Under any other circumstances, this revelation—that Ibrido was a half-breed that bore the blood of both dragons and elves—might have made Te’oma fall to pieces. To have Esprë stolen from her by such a creature, just as she was about to make off with her for good, would have been enough to drive her mad. As it was, though, her every thought was consumed with keeping herself alive instead. She had killed enough people in her time to know when someone was ready to commit murder, and Ibrido bore all the signs.
Te’oma reached down with her mouth and bit the hand that Ibrido was using to hold her against the ceiling. The dragon-elf shouted in surprise and pulled back his injured fist, letting the changeling drop to the floor in front of him. He steeled himself for a follow-up attack from Te’oma, but it never came.
Instead, the changeling turned and made a mad dash for the set of windows that lined the back of the room, designed to give the captain of the ship a panoramic view of the lands before them. The frames of the windows formed from the ribs of the airship’s monstrous masthead, pale and thick as a giant’s bones. She smashed into the windows at full speed, hoping to burst through into the open air beyond. If she could get free, if she could survive, she could lick her wounds and come back to take Esprë from Ibrido when the time was ripe. She’d managed to take her from Kandler and his friends. She could do it again.
The wooden ribs cracked but held, and Te’oma bounced back into the room, reeling from the impact. Before she could utter a moan, Ibrido scooped her up off the floor and wrapped his hands around her neck.
“Impressive,” he said as he started to strangle her. “Your drive for survival suits you well. Perhaps in other circumstances we could be true allies. You would be an asset.” He squeezed even harder, and the changeling felt her world start to go black. “As it is, though, you are far too competent a foe to be allowed to live.”
Desperate, Te’oma lashed out blindly with her fists. The dragon-elf’s arms were half again as long as hers, though, and she only found purchase on his biceps. She tried digging into them with her nails, but she could not penetrate his scales. She morphed back into her natural form, but her arms still weren’t long enough. She considered duplicating Ibrido’s form, but a better idea struck her.
The changeling brought her knees up to her chest, and Ibrido laughed at her. “You cannot escape me by rolling into a ball,” he said, just before she lashed out with a two-footed kick that crushed his snoutlike nose.
The dragon-elf dropped Te’oma to the floor. She hit it hard then rolled away, hacking hard, trying to cough away the impressions his fingers had left on her throat. She crawled toward the door as best she could, not bothering to look back. How badly she might have hurt her foe didn’t matter. The only thing she could think about was getting out of that room.
“You bastard bitch!” Ibrido roared.
Te’oma still didn’t glance back, but she heard the dragon-elf suck in a deep breath then exhale it in her direction. A thick, cloying gas enveloped her before she could blink, its acidic fumes eating away at her, stinging her eyes and burning her skin. She screamed in horror, and as she drew in her next breath she sucked the stuff into her lungs. This set her coughing hard enough to snap one of her already cracked ribs.
Te’oma was still wincing in pain as Ibrido snatched her up by the collar of her stolen armor and hauled her to her feet. She coughed blood into his face.
“Having a hard time breathing, are we?” he said. “That is a problem I can help you solve.”
Ibrido reached out with his other hand and grabbed Te’oma by the chin. Then, with relentless force, he began forcing her head around, away from the direction in which he held her shoulders.
Te’oma struggled against the dragon-elf’s incredible strength with what was left of her might. Still coughing that horrible gas from her lungs, she beat at him with her arms and legs, but he just hauled her in closer, drawing her into a terrible embrace she could not resist. She tried to bite the web of his hand, between his index finger and thumb, but she couldn’t do more than scratch his scales as his talons dug deep into her cheeks, drawing blood that flowed down his fingers and into her mouth, threatening to drown her in her own hot fluids.
When her neck twisted to the farthest point she thought it could, Te’oma unleashed a horrid, desperate scream.
Ibrido gave her head one final push and snapped her neck like a dry piece of kindling.
Te’oma felt her body go limp and numb beneath her. Helpless, unable to even raise her arms to defend herself, she did the only thing she could.
She wept. She cried for herself, for her long-dead daughter, and for the rest of her life, which it seemed she would never have.
33
“We caught you red-handed trying to escape,” Berre said. “For that, there will be consequences.”
Kandler bit back a snarl.
“That’s doesn’t matter right now,” he said, pointing his sword over the dwarf’s shoulder at the airship beyond. “You have to listen to me.”
A bolt whizzed past Kandler’s outstretched arm, and he dropped his blade like a hot iron.
“The rest of you, drop your weapons,” Berre said.
She didn’t need to raise her voice for everyone to hear the menace in it. Her time living with so many skeletons had made her used to having her orders followed without question, Kandler realized. He knew that she would not brook any disobedience, however pleasant she might have been to him and the others before.
Sallah sheathed her sword, and Burch slung his crossbow back across his shoulders. Kandler stepped forward, putting up his hands to show that he wasn’t a threat.
“We’re not your problem here,” he said, struggling to keep the desperation from his voice. He had to make her listen to him, and if she thought he was lying, there was little chance of that.
“Stand back.” Berre shoved her battle-axe into Kandler’s face, and he stuttered two steps away.
“You don’t want us,” he said. “You want Esprë.”
The Captain of Bones fidgeted a moment as she weighed the truth in the justicar’s words. “Where is she?” she asked. “What have you done with her?”
“We were trying to escape,” Kandler said. “That much is true, but we were tricked, betrayed. We don’t have her any more.”
Berre scowled at the justicar. “Where is she?”
Exasperated, Kandler pointed at the Karrnathi airship again, this time with his finger. “Why don’t you ask whoever’s in charge of that ship?”
Berre turned to gaze out at Keeper’s Claw and gasped. The skeletons crewing the airship had tossed off all of the mooring ropes and drawn in the gangplank, cutting off access to the ship from the top of the fort’s rear wall. All it waited for was for someone to take the wheel and fly it away.
“Who would dare?” the dwarf asked.
“It’s the changeling,” Burch said. “She never left the fort.”
The windows framed by the ribs of the ship’s horrific masthead shattered, sending broken bits of wood and shattered glass cascading down to the ground behind the fort. A body followed along with them, spilled toward the ground. Whitish but covered with blood, it fluttered down slowly on tattered, black wings that could not keep it aloft.