they could while matching the pace of the city. When they were done, they only stood about a foot tall but still moved as fast as the others in front of them.

“That’s amazing,” said Sallah. “I’m surprised they can make themselves so thin.”

“This is nothing,” Xalt said. “When they stop moving entirely, they can fold themselves down to a height of only a few inches. Sometimes a roving animal gets stuck under a platform when this happens. It’s always a mess.” Xalt lowered his voice as they made up the distance between themselves and the end of the ramp. “Remember, you are slaves. Do not speak unless spoken to. Do not meet the eyes of any warforged but me. And you must obey my every word. There is far more to a slave’s proper etiquette, but that should suffice for our purposes.”

Kandler put his hand on the hilt of his sword. “You’re sure we’re okay with these swords?”

Xalt nodded. “You are my bodyguards. It’s dangerous for anyone to walk through the Mournland alone, even a war-forged.”

As Xalt said this, Kandler saw the artificer look down at the stump where its finger had once been.

When they reached the ramp, Xalt jumped up on and walked up to the squad leader. The others followed the artificer and stopped behind him, keeping their eyes low. As Sallah cleared the far end of the ramp, the walkers carrying it along stood up, raising the ramp, and walked it toward the city platform, shoving the ramp back into its home.

“Business?” the squad leader said to Xalt.

“I am an artificer. I have come to offer my aid.”

The squad leader surveyed the people behind Xalt. “Business must be good for you,” he said.

“There never seems to be a shortage of injuries among our kind.”

The squad leader nodded. “You won’t find one here. Report to the central workshop. They should have plenty of work for you.”

“My thanks,” Xalt said. He strode into the city, the others following right behind.

“That went better than I hoped,” said Kandler. Sallah slapped him on the back of the head. He turned and glared at her. “What was that for?”

“Were you spoken to?”

“Quiet!” Xalt said. “When we find our quarters, I will have to whip you all for your impudence!”

Kandler and Sallah glanced around to see the other war-forged on the platform looking at them. As one, they bowed their heads and said, “Yes, master.”

The quartet moved further into the city, Xalt leading the way. Each platform seemed to have a purpose of one kind or another. Some were forges, others homes, still others open spaces where warforged either sat and meditated or trained with various sorts of weapons. The spaces between the platforms were covered with wooden gangways that moved and shifted with the vagaries of the walkers underneath them and the terrain they were covering. When moving between platforms, most people walked along the gangways unless they were just hopping over to the next platform. Once the quartet passed the first few platforms, they saw few others.

“Where is everyone?” Kandler whispered.

“Patrol, most likely,” Xalt said. “Construct is a base of operations, not a home. We’re rarely all here at the same time.”

Kandler stared around him at the eerily empty platforms. “What do the people here do then?”

“Study, train, undergo repairs. They gather to watch our finest warriors battle each other in the main arena for sport, then it’s up to artificers like myself to piece the losers back together.”

“That’s barbaric,” said Sallah.

“It’s the curse of being a young people,” Xalt said. “We are still struggling to find our way. Most of us aren’t much older than five years old, although very few are less.”

“The Treaty of Thronehold barred the creation of more warforged,” Sallah said. “All known creation forges were ordered destroyed.”

“Good thing, too,” Burch said softly.

“It was a crime,” Xalt said. Kandler could tell by the artificer’s tone that this was no joke to him.

“Why is that?” asked Sallah.

“It was an atrocity. To deny a people the means to reproduce… it is one of the reasons the Lord of Blades finds so many of the warforged willing to flock to his banner.”

“But the treaty granted you all the rights of sentient beings,” the lady knight said.

“We were already sentient beings,” Xalt said. “That part of the treaty only recognized what was already a fact.”

Sallah frowned. “But we couldn’t let every country continue to produce warforged without restriction,” she said. “They would have outnumbered the other peoples in a matter of years.”

“Centuries, perhaps. It’s not so easy to create a warforged as you might think.”

“Still, I think you can understand the fear.”

Xalt nodded. “But I find it hard to accept the actions taken. Look around you, and you can see the direct results of these restrictions. The Lord of Blades is in the process of creating a nation of disaffected soldiers. Someday, the warforged of the Mournland will grow restless in their harsh homeland and start to look outside their borders. What do you think will happen then?”

Sallah shook her head.

Xalt turned to look past Kandler and Burch at the lady knight. “A conflict that will make the hundred years of the Last War seem like a pit fight.”

Kandler raised his eyebrows at Burch. “What do you say?” the justicar asked.

“Think more about Esprл and less about politics,” the shifter answered.

“I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

Burch smiled and lowered his head. He snorted and snuffed for a moment, flexing his arms and twisting his head. When he looked back up, his eyes were wider and more yellow than ever, and his nose a bit wider too. He sniffed at the air and then ran his tongue across his sharp, pointy teeth.

“What’s the word?” Kandler asked.

Burch turned his wolf’s eyes on his friend. “Esprл’s scent,” he said. “Roses. I got it.”