The Road to Death

16

“What do you mean ‘thunder lizards’?” Kandler said to Burch.

The shifter pointed down at the large pile of fresh dung in front of him. “Step in it once, you never forget it.”

Kandler, Burch, Sallah, Brendis, and Xalt had been walking northeast for the better part of the day. “Better to get away from the Cyre,” Burch had said, “and Ikar’s bandits.”

The plan was to march until their path crossed that of the north-south lightning rail line that ran through the nation of the Talenta Plains, from the capital of Gatherhold in the south up toward the Karrnathi capital Korth.

“Unless the changeling can navigate by the stars, she’s probably just guessing which way to fly that ship,” Burch had said. “With luck, she’ll follow the rail line north until she spots something she recognizes.”

“Do we have any prayer of catching her?” Brendis had asked.

“Prayer’s your solution.” The shifter twitched his nose at the knight as he picked up his pace, forcing Brendis to trot after him to keep up. “Not mine.”

Burch had smelled the dung long before Kandler saw it. The waving grasses stood high in the plains, past the justicar’s waist, which made spotting something lying on the ground difficult. The shifter had signaled for Kandler and Sallah to stop but let Brendis step right into the smelly mess.

While the young knight tried to scrape his boots clean, Sallah asked Burch the question burning in Kandler’s mind. “What size of thunder lizards are you talking about?”

Burch screwed up his face. “Spoor’s not too big.”

“It covered my foot to the ankle!” Brendis said, dragging his foot through the long grass in a wide circle around the others.

“Small, for a thunder lizard,” Burch said. “Probably a clawfoot, about as big as a lupallo. Good fighters too. Got a toe claw you could use to harvest wheat. Halflings around here ride them to war.”

Sallah blew out a deep breath. “I’ve heard of such things, but they seemed mere fodder for stories, tales told to scare children.”

Burch smirked. “They’re real enough. Just ask Brendis.”

“How many?” Kandler asked.

A few yards to the north, Brendis slipped in something soft and disappeared in the grass. “The Flame take this whole place!” he cursed as he scrambled to his feet, dragging his leg behind him, trying to wipe it clean.

“At least two,” Burch said, laughing softly at the young knight, his mouth drawn wide and baring his rows of sharp, pointed teeth. “Keep hopping around,” he called to Brendis. “You’ll find them all.”

“Is this trouble?” Kandler asked.

Burch shrugged. “Wild clawfeet hunt in packs. They can devour a bull in a matter of minutes. If they’re tame, well, it depends on who’s riding them, don’t it?”

“The halflings of the plains are peaceable folk,” Brendis said as he gave up on getting himself any cleaner. As he walked back to the others, Kandler wondered if the horrible stench that followed the knight would draw the clawfeet to them or drive them away.

“Ever met any?” Burch asked.

Brendis shook his head.

“The Plains aren’t a nation like you’d think of it—more a collection of tribes. If Cyre and Karrnath hadn’t kept bugging them during the Last War, they’d have stayed that way. Only a common threat like that brought them all together.”

“So they stand united,” said Brendis, “civilized by their interactions with the other nations.”

“If you can call defending yourselves ‘interaction,’ then sure, but the war’s over. They’re sure to revert to their old ways.”

“Which were?”

The shifter gazed at the young knight with his wide, yellow eyes. “Nomadic hunting and gathering, punctuated by deadly arguments between tribes.”

“We have nothing to do with their disagreements,” Sallah said. “Perhaps they will let us pass unmolested.”

“It’s a strange world,” Burch said, his tone betraying his true feelings on the matter. “Anything could happen.” He stalked off to the northeast again, letting the others trail in his wake, each of them watching their footing as much as him.

“So,” Kandler said, trotting to catch up with the shifter, “have you ever been this way before?”

“More than once,” Burch said. “Not since the end of the war.” He stared out at the horizon before them. “Lot’s changed.”

“How so?”

The shifter jerked his head off to the right. “I don’t remember seeing such a large hunting party before.”

Kandler looked south. There, just on the crest of a low hill, he saw a section of especially tall grass waving in the wind. At first, that didn’t seem unusual, but then he realized that the wind was blowing from the west. He shaded his eyes with his hand and squinted at the hill.

The extra tall grass turned out to be harvested tufts of the stuff used to camouflage something large moving beneath it—or several somethings. Kandler counted at least ten different sections of independent grass roaming their way toward them. At the rate they moved, they’d overtake the walkers in a matter of minutes.

