Lost mark 3 The Queen of Death: (17 page)

"Fantastic!” Sallah said. "Hold on to something tight.”

"Why is that?” Xalt said, standing up, confused.

Sallah tore a gauntleted hand free from the ship’s wheel and pointed at the tower toward which they were headed. She could see the balcony right there, the one from which Ledenstrae had come when she, Burch, and Kandler had visited him. The trellises and arbors that covered the area hid the occupants from view—if there were any.

Sallah wondered if they’d gone to all this trouble for nothing. Perhaps Kandler and Espre had managed to work things out amicably with Ledenstrae. Maybe Duro had sacrificed himself for nothing. Maybe they weren’t coming to the rescue but had made a horrible mistake.

Every instinct in her, though, told her that they had no time to lose. Then she remembered something.

"Bring Te'oma here!” she said.

Without even a nod, Xalt knelt next to the changeling to carry out Sallah’s order. He slipped his arms underneath her, ignoring Monja’s protests.

"She’s not healed yet,” the halfling said. "I need more time.”

"Sallah needs her now,” Xalt said, standing up and hefting Te’oma in his arms. The changeling clutched at him, her back arching in pain.

"I know what she wants,” Te’oma said, her voice a weak rasp as Xalt clambered up on to the bridge with the changeling in his arms. "Tell her that we have to go in now. Otherwise, they will all die.”

Xalt looked to the knight.

"I heard her,” Sallah said. "Grab one of those safety straps on the console or the rail. We’re going in!”

Majeeda stared at Espre, then threw back her wizened head, and laughed.

"Such bravery can only be found in the young,” Majeeda said. "Why would you think I would care about your father’s fate?”

Espre nearly let loose her grip on Ledenstrae’s arm.

"Do you imagine your powers might work on me, little one?” Majeeda asked. "Perhaps you should give them a try. Perhaps that’s not the Mark of Death you carry after all. You might be able to harm me.”

Majeeda leered at the girl, and Espre saw the barely repressed madness dancing in the ancient elf’s eyes.

"On the other hand,” the deathless wizard said, "you might not.”

Espre paid no attention to that last bit. She had another voice in her head, demanding a different answer from her altogether.

Arejou hurt?
Te’oma asked.

"Majeeda is here,” Espre said out loud. "She’s frozen Kandler and Burch with her magic, and she plans to kill us all. Gome help now!”

Majeeda narrowed her eyes at the girl. "To whom are you talking?” She glanced toward the only entrance into the balcony, but no one was there.

Ledenstrae groaned in fear and pain, and Espre felt his clammy sweat growing beneath her palms. Something had to happen here soon, or she would end up killing him for sure. She feared if she let him go she would lose the last bit of leverage she had against Majeeda.

Threatening her father’s life hadn’t seemed to shake the wizard much, but it was the only thing that Espre had. She considered telling Majeeda that she would throw herself off the balcony if she didn’t let Kandler and Burch go, but that would only give the wizard what she wanted.

"If Ledenstrae dies,” she said to Majeeda, "your dreams of going home die along with him.”

Majeeda stiffened at these words, and the mirth fled from her face. Espre twisted herself around behind her father, putting his tortured form between herself and the wizard. As she did, she allowed herself a vicious grin.

"Who’s going to introduce you to the Undying Court if he’s gone?” Espre said. "Who could even bring you back to Aerenal? Without his help, you’ll have to go back to the safety of your tower in the Mournland. Isn’t that right? You’ll have to stay there, trapped again, forever.”

"You don’t know of what you speak,” Majeeda said, her

voice like the hiss of a cornered snake. "I am going back to Aerenal to become a member of the Undying Court. I am!” Espre smiled at the desperation she could hear in Majeeda’s voice. She knew she had pierced the deathless elf’s armor of serenity. Now she just had to drive her point home.

She let loose of her father’s arm for a moment. He screamed out in terror and pain.

