Marsheila Rockwell - Skein of Shadows

Comforting thought.

Sabira stood, nodding her thanks to Skavyr.

“I’d love to see Tarath Marad,” the dwarf said, grimacing in pain as he rose to join her. “Just imagine-the cool, sunless depths, solid rock instead of sand, and no wind save that created by the forge bellows. Ah, paradise! I would travel with you, but I can hardly move. Blast this sunburn!”

Greddark, seeing her stand, took his own leave of Jaidene.

“… fair Forgemaiden. Perhaps when I return, you can teach me some of those crafting techniques.” He winked at Sabira as he said it, and she realized she couldn’t tell if he was bluffing or not. For the first time, she wondered what it might be like to face him over a card table, or on a field where the stakes were quite a bit higher. She’d thought Aggar had sent the inquisitive along on this mission more to get him out of Khorvaire and away from the bounty hunters chasing him than because his skills would prove particularly useful. But after seeing the deft way he pumped Jaidene for information without her realizing it, Sabira was no longer quite so sure.

She watched him appraisingly as he crossed the stone patio to her side. Once there, he gave her a quick grin.

“What’s the matter, Sabira? Jealous?”

Sabira snorted.

“More like nauseous. Come on. It’s time to earn your pay.”

They backtracked to the spot where they’d disembarked from Kupper-Nickel’s airship, following behind the warforged and their laden sleds. The soarsleds were tethered to their handlers, so they couldn’t be caught by the wind and sent spinning across the gorge. The long leather straps also served as safety lines for the warforged; in the event that one of them slipped, their connection to the floating sleds would keep them from plunging to the canyon floor.

As they trekked up the side of the canyon, Sabira noticed that the rock changed color from a dull red to a bright yellow. Crystals sparkled in the canary-colored layer and the air was suffused with the distinct odor of rotten eggs as they passed by.

“Sulfur,” Greddark commented, as if Sabira wouldn’t recognize the smell. It permeated her dreams often enough-those of Korran’s Maw, where Ned had died, and those of the caverns under Frostmantle, where Orin Mountainheart had lost his life. She’d seen her share of corpses-many of them brought to that state by her own hand-and she was no stranger to the scent of decomposing flesh. But to her, the association between the sunny mineral and loss was so strong that death had only one smell, and it was not the sickly-sweet odor of decay; it was the sour aroma of sulfur.

“Lot of volcanic activity in this area at one time,” the dwarf continued, though she hadn’t asked him to elaborate. He paused to scrape some of the yellow crystals off into a vial from one of his belt pouches, filling it to the rim. As he stoppered the glass tube and returned it to its pouch, he saw her dark glance, and shrugged. “It’s very useful stuff-works in everything from healing balms to bombs. Jaidene tells me it goes for five sovereigns and some change back at the refuge. Of course, they prefer it mixed with bat guano, but I’m sure the pure stuff would fetch a comparable price.”

Sabira briefly considered offering him the bulk of his pay in the form of rocks and excrement, but then thought better of it. With her luck, he’d agree, and she’d be left to scrape his fee off the walls of bat caves while the tiny flying rodents nested in her hair. Host, but she hated the furry beasts! She still remembered the time Tilde’s pet bat had attacked her. What was that awful thing’s name, anyway? Scarwing? No, that would be too logical for Tilde, naming the creature after the jagged scar it bore on one of its wings, a remnant from some predator who unfortunately hadn’t finished the job before Tilde arrived on the scene to save the day in proper Deneith fashion. No, Shieldwing, that was it. It had happened shortly after she and Ned had become partners. Tilde hadn’t approved of her brother’s new assignment and had let Sabira know about her displeasure in no uncertain terms. Though the sorceress later claimed the bat had acted on its own, Sabira was sure the woman had set the little animal on her purposely, knowing she wouldn’t dare lift a hand against Ned’s sister’s familiar.

Funny. She’d give anything to see that stupid flying rat now, even if the damned thing was about to bite her on the cheek.

They left the sulfur deposits behind and soon reached the end of the ledge, though they were still fifty feet short of the canyon rim. Ropes dangled down from the edge, knotted at regular intervals to make climbing easier. But the warforged ignored them. Instead, one by one, they fiddled with some switches on the sleds’ control panels and the laden disks began to rise slowly toward the top of the gorge. As the sleds reached shoulder level, the warforged handlers would reach out to grab a second tether on the opposite side of the disk, then let the sled lift them up into the air, their bodies forming dangling metal Y’s beneath the crystalline circles. Sabira watched them float up into the air, almost like dandelion fluff blown by a wishful child. At the rim, unseen hands pulled the disks out of sight, presumably to unload them. Within a few moments, the only ones left on the ledge were her, Greddark, and ir’Kethras.

She reached for one of the ropes, but Brannan stopped her.

“Patience, Marshal. No need to climb when we can ride.”

Sure enough, three sleds soon came floating back down, a warforged handler guiding each, though this time from the top instead of the bottom. The trip back up the canyon wall was much quicker than she expected; the sleds rose faster now that they were no longer burdened by barrels of water and crates of food and other supplies. Sabira was glad she’d had some time to digest her breakfast beforehand. She didn’t think Brannan would find her puking over the edge of the disk particularly impressive.

A caravan of twelve camel-drawn wagons waited near the rim, sheltered in the lee of some large boulders. Several hands reached out to pull the sleds in as periodic blasts of wind screamed by thick with stinging sand. She could see now why the Lyrandar had been unwilling to bring Kupper-Nickel’s airship up this high-it would take a skilled pilot indeed to keep the vessel’s bound air elemental from heeding the siren call of its lesser, freer brethren.

As she and Greddark rejoined Guisarme, Jester, and Skraad and introduced them to ir’Kethras, Sabira noticed a drow hovering off to the side. Unlike Calyx or the Sulatar Sabira had faced, this elf bore no scars, tattoos, or war paint. His dark skin was perfectly smooth, as though it had been carved from a chunk of obsidian.

“Ah, Xujil!” Brannan said when he noticed the elf. “Come join us, and meet Donathilde’s friends! They’re the ones you’ll be guiding back down to try and rescue the poor girl.”

The elf moved forward, his black eyes taking them all in with unblinking intensity, but before he could speak, one of the warforged hurried over.

“Boss, I think we’ve got a problem. Dust storm moving in.”

Sabira looked to the north where the construct was pointing. Squinting, she realized that what she had at first glance assumed was a distant cliff was actually a towering wall of windborne dust, headed their way.

Brannan frowned.

“Back down?”

The warforged caravan master shook his head. “We could save the supplies and the party, but we’d have to leave the wagons and the camels up here, and it’ll take weeks to replace them.”

The Wayfinder’s frown deepened.

“Shelter here, then, or try for the Bones?”

“We’ll take losses here. The Bones are big enough to house the whole caravan, but we might not make it in time.”