Lost mark 3 The Queen of Death: (5 page)

Chapter

7

M
onja knew she was dead. She d stopped screaming after the first few seconds. When the shock of having an arrow stuck through her side wore off and the pain started in, she began to scream again.

She’d tumbled forward off of Xalt’s shoulders, and now the constant spinning threatened to make her vomit. Despite the pain in her side, she flung out her arms in a desperate attempt to stabilize herself. As she did, the arrow tore free from her shirt and twirled away into the air. The wound burned like fire, and the arrow took a good chunk of her flesh along with it, but this told her that it hadn’t gone as deep into her as she’d feared.

The rushing wind whipped her long hair around her and tore at her eyes, making it hard to see. She realized she was facing downward now, and through the tears, she saw nothing straight below her but darkness. There might have been a reddish glow in the center of the gap, but it could just as easily have been her imagination filling her terror-stricken mind with traditional images of Khyber.

Monja fought through the pain for another deep breath and screamed again. She’d been destined to lead her clan to great things, or so her father had always told her. Now it looked as if destiny had other plans for sealing her fate. She flung her arms out farther, as if she were one of the glide-wings that her people rode in the sky.

When she’d been but a child, she’d seen her uncle knocked from just such a beast during a skirmish with a flight of harpies that had been terrorizing her people. As he’d fallen, he’d thrown out his limbs out like this, forming his body into a large X, and had managed to even use the winds to angle himself toward the nearby River Cyre, like a giant bird with shredded wings. Still, in his own way, he’d flown. Perhaps Monja could do the same.

Of course, her uncle had hit the river’s surface like a rock, and he had never come up again.

Monja tried to will herself to move about in the winds, but nothing happened. She just kept falling straight down. She moved her left hand up and felt herself tipping to the right. She smiled at the thought of any kind of control returning to what little might be left of her life.

Then she frowned again. Even if she managed to figure out a way to steer herself toward the nearest of the gap’s walls, what good would that do her? She had no way to slow her descent, only guide it, and if she hit anything at her current speed, she had no doubt the impact would turn her bones to jelly.

Monja closed her eyes then and prayed to the spirits that watched over her and her people. She couldn’t see what they could do for her, but she’d relied on them throughout her life. This didn’t seem like the right time to stop.

She had trained to be the shaman of her clan, to take over for old Wodager when he retired or died. Prayer had sustained her in her darkest hours and had made her a leader among her people, despite her tender years. Her father, their clan’s lath—now lathun of all the clans of the Talenta Plains—often said that the spirits listened when she whispered. If so, she hoped they would hear her as she shouted for their aid, straining to even hear herself over the wind roaring in her ears.

"Got you!” A voice from above rang out, echoing off the nearest wall of rock, which blurred by, only scores of feet away.

Then slim, white hands reached out and grabbed Monja under her shoulders and brought her up close as a body slammed into her, knocking the wind from her lungs. The halfling wondered if she’d somehow managed to summon the spirit of a great glidewing to her aid. She couldn’t believe that the spirits would favor her so, no matter what happy evidence to the contrary, but she wasn’t about to refuse their good will.

She craned her neck to look back over her shoulder and saw Te’oma’s face twisted with strain as she wrapped her arms around Monja’s chest. The changeling’s wings were angled tight and near her shoulders.

"Hold on!” Te’oma said. "This is going to hurt!”

Monja drew in a big breath and held it tight. The wound on her side—which had to still be trailing blood behind them as they plummeted toward the canyon’s unseen bottom-stabbed her with pain as she fought to expand her lungs, but she ignored it as best she could.

Then Te’oma spread her batlike wings, stretching them out as wide as they would go. The wind filled them like a sail unfurled into a storm, and they whipped open with a crack that sounded like the snapping of bones and enveloped Monja and Te’oma in their shadow.

For a moment, Monja thought the changeling’s grip on her might give, and she clung to Te’oma’s ghost-pale arms hard enough to draw blood with her nails. The changeling refused to let go, though, despite the fact her wailing told Monja that her weight must nearly have pulled Te’oma’s arms from their sockets. The halfling wondered how well the bloodwings attached to the changeling’s back would hold up.

It didn’t seem like they had slowed at all, despite the deployment of the wings. However, Monja could feel a change of momentum. Instead of heading straight down, they now angled up just a bit.

Te’oma folded her wings back again, and they started to drop as fast as ever. Now, though, they headed closer to the wall.

"Is this helping?” Monja asked, trying to keep the panic from her voice. She knew that Te’oma could have just let her fall to her death—and still could—but she couldn’t help but be dismayed at how little the changeling seemed to have been able to do.

"Quiet!” Te’oma snarled, not looking down at the half-

I

ling at all. Instead, Monja saw her gaze had locked on the sheer wall nearest to them.

The halfling looked at the wall and noticed how near it was. She followed the changeling’s gaze down and spied a wide shelf of rock jutting out from the wall below.

"No!” Monja said, clutching Te’oma’s arms in a desperate grip. "We’re still going too fast!”

Falling into a bottomless pit now seemed like a far better choice than smashing into that shelf. Monja didn’t doubt something just as solid awaited her in the canyon’s depths, but at least she wouldn’t hit it for a little while longer. In a way, she thought, her fall through the canyon was a metaphor for life. Once you started it, you were going to die either way, but later had to be better than sooner.

"I said, quiet,” Te’oma said. "Don’t make me regret this.”

Monja closed her eyes and began to pray again. If the spirits had sent Te’oma to help her, then she should do her best to accept that aid. She prayed for the serenity to accept her death.

Gravity tugged at her even harder, and Monja squeaked in fear that it might tug her right from the changeling’s arms, which had to be getting tired. She clung to Te’oma tighter than ever and opened her eyes.

Then she screamed.

