Lost mark 3 The Queen of Death: (23 page)

"I thought you came here to thank me,” said Kandler. "Sounds like I’ve been pretty useless.”

Espre smiled and gave him another hug. "I think you’ve

done a few amazing things since we left Mardakine too.” "Thanks,” he said, letting gentle sarcasm drip from his tongue.

"No, thank you.” She hesitated for a moment. "For everything. For taking me in after my mother died.”

"You’re my stepdaughter.” Kandler couldn’t conceive of having done otherwise for her.

"Yes, but that’s not always enough, is it? Don’t you know all those stories about wicked stepfathers?”

"That’s stepmothers.”

"Well, I don’t have one of them, so I can’t speak to that. I just know you came through for me at a time when you had to be suffering a lot too.”

Kandler grimaced. "Don’t worry about that,” he said in a rough voice. "Helping you out got me through he worst of it. You were there for me just as much.”

"And—and thank you for coming after me. You didn’t have to do that.”

Kandler stepped back and held Espre out at arms’ length. "Are you mad? I’d never let anyone run off with you like that.”

"I ... I know.” Espre refused to meet Kandler’s eyes. "When Te’oma first took me, though—when she was posing as my aunt—I wondered if you’d bother to come after me to say good-bye. I know I’ve been a horrible burden on you—” "That’s
not
true—”

"Let me finish. Please.”

Kandler took a deep breath, then nodded. He wanted to see where it was she planned to take this conversation, even if he didn’t like its direction.

"You married my mother, not me. You’ve been a fine father to me, the first real one I’ve known.”

"When I asked your mother to marry me, I knew you two came as a package deal. That didn’t stop me.”

"The best part of that package is missing now.” She held up her hands to cut off Kandler before he could protest. "I know. It’s silly, but it’s how I felt.”

Espre turned and looked back down the deck at the fire over which Monja, Burch, and Te’oma were roasting the soarwing. Sallah had the wheel, and Xalt stood on the bridge with her to keep her company and to help with the navigation.

"When I figured out who Te’oma really was—or wasn’t, I suppose—I resigned myself to my fate. I didn’t dare hope that you’d come after me. The last I’d seen of Mardakine, it had been going up in flames, and I had no idea if you’d been killed or not. I figured I’d have to start doing things on my own.

"That didn’t work so well. I never would have survived if you hadn’t come after me. I’d have been stuck in that tower with Majeeda forever—or at least until she contacted my father and arranged to accompany me back to Aerenal. Then I’d have ended up in the hands of the Undying Court, or the Stillborn, or worse.”

"You underestimate yourself. You always did.”

"Sure,” Espre said with a weak smile. "I might have managed to get away on my own, I suppose, but they would have just tracked me down again. Even with you, how many times did Te’oma alone snatch me in those first few days?” Kandler smirked. "I think I lost track. She’s a tenacious one.”

"Right up until Ibrido broke her neck, at least.”

"She held on right through that too. A lot of people would have given up and died.”

Espre shrugged. "The point is that I would have never made it through all this without you. I just wanted to thank you for that.”

"You should thank the others too,” Kandler said, trying hard to not sound ungrateful. "They had just as much to do with it as I did.”

"Don’t fool yourself,” Espre said. "Without you, they’d all be dead.”

"Even Burch?”

The girl grinned. "Maybe not Burch.”

Espre wrapped her arms around Kandler and pulled him into a long hug. "I love you, Kandler,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

"I love you too.”

Chapter

36

Lightning cracked the sky so close that it left an afterimage like a tree trunk in Kandler’s eyes. The thunder sounded more like an explosion than the distant rumbles that had echoed around the
Phoenix
for most of the day, ever since the storm had swallowed them up.

The hair on the back of Kandler’s neck stood on end, despite the rain lashing him. Although he stood straight under the airship’s ring of fire, which vaporized any rain that fell near it, he could not avoid getting wet. The wind brought the water down almost horizontally, spattering against the justicar’s front as he stared out past the ship’s bow.

Xalt said something to Kandler, but the justicar’s ears still rang from the lightning strike that had barely missed the ship.

"What?” Kandler said, squinting at the warforged standing next to him.

"Smells like a forge doused with a bucket of rusty water,” Xalt said as he sniffed at the air. He wiped the rain from the surfaces of his obsidian eyes. "The lightning does, I mean. It’s as if it burned the air.”

Kandler nodded as his hearing returned. The hiss of the rain evaporating as it passed too close to the ring of fire let him know he hadn’t been deafened forever.

He glanced back and saw Sallah at the wheel. He waved at the lady knight, but she ignored the gesture. Standing there on the bridge had to be miserable, but she had not complained or asked anyone else to relieve her during her shift at the airship’s controls. He wondered if the Silver Flame was all she needed to keep herself warm.

"Burch, Monja, and Espre are still below?” Xalt asked.

"Until the storm lets up,” said Kandler. "We re not all as durable as you when it comes to the weather.”

"Then why are you up here?”

Kandler grimaced. "I thought I heard something.” "What?”

"If I knew that, I wouldn’t be up here.”

"What did it sound like?”

Kandler stared at the warforged for a moment. "Wings. It sounded like beating wings.”

"I heard that too. Do you think it could be dragons?” "Possibly. We should be close to Argonnessen by now.” "What do you think they want?”

Kandler ran a hand over his face. "I don’t know.”

Xalt pointed over Kandler’s shoulder with his onefingered hand. "That's unusual.”

The justicar turned and saw what the warforged meant. Something out in the depths of the black, roiling clouds glowed soft and reddish. It flared brighter for a moment then disappeared.

