The Road to Death

2

“Damn, boss,” Burch said as he chewed a strip of raw horseflesh between his sharp, pointed teeth. “That was one bone breaker of a fight. Thought we were dead for sure.”

Kandler nodded in agreement from atop the horse that rode alongside the shifter’s steed. It wasn’t the short, shaggy lupallo the shifter normally mounted. He perched awkwardly on it, even as he continued to marvel at their escape from Construct, the mobile city founded by the Lord of Blades, the leader of the warforged castoffs who’d congregated in this forsaken land.

Sallah rode behind them, trying to sit tall in her saddle while Brendis slumped against her back. The young knight’s wounds from the fight in Construct had nearly proven fatal. Sallah had used her powers as a Knight of the Silver Flame to heal him as best she could, but she’d only been able to do so much.

“It would be best if we didn’t move him,” Sallah had said to Kandler that morning as the first hints of the daylong false dawn of the Mournland broke against the distant eastern horizon. There hadn’t been a choice though, and she’d known it.

They all hurt, some worse than others. Burch was the best off, just bruised a bit from when the warforged titan had taken down the wall of the arena on which he’d been perched. Consequently, the shifter was in the best mood of them all, flashing Kandler a bloody smile now and then as he shredded bits of the freshly killed horse in his mouth.

Kandler had almost bled to death during the mad gallop away from Construct. Only a scant mile away from the place, Burch had insisted on stopping to tend the justicar’s wounds. The shifter had bound them up tight, calling on his long experiences on both the battlefield and the trail, then Sallah had relieved his pain by laying her hands upon the worst of his wounds.

It had been enough that he could get back on his stolen horse and ride until the night fell so hard it had been impossible to see. Even so, Kandler had argued they should go on, fearing they’d lose any trace of Esprë’s path through the Mournland’s sky.

“We’ll catch her, boss,” the shifter said. “Just like tracking a wounded bird.”

Kandler knew that Burch’s cavalier attitude masked his deep concern for Esprë’s fate. Years spent in the shifter’s company had taught him that his friend was as serious as a blade through the chest when it came to those he loved. He was just trying to keep Kandler’s own spirits up. The justicar appreciated it, although he couldn’t manage to admit it to his friend. He suspected Burch knew anyhow.

Maybe his own injuries kept him from that. One of his eyes was swollen shut. The skin on his knuckles was shredded, and he thought he might have broken his left hand. He had a stab wound in the back of his left calf and another in his right shoulder. Pain lanced through him with his mount’s every step, but he ignored it the best he could. He knew that Sallah would tend to him again as soon as she could, but taking care of Brendis had exhausted her for now.

Sallah had barely taken the time to help herself. Bastard, the war forged juggernaut who ran Construct, had stabbed her twice in the chest and once in her upper arm. She’d lost a lot of blood and had scarcely been able to gallop away from the warforged city with the others.

Despite being short half a hand, Xalt had carried Brendis on his horse. The warforged artificer had more than proved his loyalty to the others long before then, but Kandler was continually impressed with the creature and his sympathetic ways. While the steel-faced Xalt had been created as a soldier—as had all of the warforged manufactured in the final years of the Last War—he displayed more caring than most “breathers” Kandler had ever known.

The warforged had been injured in the battle as well. Leaping off of the deck of an airship could put a dent in the toughest hides. Still, he bore all his troubles without complaint.

When they’d left Mardakine only—damn, was it only days ago? It seemed like a lifetime had passed. In fact, several had.

When Kandler and Burch had led the knights out of Mardakine to rescue Esprë from the vampires and the changeling who had kidnapped her, there had been seven of them: Kandler, Burch, Sallah, Brendis, Levritt, Gweir, and Deothen. Now three of the knights were dead, and another was hammering on death’s door.

“We’ve had better weeks,” Kandler said, more to himself than anyone else.

Burch cocked his head at his friend. “I don’t know,” the shifter said. “It’s not every week we got fresh horsemeat in Mardakine.”

“I can’t believe you eat that raw,” Sallah called from behind, barely disguising her disgust.

Burch rolled his yellow eyes at Kandler before responding over his shoulder. “Horse was as good as dead. We got no food. Easy choice.”

Xalt spoke up from where he trotted along next to Sallah. “I have never been more glad that I do not need to eat.” Kandler thought he heard a hint of a smile in the warforged’s voice, but since the creature’s face couldn’t flex like that—apparently his builders hadn’t considered such a skill worth working into his design—the justicar could only guess.

The tireless warforged kept pace with his mounted friends easily, never breathing hard or showing any sign of exertion. Perhaps, Kandler thought, it was because Xalt didn’t need to breathe. He apparently only bothered with it so he could talk.

It had been Xalt’s horse that had fallen lame as they raced away from Construct with what seemed like three score of well-armed warforged following them on foot. The creatures couldn’t keep up with a horse at a dead gallop, so Kandler and the others had pushed their stolen mounts as hard as they could to put some distance between themselves and the wounded city smoking behind them.

Thankfully, Construct no longer moved. The city itself—or at least dozens of the golem legs on which the thing marched—had been wounded in the battle with Bastard and his titans in the place’s arena. It would be mobile again soon, Kandler was sure, but by then they would be long gone. In the meantime, they just needed to keep ahead of the warforged who were sure to still be chasing them.

Kandler, Sallah, and Burch had been riding hard all night. When Xalt’s mount went down, they’d just moved Brendis up behind Sallah and kept going. They’d slowed since, hoping to prevent the same thing from happening to their own steeds, and they’d stopped long enough for Burch to butcher the fallen beast.

Kandler hadn’t wanted to do it. He’d pressed to keep moving on, chasing after Esprë and Te’oma on that airship on which they’d escaped the battle, even though they’d been out of sight for endless hours. The ship was damaged, and from the holes torn in the hull, Kandler guessed that it had no supplies left on it either. Eventually, it would have to stop someplace, and he planned to reach it when it did.

Burch had pointed out—wisely, Kandler had to admit—that they weren’t likely to find food elsewhere in this blasted waste. Few creatures made their home in the Mournland, and those that did were usually too tough to be edible. It was hard to sink your teeth into a living ball of fire that exploded anytime you got too close, for instance.

“Think they’re still following us?” Kandler asked.

“I would guess not,” said Sallah. “Leaving Construct in flames gave us a substantial lead. They must give up the chase eventually, right?” No one responded, and she added, more uncertainly this time, “Right?”

Xalt cleared his throat. “My apologies, but I don’t believe that. The people of Construct are as dedicated as they are tireless. They will pursue us until we leave their domain.”

“How far does that extend?” Kandler asked, dreading the answer.

“The whole of the Mournland.”

Burch turned around in his saddle and peered back at the horizon. The gray, dead grass on the rolling hills behind them stood frozen in the grave-still air of the land. “Leaving a trail like a battle wagon,” he growled.

Kandler didn’t need to look back. He’d already seen it. Even Esprë would have been able to track the riders through here. The hoofprints of their steeds stood out as if they were trotting along fresh-fallen snow. He stared forward instead.

That’s when he saw it: a line of gray stones running from east to west, across the horizon.

“Is that what I think it is?” Kandler asked.

The shifter swiveled in his saddle and peered in the same direction as Kandler. A thin smile spread across the shifter’s feral face.

“What is it?” Sallah asked, trying to keep any tone of hope from entering her voice.

“Maybe our ticket out of here,” said Burch.