Ikar and his crew would be at their most vulnerable during the crossing, and the justicar hoped to come up with some means of exploiting that. A full-scale attack in the middle of the river seemed foolhardy, but he refused to rule it out. Once they reached the other side of the river, he feared that Ikar might change his mind about letting the four of them go. He hoped to figure a way to bring Xalt along with them, but making sure he didn’t lose any ground to the bandit leader came first.
Ikar cackled low and loud as he pointed to a small dinghy floating in the water behind Salvation. Kandler hadn’t even seen the low, dark boat in the dim light. Now that he could, it looked as if it might roll over at any second and let the river’s powerful current suck it under and away.
“Special guests like yourselves get your own private accommodations,” Ikar said. “Careful not to tip her when you climb in, and be sure to hold on tight once we get going. At speed, the nose lifts right out of the water.”
“I’ll sit on the bow,” Burch said.
Ikar laughed again. “The last time someone tried that, the whole boat got dragged straight down to the bottom. Just sit in the middle as best you can and enjoy the ride. If we see anything unusual happening back there as we cross the river, we’ll be forced to cut you loose.” As he spoke, the half-orc stared out into the swirling dead-gray mists that threatened to engulf the shore at any moment. “It’s a long, hard row across—assuming you make it.”
Within minutes, they were underway. Kandler, Burch, Sallah, and Brendis rode in the leaky dinghy, clutching the creaking sides for dear life as the thing skipped across the waves like a stone thrown by a giant. Ahead of them, towing them along, Salvation sliced through the water, Ikar the Black at the bow, barely visible through the Mournland’s border mists, more like a suggestion of himself than the actual bandit.
Kandler whispered to the others. “As soon as we get in the middle of the water, we’re cutting the tow rope.”
“Are you mad?” Brendis asked. “We’ll be trapped in the mists.”
“I’ll take my chances with them instead of Ikar,” Kandler said, fishing a pair of rickety oars out of the bottom of the boat and fixing them in place. “For all I know, he wants us to do it rather than force him to deal with us in front of his entire camp. If we show up in his headquarters, I don’t think we can expect mercy, no matter what kinds of deals we think we’ve cut.”
“What about Xalt?” Sallah said. “We can’t just leave him with them.”
“They can’t treat him worse than that warforged patrol we found him with,” Burch said. “This’ll be a step up for him.”
Sallah ignored the shifter, focusing her emerald eyes on Kandler. “You told him. You said, ‘No one gets left behind.’ Were those just words?”
Kandler growled in frustration. “We can’t do him any good if we’re dead. Unless you think you can walk along this towline like a tightrope, we can’t get to that ship until we reach the shore, and—”
“Hold it,” Burch said, holding up a hand. “Something’s wrong.”
A cry went up from Salvation, and a loud crack followed it. Peering into the mists, Kandler saw Xalt stand up next to the elemental restraining box at the ship’s stern.
“By the Flame,” Sallah said, “what is Xalt doing?”
With another crack, Xalt tore a rune-covered plank from the restraining box. The ship shuddered violently and began pitching left and right as it raced blindly through the mists. Kandler heard a pair of splashes as two of Ikar’s crew pitched off the edge of the fast ship.
A sharp voice started to bark out something in an unnatural tongue, but the boat’s pilot stopped short when Xalt slammed into him. The warforged knocked him back into the restraining box, splintering it even worse.
Ikar roared as the ship bucked up and down. “You’ll pay for this, you tin-plated traitor!” He stumbled back toward Xalt, but the deck fell out from under him, sweeping him off his feet.
“Cut the line!” Xalt shouted. “Now!”
Kandler didn’t pause to question the order. His blade came out and sliced through the taut, waterlogged towrope with a single, powerful blow.
The dinghy skittered across the surface of the river for a moment before slowly sliding to a rest. Before it sloshed to a stop, a pillar of water exploded somewhere in front of the leaky boat. Dozens of people cried out in the mist-shrouded darkness before their splash into the water cut them off.
A moment later, some of the voices restarted, renewing their earlier complaints. As Kandler listened, he could hear the current pulling the disaster’s survivors farther and farther away into the mists. Even if he’d felt inclined to save some of them, the idea of wandering around lost in the mists for hours with them would have put an end to those thoughts.
“May the Flame take those poor souls,” Sallah breathed.
“Kandler!” Ikar’s voice rang out in the darkness. It seemed to echo in the mists, making it hard to tell from which direction it came. “Kandler, you low-down, sleazy carrion crawler! You’ll pay for this! If I ever get my hands on you, you’ll pay!”
“Flame save us,” Brendis said. “What—what do we do now?”
Burch handed the young knight an oar.
13
When Esprë awakened, the stabbing pain in her head still threatened to send her reeling back into unconsciousness. For a moment, she hoped the darkness would take her again, that she could fall back into the peace of oblivion. Perhaps her head had hurt as badly while she slept—she didn’t feel rested at all—but at least she hadn’t known the suffering so well.
The sun shone down warm and welcome on her face. She felt her skin pinking in its heat, and she wondered how long she’d been asleep, and what had woken her up. She peeled open her eyes and found herself lying on the airship’s bridge, unprotected from the sun.
Then she heard the screaming again and recognized it as the sound that had dragged her from her troubled dreams. She tried to get up to see who—or what—could make such a miserable sound, but she discovered her hands were bound to the ship’s railing, making it impossible for her to rise past her knees.
Still, as she got to her knees, she spied Te’oma slumped over the ship’s wheel. The changeling’s shoulders shook as she sobbed into the polished wood.
“What?” Esprë said. “Did you run out of homeless orphans to torture?”
The changeling’s head snapped up, and she glared at the young elf, her blank, white eyes tainted with veins of red. For an instant, Esprë thought the telepath would mentally hammer her back into unconsciousness. Although she’d hoped for such a fate just a moment ago, she gritted her teeth and steeled herself to fight the changeling’s invasions again. She might want peace, but she refused to let the changeling get the better of her once more.
Te’oma just looked at the young elf though, her eyes locking with Esprë’s sparkling blue orbs. Then she bowed her head to weep again, her screams fading to heartbreaking wails.
Esprë let the changeling wallow in her sorrow. Although the young elf’s first instinct was to reach out to help comfort anyone in such pain, she hardened her heart to the noise. She hated Te’oma for everything she’d done to her. She had no sympathy for her.
At least, that’s what she wanted to believe.
“What?” Esprë said after the changeling refused to stop weeping. “What, what, what?” She didn’t bother hiding the irritation in her voice.
Te’oma let loose one last, hideous scream, this one rooted more in frustration than despair, then snarled out at the young elf. “You couldn’t understand.”