Keith Baker - The City of Towers

There was a moment when they might have won the battle. The Cyran troops were seasoned veterans, though they had little choice in the matter. In these troubled times a man became a soldier the moment he was old enough to wield a scythe or a flail. The troop had been taken by surprise, but within moments of the initial assault the Cyrans had formed ranks and were holding their own.

A roll of thunder heralded the arrival of the stormship, then terror dropped from the night sky. Painted black, the sleek longboat herself was almost invisible from the ground, but the lightning flashing around the ring of elemental air holding the ship aloft flickered off the bottoms of the clouds, painting the battlefield in bright light and black shadows. Within moments a wave of arrows rained down upon the Cyran army.

Fiery explosions rocked the battlefield. Hundreds died, and the tide of battle altered.

Daine swore as he strode into the ruined camp, cursing Flame and Sovereign alike. Behind him, the warforged Pierce surveyed the carnage, two arrows held to his massive longbow. Jode examined the bodies of the fallen, but the halfling’s healing touch could not raise the dead.

“Saerath!” Daine shouted. “Saerath, if you’re already dead I swear I’ll find a path to Dolurrh so I can torture you for eternity!”

A pale face peered around the open flap of a singed tent. “But captain!” the balding half-elf whimpered, his face pale. “It’s an ambush! There are enemies all around! You know I’m not supposed to place myself at risk!”

Daine reached inside the tent, grabbed the collar of Saerath’s robe in one mailed fist, and hauled the wizard forward and almost off his feet. Though slightly built, Daine was surprisingly strong.

“Damn the Queen’s rules, Saerath! Ten more minutes and there won’t be an army left-and that includes you!”

He released his grip, and the portly half-elf staggered back a few steps. As if in answer to his words, a massive ball of flame came whirling out of the sky. Striking forty feet to their left, the explosion filled the night with the smell of burning flesh and the screams of men and horses.

Daine pointed at the stormship as it swept overhead. “We’ll serve as your shields, but I need that ship down now! Rules of war or no, if you don’t help, I’ll kill you myself!”

As if to put Daine’s vow to the test, an enemy soldier emerged from the smoke and into the flickering light of the burning tents. It was a creature out of an artificer’s nightmare-metal, darkwood, and leather merged into a human shape. Its mouth was filled with daggers, and its metal torso was studded with shards of sharpened steel; with every motion the spikes scraped again its joints, generating a painful whine. The warforged soldier held a gory morningstar in each hand, and seeing Daine’s badge of office it raised its bloody weapons and charged.

It never reached him. From his right a silver blur flew forward-Pierce, his own warforged companion. Pierce crashed into the larger warrior and knocked it flat on its back. Daine stayed with the wizard while Jode and Lynna raced to help Pierce. But even from the ground, the warforged was a deadly opponent. With one swift motion it hurled a morningstar into Lynna’s chest, tearing flesh and crushing bone. Before Pierce and Jode could respond, the armored beast rose to its feet and battle was joined in earnest. Sparks flew as the two warforged rained blows on one another. As Lynna’s life ebbed into the dirt, Daine looked back at the cowering wizard. “Now , Saerath! The ship’s making another pass, and this may be the last chance we have!”

Trembling, the wizard looked up at the approaching stormship. He wove mystical patterns with shaking fingers, whispering words of unbinding and dismissal. As he finished the incantation a ball of flame fell from the sky, struck, and the world disappeared in fire.

Lei saw the fireball strike the center of the camp, and she wondered if Saerath had been caught in the blast. Alive or dead, he’d accomplished his task. As powerful as the stormship was, it relied on a web of delicate enchantments, and the abjurer had managed to disrupt this tapestry of spells. The ring of stormclouds wrapped around the waist of the ship buckled. Bereft of its elemental propulsion the ship plummeted toward the ground. The disruption was temporary, but it lasted long enough. The stricken stormship came crashing down, timber and bodies scattering across the Cyran camp. There was a gust of hurricane wind as the elemental was released from its bonds, and Lei staggered against the gale. But even as a ragged cheer went up from the Cyran survivors, a second wave of warforged emerged from the night.

Two of the enemy soldiers-a massive warrior with a long cleaver fused to one arm and a smaller scout with a dagger in each hand-reached Lei’s position. Like Saerath, Lei was a non-combatant. As a member of House Cannith, she maintained the warforged and other magical weapons that the Cyran army had purchased from her house. According to the rules of war, she was a forbidden target-and likewise, she was not allowed to participate in any violence. But the enemy wasn’t playing by the rules. Paralyzed with fear and surprise, Lei just watched as the soldier raised its razored arm. Having worked with warforged all her life, it seemed impossible that she would die this way. She saw her reflection in the blade as it fell toward her face, but at the last moment she was shoved aside by a small figure-Jholeg, the goblin scout. Behind him Cadrian, Donal, and Mal moved in to engage the warforged with their halberds. Jholeg grinned at her, even as he darted back in to stab at the construct’s leathery guts with his curved blade. He dodged a cleaver blow that would have removed his head, then made a quick thrust at the knee of the armored giant.

Lei had never seen warforged like these before. Despite their heavy armor, these ’forged moved with an unnatural speed, and they had strangely diverse set of weapons and designs.

“Get out of here, Lady Lei!” Cadrian shouted. “We’ll-”

His order was cut short as the ’forged’s cleaver sheared through his helmet and split his skull. Mal was next to fall, and as Lei saw his blood dripping from the blades of the warforged something inside Lei snapped. Almost without thinking, she walked up to the massive construct. Ducking under a blow intended for Jholeg, she reached out and placed her hand on the warforged’s chest. She concentrated, and time seemed to recede as her senses expanded. She could feel the layers of magic binding the myriad components of the warforged together, the mystical energies that gave the creature thought and motion. Since she was a child she had been taught to weave these webs, to create magical artifacts and bring life to the lifeless. Now, with Cadrian’s ruined face fixed in her mind, she hardened her thoughts into a blade and struck at the glowing core of the mystic web. There was a moment of timeless discontinuity, and then she was back in the battle. As she removed her hand the warforged soldier simply fell apart, collapsing into a heap of metal and stone.

Although the giant was down, the smaller warforged scout was still on its feet. Still covered with the blood of her friends, it danced straight for her like a ghastly silver puppet. There was a flash and a warm sensation across her belly, and she found herself falling to the ground. As the fires and the sounds of war grew faint, she was vaguely aware of a new group of people arriving on the scene, of the tiny construct being overwhelmed and shattered. But it was all so far away …

A cooling sensation filled her, icy water running through her veins. The world snapped back into clear focus. Jode was kneeling over her, the dragonmark on his head glowing with a pale blue light.