out her name in the course of the prophecy concerning the Mark of Death. Since then, they had been almost deferential. She liked the fact that someone would treat her more like an equal, but she bristled at Kandler’s obvious distrust of all things holy.
“Would you like my help or not?” Sallah asked, letting the exasperation show in her voice.
Kandler flexed his shoulder and winced again. He pushed it toward her and nodded.
With Kandler’s permission, Sallah slipped her hands up the sleeve of his shirt until she reached his shoulder. She offered up a short prayer to the Silver Flame that ended with, “May the light of your kindness shine on this heathen. Amen.”
Kandler drew in a breath to protest, but he stopped when Sallah’s hands warmed up and a soft glow arose under his shirt. The warmth moved from Sallah’s hands into his shoulder. As it washed away, she knew it took the hurt with it.
“How’s that?” asked Sallah.
Kandler flexed his shoulder again. “My thanks,” he said.
As the ship rounded a bend in the hollow, Burch held up his hand and called out, “Hold it!”
Esprл hauled the ship back until it stood hovering in the air. “What is it?” she asked.
Sallah followed Kandler as he ran forward to peer around Burch at the ground. Below, she could see the signs of a fight. A few pieces of armor lay scattered about the place, and the grass was all torn up.
“What happened here?” Sallah asked Burch, not at all sure she wanted to hear the answer.
“A big fight,” the shifter answered.
“I think we can see that much,” Kandler said. “What’s all that armor doing down there?”
“That’s not armor,” the shifter said as he looked closer. “Those are pieces of warforged. They must have come from three soldiers, at least.”
“Canyou tell anything else?” Sallah asked.
Burch shook his head. “Hard to say from up here.” He motioned for Esprл to bring the ship lower.
“Keep going,” Burch said. At the last moment, he held up his hand to stop. “Good!”
The ship bumped against the ground. “Close enough?” Esprл asked, blushing.
“By the Silver Flame,” Sallah said, “be careful!”
“It’s just a bump,” the justicar said. “It’s not easy to control this beast.”
Sallah turned and pointed to the ring of fire surrounding the ship. She understood that Kandler wished to protect his daughter, but this was too important to tiptoe around.
“You see that?” she said to Kandler.
“It’s hard to miss.”
“That’s an elemental creature of fire,” she said. “The dragon-marked shipwrights who created this craft bound it into this ring with powerful magic. Just look at the carvings along the retaining arch.” Sallah paused to calm herself down and to let her words sink in. “Break that arch, and you let loose the elemental. It might not be too happy about being bound up all that time. It might decide to take it out on the child behind the wheel.”
“Or the mouthy lady in the armor,” Burch said. “Point taken.” He signaled Esprл to bring the ship up a bit. The ship lurched upward into the sky and hovered a few feet over the ground.
Sallah scowled at the shifter, but before she could respond, Kandler tapped her on the shoulder and pointed down the length the ship’s rail. “There’s a rope ladder there,” he said. “Let’s take a look.”
The two scrambled down the ladder and onto the hill. Kandler scanned the crest while Sallah strode down into the hollow.
“The warforged must have started out here,” Kandler said loud enough for Sallah to hear over the crackling of the fiery ring. “I’d guess they ambushed the knights when they rode into that hollow.”
Sallah bent over and ran her hand along some of the stunted, gray grass. Then she stood and held it up. Crimson stained her fingers.
“They’re not here anymore,” Kandler said. “Who do you think won?”
Burch looked down at Sallah from the ship and said, “War-forged. No doubt.”
The knight shook her head. “If that’s so, where are the bodies?”
“What’s that over there?” Burch said, pointing down to a fold in the hollow. “Something shiny.”
Sallah hissed and launched herself up the hillside, uttering a silent prayer to the Silver Flame as she went. Kandler dashed along the crest of the hill and beat the lady knight to the spot. He knelt down reverently before the things Burch had seen from the ship. As Sallah reached him, he turned to let her see what they were.
“Their swords,” Sallah said, horrified as she looked down at the sacred blades of her fellow knights. “No knight would ever willingly give up his sword to a foe. They must be dead.”
Chapter 36
“There aren’t any bodies,” Kandler said as he looked up at Sallah. She seemed so hurt, he needed to hold out some hope for her to cling to. “They could still be alive.”
Sallah shook her head as tears welled up in her emerald eyes. “They are sworn to keep their holy swords by their sides at all times. They would have fought with them till their last breaths.”
Kandler stood and put his arms around the lady knight. She lowered her head but managed to fight back the tears. She did not pull away.
“Trail goes that way,” Burch called down from above. “Lots of people.” The shifter scanned the grass along the top of the ridge. “Some dragged.”
Sallah pushed away from Kandler and craned her neck to talk to Burch. “You think they were captured?”
“Warforged don’t eat.”
“By the Flame!” Sallah said, shocked at the shifter’s words. “What made you suggest that?”
“You only carry bodies for food-unless the bodies aren’t dead.”
The knight nodded. “I suppose so.” She looked along the ridge in the direction Burch had pointed. “Then there’s still time. We must go after them.”
“Come on,” Kandler said as he reached for the rope ladder and handed it to Sallah. “Even I can see the trail. Warforged leave large footprints.”
Sallah hauled herself up the rope ladder and then reached back behind her for the swords of her fellow knights. Kandler handed them up to her one at a time, hilt toward her, then followed her up the ladder.
“Let’s go,” Sallah said to Esprл. The girl smiled as she brought the ship a bit higher into the air. Kandler joined his daughter on the bridge while Sallah found Burch peering over the bow, where they both hunted for signs of the trail.
Esprл nudged the airship forward at Burch’s signal. As the ship moved along, Kandler looked up at the ring of fire.
“What do you think our chances are of sneaking up on anyone in this thing?” Esprл asked.
“It depends how fast you’re going,” Kandler said.
Esprл coaxed a bit more speed from the airship and let the wind blow through her hair. She looked up at Kandler and smiled. He smiled back.
The sky had grown a darker shade of gray. Esprл rubbed her eyes, and Kandler remembered that he hadn’t slept since the night before-and not much then. The cool air whipping past him made him more alert, but he longed for his bed back in Mardakine.
Remembering his home, he remembered his last few days there, and the weeks before that. Anxiety had been gnawing at him for some time as his suspicions about his daughter grew. Kandler reached around and pulled the collar of Esprл’s shirt away from her back.
There it was, just above her shoulder blades. A dragon-mark. When he’d first seen it, he’d thought it was black, but this close he could see it was mottled with many colors, mostly vivid blues and greens. Around the sharply defined edges, her skin was marbled with red, almost as if the mark had sprung painfully from the flesh beneath.
“I…” Esprл said quietly. Her smile vanished. “I didn’t think you knew about that.”
Kandler let the collar go. He’d seen enough. “I didn’t think you did either.”
