The changeling spent more than an hour swirling and soaring through the sky on her own, always keeping the airship within sight. For a long while, she’d considered finding a tailwind and riding it to wherever it might take her, letting fate determine her path. She’d done that for much of her life, wandering wherever her whims led her, using her shapeshifting powers to slip in and out of places nearly unseen.
Te’oma rarely made any sort of impression on those she left behind. She stayed in one place just long enough to grab some rest and steal whatever she needed, then moved on. Most of her victims never even realized they’d been robbed.
After taking part in this strange adventure, in helping the others slay a dragon, she didn’t know if she could go back to that. She knew that if she left she’d likely never see the others again, never take part in the end of this amazing tale.
Of course, she still had the telepathic bond she’d forged with Esprë. Through that, she could keep in touch with the girl and discover her ultimate fate. When she thought of that, though, and the likely outcome—the elf-maid’s death—she didn’t think she could stand to go through feeling a girl die like that again.
She mulled over severing the bond, but that would cut her off from the girl. She didn’t know if she could bear that either. She’d been prepared to try, though, right up until Esprë had said that single word to her as she left the ship.
Damn, damn, damn, Te’oma thought as she turned back toward the Phoenix, fighting a headwind. A fool never takes the easy way.
Fortunately, the ship had been heading in her direction the entire time. If the changeling hadn’t known better, she’d have thought the ship had been chasing her instead of heading straight along the edge of the mountain range.
As the ship reached the Goradra Gap, Te’oma raced ahead of her, spiraling higher into the air whenever she found a thermal she could ride. Her wings tired easily, and only by working with the winds rather than against them could she remain aloft for long.
Te’oma spotted the Flying Leap clutched tight to the canyon’s northern wall and knew that this would be the Phoenix’s destination. She spied lookouts stationed in blinds high atop the ridge, and she guessed that they would relay news of the airship’s arrival to the dwarves below in plenty of time for them to be ready for her arrival.
Hoping the lookouts might think her nothing more than an eagle or hawk, Te’oma flapped off to the east, directly along the seam of the Goradra Gap. This put her on a direct path toward the blinding sun, which soon hid her form from anyone scouring the sky for her from the direction of the Flying Leap.
Te’oma opened her wings there and let them take her in broad, sweeping circles over the gaping, bottomless chasm. When she looked down, it felt like she might be spiraling about over a starless sky. All she had to do to let it take her would be to fold her wings against her, to let them envelope her in their warmth, and allow gravity to establish its hold on her once more.
Instead, she wrenched her gaze back toward the Flying Leap. She watched as the a number of the people on the Phoenix strode down a gangway and stood talking with a clutch of dwarves on a dock that stuck out into the unprotected air like a wooden giant’s tongue.
From this distance, she couldn’t be sure who had left the ship and who had stayed behind. Esprë stood shorter than most, but so did the dwarf and the halfling. She could distinguish Sallah by the way the sun glinted off her armor as she stood on the dock, but the others were harder to pick out. Soon she gave up trying.
Only two people remained on the ship, while five disappeared inside the inn. Te’oma considered sweeping down to join them, but the thought of having to deal with twitchy dwarves kept her away.
Then a body fell from one of the lookout blinds. It tumbled down into the gap without a sound, its limbs flinging about as it spun helplessly.
Te’oma guessed that whoever it happened to be was already dead. She tore her gaze away from the first body just in time to spy a second one plummeting out of the other blind.
Te’oma hovered in the air, hanging there on her flapping wings, staring at the blinds. A rope spilled out of one and then the other. The ends of each landed atop the slanted roof of the Flying Leap. No one stood on the deck any longer, and the pair of figures on the bridge of the Phoenix seemed oblivious to the danger, their backs turned to the inn as they gazed over the airship’s other side at the vast, magnificent canyon beyond.
A handful of figures slipped out of each of the blinds and down the ropes. They zipped down the lines and lit on the inn’s roof like finches finding fresh perches. Even from her spot hanging in the sky, though, Te’oma could tell these were murderous birds of prey.
5
Esprë had never been in a dwarf inn before. Ibrido had led her through the abandoned halls under Mount Darumkrak, but that didn’t count. The only dwarves she’d seen there had been Duro and his compatriots, the warriors charged with the defense of the dragon’s lair. Hospitality had been the least of their concerns.
She looked around, eyes wide, as she strode into the place at Kandler’s side. For a moment, she had an urge to hold his hand, but she suppressed it. She’d been through too much lately to think of herself as a child anymore, no matter how much she might yearn for the comforts of childhood.
The floor of the inn commanded Esprë’s attention first. The dock outside the inn had been fashioned from wood, as had the roof, face, and every other part of the building that jutted out from the front of the canyon’s sheer face. Inside, though, the entire floor seemed to be made from a single, large flat stone cut to a perfectly flat surface.
Esprë couldn’t guess at what kind of dwarf architecture had been employed to keep the floor from toppling into the abyss. Perhaps it had been a natural shelf on the cliff face, or maybe the dwarves of Clan Nroth had carted up piece after piece and fitted them together so tight that no eye could find a seam.
The walls of the rear part of the inn’s main hall were made of the same stone, and every surface bore some sort of carving, either runes or artistic depictions of the history of the clan or perhaps just Krangel’s direct line. A dozen wooden tables squatted about the place, each of them made for customers with the dimension of dwarves. While Esprë could sit at one of these comfortably enough, she had to stifle a giggle at the thought of how Kandler, Burch, or especially Sallah would look perched atop the tiny, sturdy chairs sitting around the tables.
“Come in!” Krangel said. “It’s not often we get outsiders around here.” The snow-haired dwarf cocked a finger at a young dwarf behind the low, marble-topped bar. “Raumeese! Bring out the big folk’s table!”
The dwarf, who’d been staring at the newcomers in stunned silence, leaped to his feet and scurried out of the room. The other patrons in the room—perhaps a dozen dwarves—snorted at Raumeese as he left. A few of them nodded a greeting to Esprë and the others if they happened to catch their eyes, but the others returned to their food and drink.
The smell of food made Esprë’s mouth water. She’d not had a proper meal since her last night at Fort Bones, and that seemed like a lifetime ago. It had been far longer since she’d been in an inn of any kind. There never had been one in Mardakine.
“You don’t get other airships through here?” Kandler asked. Esprë heard the suspicion in his voice.
Burch scanned the place pointedly. “Awful lot of effort to build a dock like that and not use it.” He spied a nervous dwarf woman staring at him and flashed her a toothy grin.