"Espre! ” he said. "You cannot kill me. I am your father! ” "The fact I’m your daughter didn’t mean much to you,” Espre said. Her words bore more bitterness than she had realized she felt. She tightened her grip on him again.

"No! Please!”

Espre averted her eyes from her father and stared at Majeeda instead. "Let them go,” she said.

"I should kill you myself,” the wizard said. "I could destroy you where you stand.”

"You>vould have done it already,” Espre said, hoping she was right. "Quit wasting my time. Let them go, or he dies!” "All right!” Majeeda said, panic filling her voice. She closed her eyes for a moment and muttered something. As she did, Kandler and Burch staggered forward from where they were and took deep, grateful breaths.

"Hear that?” Burch said, jerking his head in the direction of the vertical shaft that let out into the room beyond. "Guards on ropes. Be here in a second.”

"The airship is—”

Something large smacked into the building and cut Espre off. The balcony shook, and the sound of a raging fire filled the air. The screening structures around the outside of the balcony began to collapse, some simply falling to pieces while others went up in flames.

Kandler reached out and grabbed Espre around the waist. "I think our ride is here,” he said as he carried her toward the low wall around the balcony and hefted her into the air.

Espre saw the broadside of the
Phoenix
appear in a gap in the screens. Xalt stood there, his arms extended toward them, ready to pull them in. "Jump!” he said.

Kandler swung Espre up and out, and she found herself sailing through the air, across the gap between the airship and the building. Xalt caught her in his strong, hard arms and fell backward to the deck, absorbing her fall.

"Bring her back!” Ledenstrae shouted. "Without her, we’re all doomed!"

While Espre still flew to the
Phoenix,
Kandler brought his sword around and slashed at the elf. Ledenstrae flinched away and cowered on the floor.

Kandler hesitated for a moment. As much as he disliked Ledenstrae, he had no desire to execute an unarmed foe who seemed to think curling up like a baby offered some sort of defense. Then he heard an angry voice start to speak from the far corner of the room.

Majeeda was chanting.

A crossbow twanged to Kandler’s right, and a bolt appeared in Majeeda’s throat. The feathered end of the missile jutted out from her withered flesh, but no blood flowed from the wound. Still, she clutched at it as if in mortal pain.

Kandler strode to the elf and raised his sword. While Ledenstrae posed little threat at the moment, Majeeda had only been checked for a moment by the bolt. As soon as she could remove it and regain her voice, she would help the elves of Aerie track them down. She had some kind of tie to the airship that only her death could sever, and Kandler meant to solve that problem in the most direct way.

As the justicar charged, he heard a strangled cry behind him. He ignored it for the moment and swung his sword in a flat, level arc that connected with devastating force.

Majeeda’s head sprang free from her shoulders, almost as if it had been waiting for a chance to do so. Her body collapsed to the cold, stone floor, her bones rattling loosely in her papery skin.

A trio of elf guards clambered out of the vertical shaft and into the room beyond the balcony. Getting into a fight with them would only cost Kandler time, but he guessed he’d already spent more of it than he had to spare. Rather than challenge the guards, he turned and raced toward the balcony’s edge.

As Kandler sprinted for daylight, he had to bound over Ledenstrae. The elf lay in a widening pool of his own blood, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest. In one hand, he clutched a throwing dagger by the point.

Ledenstrae swept a feeble hand at Kandler, but his grasp had no strength to it and fell uselessly away. The justicar ignored it and vaulted over the balcony’s railing to the deck of the airship beyond.

He rolled with the landing and sprang to his feet, his sword still in his hand. As he rose, he snapped his head toward the bridge and saw Sallah standing at the wheel. He drew a great breath to shout, "Go!”

Before the word left his lips, the
Phoenix
shot forward like a ballista bolt, pulling Kandler from his feet.

