Marked for Death

Chapter 48

“This is it,” said Burch.

The quartet stood before a door that looked like most of the others they’d passed as they meandered through Construct, following Esprл’s scent. It was tall and gray, with a simple mechanical latch in its handle.

“Are you sure?” Kandler asked.

The shifter nodded. “Scents don’t lie.”

Burch put his ear to the door and listened for a moment. Kandler saw Xalt glancing nervously up and down the gangway that ran in front of the door.

“Someone’s moving inside,” Burch whispered. He glanced left and right. “No one’s watching.”

“Hit it,” said Kandler.

Kandler and Burch took two steps back. On three they lowered their shoulders and charged into the door. It gave way, and they plowed in.

“Quick!” Xalt said, pushing Sallah through the door. “I hear someone coming.” Once inside, he slammed the door shut again. It fit poorly on its frame now, but it still closed.

Kandler surveyed the room. It was furnished with simple but sturdy furniture. The walls were unadorned. There were no doors other than the one through which they’d come. A wardrobe stood in one corner, opposite a table and two bare chairs.

“Where is she?” Kandler whispered.

Burch sniffed at the air one last time. When he looked at Kandler, his eyes were back to normal. “Smells strong,” he said. “She has to be close.”

“B-Burch?” a little voice said.

“Esprл!” Kandler said. “Is that you?”

“Kandler!” Esprл said as she burst out of the wardrobe. She dashed into his arms and hugged him tight, silent tears rolling from her eyes.

The justicar pulled the girl away from him for a second and used his hand to brush her hair back from her face. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Did she hurt you?”

Esprл shook her head as she gasped through her sobs of relief. “She left me here, and when I heard you outside I didn’t know who it was. I hid in the wardrobe.”

Kandler swept the girl up into his arms and held her tight. “It’s all right now. Don’t worry.”

Esprл sunk her face into Kandler’s shoulder and wept. He held her and rocked her back and forth as he thought about the things he’d like to do to the changeling who had put his daughter through so much.

Sallah put a hand on Kandler’s back. “I don’t want to break up this happy reunion,” she said, “but we need to get out of here. The changeling could come back at any moment.”

“You don’t say.” The door opened. A gray-cloaked figure stood there silhouetted in the dim, gray daylight of the Mourn-land sky. “What an interesting scene to come home to,” the creature said.

Esprл looked up at the figure in the doorway, her blue eyes wide and red and magnified by her brimming and spilling tears. “Te-Te’oma?” she whispered.

Kandler gathered Esprл up in his arms as he stood. He told himself that he had what he came for. There was no reason to start a fight here in the middle of a warforged capital if he could help it. His first priority had to be getting his daughter out alive. He looked the changeling dead in the eyes and said, “Because she’s not hurt, I’m going to give you one chance to run.”

Te’oma chuckled, and the sound set Kandler’s teeth on edge. “Give me the girl,” she said.

For a moment, Kandler couldn’t believe his ears. He was stunned that the changeling could be so brazen. “You’re out of your mind. We’re four to your one.”

“Don’t fool yourself. The game is over. You’re going to give me the girl and walk away, or I’m going to call the entire city down on your heads.”

Burch reached back and slapped his crossbow into his hands. Before he could loose a bolt, the changeling dove out of the doorway. As she went, she let out a scream worthy of a banshee.

“Help!” Te’oma cried. “Breathers!”

“Stop her!” Kandler shouted. He considered launching himself after the changeling, but he couldn’t find it in his heart to put Esprл back down. At the moment, he felt like he never would.

Burch leaped across the room, Sallah close behind him. The shifter slid through the open doorway and to the left, giving the knight enough room to barrel past him as he took aim at the changeling. He let fly, but Te’oma ducked around the next corner, and the bolt sailed wide.

The shifter and the knight raced after the changeling, elbowing past the few warforged who poked their heads out of their doors to see what all the noise was about. Within a matter of seconds, they were gone.

Clutching Esprл close to his chest, Kandler ducked through the doorway after the others. “Hold it!” he said as he burst into the narrow alley between the platforms.

Xalt misjudged Kandler’s abrupt stop and slammed into the justicar’s back as he emerged from the tiny room. Kandler, Esprл, and the warforged went down on the gangway in a tangle of metallic and fleshy limbs.

Kandler struggled to his feet, Esprл still hanging around his neck. “Burch!” he shouted. “Sallah! Comeback!”

The shifter and the lady knight were already out of sight and apparently earshot. Kandler reached back and helped Xalt to his feet. “Damned shifter temper!” the justicar said.

