The Queen of Death

20

“Open that door,” Kandler said, his hand on the hilt of the fangblade hanging from his belt.

The three guards standing in front of the portal that led into the ground floor of the tower refused to budge. They didn’t even acknowledge the justicar’s presence as he walked up to them. Kandler recognized the tactic, meant to imply that someone like him was so little a threat as to be not worth noticing.

He’d used it himself from time to time, but never when faced with an armed opponent. An idiot with a sword still had a sword, and Kandler had never seen the wisdom in treating any lethal threat casually. He preferred the direct approach.

Kandler drew his sword and pinned one of the guards to the door behind him before any of their blades even cleared their scabbards. The fangblade lanced right through the elf’s unarmored shoulder, and the justicar pulled it back in front of himself in time to catch the blades of the wounded guard’s two companions along its shaft.

“Open that door,” Kandler said.

This time, the guards didn’t ignore him. The injured elf slid back along the wall, away from the fight, to give his friends more room to maneuver. It did them little good.

The fangblade licked out and sliced through the forearm of one of the attacking guards. The elf dropped his blade with a pained cry.

Kandler kicked it aside as he parried a counterattack from the third guard. He didn’t have the time to mess around with these hired swords. If they called for help, they could have most of the fortress surrounding the tower in no time.

Still, he didn’t care to kill them. As he’d told Te’oma, he had no quarrel with these elves. They were but soldiers doing the job they’d been trained for.

As the third guard came at him, Kandler blocked the incoming swing with his fangblade. The enemy sword broke in two on the fangblade’s edge. As it fell apart, Kandler smashed out with his fist and caught the startled elf square in the nose. Blood spurted from the guard’s face as he sat down hard.

Kandler kicked the last of the guards aside and let himself into the tower. As he did, he heard the guards begin to shout for help.

He slammed the door behind him and barred it. Then he dashed over to the basket, which dropped into place as he reached it. He leaped into it, and it began to ascend.

“We cannot wait here for them to come back,” Sallah said. She shaded her eyes as she stared off from the top of the bridge at the tops of the towers that dotted the village. She thought she recognized the one in which they’d met Ledenstrae.

Xalt cocked his head at the lady knight. “Kandler told us to wait here,” he said. “His instructions were clear.”

“If you followed instructions to the letter, Kandler, Burch, and I would be dead, and you would still be wandering about the Mournland.” Sallah tried to take the edge off her comment with a wry grin, but she found she couldn’t summon one.

“She’s right,” Monja said, her hands wrapped around the top spars of the airship’s stationary wheel. She had to stand on a couple of the lower spars to be able to see over the top of the bridge’s console, but the position seemed to grant her not only height but authority.

“I saw the look in Kandler’s eyes,” the halfling said, glancing at Te’oma. “He’s spoiling for a fight.”

“Then let him find one,” the changeling said, still rubbing her throat where Kandler has strangled her.

“Do you blame him for not trusting you?” Sallah asked.

“None of you do.” Te’oma spat on the deck, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. “Why should he?”

The changeling paced the deck for a moment, then stopped and turned on the others. “I could have flown away from here at any point. On the trip from Fort Bones to the Ironroots, I could have just slipped over the ship’s railing at any time and been gone, but no, I stayed here, with you, so I could do something to … to …”

The others waited for a moment.

“To kill a dragon?” Duro asked, his voice high and uncertain.

Te’oma scoffed at him. “You’re insane,” she said. “Spending your days guarding the lair of a dragon, armed with nothing more than axes, hoping you could do something to stop it when it wanted to get free. If I’d known what was going to happen—I’ll be honest. I would have flown away. The last you would have seen of me would have been my wings flapping into the sunset.”

Xalt interrupted her rant. “That is not true. As you say, you could have escaped at many points. Even after we discovered Nithkorrh, you had many opportunities.”

Te’oma turned away and muttered something to herself.

Sallah raised a hand to reach out to the changeling, then thought better of it. Instead, she spoke. “Your actions earned our respect, if not our unwavering trust. You must recall your actions thrust us along this perilous road.”

Te’oma spun back about. “Don’t you think I know that?” she said. “If I could change one thing I’d ever done, I’d—Well, I’d have to start a lot farther back than that.” She bowed her head. “Now, with nothing left for Vol to dangle before me, I just thought I could do some good for once.”

“Especially if that good would thwart the lady who betrayed you,” Monja said.

“She’s no lady,” Te’oma said with a shiver. “She’s beyond such things, like royalty is beyond peasantry. If you’d ever seen her sitting on that frigid throne of hers in Illmarrow Castle, you’d know her for what she is: a queen. The queen of death.”

Silence fell over the bridge then. Duro shifted uncomfortably. Monja stared out from the wheel as if charting a path toward the ocean that appeared as a strip of grayish blue on the southern horizon. Xalt stared at each of the others in turn, focusing his unblinking eyes on them like a lantern’s light.

“I believe in you,” Sallah said to Te’oma as Xalt’s gaze fell on her. As the words left her, she wondered why she’d bothered to speak them.

“So you said.” Te’oma huffed and frowned. “It’s easy to believe in someone when your god lets you know if she’s telling the truth.”

Sallah shook her head. “I didn’t use the powers of the Silver Flame for that.”

Te’oma stared at Sallah through reddened eyes. “You’re lying,” she said.

A soft smile crossed Sallah’s lips. “If you really want the trust you ask from us, it would help if you could extend it too.”

“Why would you tell Kandler to believe me?”

Sallah gave a slight shrug, barely enough to move the shoulders of her shining armor. “Because I did.”

Te’oma considered this for a moment. Then a smile slowly spread across her face. “How are we going to break this glorified dinghy free from the dock?” she asked.

Sallah looked to where a pair of thick chains moored the Phoenix to the dock. They had no tools that would snap such weighty links. They would have to try another way.

Duro cleared his throat. “I think I have an idea.”