Chapter

27

Kandler’s tumbling came to a stop at the base of the main deck beneath the bridge. As he jumped to his feet, the airship’s deck pitched hard, and he had to fight to keep standing.

A fiery ball of pitch soared past the airship. It had come close enough to pierce the ring of fire like a stone thrown through a hoop, but it hadn’t hit a thing. Then something smacked into the aft of the ship and Kandler found himself on his knees again.

He dove for the nearest gunwale and stuck his head over the edge. Below, it seemed like the entire fortress had mobilized to attack them. Ballista bolts and balls of burning pitch sailed through the sky toward them from every direction.

"Get us out of here!” he shouted.

Sallah didn’t say a word. She just bared her teeth and concentrated on what she had already been doing.

Kandler scanned the deck. Back toward the port-rail, Burch stood crouched over Espre, who huddled beneath him, still holding Xalt by the arms. The shifter had his crossbow out and seemed to be training it on any incoming attacks, as if he thought he could knock them from the sky with a good shot.

Espre seemed unhurt, which was the most important thing to Kandler. She started to crawl toward the wall under the bridge, which offered just a hair more protection than the middle of the open deck. Xalt crept along with her, ready to throw himself into the path of any attack if need be.

Toward the bow, Monja knelt over a still form that seemed to smolder where it lay. It took Kandler a moment to recognize it as Te’oma. As he watched, the changeling sat up.

The justicar dashed to the aft of the ship and yanked himself up on to the bridge. "Where’s Duro?” he asked Sallah.

"He sacrificed himself,” she said, not turning to look at him. The ship’s nose pitched forward then, and another ballista bolt skipped off the prow.

"What?”

"He dove into the guards on the dock so we could cut the ship free.”

Kandler grabbed the wheel. "What happened to him?”

"I don’t have time for this now!”

Kandler wanted to object, to pull Sallah’s hands from the wheel and make her tell him what had happened, but right then a ball of pitch soared into the
Phoenix’s
ring of fire.

The elemental fire incinerated most of the pitch at once, but what was left exploded out from the ring and spattered down like flaming drops of rain all over the fore section of the main deck.

Espre screamed. She’d been climbing on to the bridge when the ball of pitch had burst open.

"Take the wheel!” Sallah said to Espre. "I need to help Monja!”

Espre nodded and dove for the wheel, wrapping her hands around it and taking control of the willful airship. The instant the girl’s fingers touched the wheel, Sallah shoved herself away from it and leaped down to the main deck.

Seeing Burch and Xalt race up after Espre to protect her, Kandler snapped a salute at them and chased after Sallah. Looking around, he saw that they had just cleared the east wall of the fortress. Within moments, they would be far beyond the reach of even its most powerful weapons. They just had to hold on a few moments longer to escape.

When he jumped down to the main deck, Kandler saw that the burning pitch had clumped into little fires all across the bow. Because of the nature of the source of the airship’s power, the Pfioemxhad been magically fortified against flame. The blazes would not spread.

One of them, though, had landed on Monja. As the halfling burned, Te’oma knelt over her, trying to beat out the tongues of fire with her bloodwings. The pitch proved to be a stubborn fuel though, and it kept scorching the young shaman in its sticky grip.

Kandler smelled the horrible stench of burning flesh as he got nearer. By the time he reached Monja, Te’oma had managed to put out all the fires on the halfling, although many splashes of nearby pitch still crackled along.

"Is she dead?” he asked.

Te’oma turned her face up toward him—her own face, not that of Shawda or anyone else—and he saw nothing but desperation there. "I don’t know,” she said.

Sallah shouldered the changeling aside and knelt down next to the halfling. Monja’s skin had blistered all over—at least where it had been exposed—and large, black flakes already peeled off it in the wind from the airship’s rapid flight. For a moment, Kandler thought she couldn’t possibly be breathing, but then she let loose an agonized scream.

"She’s not dead yet,” Sallah said. "With the grace of the Silver Flame, I may still be able to save her.”