Kandler nodded reluctantly.
“Where to then?” Sallah asked. “By morning, the changeling will have had hours to get ahead of us or to hide. She could be anywhere.”
Kandler frowned. “Those wings of hers aren’t all that strong. She’ll be stuck on foot, dragging Esprл along behind her. She’ll need food and water, too, neither of which is easy to find around here. I bet she’d kill for a horse.”
“My best guess?” Burch said. “She’ll head northeast again. The way she was going before we ran into Lady Majeeda’s tower.”
“What’s off in that direction?” Sallah asked.
Kandler shook his head. “I don’t know. Burch and I never made it this far into the Mournland before.”
“I wasn’t asking you,” the lady knight said. “Xalt is the native here.”
The warforged rasped a soft laugh. “Nothing, I fear. This is the Mournland.”
“There has to be something,” Brendis said. “Maybe she went for one of the old lightning rail lines.”
Deothen grunted. “Those haven’t run since the Day of Mourning. They’d be useless to her.”
“There is something that maybe off to the northeast,” Xalt said. “But the changeling couldn’t possibly know about it.”
“She’s a psion,” Kandler said. “A mindreader. If you know about it, there’s a chance she might know about it too. Who knows how long she was in that hold scanning our thoughts?”
Xalt nodded then said one word. “Construct.”
Kandler cocked his head at the warforged. “What’s that?”
“Construct is a town the Lord of Blades founded after the end of the Last War as a warforged settlement. It’s meant to be our capital someday.”
Deothen curled his lip at this. “I’ve heard rumors of this place,” he said. “Different reports have placed it in every part of the Mournland, but no one’s ever been able to confirm them. The place is like a ghost.”
“Almost like it moves,” said Xalt.
Sallah’s eyes grew wide. “It’s a moving city? Like Argonth?”
The warforged nodded.
Burch whistled. “That explains a lot,” he said.
“But how can anyone find such a place?” Brendis asked. “It would be almost impossible.”
“Not if you knew when it was coming,” Kandler said. He looked at Xalt.
“It was scheduled to meet with Superior,” the warforged said, “later today.”
Chapter 45
There it is, boss, Burch said. He handed Kandler the spyglass he’d found in a compartment on the bridge.
Standing in the airship’s bow, the wind whipping all about him as they sailed forward at top speed, the justicar lifted the spyglass to his eye and gazed off in the direction Burch had pointed. Even at this distance, he wasn’t sure how he could have missed it. The city had to be half a mile long and perhaps a hundred yards wide. It was built on a series of interlocking platforms that crawled along the ground. Smoke billowed from great furnaces in the factories that rose from the center of the town. Guard posts lined the edges of the place, each outfitted with a massive set of ballistae and a squad of well-armed soldiers.
“If there was ever a good reason for people to stop making warforged, that’s it,” said Burch.
“We are not all bad,” Xalt said from over the justicar’s shoulder.
“Staggering,” said Sallah, who stood next to the warforged and peered over Kandler’s other shoulder. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” She turned to Kandler. “How does it compare to your Argonth?”
Kandler handed the spyglass to the lady knight, who looked through it and gasped. “It doesn’t,” said the justicar. “Argonth is a floating fortress built from the start for war. It’s the most powerful weapon in Breland. An entire army can travel on it at once.
“This looks like it just grew. There’s almost no plan to it, other than the guards on the perimeter. I bet you could take any of those platforms off and run it around by itself too. In an emergency, they could split the place into as many parts as they like and run them in different directions. Imagine being surrounded by a city like that.”
“Argonth is taller,” said Burch.
“With Construct,” said Xalt, “each platform can tilt independent of the others. If you built up too high, the tops of the buildings would crash into each other.”
“Why did they build it like that?” Brendis asked.
“It has to do with the terrain around here, doesn’t it?” said Sallah.
Xalt nodded. “A flat-bottomed structure like Argonth would never work here. How would such a thing traverse a hill? Or climb the Glass Plateau?”
“Good point,” said Kandler. “Argonth works in Breland because it sticks to the flatter parts of the country. There’s a reason the fortress has never been used in an invasion. It would have a devil of a time getting past Breland’s own natural boundaries.”
“But how does this thing move?” asked Brendis. “If it doesn’t hover by magic, what pushes it along on those wheels?”
“May the Flame protect us,” Sallah said in awe as she lowered the spyglass. “Those aren’t wheels under those platforms. They’re legs. Are those warforged?”
“That’s impossible,” said Deothen, as he strode up behind the others. “That would mean there are thousands of them there.” He took the spyglass from Sallah. “Maybe tens of thousands,” he said.
“Were that many warforged made?” said Brendis. “How can that be?”
Xalt laughed. “Those are not warforged,” he said. “My people are free here. They would never submit to such mindless drudgery again.”
Kandler turned to look back at the artificer. “Then what are they?” he asked.
“Walkers,” the warforged answered. “Metal golems that consist of little more than a platform on legs.”
Kandler’s breath caught in his chest. He heard Sallah gasp.
“You’re jesting,” said Burch.
The artificer shook his head. “Many wizards use them, and you can find them in the warehouses and factories of the wealthiest houses in Khorvaire, where they are used to help transport goods.”
“Ifyouknowhowto make them,” Kandler said, “then making lots of them is just a matter of time.”
“Precisely.” Xalt nodded.
“Thank the Flame they haven’t figured out how to create their own kind,” Deothen breathed.
“If the changeling is in there, we’ll never find her,” said Sallah. “The place is too big.”
“Get me in there,” said Burch. “I can pick up her scent.”
“She might not even be there,” Deothen pointed out, Kandler nodded at this. He’d had the same thought but been reluctant to voice it. “Well,” he said, “I don’t think we have any other choice. We have to go in to find out.”
“How do you propose we do that?” said Deothen. “Shall we simply fly this airship in and set down in their central square?”
“I’ve heard of worse ideas,” said Kandler. “It might give us the element of surprise.”
“It also might give those ballistae a chance to knock us out of the sky,” said Deothen. “I doubt we could take too many hits from those. An expert pilot might be able to avoid them, but not I.”
Burch pointed up at the ring of fire that surrounded the airship. “They see us already, boss.”
Kandler looked around at the ring. “I suppose you’re right.”
“They don’t seem to have raised any kind of alarm,” said Brendis. “If I saw an airship on its way toward me, I’d have something to say about it.”
“Dragons don’t worry about mosquitoes,” Kandler said.
“Can’t a mosquito bite a dragon?” asked Sallah.
“Sure,” said Kandler, “if the mosquito doesn’t mind being crushed afterward.”
