Burch looked up and down the city platforms. In the distance he saw lots of warforged scurrying about. As he watched, another ballista bolt from that area sailed over his head and struck the arena wall far behind him. The shifter ducked behind the nearby ballista mount and tried to think of a plan. As he sat there, he heard a horse whinny in fear. Burch looked over the platform’s edge. Not twenty feet away, four horses were tied to a hitching post. Probably mounts for the ballista crew.
The shifter smiled.
Kandler cheered as he saw Xalt tackle Te’oma out of the air and drag her like an anchor to the arena floor. The pair landed hard, but Te’oma managed to twist her way atop the artificer before they struck the ground. The force of the landing tore Xalt’s arms from the changeling, setting her free. She rolled off the warforged and staggered to her feet, still stunned from the fall.
Xalt reached out and grabbed one of Te’oma’s feet with his good hand. His fingers closed around her ankle like a vise. The changeling snarled and stomped at his hand with her free foot. Once did nothing, so she kept at it. He grunted with each blow but refused to let her go.
“Hey!” Kandler said as he stepped up to the changeling.
Te’oma looked up and Kandler backhanded her. She would have gone flying backward but for Xalt’s grasp still anchoring her to the floor. Still, she stumbled, and her hand shot to the sheathe tied around her calf. Too late, she remembered she had dropped her knife off the back of the airship.
Kandler dove down at the changeling and grabbed her wrists. An instant later, a sharp bolt of pain stabbed into his mind. The justicar’s head snapped back as he battled the alien thoughts. She laughed as he thrashed about, trying to force her out of his mind.
Kandler fought through the static the changeling forced into his brain. He looked down at her and saw her face grinning up at him, laughing with delight at the pain lancing through his skull. He thought of everything this creature had done to his daughter, how she kept coming back to threaten them again and again. As he did, his rage worked its way out of his heart and into his head. His fury at her focused his mind on a single, burning desire, and he put everything he had left into making that wish come true. Kandler hurled himself forward and smashed his forehead into the bridge of the changeling’s nose. Blood spurted from her face, and she fell limp in the justicar’s grasp.
Chapter 61
As Kandler and Xalt struggled with the changeling, Sallah cradled the unconscious Brendis in her arms.
“You can’t go to the Flame yet, my brother,” she said as she placed her hands on either side of his head. He was so pale that the blood on his face almost seemed to glow red.
“May the Silver Flame reignite the fire that burns within you,” Sallah said, enunciating each word. “May it commend you into the arms of the world so that you may continue to serve its sacred cause.” Her hands began to glow with a warm, silvery light. “And may it light your way throughout your life.”
The glow ran from Sallah’s hands until it covered Brendis from head to toe. It intensified for a moment, growing so bright that Sallah had to close her eyes, then it faded away in a heartbeat’s space.
Brendis’ eyes opened as he gasped in a chestful of air. He tried to sit up but fell back just as fast, and Sallah caught him in her arms again.
“It’s all right,” she said as she brushed the hair from his face. “You’re alive.”
As the words left her mouth, her eyes flicked over to the hole the airship had burned through the floor of the arena.
There in the center, untouched by the flames, stood Bastard.
Sallah lay Brendis down on the arena’s floor. As she stood, he tried to rise to join her, but he could barely move.
“Rest,” she said. “If I fall, you’ll need your strength.”
Sallah watched as Bastard leaped over the flames and walked toward her.
“To avenge your death?” Brendis asked the lady knight.
“No,” Sallah said. She drew her sword, and the blade burst into silvery flames once again. “To run.”
Bastard cackled as Sallah strode toward him, her sword flashing with tongues of silver flame. “The daughter comes to avenge her father,” he said. “How very human.”
Sallah held her sword before her at the ready. “I’m not here for revenge,” she said. “Just for your head.”
Bastard raised his golden horn to his lips and started to speak, but Sallah raced forward and slashed at the instrument. The tip of her sword sliced off Bastard’s thumb and sent the horn spiraling away through the air.
Bastard took several steps back and glared at her.
“Surrender, and I will spare your life,” Sallah said. “I do not wish to fight a weaponless foe.”
“I have heard tales of the arrogance of the Knights of the Silver Flame, straight from the lips of the Lord of Blades. I laughed them off. I told my lord that it was impossible for such a feared people to be so foolish.” The warforged glared at Sallah. “I should never have doubted the word of my lord.”
“You refuse then?” Sallah said, holding her sword before her.
“You smug, little bag of bones,” Bastard said. “I don’t need a weapon. I am a weapon!”
The warforged lowered his shoulder and charged straight at her. He was on her before she could bring her blade to bear. She turned away at the last second, but it was too late. Bastard slammed into Sallah with both of his forearms. The spikes that ran along them punched clear through into her upper arm. She cried out and fell back on the ground.
Sallah scrambled to her feet and away from the warforged, leading him away from the others. Kandler and Xalt were occupied with Te’oma, and Brendis was in no condition to do more than be stomped to death beneath Bastard’s spiked feet.
Sallah’s blood dripping down the warforged’s shoulder, he stalked after her. “You’re as much a fool as your father,” he said. “You should flee for your life.”
Sallah stopped and stood her ground. She flexed her injured shoulder, as much to show the warforged that he hadn’t maimed her as to assure herself. She waved her blazing sword in front of her, daring the creature to attempt another attack.
“May the light of the Silver Flame shine on my efforts today,” Sallah said. As she said the words, she felt the power of her faith refresh her, and the distracting pain of her wound sloughed away.
“May you rot forever in utter darkness,” Bastard said and lunged.
Sallah slashed with her sword, but the warforged parried the blow with its forearm then swung a spiked fist at the lady knight’s head. Sallah ducked beneath the attack and spun off to her left, away from the direction of Bastard’s momentum. As she did, she reached out with her bare hand, grabbed one of the spikes along the crest of the warforged’s back, and stabbed at his back. Bastard twisted to the side, and her blow glanced off his spikes.
The warforged leader swung his arm back at Sallah and hammered at her with a flying punch. The blow landed square in her stomach and doubled her over. She retched as she spun away, splashing the contents of her last meal across the warforged’s chest. Bastard recoiled at the vomit and wiped it from itself as best it could.
“I don’t think I could describe how revolting this is,” the warforged said. “It’s disgusting enough that you breathers stuff your faces with once-living things. To have it spilled on my plates-there is no worse insult for my kind.”
Sallah wiped the last of the vomit from her mouth and flicked it at the creature. It landed on his face. “Glad to oblige,” she said.
“At least your father died with some dignity,” Bastard said as he used his thick fingers to wipe his features clean. His sapphire eyes sparkled with anger. “Being crushed to death beneath the city may be a messy way to go, but at least he was considerate enough to expire away from me.”
Sallah’s jaw fell open, and she gaped at the creature and then at the arena floor. Her father, who had mentored her as a follower of the Silver Flame her entire life, who had trained her as a knight, who had loved her as no other, lay dead somewhere beneath her feet. She shook her head, wanting to believe it was a lie. Fat, hot tears
