The Queen of Death

40

The drums stopped, and Sallah shouted into the eerie silence. Her face flushed as she realized how far her voice had carried. Kandler reached out and held her hand, this time for comfort. She did not pull away. The gate to the palisade lifted up half a foot and began to swing open. Sallah gripped Kandler’s fingers tighter, and his other hand went to his sword.

“You never hold my hand any more,” Burch said.

Kandler ignored him as he and the others stared at the opening gate. It spread in the center, about six feet wide. As it did, it exposed a single figure standing there.

The figure stood covered in a many-colored shroud made of stitched-together dragon scales that covered it from head to toe. It stayed there for a moment, framed between the two sides of the gate, just long enough for Kandler to wonder if this could be a statue or perhaps another corpse.

Then it strode out across the open sand between the palisades and the three strangers, the shroud rustling like metallic leaves as it moved with its wearer. Kandler gave Sallah’s hand a squeeze and then let go, knowing she’d understand. They needed to have their hands free.

“Hold your ground,” Kandler said as the figure grew nearer. “Don’t do anything to alarm it.”

“It?” Burch said. “What about us?”

The figure came to a stop about a dozen feet from Kandler and the others. He wondered how whoever was inside the shroud could see through it. Or was the figure blind? Did it somehow not need its eyes?

Then the figure said something Kandler could not understand. The voice sounded low and harsh—angry almost—but feminine.

“That was Draconic,” he said softly, never taking his eyes off the woman in the shroud. “Burch?”

“Mine’s rusty,” the shifter said. “It sounded like she said, You’re not welcome here.”’

“I don’t speak the language at all, and I understood that,” said Sallah.

“There had to be more to it than that,” Kandler said.

“That last bit sounded like, ‘Which of you is of the dragon?’ ”

“What in Khyber is that supposed to mean?”

“She saw the dragons escort us here. Maybe that’s what she means.”

“I don’t think so,” said Burch.

“Does anyone on the airship speak Draconic?” Sallah said.

Kandler shrugged. “Ask her to repeat that,” he told Burch.

“Two weeks aboard a ship with a crew, and you don’t know any of them well enough to ask what languages they speak?” said Sallah.

“It didn’t come up,” Kandler said as Burch said something to the shrouded woman in her strange, twisting tongue.

The woman snarled something this time, angrier than ever. It sounded like she spat on the ground inside her shroud. With that movement, the gate in the palisades grew wider still, and a small army of men and women marched out.

The Seren warriors were short and stocky, with tar-black hair and skin that had been burnished a deep, rich brown. Their eyes were narrow slits cut into their faces, exposing only pit-black pupils. Many of them wore bits of bone or dragon scales pierced through their noses or their lips. Each of them bore a wicked weapon—a spear, axe, or club—fashioned from bone, wood, or even large bits of what looked like shells that had once served as homes to monstrous creatures.

Each of the warriors wore a skirt made of silver-bleached grass but nothing else. They had painted bands of silver across their faces and over their eyes that gave them an inhuman look.

The Seren surrounded Kandler, Burch, and Sallah. They spoke not a single word but moved into place with the surety of a well-trained unit, their bare feet almost silent on the sand.

“They’re barbarians,” Sallah said, wrinkling her nose.

One of the Seren women jabbed at Sallah with a spear tipped with the tooth of a gigantic shark. The other warriors started chattering among themselves, rattling their weapons against each other.

“Better smile when you say that,” said Burch. He flashed the warriors a sincere grin and held up his empty hands to show them that he meant them no harm.

“They’re as sophisticated as they come around here,” Kandler said, “and we need their help.”

He wondered when Xalt or Te’oma might decide to loose a bolt into the crowd. They had to be getting nervous aboard the ship, which meant he had to make something good happen here fast.

The woman in the shroud shrieked something and flung her arms into the air, exposing hands as brown as those of any of the other Seren. The others fell silent and brought their weapons back in front of them. Kandler could tell that they wanted to attack, to kill him and the others where they stood. Only the word of the shrouded woman kept them back.

The woman said something to Burch again. The shifter scratched his chin and responded. He chose each word with care, and he stumbled over a few pronunciations, but the head inside the shroud bobbed in understanding.

After a few tense exchanges, the woman stopped speaking.

“What’s the story?” Kandler asked Burch.

“This is the Gref tribe, guardians of this particular stretch of beach. They serve the dragon who founded this village for them: a silver beast by the name Greffykor.”

“The ones who brought us here were red,” said Sallah.

“The dragons put the Seren in charge of protecting Argonnessen from the rest of the world. Since the island lies straight between their home and Aerenal and Khorvaire, most traffic toward Argonnessen passes around the island of Seren.”

“But the Seren can’t patrol the skies,” Kandler said.

“So the dragons help them out there. Most of the time, the dragons just blast people out of the sky. Other times, they bring them down to whichever village they figure’s the best fit.”

“So why are we here?” asked Sallah, staring at the angry eyes surrounding them.

“Seems the Gref have a fine reputation for killing most of the people they come across. I’d guess the dragons wanted us dead but didn’t feel like dirtying their claws on us.”

“Doesn’t look like the Gref are so picky,” said Kandler. Burch spoke with the shrouded woman again. She replied forcefully.

“She says that the Prophecy said that circle of fire would bring the favored of the dragons to them.”

A horrible thought struck Kandler. He hesitated to voice it, but eventually he spat it out. “Are you sure she doesn’t mean ‘dragonmarked’?”

“Ah!” said Burch, his yellow eyes lighting up. “That’s it!” The shifter’s face fell even quicker than it had brightened. “They want Esprë.”

Kandler glanced up at the airship. “All right,” he said. “On my mark, draw your swords, and let’s do this. If we spill some blood quick that might frighten the others enough for us to make it on to the ship.”

“And once we get there?”

“Did I ever give you the impression I was doing more than making this up as I went along?”

“No!”

Kandler recognized Xalt’s voice instantly. He looked up just in time to see a flash of blond hair, then his stepdaughter landed next to him. The warforged still stood on the deck, reaching out his empty hands that had missed grabbing the girl and keeping her safe aboard the airship.

The islanders leaped back—all of them but the woman in the shroud. Then they closed in again, tighter than ever. Esprë’s sudden appearance had startled them for an instant, but now they were shamefaced and mad.

“Go!” Kandler said.

Burch slung his crossbow off his shoulder and into his waiting hands with a single, practiced shrug. Sallah’s sword appeared in her hand, just as the fangblade did in Kandler’s. The three of them put their backs to each other to cover all angles, leaving enough room between each of them to form a protective pocket in which Esprë could stand.

Kandler lashed out with his sword and sliced the heads off a pair of spears that had reached in too close for his liking. They tumbled to the soft sand and embedded themselves there point-down.

Sallah’s holy blade burst into silvery flames, and she brandished it at the Seren nearest her. They leaped back out of her reach and gaped in awe at her weapon.

Burch leveled his crossbow at the shrouded woman’s head. Kandler wondered how well a bolt would do against tightly arranged dragon scales like those, but he figured now was as good a time as any to find out.

“No!” Esprë screeched. She pushed between Kandler and Sallah and thrust herself in front of the shrouded woman.

Esprë said something to the woman in Draconic.