Keith Baker - The City of Towers

“You can’t actually cut away a dragonmark, can you?” Daine asked.

“No, you can’t actually take the mark away. The flaying was a symbolic gesture-though many excoriates must have died during the process. The social implications are what matters. An excoriate is no longer part of the house. Other members of the house are not to speak with him or aid him in any way. He is barred from all enclaves and estates. He cannot marry within the house. If he claims to be an heir of the house, he can be prosecuted under the laws of Galifar. It’s a serious charge, and it takes the authority of a baron or a house council to order it.”

Daine approached Lei and gently put his hand on her back. “Lei,” he said softly. “Why would they do this to you? What have you done?”

Lei pushed away from Pierce and Daine. “I don’t know!” she howled. “All I’ve ever done I’ve done for the house! How could they do this to me? ”

Blind with rage, she made a savage gesture with her left hand. There was a glitter of silver, and Daine realized that she’d hurled her signet off the great ring of Dalan’s Refuge to fall thousands of feet to the peaks below.

Jode sighed. “That would have bought us at least a night’s lodging.” He shrugged. “Look, Captain, we need to get moving if we’re going to get a roof over our heads.” He made a sidelong gesture with his head. “And I think the natives are getting restless.”

Indeed, a few Brelish guardsmen were watching them from a hundred feet away, and one was idly toying with his crossbow.

“You’re right.” He sighed. “Lei … Lei, we’ll sort this out. Just … give it time. Pierce, could you …” He gestured at Lei, and the warforged soldier carefully picked her up.

“Take heart, my lady,” he rumbled, as they began the long journey down. “This battle has just begun.”

Rasial hated the deep tunnels of Khyber’s Gate. The smell of sewage and smoke filled the air, and the cold torches were few and far between, leaving long pools of shadow in the subterranean passages. But business was business. He stood beneath the flickering torch, cleaning his fingernails with his dagger and trying to look calm.

“Rasial?” The voice from the shadows was soft and oily. A moment later, three people emerged from the darkness. As promised, they were unarmed. The man in the lead wore a tattered brown cloak and his face was hidden by a deep cowl. A man and a woman stood behind him, dressed in roughspun cloth patched with burlap. They were covered with dirt and scabs, and their faces were almost devoid of expression. How did I ever come to this? Rasial thought.

“Yeah.”

“Rasial … Tarkanan?”

“That’s me.”

“I thank you for meeting us so promptly. I trust you have the merchandise that we discussed?” The voice of the hooded man seemed to shift slightly every time he spoke … it was barely noticeable, but the pitch and inflection changed from moment to moment.

“Yeah, I got it.” Rasial tossed the small pouch in the air and caught it with his left hand, revealing the glistening black dragonmark and the sores upon his palm.

The hooded man seemed hissed. “Yesss, good.”

“The question is if you can uphold your end of our bargain,” said Rasial. “Gold is a start, but until you prove that you can deliver on your promises, this-” he tossed the bag and caught it in his right hand-“stays with me. And if you’re thinking of trying anything stupid-” he extended his left hand, and for a moment the shadows seemed to be drawn toward his palm-“I’d stop now.”

The hooded man laughed, a horrible, gurgling sound. For a moment his face was revealed by the torchlight, and Rasial gasped. It was a horrible ruin, with exposed muscle that seemed to pulse and twitch with his laughter.

“Oh, have no fear, Rasial,” the stranger said. “All your problems will be over soon enough.”

His two companions leaped forward without a sound, moving with unnatural speed and in perfect unison. It was clear Rasial couldn’t outrun them, so he hurled the pouch at the wall of the tunnel, hoping to smash its contents and steal their victory, but to his shock a fleshy tentacle lashed out from the spokesman’s arm and snatched the purse from the air. The next thing he knew, the man with the vacant stare was right in front of him, slashing at him with claws that had grown from his hands.

What were these people?

Rasial spun to the side, but even as he did he felt a burning pain along his ribs. The stranger’s claws tore into his side.

But now it was Rasial’s turn. He slammed his left hand into the man’s face, letting his power flow through his palm and into his attacker. As always, the pain was excruciating, but as bad as it was for him, it was far worse for his victim. The stranger cried out-the first sound he’d made-and fell to his knees, clutching at his face. Rasial smiled. But he had forgotten about the woman. The next thing he knew there was a sharp pain in the pack of his neck, and he found himself falling.

Darkness stole his senses before he hit the ground.

They must have walked half a mile before they found the lift. Now they were slowly dropping toward the bottom of Sharn on a large disk of floating metal. Daine tried to ignore the fact that the only thing standing between him and a drop of two thousand feet was a thin, invisible field of arcane energy. Pierce was carrying Lei cradled in his arms. She had finally fallen asleep. Daine stood at the center of the disk, talking quietly to Jode.

“How do we even know this is real? What if that whetstone of a warforged was playing some sort of a joke?”

Jode shook his tiny head. “It’s just not something you joke about, captain. Especially a warforged, doubly so a servant in the house of the lord she’s to be married to. That ’forged belongs to the household, and if the lord wanted to melt him down, he could.”

“What about Hadran, then? Could he have put the ’forged up to it? Or condemned Lei to get out of the marriage? They haven’t seen each other for years, right?”

“No, it still doesn’t make sense. Lei’s family died with Cyre. If Hadran wants out, who’s going to challenge him? Besides, there are established grounds for excoriation. You know that as well as I do. It’s not something you do on a whim, lord or no lord.”

Daine sighed. “Meanwhile, we’re high and dry. So much for Lord Hadran’s fabled generosity. And if Sharn is anything like Metrol, I imagine the guards won’t like us setting up camp on the street corner.”

Jode smiled. “Leave it to me, Captain. Have I ever let you down?”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just ask me that.”

Once a residential district, High Walls had been converted to serve as a prison-a fortified ghetto for those deemed a security risk to Breland and Sharn. Now that the war was coming to a close, the gates were open and the portcullises were raised, but the guards remained, and black-cloaked archers walked the walls that gave the region its name. Beyond the gates, the district was a dismal sight. Walls were cracked, windows broken, cobblestones had even been lifted from the streets. The few people who were still about were filthy folk in torn and soiled clothes, watching from alleys or peering out of shattered windows.

“Well, it looks like there aren’t any guards to keep us from sleeping in the street, but I wouldn’t recommend it,” Jode said. “Seems to me like our friend Morgalan would be right at home here.”

“What exactly are we looking for here?” asked Daine.

“I’ll know it when I see it.” A few moments later Jode held up a hand, motioning them to stop. “This’ll do.”