There were no people on the beach, and the village beyond seemed empty as well.
“Should we just drop in on them?” Burch asked.
Kandler jumped at the shifter’s voice then turned on him, mad. “I thought I told you to stay below.” As he spoke, he glared at Esprë too, who stood behind the shifter.
Burch grinned. “We re here, aren’t we? Let’s get to it.”
“The place is empty, but there’s no sign of battle,” Kandler said as Sallah strode up. Past her, he saw Monja take the wheel. The halfling waved at him with a grin.
Although the path ahead lay filled with treachery and horrors, Kandler could see that the others were just as ready to move on as he. Spending nearly two weeks cooped on the Phoenix together had not been easy. There were few private spaces on the ship, and with the stress everyone was under they each had struggled to keep their tempers in check—everyone except Xalt, who didn’t seem to have one.
“Doesn’t that seem like a trap?” Sallah said.
“Of course it’s a trap,” Burch said. “We just have to walk into it to see what kind it is.”
“I’m coming with you,” Esprë said.
Kandler grimaced. “No.” When she started to protest, he added. “No arguing this one.”
Esprë clamped her lips shut and glared at Kandler. It surprised him that she had folded so easily, but perhaps this was part of the new maturity she wanted so desperately to display. In any case, he wasn’t about to argue with her about agreeing with him, no matter how much she might resent it.
Kandler pointed at Burch and Sallah. “You two are with me. Monja has the wheel. Xalt, you watch over Esprë.”
He looked to the changeling and hesitated. He didn’t want to trust her, but he didn’t have much choice. She could be too useful to ignore. Besides, if she’d meant to betray them, she could have done so long before now—or so he hoped.
“I want you for air support. If we’re in trouble, you take to the skies and give us cover. There’s an extra crossbow and plenty of bolts in the hold. Use them.”
Te’oma turned on her heel and went for the hold without a word.
“I’ll go first, then Sallah,” Kandler said to Burch and Sallah. “Burch, you cover us until we’re on the sand, then follow fast. Got it?’
They both nodded.
Kandler strode for starboard gunwale and dropped a rope ladder over the side. A moment later, he clambered down it and dropped the last few feet to the hot, white sand.
The crashing of the surf behind him pounded in his ears, as did the strong, salty scent of the sea air. Walking along the dry sand reminded him of tramping through the ashes that had once filled the crater in which he had helped found Mardakine. While he’d hated the ashes, though, he had to fight the urge to throw himself down on the beach and embrace it.
The sun seemed hotter here in the thick, steamy air. Years living in the shadow of the Mournland had robbed his complexion of much of its color. The weeks aboard the Phoenix had bronzed his skin, protecting him now from the sun’s strong southern rays.
Strange, unseen creatures called in the distance, either welcoming the newcomers or warning them away. Bright, colorful birds—splashes of primary colors in a sunbleached land—flitted through the fronds of the tall, thin, branchless trees that lined the beach’s edge then disappeared in the thick tangle of a jungle beyond. A family of indigo-shelled crabs scattered at his arrival and scuttled away in a serpentine line.
A vermillion lizard darted out at them from its hiding hole in the sand, moving along on a dozen tentacles rather than legs. Before it could snatch one of the crabs up and make off with its meal, though, it spotted Kandler. The lizard stared at him for a moment with its bulging, green eyes then scampered off to the safety of the jungle instead.
Kandler raised his face toward the sky for a moment and basked in the sun. The breeze swirled about, cooling him and carrying the scent of roasting meat and exotic spices from past the palisades.
Up in the airship, the altitude had separated him from the surface world, insulating him. Here, setting foot on this strange, new beach, felt like stepping down on to another world—one bursting with life.
Sallah landed next to him. She made to draw her sword, but he put his hand on hers to stop her.
“If we wanted a fight, I’d have had Monja put the ship right over the town. We could have dropped down behind the palisades and killed everyone that came our way.”
“Why didn’t we do that?” Sallah asked.
“It’s rude,” Kandler said with a wry smile.
Looking up at the palisades that towered over the inland edge of the beach, though, Kandler wondered if he’d made a mistake. The bravado he’d shown Sallah had been designed to allay her nerves, although he suspected it had just irritated her instead. Still, he wasn’t ready to plunge into the heart of an unknown village without so much as a hello.
Perhaps he could have sent Te’oma out to scout the area from the air, but that might have invited the dragons back. Also, he preferred to not show the natives their full hand until they had to.
Burch landed behind the other two. “So,” he said, “who’s going over the wall first?” Kandler could tell his old friend truly enjoyed this. Burch was never so alive as he was just before a fight.
Sallah frowned at the shifter, but before she could respond, a loud thumping of war drums emanated from the other side of the palisades.
“I think they’re coming to us instead,” said Kandler. He put his hand on Sallah’s hilt again, to keep her from drawing her sword.
“Don’t you think we should stand ready to defend ourselves?” she asked.
“That’ll just make them think we’re enemies.”
“We’re not?”
“Not yet.”
“Those drums are setting my teeth on edge.”
“They’re supposed to make you nervous, goad you into doing something rash.”
“Well, they’re working.”
CHAPTER
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?”