The canyon wall rushed toward her nearly as fast as the shelf below. A startled mountain goat bleated as Te’oma and Monja zipped by.

The shelf zoomed up from the depths as if it wanted to smack the pair of them right back out of the canyon. For an instant, Monja wondered just how high they would bounce. She wanted to close her eyes again but found she couldn’t.

Then Te’oma flung her wings wide and flipped her body backward. The wings caught the air hard, and Monja felt the changeling’s arms pulling her back up into the sky. Would it be fast enough, hard enough, to keep her from smashing into the rocky shelf?

The changeling’s wings not only caught the air this time but rode it. Monja felt the pair of them hook from a plummeting fall into a tight, brief rise, and the air left her lungs.

As they came out of the short hook upward, Monja looked down and saw that they were still a score of feet over the shelf. She screamed as they fell toward it again, and she felt Te’oma’s arms and legs wrap around her, protecting her like a mother would an infant.

They hit the shelf hard, but Te’oma’s body and wings cushioned the impact for Monja. The halfling heard the changeling’s head crack against the rock behind her, and the arms around her went limp.

When Monja could breathe again, she rolled off Te’oma’s still form and onto the unforgiving rock. She took care to roll toward the canyon wall. The thought of spilling out into the open canyon again terrified her. She’d never been afraid of heights before, but this experience had given her a healthier respect for them.

Stunned to be alive, Monja got up on her knees and stared down at Te’oma. Blood had started to pool under the changeling’s head. She breathed still, but perhaps not for long,

"To think I didn’t trust you,” Monja said as she began to pray.

Chapter

8

Sallah fell back to the floor, the weight of her attacker crushing the air from her. She glared up at his face and saw an ivory-colored skull staring back down at her. Unlike most skeletons she’d seen in her life, though, this one had eyes of the brightest blue.

Sallah gave thanks to the Silver Flame for her well-fitted breastplate and slashed up and out with her flaming blade. The assailant tried to twist out of the blade’s path, but it gouged deep into the side of his head instead.

The thin, gray linen wrapped around the attacker’s skull burst into flames. He flopped to the ground, still bleeding, and tried to smother the fire consuming his head.

Sallah scrambled to her knees. She saw Burch come tumbling in through the window to the right of the doorway, another of the assassins on top of him. The shifter growled and slashed at his attacker with his claw-tipped fingers, but the gray-clad shape had wrapped his legs around the shifter’s throat and then started to squeeze.

Sallah leaped to her feet, ready to force the attacker from Burch’s throat. As she did, two more of the assassins swung in through the window, landing on the ground as lightly as cats. Long, bone-handled daggers appeared in their hands, and each crossed their pair of blades before themselves, ready to tear through Sallah’s defenses.

Burch gurgled something from his place on the floor as he struggled against the assassin sitting on his chest. He would be strangled in a matter of seconds if Sallah didn’t do something, but she couldn’t reach him without exposing herself to the killers before her.

Espre pushed away from Duro and rushed to help Burch. Her hands crackled with a black energy, and Sallah knew that the girl had summoned the power of her dragonmark.

The thought that such a young creature could wield such horrible power chilled the lady knight. When she’d begun her quest to find the bearer of the Mark of Death, she’d thought only of her duty, not of the unknown soul who’d been branded by powers beyond her ken.

Now,'though, as her love for Kandler blossomed, she’d come to care for his stepdaughter as well. In many ways, Espre was barely more than a child, and now she had to bear this horrible burden that had put her life at risk and the lives of anyone near her. Whenever Sallah felt saddened at her own losses, she had only to think of Espre to put them into perspective.

As Espre charged, determined to kill once more* the object of her attack flicked his wrists out, and a pair of daggers appeared in his hands too. He drew one of them back to throw, and Sallah saw that the killer would hurl the blade into the girl’s chest long before she had any hope of reaching her target.

Espre skidded to a halt in the face of the assassin’s weapons. No matter what the girl’s powers might be, they would do her little good if she died before she could use them. But as she slid to a stop, she slipped and fell flat on her back.

The assassin smiled at this, drawing back his teeth to expose another set beneath them. Sallah saw then that the first set of teeth had been tattooed across the killer’s lips, part of a mask of death etched upon a living face.

An axe appeared in the center of the grinning killer’s chest. Blood seeped from around the wound as the assassin’s eyes rolled back up into his head. Somewhere behind Sallah, Duro hollered, "Yes!”

As Burch bucked his attacker’s corpse off of him, Sallah moved toward the other two, interposing herself between them and Espre. The girl scrambled to her feet and stood beside the lady knight as the killers reassessed the situation.

Sallah figured there were more than a dozen dwarves in the room, along with her, Espre, and Burch. Four of the assassins lay dead, including the one who had failed to extinguish the flames devouring its head in time.

Only two stood in here, although only the Flame knew how many others might be lurking outside. She had to presume that some of them had kept Kandler too busy to join her and the others inside the inn.

The two killers seemed to realize their odds at the same time as Sallah. They spun and fled.

Six more battle-scarred axes spun through the air and struck the killers down before they reached the door. Two of the weapons clanged into each other and off their mark, but the others all hit deep in the assassins’ bodies, and they fell without a sound.

Sallah glanced down at Espre.

"Kandler!” the girl said, already rushing for the dock.

Kandler lashed out with his fist. It smashed into the killer’s jaw, and Kandler felt the satisfying crunch of smashed teeth.

Kandler kicked free from the stunned assassin’s grasp. He spied his fangsword on the far side of the deck, but the other two killers would be on him before he could do more than gain his feet. Instead of scrambling for the weapon, he reached back and ripped a dagger from the hand of the assassin sharing the floor with him. When the killer offered resistance, Kandler slammed his elbow into the assassin’s nose, and the blade came free.