James Wyatt - In the Claws of the Tiger

A hippogriff swooped low over the airship, and Janik saw what had drawn the woman’s attention. A man was on the hippogriff’s back, not strapped into a saddle and harness, but standing . Just as Janik realized what was happening, the man jumped.

Janik pulled his short blade from its sheath and leaped toward the wheelhouse, where the windwright pilot steered the ship. The jumper landed hard on its roof-hard enough to drive the airship’s stern downward. Janik stumbled as he ran across the rocking deck toward the wheelhouse, but he kept his feet. He watched the man drop from the roof to the stairway leading up from the deck, and saw one of the House Lyrandar guards, stationed there to protect the pilot from just such an event as this, crumple under the man’s blade. Janik reached the bottom of the steps as the man disappeared into the wheelhouse.

He sprang up the stairs by twos, just in time to see the other Lyrandar guard fall, his neck slashed by a broad arc from the killer’s sword. The windwright stood clutching the helm, his knuckles white and his eyes wide with terror. The attacker turned, and Janik got his first look at the man’s face-except he was not a man. A featureless mask of metal formed his face, and beneath a black cloak, his body was similarly composed of metal, wood, stone, and strange sinewy cords. His bastard sword was the gleaming silver-black of adamantine, with gold tracings etched into the blade. He gave Janik the merest of glances, then turned his attention to the windwright. “Martell,” he said as he stalked toward the terrified pilot, “they told me you’d be the first one here.”

Janik did not waste time responding. He leaped over the first guard’s body toward the warforged, hoping to push him away from the pilot and into the bulkhead. He ducked under the swinging adamantine sword and slammed hard into the killer’s chest, but his opponent didn’t even miss a step. Janik tottered backward and slashed at the thing’s elbow, aiming for sinews between hard plates. The warforged jerked his arm to the left and Janik’s blade clattered against the hard plating on the forearm. The bastard sword went up and slashed down on the windwright’s skull, sending a spray of blood into the air as the pilot collapsed.

The airship lurched as the elemental bound into a fiery ring surrounding the ship felt the hands holding its reins fall slack. The warforged stumbled. Janik pressed the momentary advantage, slashing at his opponent’s neck. The adamantine sword batted Janik’s smaller blade away.

“You wield your blade with skill, Martell,” the warforged said, his voice strangely human coming from such an inhuman frame, “but there is no strength behind your blows.”

“You’re giving me fencing lessons?” Janik decided to buy time by letting the warforged have his conversation. “How do you know my name?”

“I know all about you, Martell.” The killer’s voice was mocking as he launched a fierce offensive with his whirling blade. “Your life and loves, your strengths, and especially your weaknesses.” Janik dodged and parried the relentless assault, his breath coming faster with the exertion. “Captain Kavarat told me.” The voice of the warforged betrayed no hint of fatigue.

Krael Kavarat, Janik thought. I should have guessed.

When Maija had left him, she had delivered the Ramethene Sword right into the hands of Krael Kavarat, an officer of the Emerald Claw who had been Janik’s rival and enemy for a decade.

First a letter from Dania, now an assassin sent by Krael.

“It seems my past is determined to catch up with me,” he said. Striking the adamantine blade as hard as he could to knock it wide, he slashed from his right, trying to drive the warforged toward the stairway. Momentarily surprised by Janik’s renewed barrage, his foe stepped closer to the stairs, turning his back to the wheelhouse’s only entrance.

Just where I want you, Janik thought with grim satisfaction. Now we wait.

He fell into a defensive stance, intent on keeping the adamantine sword away from him.

“So Krael sent you to kill me,” he said. Continuing the conversation was the best way to keep the killer distracted, he figured, though speaking had become a real effort.

“That’s right. Crashing the airship was my idea, though.” There was a trace of a smile in the voice of the warforged, though his face was expressionless.

Crashing the airship?

Since the initial lurch at the death of the windwright, Janik had not paid attention to the ship’s movement, but he suddenly noticed that the deck was slanted toward the prow.

Better finish this up quickly, he thought, though he had little hope of success.

Janik’s patience was rewarded as another man appeared in the wheelhouse doorway, almost directly behind the warforged. It was Kelas, the Aundairian spy, bastard sword in hand. His eyes flicked from Janik to his opponent, to the dead guards and the pilot, and quickly back to the warforged. Swiftly and silently, he stalked up behind the warforged and brought his sword down in a deadly arc. At the last instant, the killer twisted and the sword cut into his shoulder instead of cleaving his skull. Roaring in surprise and pain, the warforged spun around to retaliate-and Janik took the opportunity to hack with his short blade at his opponent’s shoulder. This time, it was a solid blow. The warforged nearly dropped his sword, but quickly shifted it to his left hand.

“About time you got here, Kelas,” Janik said, smiling at the Aundairian.

Kelas nodded, his eyes wide and fixed on their opponant, the warforged had turned sideways, and Janik could see that he was trying to keep both humans in view while sizing up his opportunities for escape.

“Whose idea was it to get yourself trapped in a small room with two opponents?” Janik said. “Probably Krael’s. He’s never been too concerned about the lives of his minions-especially those who fail.”

The warforged had lost interest in idle conversation. But Janik’s words apparently reminded him of his purpose, and he renewed his assault on Janik, swinging his sword left-handed with undiminished strength, trying not to expose his back to Kelas. Again Janik focused on defense until Kelas could distract the warforged. Just as Kelas maneuvered behind their opponent, the warforged took a halfhearted swing at Janik and then rushed for the door. Kelas’s sword glanced off the back plates of the warforged, then their foe was out the door. Janik saw him knock the Aundairian artificer off the steps as he bolted down. Hurrying to the door himself, Janik watched the warforged run to the bulwarks and throw himself over the side.

For an instant, Janik prepared to rush to the bulwarks himself, to see what happened to the assassin. But a commotion on the deck wrenched his attention to a more immediate concern. Passengers clung to each other, sought shelter belowdecks, or knelt down and prayed for deliverance. The ring of fire that normally burned steadily leaped and crackled as if trying to break free of the magical bonds that held it in place around the ship. From the deck where the warforged had knocked him flat, the artificer cried out, “The airship’s going to crash!”

Janik spun around and hurtled up the stairs to the wheelhouse, pushing past Kelas in the doorway. Standing over the fallen windwright pilot, he examined the helm of the airship. “I wonder how you use this thing,” he said to himself.

“No pressure, Janik,” Kelas called from the doorway, “but if you’re going to figure it out, you’d better do it soon.”

Hearing the fear in the Aundairian’s voice, Janik gripped the wheel. He felt pressure at the edges of his mind again, similar to the artificer’s divination only a short time ago. Janik’s instinct was to snap his mind shut as he had before, but he forced himself to receive this contact. It was a wordless voice of rage and rebellion, and Janik recognized it as the elemental bound in a fiery ring around the airship.