James Wyatt: Dragon war

"Oh, Kelas," he said, forcing his eyes to the face. "I'm… I'm not sorry!" He slapped his own face. "I do not care!" He dropped to his knees. "You failed," he croaked, "so you died. Damn you!" He curled around the knot of anguish in his gut. "Damn you damn you damn you…"

He thought at first that the heavy hand on his arm belonged to Kelas, come to shake him out of sleep and inspect his body. He threw a child's frantic punch and scraped his knuckles against the metal plate of Cart's shoulder.

"Aunn?" Cart's voice was heavy with concern.

Aunn pressed his fists to his temples and tried to steady himself with a long breath. "Sorry," he said. "I… lost control. It won't happen again."

Cart lifted him to his feet and put a hand on his shoulder. "I understand."

Aunn looked at the warforged, and his confusion must have been plain on his face.

"I killed Haldren," Cart explained.

Aunn's eyes met Cart's, two green circles cut into the metal plate of his face, faintly glowing with inner light. The warforged normally seemed utterly inhuman, made of wood, metal, and stone assembled into an automaton designed for war. It was all the more surprising to see such empathy from him.

"Thank you," Aunn said.

Cart clapped Aunn's shoulder. "It's a good resemblance. You look just like Kelas."

Ashara stood by Gaven, a few yards away where Cart had left him. Gaven stared blankly at the ground. Cart had discovered that Gaven would stand with help, and he'd walk if he was led, but he remained otherwise unresponsive, his eyes wide but unseeing. Walking around the camp with Cart hadn't improved his condition, evidently. Ashara let go of his arm and came to stand before Aunn, and Gaven slowly sank into a crouch.

"Let me see," Ashara said. She examined Kelas's face carefully, lingering at his eyes, then repeated the examination of Aunn's assumed face. Aunn stared into her rich, brown eyes as she checked his.

"The eyes will give me away," he said, shaking his head.

"Kelas could never hold anyone's gaze," Ashara said. "He knew his secrets were there. You'll do fine."

Aunn looked away. Could that be true? He had always believed that Kelas overlooked the importance of the eyes in a disguise-he had never checked them carefully enough. But perhaps he had been afraid of revealing too much of himself.

"We can't leave the body here," Ashara said. "Is there any fire left in the forge?"

"I'll take care of it," Cart said. "You two start working on the circle." The warforged lifted Kelas's body over his shoulder and started down the ridge without looking back.

"Have you worked with a teleportation circle before, Aunn?" Ashara asked, crouching to examine the circle traced in the ground.

"No," Aunn said. A permanent portal was a dangerous way for a spy to travel, since the destination circle was usually a fixed location that was carefully watched. It was a bit like blustering one's way through a city's main gate, drawing as much attention to oneself as possible. Not his preferred way of doing things-and as he considered it, he questioned again whether their plan made any sense.

Ashara kneeled at the edge of the circle, retracing its outline with a slender silver rod. The dirt glowed faintly silver-blue where the rod passed. "You're a Royal Eye," she said. "Tell me about the teleportation circles in Fairhaven."

"House Orien has one." The same house that ran lightning rail lines across Khorvaire also maintained permanent circles in major cities, facilitating the instant transportation of couriers, and even goods, if the price was right.

"And its sigils are so closely guarded that even the queen probably can't use that one."

Aunn nodded. Each teleportation circle had a series of magical sigils engraved into it, identifying it as a unique destination for any portals that linked to it. Ashara must have been trying to reconstruct or verify the sigils traced into this circle, to make sure their destination was the same as the queen's.

"There's one by the university," Aunn said.

"Very public. I don't think the queen would use that one." Ashara stopped tracing lines in the ground, and most of the circle stood out clearly in the dirt, glowing softly. Aunn closed his eyes, and the lines of magic that formed the real circle appeared in sharper focus in his mind. But they were incomplete-a few of the sigils were clear, but the rest must have been wiped away in his fight with Kelas.

"Does House Cannith have a circle?" he asked.

"Yes, these could be the sigils for the Cannith circle. But that would mean…"

"That we'll arrive right on the doorstep of your House, where you're not exactly welcome."

"Right. With a warforged, an excoriate from House Lyrandar, and a dragonshard that's worth about three kingdoms to the right people."

Aunn wheeled to look at Gaven, but his hands were empty. "Where is the shard?" he said. Panic set his heart drumming.

"I have it." Ashara patted a pocket in her coat. "Believe me, I haven't forgotten about it, or the need to keep it safe. Can you imagine what people would do to get their hands on it?"

"First they have to know it exists." Aunn felt like an idiot for having forgotten it-his mind had been on Gaven, not on the shard that Cart took from his hands. It was a terrible oversight.

"Well then," Ashara said, "let's start with the people who know it exists-like Baron Jorlanna and Arcanist Wheldren. And Phaine d'Thuranni. Perhaps one of the dragons that flew out of here when Gaven wrecked the Dragon Forge. That's enough, but it won't stop there. Word will spread."

"Is that thing ready?" Cart called from somewhere behind Aunn.

Aunn saw Ashara brighten, and he smiled to himself. Strange as it was, her affection for Cart seemed genuine, and it was touching.

"The circle's ready," she said. "Now we just need-Oh! You're hurt!"

Aunn turned and saw Cart running toward them. A gash on Cart's arm, just above the top of his shield, streamed with brownish fluid. His axe was in his hand, blood staining the blade, and he shot a glance over his shoulder as Ashara hurried out of the circle to meet him.

"It's nothing," Cart said, pulling his arm away from Ashara's reach. "But we should get out of here now, if the circle's ready."

The tramp of running feet followed Cart up the hill, and Aunn reached for his mace. His hand grabbed empty air, and he glanced down to his belt, where Kelas's sword hung at his left side. He sighed and fumbled in his pouch for a wand.

"Get in the circle!" Ashara said. "I'll finish the sigils."

"But your House-" Aunn began.

"We'll cross that threshold when we get there." She knelt near the center of the circle, and Cart joined her, turning back to shield her from the soldiers who were cresting the ridge. Aunn took Gaven's arm, stood him up again, and led him into the ring of twisting lines and symbols. A soldier shouted and a spear stabbed into the ground just outside the circle. Aunn stretched his mind to feel the lines of magic coursing around the completed circle.

"Just one thing," Ashara said. "When we get there, nobody move."

Activating the circle took only a moment. Once again, Aunn and Ashara were joined together by the weave of magic formed by the circle, and their hands and minds darted over the loom in perfect unison. Aunn saw another spear clang against Cart's shield, and the world went black.

At first he thought they had failed, and somehow hurled themselves into the Outer Darkness beyond the world. Then his senses caught up with him: he felt the hard stone beneath his feet and hands, heard Ashara and Gaven breathing beside him, and noticed the magic weave of the Cannith teleportation circle. They had arrived in Fairhaven. He almost stood up, then remembered Ashara's warning.

"What now?" he whispered.