“What’s worse than a carcass crab?” she asked.
“People,” said Kandler. “There aren’t too many of them here in the Mournland, but those few are usually up to no good.”
“We’re here.”
“We destroyed a good chunk of Construct and killed some of the most powerful warforged that lived there.”
Sallah lowered her eyes. “Point taken.”
“The worst of them are the scavengers, people who pick through the corpses hunting for things to steal. Some parts of the Mournland are thick with them. The worst of them is Ikar the Black and his crew. They’d kill you for your hair.”
One of Sallah’s hands absently stroked her long, red curls. “You can’t be serious.”
Kandler gazed at her warmly. “It’s beautiful hair.”
“Ikar sometimes works out of Metrol,” Burch said, shattering the moment between Kandler and Sallah.
The justicar found himself more drawn to the young lady knight every passing day. He hadn’t been with another woman since Esprë’s mother had died on the Day of Mourning. He’d been too busy helping carve out Mardakine and protecting its people from threat after threat—including that of Ikar the Black. Love hadn’t ever entered his mind.
This wasn’t love, though, he told himself. He barely knew the woman, and she certainly knew little enough about him.
He was going to have to change that.
“All right,” Kandler said. “Let’s head for Metrol. Once we make it to the Talenta Plains we can head north for Karrnath. I’m afraid that might be where this changeling is headed.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier for her to just head north then?” Xalt asked. He grew uncomfortable for a moment as all eyes turned toward him. “I follow geography,” he said with a shrug.
“Maybe,” Kandler said. “Maybe the changeling doesn’t even know where she’s headed. Remember she barged into Mardakine with at least a score of those Karrnathi zombies, not to mention that bloodsucker Tan Du and his vampire spawn. With them all gone, she’s probably desperate. It’s hard to tell what she might do.”
“You breathers never cease to amaze me,” Xalt said. “A warforged would consider the girl lost and go back home.”
Kandler fought an urge to rip off the creature’s tin-plated head. “Esprë is my home,” he said instead. “There’s nothing for me back in Mardakine.”
“Why don’t you leave us and return home then, Xalt?” Sallah asked, transparently doing her best to turn Kandler’s mind from mayhem.
“We just about destroyed my home,” the warforged said. “I don’t think I’d be welcomed back with open arms. I’m sure,” he said, focusing on Sallah, “that you would be welcomed in Flamekeep.”
Sallah smirked. “The Knights of the Silver Flame do forgive those who repent their sins,” she said, “but for me to fail in my mission would be a disaster of the highest order. The Mark of Death that Esprë carries has the potential to alter the face of the planet. She cannot be allowed to fall into evil hands.”
“So much for that,” Burch said evenly.
“Enough!” said Kandler, giving his steed his heels and steering the beast to follow the line of stones to the east. The others quickly fell into line behind him. “East for now and then north,” he called back as he urged his mount to a steady trot. “I won’t give up hope for her—ever!”
4
The next afternoon, when the riders and Xalt reached the top of a tall hill, Kandler called a halt. They’d ridden hard since the first suggestion of dawn in the east, and they were all tired, thirsty, and sore. From the hilltop, they could see for miles around in any direction.
“Good place,” Burch said as he leaped to the ground from the back of his horse, which shivered as he moved off, seemingly glad to be rid of him. “See anyone coming from forever away.” He paused. “Course, they can see us too.”
Kandler dismounted, then cracked his neck. “No fires,” he said, “just like before. Don’t want to draw any more attention than we have to.”
The justicar stretched his legs as he approached Sallah’s horse. He and Xalt helped the lady knight bring Brendis down from behind her. The dark-haired young knight was finally conscious, due to Sallah’s ministrations that morning. Once awake, he’d personally tended to his own battered flesh.
“The magical powers the Silver Flame grants its finest adherents do not reach into the Mournland,” Sallah had explained to Kandler. “As knights of the Flame, though, we have some power of our own, and the pall that hangs over this land has not diminished that. It is but a candle compared to the Silver Flame, but it still can light the way.”
Even so, every movement caused Brendis pain. He winced as his feet touched the ground, nodding his thanks to Kandler and Xalt even so.
Sallah was beside her fellow knight in an instant, putting herself under his shoulder, letting him lean on her as they made their way toward where Burch sat. Already fishing around in his pack, the shifter pulled out a well-wrapped bit of still-bloody horseflesh and offered it to the knights. Sallah accepted it for them as she helped Brendis sit on the withered, gray grass, but neither of them opened it yet.
Kandler sat down next to Sallah and favored her with a wry smile. She smiled back at him softly.
“Is there no way we can cook this?” the lady knight asked, holding up the package Burch had handed her.
“Only if we want every creature in these parts to know we’re here,” Burch said. “Warforged patrols probably still on our trail.”
“Do you really think so?” Sallah asked. “Construct must be hundreds of miles behind us by now.”
“Not far enough,” the shifter spat.
“He’s right,” Xalt said. The warforged stood on the south side of the hill, peering back the way they’d come. He had no need for food and little for company. The crucible the group had found themselves in over the past few days had cemented them together, but Kandler didn’t doubt that the creature still felt a bit like an outsider sometimes. Whether or not that bothered him, the justicar couldn’t tell.
“There they are,” Xalt said, pointing behind them with a thick finger, the only one left on that hand.
Kandler squinted in the direction the warforged indicated. There, just on the edge of the horizon, he spotted a scattering of dark dots. He couldn’t tell if they were moving.
“Are you sure?” he asked the warforged. “That’s leagues away.”
Xalt nodded. “I’ve been watching for them ever since we topped that rise they’re on now. When we broke camp this morning, I feared that they might have gained ground on us. I am sad I was right.
Kandler cursed then looked over at Burch. “Get a fire going, would you?” he said.
“Why not?” The shifter shrugged. “They already know we’re here, and we’re still hours ahead of them. Might as well have full bellies.”
Within minutes, Burch was roasting bits of horsemeat over a crackling fire made mostly of the Mournland’s gray-green grasses and a stunted shrub that looked like it had died years ago but just never knew to fall over from it.
As the others gorged themselves on the fresh-cooked food, Kandler wandered off to the eastern edge of the hill and gazed out into the distance. There, on the horizon, he saw a smudge of gray that was darker than that of the grass or the sky, poking up from the surrounding land.
Metrol, or what was left of it.
Beyond it, the mists that covered the sky of this forsaken land cascaded down to the earth, forming a backdrop between the city’s battered skyline, which he’d once known so well, and the Cyre River, which he thought must be sparkling in the rays of the unseen sun.
Kandler heard Sallah coming up behind him before she spoke. Her step was firm yet light, unlike Burch’s scamper, Brendis’s heavy limp, or Xalt’s thudding stroll. Her hand fell on his shoulder in the same way, and he reached his own hand up to hold hers in place.