"That didn’t look like lightning to me,” Kandler said, his voice barely loud enough to pierce the blustery wind.

Xalt shook his head. The water sluiced off the war-forged’s hard outer surface.

Then something large smacked into the bottom of the airship, hard.

Kandler fell to his hands and knees. As he landed on the deck, he heard Espre scream. The board between them muffled the sound, but he knew it was her.

He pounded on the slick wood beneath him. A quick series of knocks answered—yet another of the signals that he and Burch had worked out between themselves over the years. Everything seemed all right in the ship’s hold, at least for now.

Kandler scrambled over to the gunwale, Xalt right behind him, and thrust his head over the railing. "What was that?” he asked.

"It wasn’t lightning,” Xalt said.

Kandler ignored the warforged and scanned the dark sky below. Despite the light from the ring of fire, he couldn’t tell how high up they were. The swirling material below seemed like clouds rather than the sea’s black waves, but he couldn’t be sure.

"Whatever it was, it wanted to get our attention,” Kandler said.

"It did that,” Burch said as he slinked up behind the others.

"You left Espre down below?”

The shifter jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "She’s up on the bridge with Monja and Sallah.”

Kandler glanced back and spied the trio standing there at the aft of the ship. Espre gave the justicar a quick wave before duckingbehind the console, out of the wind and away from the terrors of the night. It took everything he had not to race over to comfort her.

Lightning crashed all around the ship, slashing down in different places. None of the strikes came as close as the one that had nearly deafened Kandler. Instead of blinding him, they cast fogged illumination into bright pockets in the sky, although only for a split-second each.

"Did you see that?” Xalt asked.

Kandler raised an eyebrow at the warforged. Xalt pointed a finger straight up.

At first, all Kandler saw was the ring of fire arcing over them like a hungry, orange rainbow. Its light made it hard to see too far beyond it.

"What am I looking for?” Kandler asked. He peered at the restraining arc that held the ring of fire in place, inspecting it for widening cracks.

"Wait.”

Rain ran down Kandler’s face and into his eyes. As he blinked it away, lightning flashed overhead, and he saw it — a long, wide, winged shape silhouetted against the clouds in the brief instant of light.

Kandler wiped the rain from his eyes. "What’s it doing there?”

"Not much yet,” said Xalt.

Kandler stared up into the darkness a while longer. When the lightning flashed again, the silhouette no long hung over the ship.

The justicar glanced back at the bridge and saw Espre peering over the console at him. The thought that the dragons might come to them now and destroy the airship without even accosting them, like predators cruising the skies for their next meal, infuriated him. He refused to let this happen.

Kandler hadn’t come all this way just to let some flying, scaled monster knock him out of the sky. He headed for the bow. When he reached the ship’s stem, he grabbed the gunwale with both hands then threw back his head and shouted at the creature stalking them.

"I know you’re out there! We’re coming to your home.

Even if you knock us from the sky, I’ll swim the rest of the way to your lair, and I’ll shove my sword right through your front damned doors!”

Kandler fell silent for a moment. He’d hoped that the dragon—if that’s what it had been—would show itself. Nothing—only the raging storm and the hiss of rain dying on the ring of fire.

"Come out, you coward!” he shouted. "Show yourself so I can tear off your wings like the gnat you are!”

"What do you hope to accomplish?” Xalt said.

The warforged’s interruption startled Kandler, and he stepped back from the rail.

"I figure we can either wait for the bastards to try to kill us, or we can shame them into leaving us alone.”

"Do dragons feel shame?”

Kandler grinned. "I’m not sure, but I know I don’t—at least when it comes to this.”

Xalt stared at Kandler with his unblinking obsidian eyes. Then he tossed back his head and shouted, "Come out, you coward!"

Kandler joined right in. As far as he could tell, the dragon never came back.

Chapter

37

B
oss,” Burch said, popping his head in through the open hatch. "Got dragons dead ahead.”

Kandler leaped out of the hammock in the hold in which he’d been trying to sleep. He’d not had much success. As they grew closer to Argonnessen, the idea of closing his eyes, even for a moment, seemed insane. Now, with the call to action finally being sounded, he breathed a sigh of relief.

The justicar clambered up onto the main deck and trotted after the shifter, who led him straight to the bow.

"Xalt spotted it a few minutes ago,” Burch said, pointing off toward the southeastern horizon. "Took me a while to figure out what they are.”

Kandler shaded his eyes and spied what the shifter meant for him to see instantly. Two winged shapes spiraled about in the cloudless sky. From their silhouettes, they seemed to be dragons, but from such a distance Kandler couldn’t be sure.

"Positive?” Kandler asked.

"About three quarters,” Burch said. "Either way, it’s trouble. If they’re not dragons, they’re still something we’re

going to have to deal with. They’re right in our path." "Can’t we just go around them?”

"It’s a big sky,” Sallah said, as she strolled up the deck behind them. "Trying to avoid them would add dozens of miles to our trip.”

Kandler met her eyes. She’d kept her distance from him ever since the
Phoenix
had left Khorvaire behind. He couldn’t help but think she blamed him for the fact that they were out here crossing the Dragonreach. He doubted she gave Espre much credit for having her own mind.

He would have talked with her about it, but he’d wanted to do so privately. She’d always managed to find herself other company, though, and she’d pointedly refused to acknowledge his hints that he’d prefer to speak with her alone.

"I didn’t thinkyou were that eager to reach Argonnessen,” he said to her.

She grimaced. "We are doomed to die on this fool’s quest. Where it happens does not matter much.”

"I never thought you to be so casual about your death.” Sallah shrugged. "Death by one dragon’s talons is just as good as another.”