Kandler looked around, but there was nothing to see in any direction but rolling hills covered with the same, sun-blasted grass.

Burch caught his eye as he motioned for the knights and Xalt to join them. “No chance,” he said.

Before the shifter could explain things to the others, a dozen creatures tossed off their grassy covers and sprinted toward them, their tiny riders letting loose a spine-tingling war whoop as they came. The large lizards—clawfoots, just like Burch had guessed—stood about six feet tall and easily massed over two hundred pounds. They were long, lean, and muscular, covered with thick amber scales above, with splashes of emerald green on their chests. Their arms were thin and stunted but ended in vicious claws that looked like they could pry open a man’s chest in seconds. They raced about on long, thick-muscled legs that propelled them on a sharp, fast gait no mammal could mimic. Their heads appeared to be mostly rows of razor-sharp teeth.

Brendis drew his sword, which burst into silvery flames as it leapt from his scabbard. Kandler put a hand on the young knight’s shoulder and said, “Put it away.”

“Are you mad?” Brendis said. “We are under attack.”

“We don’t know that yet,” Kandler said, “and even if we are, do you think we can stand against a dozen clawfoots and their well-armed riders?”

“With faith in the Flame, all things are possible.”

“Put that damn thing out before you start a fire!” Burch growled.

“But that is the symbol of our faith,” the young knight said.

Sallah lay a hand on Brendis’s sword arm. “Then rely on your faith rather than its symbol.”

Chastened, Brendis extinguished the flames but still held his blade before him, ready to defend himself and his compatriots to his last breath.

By this time, the clawfoots had the walkers surrounded. Each of them bore a rider on a reptile-skin saddle on its back and had a bit jammed into its mouth. They stared at the walkers with their slit yellow eyes, straining at their bits, hoping for a chance at the fresh meat standing before them.

None of the people riding the clawfoots could have been more than half Kandler’s height. Despite their size, they exuded danger. They wore dark tattoos and red war paint in aggressive patterns over their sun-bronzed skin. No city halflings, these nomads were wiry and strong, used to living an entire life on the trail, never stopping for more than a week to settle down—and often much less.

“Wrong place for you,” one of the halflings said. This one, with his long golden hair held back in a thick braid, rode the largest of the clawfoots, a creature that strained against its bridle with every step.

“We’re on a rescue mission,” Kandler said, speaking straight at the leader. “We’re trying to rescue my daughter.”

The halfling glanced at his fellows and laughed. “Long way from home.”

“We come from Breland. We followed her kidnapper through the Mournland to here.”

“Those not Brelish.” The halfling pointed at Xalt and the two knights with his spear. The stone tip had been worked to a vicious edge with a barbed head behind it. Three red feathers dangled from its other end.

“Our friends joined us in our quest to get my daughter back,” Kandler said, walking closer to the leader. “In such desperate times, nationalities matter little.”

The halfling jabbed out at the justicar with his spear, forcing the man back. “Countries mean nothing to us—or the dead.”

At this, Burch stepped forward. “I’ve not been here for a few years, but is this how the hunters of Talenta treat all their guests?”

The halfling nodded as he considered this. “We hunt no food. We spot a ship in the sky three days past.”

“The airship!” Kandler stepped toward the leader again, and the halfling loosed his reins enough for his clawfoot to bite down at the justicar, its teeth snapping empty air only inches from Kandler’s face.

“You know it?” the leader said, spitting on the ground. “Here, we kill spies.”

“No,” said Kandler. “That’s the ship that took my daughter from me. Which way did it go?”

The leader shook his war-painted head. “We don’t share secrets with spies,” he said.

“Let’s go,” Burch said. The shifter walked straight between two of the clawfoots and off to the northeast again. As he sauntered away, a spear from one of the leader’s lieutenants slammed into the ground before him and stuck.

“Another step, and the next one will be through your heart,” the leader called.

Burch turned on the halflings and glared at each of them in turn. “You’re a bunch of cowards,” he said. “You’re not going to hurt us, so if you’re not going to help, then get out of our way.”

“You dare talk—”

“He dares,” said Kandler, following his old friend’s lead. He glanced at the others. Brendis looked horrified by the turn of events. Even Xalt stood open-mouthed. Sallah just smiled at him and waited for him to speak to the halflings again, which he did, gazing into her eyes. “I dare. We all dare.”

Eleven spears stretched toward Kandler and the others still in the circle. Not for the first time, Kandler wondered if he and Burch had made a terrible mistake.