He held Esprл to him and started off after his friend.

Kandler glanced back at Xalt. “Where are they headed?” he asked the artificer.

“In the wrong direction,” Xalt said as he trotted along behind the justicar.

“Why’s that?” asked Esprл. Hanging on Kandler’s neck, she could see right over his shoulder to the warforged.

“That way lies the arena, the main barracks, and Bastard’s headquarters,” Xalt said. “This is suicide! We should let them go and save ourselves.”

As Kandler leaped over a warforged who Burch and Sallah must have knocked down a moment before, he squeezed Esprл tight, and she hugged him back. He wondered if Xalt was right. He’d risked so much to rescue his daughter. Was he throwing it away now?

“What do you think?” he asked Esprл.

“No!” Esprл said. “You don’t leave friends behind.”

“That’s my girl.” Kandler grinned as he stiff-armed a warforged that leaped out from a nearby intersection. “I sure miss your mother.”

Esprл kissed Kandler on the cheek. “Me, too,” she said softly.

As he ran, Kandler kept catching and then losing sight of Sallah and Burch as they chased Te’oma deeper into the city. The canny changeling kept ducking down side passages, turning back and forth as often as she could, never giving the shifter the time to bring her down with a well-aimed bolt.

From up ahead, Kandler heard a dull noise, like the murmur of a thousand tinny voices. As he got closer, an excited roar went up.

“Are we ready to give up?” Xalt said from behind.

Kandler heard a tremor in warforged’s voice.

“Never!” Esprл shouted back at the artificer. The justicar just held her tighter and smiled.

They turned a final corner, and there-across an open set of platforms that formed a barren sort of park, complete with low benches but missing plants or trees-a huge wall appeared before him, at least forty feet high. The noise came from behind it. The wall stretched almost entirely across the city, leaving perhaps a single column of platforms untouched on either side of it. Open portals pierced it at regular intervals, each standing empty. Kandler saw the backs of his friends disappear through the portal straight in front of him, which formed a long, dark tunnel. A moment later a roar went up from the other side of the wall.

“By the forge that made me,” Xalt said, reaching out his good hand to slow Kandler down. “Tell me they didn’t go in there.”

The warforged dragged the justicar to a stop and stared up at the wall with his jaw wide open. The structure stood four stories tall and stretched from one edge of the city to the other, at least a hundred yards across at this point. With the exception of the tunnels that ran through its base at regular intervals, it was a solid wall of graying tarpaulins stretched taut over an intricate wooden frame, the outlines of which were visible beneath the thick, oiled canvas.

Kandler spun back at the stunned artificer. “What is it?” he said.

The warforged didn’t seem to hear him.

“Xalt!” the justicar said. “What’s through there?”

“This is bad,” Xalt said. “Not just bad. Awful.”

Kandler stepped into the artificer’s face. “Can you be more specific?”

Xalt brought his obsidian eyes back down to look at Kandler. He focused on the justicar as if he were seeing him for the first time. “It’s the arena,” the artificer said. “And from the sound of it, there’s a match going on.”

Kandler closed his eyes.

“What is it?” Esprл said as she turned around in his arms to stare at Xalt. “What’s going to happen to Burch and Sallah?”

The justicar kissed the girl’s cheek, never taking his eyes from the artificer. “How many warforged in there?” he asked.

Xalt shook his head. “That must be why the streets are so empty.”

“How many, Xalt?”

The greaser spoke slowly, as if waking from a deep sleep. “A few score at least. Hundreds? Maybe more.”

Kandler grimaced as another roar sounded from inside the arena.

Esprл pulled back from Kandler’s neck and sat on his hip. She furrowed her brow at him. “What’s going to happen to them?” she asked.

Kandler looked back at her, and her eyes were as blue and wide as he had ever seen them. He reached up with his free arm and brushed the blonde hair back from the elf-girl’s face. Even in the Mournland’s half-light, it seemed to glitter.

“I just found you,” he whispered.

Kandler kissed Esprл on her forehead and handed her to Xalt.

“Get her out of here,” he said. “Take her someplace safe till things quiet down, then get her back to Deothen.”

Xalt nodded as the girl slid from Kandler’s arms and grabbed his thick, three-fingered hand. She bit her lip and said, “Wait! I can help.”

Kandler shook his head. “The world needs you safe,” he said, “but our friends need me.” He drew his sword and stared down the black tunnel toward the circle of dim light at the other end. “I have to go.”

“Wait!” Xalt said. “What is the plan? What are you going to do?”

Kandler glanced back over his shoulder as he left and said, “I’ll be damned if I know.”