Kandler hadn’t wanted to do it. He’d pressed to keep moving on, chasing after Esprë and Te’oma on that airship on which they’d escaped the battle, even though they’d been out of sight for endless hours. The ship was damaged, and from the holes torn in the hull, Kandler guessed that it had no supplies left on it either. Eventually, it would have to stop someplace, and he planned to reach it when it did.
Burch had pointed out—wisely, Kandler had to admit—that they weren’t likely to find food elsewhere in this blasted waste. Few creatures made their home in the Mournland, and those that did were usually too tough to be edible. It was hard to sink your teeth into a living ball of fire that exploded anytime you got too close, for instance.
“Think they’re still following us?” Kandler asked.
“I would guess not,” said Sallah. “Leaving Construct in flames gave us a substantial lead. They must give up the chase eventually, right?” No one responded, and she added, more uncertainly this time, “Right?”
Xalt cleared his throat. “My apologies, but I don’t believe that. The people of Construct are as dedicated as they are tireless. They will pursue us until we leave their domain.”
“How far does that extend?” Kandler asked, dreading the answer.
“The whole of the Mournland.”
Burch turned around in his saddle and peered back at the horizon. The gray, dead grass on the rolling hills behind them stood frozen in the grave-still air of the land. “Leaving a trail like a battle wagon,” he growled.
Kandler didn’t need to look back. He’d already seen it. Even Esprë would have been able to track the riders through here. The hoofprints of their steeds stood out as if they were trotting along fresh-fallen snow. He stared forward instead.
That’s when he saw it: a line of gray stones running from east to west, across the horizon.
“Is that what I think it is?” Kandler asked.
The shifter swiveled in his saddle and peered in the same direction as Kandler. A thin smile spread across the shifter’s feral face.
“What is it?” Sallah asked, trying to keep any tone of hope from entering her voice.
“Maybe our ticket out of here,” said Burch.
3
When riders reached the line of stones, Kandler saw that they stretched in both directions as far as the eye could see. They were perfectly round, at least the parts that weren’t resting in the earth, and spaced just far enough apart that he could not touch two of them at once.
“What are these?” Xalt asked. The warforged ran his hand along one of them as a parent might caress a child’s cheek. As he did, bluish arcs of electricity followed his touch, arcing across the stone’s smooth surface like lightning trapped in granite.
“Does that hurt?” Sallah asked.
She still sat on her horse, Brendis propped up behind her. The young knight had groaned when they came to a halt at the line of stones, but he had been horribly silent since.
The horses snorted loudly as they rested for a moment. The riders had pushed them hard to get this far so fast, and they were happy to stop now, even if only for a few minutes.
“It …” Xalt’s voice trailed off as he searched for words that would not come. “I’ve never felt anything like it before. It’s like something light and feathery dancing along my plates. It … it makes me want to laugh.”
“It tickles?” Kandler arched an eyebrow at the warforged.
Xalt stared back at the justicar with his unblinking ebony eyes. A noise that sounded something like a giggle escaped from his open mouth. “I suppose that’s right.” He bent his head to stare at his hand running over the stone again. “Warforged aren’t ticklish though. It wasn’t a necessary part of our design.”
Burch snorted as he leaped atop one of the stones. “First time for everything.”
“It’s the lightning rail line,” Kandler said, answering Xalt’s earlier question.
“I’ve heard of these,” Xalt said. “Placed next to each other, they form a repellent field that can carry strings of connected coaches along them as fast as an airship can fly. Aren’t they supposed to glow all over?”
“I used to ride this line a lot,” Kandler said. “The Day of Mourning put an end to all that.”
Burch nodded as he crouched like a frog, his legs splayed wide, and peered down to examine the stone. No electricity leaped from the stone to tickle his feet. “Killed Cyre and the rail line too.”
“Where does it lead?” Sallah asked, peering off toward the east. The line of stones drove straight across the wasted plains until it disappeared from view.
“Metrol,” Kandler said, “but it doesn’t follow our path. We need to head north too.”
Burch shook his head. “Follow it, boss. Airship could be anywhere.”
Kandler squinted at his old friend. “It was headed northeast. If we don’t go that way, we could miss it.”
“Nothing says it kept northeast,” said Burch. “Changeling’s smart, she hightails it out of here first. We’re smart, we do the same.”
Kandler ground his teeth. What the shifter said made sense, he knew, but he didn’t want to admit it. If they started questioning the idea that the airship had gone northeast, where would the doubts end?
“We can follow the line straight into Metrol and through the mists,” Burch said.
A miles-thick border of dead-gray mist surrounded the Mournland and had ever since the Day of Mourning. It sealed the place off from the rest of the continent of Khorvaire and all of its former enemies.
No one fought over the Mournland anymore. It would be like fighting over a graveyard.
“Can’t you just find your way through it like you did outside of Mardakine?” Sallah asked.
Burch shook his head. “Maybe. I know Mardakine. Been through the mists there lots of times. Never been this far into the Mournland.”
“Following the stones would be simple,” Xalt said. “Even I could lead us through the mists by doing that.”
“Is that why you never left here?” Sallah asked the warforged. “Were you trapped?”
Xalt cocked his steel-plated head at her. “Warforged don’t need to sleep, breathe, eat, or drink,” he said. “I was thinking of you and the others.”
“Burch is right,” Kandler said wearily. “We can’t help Esprë if we end up lost in the mists. Back in Mardakine, we saw more than one group of fortune hunters get turned back that way. Those were the lucky ones, most times.”
“What happened to the others?” Sallah asked.
“The Mournland,” Burch said with a humorless laugh.
Kandler ignored him. “Some never got out of the mists. They just wandered around until they ran out of food and water. Others made it through but ran into one kind of predator or another.”
“Warforged,” Sallah breathed. As she did, she noticed Xalt looking at her, and she blushed a bright red. “You’re not all bad,” she said sheepishly.
“Thanks,” Xalt said without a trace of irony in his voice.
“Not just warforged,” Burch said. “Carcass crabs, living spells, things worse.”
“Worse than a—what kind of crab?”
“Carcass crab.” The shifter bared his teeth. “Giant crab likes to bury itself under bodies on a battlefield. Corpses stick to its shell when it moves.”
Kandler nodded. “That was my first thought when those warforged attacked back near the monument.”
“Wouldn’t have been the first time,” Burch said.
Sallah shuddered despite herself. As she did, she noticed Kandler watching her, and her eyes turned steely in response.