Keith Baker - The Shattered Land

The warforged had a slightly hunched posture, and its neck was just a little too long and too flexible. It turned its head to the right, scanning the landscape.

Daine lashed out with his sword. The scout had kept its distance, but Daine wasn’t trying for a solid blow; he just tapped the point of his blade against the edge of the creature’s head. It jerked back, its blades snapping into attack position.

“Answer my questions. Now.”

“You are no threat.”

“That’s why I have friends. Pierce? Two.”

Nothing happened.

Then there was a blur of motion, as two long arrows came out of the snow to strike the strange warforged, catching it in the lightly armored cavity just below its right arm. The warforged hissed so loudly that Daine thought Pierce had struck some sort of reservoir of steam trapped within its body.

It was a perfect shot-but Pierce had hesitated. Why? “I’m waiting for an answer, as is my threatening friend.”

“You cannot destroy me.” Even with the arrows half-buried in its torso, the warforged spoke with eerie confidence. Daine was used to dealing with warforged. Pierce was his friend-and he was far from the only warforged Daine had served with during the war, but most warforged were designed to resemble humans. This thing-it violated those principles. Its posture, its proportions, its teeth-it was all wrong, and Daine found it unsettling on a level he couldn’t really explain.

“Maybe not, but I’m really looking forward to trying,” he said. “I’ll ask you one more time. Why are you here? What did you do to him?” Daine gestured at the frozen corpse with the point of his sword.

“I serve my purpose, breather.” It brought its arm down sharply, snapping off the shafts of the arrows embedded it its right armpit. “Nothing you do matters.”

“I … I don’t like the thought of it, but if we subdue it, I might be able to torture it,” Lei whispered, just behind him. Daine kept his eyes on the stranger, but from Lei’s tone, he could tell that she was disturbed by its presence. “Warforged don’t feel pain in exactly the same way that we do, but if I slowly damage its lifeweb-it certainly won’t enjoy it.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Lakashtai had arrived as soundlessly as always. “It may be a creature of metal, but it is still driven by thought and emotion. Let me see what I can draw from this shell.”

Daine kept his sword as Lakashtai stepped forward, the point in line with one of the creature’s crystalline eyes. She moved with catlike grace through the deep snow, and the thick flakes slid off of her cloak; swathed in pure black, she seemed to be a sliver carved from the night itself.

The warforged shifted its weight slightly. The pale light glittered on its bladed arms. “Pierce, Lei-if it moves, kill it,” Daine said.

“Be still, little one,” Lakashtai said softly, her eyes gleaming in the depths of her hood. “Stone and steel were not meant to move.”

The blades snapped down against the scout’s arms, and it did not move as she stepped closer.

“Your thoughts-they extend far beyond this one form,” Lakashtai murmured. “It seems we have something in common, you and I. Let us follow that path and see where it leads.”

The blades of the warforged fluttered in place, rising slightly only to snap back down again.

Snap .

Snap .

Snap .

Lakashtai’s eyes were closed. She seemed peaceful, at rest, but after spending a week in her company, Daine could see the strain-the faint furrow of her brow, the occasional twitching of her lips. She doesn’t want us to know her limits , Daine realized. It might be pride; it might be a cultural tradition, but he knew so little about what she could do or how the psychic attack had affected her. Was there danger here? What was this battle he couldn’t even see?

Snap .

A chill gust of wind blew snow in his face, and Daine blinked.

Snap .

Wood sang through the air as Pierce and Gerrion loosed arrow and bolt. Any one of these shafts would have dropped a normal man but not the warforged. Its arms spread wide as it charged toward the kalashtar, and the impact of Pierce’s bolts barely broke its stride.

Lakashtai must have sensed its hostile intent in her last moments in its mind, and she tried to throw herself to the side, but she wasn’t fast enough. Too late, Daine realized the purpose of the creature’s disproportionately long limbs. It wrapped its arms around Lakashtai and twisted to face them, using the kalashtar as a shield

“I do not die after all,” the warforged hissed, “and you see no more. Drop weapons. I leave.”

The blades on the creature’s arms were digging into Lakashtai’s flesh, and blood dripped on the snow. Her mouth was twisted in pain, but she made no sound.

“Do it.” It was Lei. She stepped forward from behind Daine, her hands held out in front of her. “All of you. Throw away your weapons.”

Keldan Ridge . Daine nodded and tossed his blades aside.

“You’re hurting her,” Lei said, slowly walking toward the warforged. “Let me take her and ease her pain.”

Crystal eyes watched her, peering out from around Lakashtai’s waist. “No. We leave. Perhaps she survives, returns. Perhaps not.”

“You can’t take her with you.”

“You are mistaken.”

“No,” Lei said.

She reached out, and her fingers barely brushed the back of a mithral forearm. There was no burst of flame, no flash of light. The warforged simply fell apart. Connective cords snapped. Razor-sharp blades scattered across the snow like fallen leaves, leaving spatters of blood in their wake. In an instant, all that was left were chunks of wood and stone scattered around a bloody kalashtar. Lei didn’t even look at Lakashtai; she was watching the light fade from the crystal eyes of the warforged.

“I’m afraid I’m not,” she whispered.

Lakashtai stood stiffly, refusing to surrender to pain. The blades of the warforged had torn into her skin where it had grabbed her, and a few of these razors remained in the wounds. Lakashtai carefully drew each blade out, letting them fall to the snow. She closed her eyes, breathing calmly and deeply, and the blood stopped flowing from the gashes. A moment later the clotted blood flaked and fell away, leaving smooth, unblemished skin. The only hints that she’d ever been hurt were the slashes in her cloak and the tunic beneath. Despite her stoicism, she shivered slightly as the wind lashed her pale skin.

Daine found the sight slightly disturbing for reasons he couldn’t explain. He was used to supernatural healing; the touch of Jode’s dragonmark had saved his life on many occasions, and Lei had crafted a number of healing charms over the years, but Lakashtai-what limits did she have? What else could she do? He dug his swords out of the snow and strode over to her.

“Pierce is looking for tracks, Lei’s studying the warforged, and Gerrion is searching the boat,” he said. “Did you learn anything from our little friend?”

“We must leave quickly,” she said. “Lei did not kill it-him. This body is just a fragment of what we face. There are others, and they know we are here.”

Wonderful. Now warforged are after us? “Do you know what they want? Are they looking for me?”

“No. He did not know who you were, but there was recognition.” She glanced off into the snow, looking for the shape moving through the shadows. “Pierce. Only Pierce was of interest.”

He knew Pierce? Is that even possible? He remembered that moment of hesitation when he ordered the attack and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold.