amidst the wreckage of the box. Only his armor saved him from being impaled on the collection of jagged boards on which he landed.
The titan still attached to the rope ladder sailed along after the ship, yanked off its feet by the sudden change in momentum. It crashed into and through the bottom of the airship’s hold, its top half wedged in the hole it made. Its legs landed in the airship’s ring of fire and were incinerated.
The airship’s restraining arches held, although they creaked with the effort. The lower arch broke through the arena floor like a plow cutting through a field. The stands beneath the airship burst into flames as the ring worked to reestablish its natural shape by turning everything in its path to ash. Burch grabbed Sallah’s arm and dragged her away from the fiery ring.
The warforged in the stands trampled over each other as they tried to escape the disaster. Some near the top opted to leap over the exterior wall to the platforms far below rather than brave the flames or the stampedes. Some of these crashed through the platforms to the earth moving beneath.
“Hey!” Kandler said, as he dashed up behind Burch and Sallah. “I think you have something of mine.” He held up Sallah’s sword.
Burch handed Kandler’s blade to him, and the justicar returned the sacred sword to Sallah.
“That’s a fine blade,” the justicar said.
An amplified voice called out from the burning wreckage of the stands. “To me, my people!” It was Bastard. “Kill the intruders! Save me! Save-! No!”
The voice stopped, and Burch led Sallah and Kandler around perimeter of the ring of fire to where they could peer through the smoke engulfing the stands. As they watched, two silvery forms came flashing out of Bastard’s private box, their polished surfaces glinting in the angry light of the airship’s blazing ring.
“Father!” Sallah screamed.
Deothen landed atop Bastard and pounded the creature’s face with the pommel of his sacred sword. The warforged leader snarled and shoved the senior knight off his body.
“Look!” Burch said, pointing at Bastard. “It’s stuck.” The spikes on the creature’s back had pierced the floor onto which the creature had fallen, pinning it there.
As Bastard struggled to break loose, Deothen circled the creature, looking for the perfect opening for his sword. Before he could strike, the warforged twisted its body free. The action wrenched a large part of the flooring behind it away, and it fell through the hole it created.
“You’ll not evade me so easily!” Deothen shouted as he leaped through the hole, following Bastard down into the nether region beneath the city’s moving platforms.
“No!” Sallah shouted as she watched her father disappear. Before she could race across the arena floor to join him. Burch grabbed her by the shoulder.
“We have a bigger problem,” the shifter said.
Sallah turned to see what Burch was talking about. Before her, the titan with a remnant of the airship’s mooring line still wrapped about it tore free from its mangled hammer-arm and climbed to its feet.
Burch leaned over to Kandler and said, “What do you suggest we do about that?”
“Only one thing seems to have worked so far,” the justicar said, grabbing Sallah and Burch by their arms and shoving them before him. “Run!”
The three raced off across the arena floor. They avoided the hole through which Deothen and Bastard had disappeared and gave the burning section of the stands a wide berth.
When the trio reached the far end of the arena, they looked back to see that the one-armed titan was still lumbering after them. “It’s following Bastard’s last orders,” Sallah said. “It’ll run us down until we die or it’s destroyed.”
“See that?” Burch said. He pointed to one of the ballistae mounted on the low walls on each corner of the arena. The crew that had been stationed at it had abandoned it when the fire began. The weapon stood loaded and ready, pointed outward as part of the city’s defenses against invaders. It looked very much like a giant-sized version of Burch’s beloved crossbow.
“Bet it turns this way too,” the shifter said.
“Get up there,” Kandler said to Burch. “I’ll keep this moving mountain of armor busy.”
Burch slapped the justicar on the back and then raced away, looking for a way to get on top of the wall.
Chapter 55
The one-armed titan stomped up to Kandler and Sallah and raised its axe high. The two scrambled away in opposite directions. For a moment, the towering warforged hesitated, unsure which of the pair to attack first, then it swung down at the justicar.
Kandler realized he wasn’t going to be able to run away fast enough. Wedged in the corner of the arena as he was, there just wasn’t enough room. Instead, he charged the warforged, and the creature’s blow smashed down over his head. The swing came close enough that he could feel it brush against his hair, but Kandler rolled forward unharmed.
As the titan’s axe landed, Sallah spun around and slashed at the back of its legs with her burning blade. The creature rasped in pain and kicked out to shove the lady knight away. Its foot caught Sallah in the hip and knocked her to the ground. Her sword spun out of her grasp.
Kandler fought the urge to run to her side, knowing that it would only doom them both. His best option was to press the attack, although it was nearly impossible to find a chink the titan’s armor.
The titan turned its attention to the lady knight as she scrambled across the arena floor, reaching for her weapon. As it spun about, Kandler saw a slim chance. It was the only one that had presented itself so far, so he took it. He sheathed his sword and leaped upon the titan, finding a handhold on the many spikes sticking out of the creature’s back. He pulled himself up on them, crawling up the titan’s metal carapace, scratching himself on the sharp-tipped spikes, until he came to the creature’s neck.
The titan drew back its axe-arm to level a blow at Sallah. As it did, Kandler drew his sword, held it high, and threw all of his weight into driving his sword into the back of the creature’s neck. The blade jarred in his hands only a few inches into the creature’s exposed fibers. Panic shot through Kandler’s mind, and pain lanced through his shoulders. He growled and shoved at the blade again. It slid to the left, making its way around whatever iron bands the creature used for a spine.
The monstrous warforged tried to reach back with its missing arm but ended up flailing the shattered stump at Kandler instead. The justicar screwed his sword back and forth in the hole he’d made, sawing through the thick, raw fibers beneath the titan’s armor. Dark fluid spurted up from the wound and spattered across Kandler’s arms and chest. The quantity surprised him, as did the fact that the crimson liquid was hot.
The titan swung at Kandler with its axe, but its blow glanced off its own armored head instead. The resultant clang set the justicar’s ears ringing, but he kept at his horrible task, churning his sword in and out of the creature’s savaged neck.
Infuriated, the titan threw itself backward on the arena floor in an effort to crush the justicar with its bulk. Kandler felt the creature start to topple and leaped free, barely clearing the creature’s massive body. The spikes on the titan’s back and shoulders tore at the justicar, slashing his flesh. Kandler cried out in shock and pain.
The impact on the arena floor knocked the wind from Kandler, and he lay there on his chest for a moment. He hadn’t the strength to get back on his feet, and the titan’s fall had trapped the justicar in the same corner again. As he heard the titan start to rouse, he willed himself to move.
Kandler rose to his knees and turned. The titan rolled off its back like a gigantic bear. It growled and threw itself back onto its knees where it could raise its axe-hand over its head. It aimed another blow at Kandler, but before it could slam down its weapon, flames erupted along its back.
“Get off him, you monster!” Kandler heard Sallah shout from the creature’s other side. The smell of burning fibers filled the air.
Still on its knees, the titan whirled about. The move wrenched Sallah’s sword from her fingers but left the blade embedded in the titan’s back, its flames devouring the creature from within.
Kandler dashed around in front of the titan as it climbed to its feet. He grabbed Sallah by the arm and led her
