The blow missed him, but it shook the floor hard enough to knock him flying.
The justicar rolled with his momentum, tucked himself into a neat somersault, and sprang to his feet, his sword still at the ready.
“Hey, boss!” Burch said. The shifter stood right next to the justicar, his loaded crossbow in his hands. “We finally out of luck?”
Kandler shook his head. “Not yet.”
“You idiots!” the voice from the stands said, even louder this time. “I said I want them alive!”
The rest of the voices in the arena fell silent, and the titans froze, their weapon-arms poised to strike at a moment’s notice.
Burch grinned at Kandler and said, “Now that’s lucky.”
“The problem with luck,” Kandler said, “is that you can’t count on it.”
“Archers!” the voice rang out.
A long rank of warforged stood up from the back rows of the stands, raised their bows, and stretched them toward Kandler and Burch. The justicar glanced back to see that one of the titans had blocked the nearest tunnel exit with its foot. It was a long dash to either of the next-nearest exits.
“Surrender, breathers!” the voice said.
Burch nudged Kandler on the shoulder and pointed toward a blue-painted box in the center of the arena stands opposite the side the justicar had come through. It was large enough to hold a score of spectators, each of whom sat in a large chair. These were stacked in tiers to provide their occupants with a perfect view of the entire arena.
A warforged dressed in a crimson cape with a silver hood stood at the front of the box. His silvery armor plates, burnished to a mirror finish, reflected the light of the dozens of torches distributed throughout the arena. In his hand, he held a golden horn that amplified his voice as he spoke.
“Canyou hit him from here?” Kandler asked.
“Maybe,” the shifter said, “but not all the archers too.”
Kandler looked up at the warforged leader in his private box. It galled him to surrender, but he didn’t warm to the thought of certain death either. He thought of Esprл and Xalt where he’d left them standing outside the stadium, and he knew the most important thing he could do was buy them time. If he could convince the warforged to hunt down the changeling too, then all the better.
Kandler shook his head and sheathed his sword, and Burch slung his crossbow across his back. They strode across the arena floor to where Sallah lay on the ground. Blood trickled from her nose, and she looked pale, but her eyes were open.
“I can’t breathe,” the lady knight gasped with a panicked look on her face. “I think my chest is crushed.”
Kandler knelt next to her and put his hand on her chest. It was dented horribly, but something was wrong. He couldn’t feel her breathing at all, despite the way she panted. “Maybe,” he said, lifting the bottom of her shawl to reveal a shiny silver breastplate beneath. He smiled and said to her, “I thought I told you to leave your armor behind.”
“All of it?” Sallah said, trying to laugh.
Kandler reached down to Sallah’s side and unbuckled her armor, then nodded at Burch to give him a hand. They sat Sallah up, and her dented breastplate fell away. The lady knight sucked in a large breath of air and held it.
“How’s that feel?” asked Kandler. He looked around to see that a score or more of well-armed warforged had surrounded the trio. The creatures stood there with their weapons out and ready but did not say a word.
Sallah reached up to feel her ribs. “Painful,” she said, “but I’ll live.” She glanced at Kandler and Burch, “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank us,” the justicar said. “Thank our host. If he hadn’t said something, you’d probably be a smear running down the side of that titan’s axe right now.”
“That’s a bit more gratitude than I think I can muster at the moment,” Sallah said, seeing the impassive faces of the warforged pressing in around them.
“Bring them to me!” the voice from the stands said.
Many warforged hands reached down and lifted the intruders to their feet. “Keep working at it,” Kandler said to Sallah. “You’re about to get your chance.”
Chapter 50
“You are in the presence of a lieutenant of the Lord of Blades,” a warforged courtier said as the guards hauled Kandler, Sallah, and Burch through the indigo curtains that separated the leader’s box from the rest of the arena’s stands.
The warforged leader turned to get a better look at its guests. He stood taller than the other warforged. His epidermal plates of polished adamantine encased him more like a suit of armor than a skin. Long, polished spikes poked from his arms, shoulders, legs, and knees. A crest of smaller spikes ran up from the center of his back. These fanned out and grew longer as they reached his head, like the plumage of a deadly bird. His eyes seemed made of sapphires.
“Bastard, I presume,” Kandler said. He stuck out his hand in greeting, but the warforged ignored it.
The guards standing to either side and behind him moved closer until he lowered his hand again.
“My fame precedes me,” Bastard said. “As it should.”
He gazed at each of his visitors in turn. Sallah fidgeted under the relentless stare, but she kept her tongue and met the creature’s eyes.
“I saw the breastplate, and I’d recognize one of those swords anywhere. What has the Lord of Blades done to deserve this honor?” Bastard said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “Has the Keeper of the Flame heard of our magnificent city and sent you to curry our favor?” The leader turned his sapphire eyes on Kandler and Burch. “Or has King Boranel finally decided that it is time to pay his regards to the Master of the Mournland?”
Kandler shook his head. This sort of talk made him uneasy. He’d gone to live in Mardakine to get away from such nationalism. He appreciated the irony of doing so in a town built on a mission to restore Cyre, but it was the pursuit of such a hopeless mission that set the town outside normal concerns.
“I don’t pay much attention to politics,” Kandler said.
Bastard nodded. His shoulders creaked as he did, and a servant was there in a moment to oil his plates as he continued to talk. “So it seems. I would not expect an emissary from one of our neighbors’ courts to burst into our arena unannounced before our first meeting.”
“We were chasing a criminal,” Kandler said. “You saw her-a changeling.”
Bastard held up a spiked hand. “That may be so,” he said. “We saw the person you followed in here fly away. We already have people hunting for her. Even so, that does not excuse this intrusion.”
“We only came here looking-” Sallah started, but she winced and stumbled over her words when she saw Kandler’s glare. “We were looking for, um…”
“Supplies,” the justicar said. “We ran low on food and water. Otherwise, we would have waited outside the city for the changeling to leave. If we had not been in such dire straits, we would not have dared to bother you. We hoped to resupply and leave without your notice.”
Bastard nodded at the trio, each in turn. “What happened to you before you came here is of little concern to me. I am charged with maintaining this city until the return of the Lord of Blades. Nothing more.”
“I understand,” said Kandler.
“Because of this,” said Bastard, “I am concerned about the innocents you slew here in the arena before my eyes.”
Burch snarled at this. “We were defending ourselves.”
“You murdered people for whom I am responsible,” the warforged leader said. No emotion leaked into his voice-at least as far as Kandler could tell. “The penalty is clear-immediate execution.”
“No!” Sallah said. As she moved forward, the warforged guards to either side of her snatched her arms and held her still. “That’s not fair!”
