Keith Baker - Son of Khyber

“Are we close to home?”

Xu’sasar said nothing, but she clicked her tongue. Then Thorn saw the barricade. This too was goblin craft, a bunker of thick stone with merlin slits for archers. Thorn could hear people shifting behind the wall and caught a glimpse of a dark face watching her over the stock of a crossbow.

Careful, Steel told her. There’s a great deal of power in this place. There are wards to either side.

“Follow my footsteps,” Xu’sasar said at the same moment.

Thorn could feel the energy around her, and she spotted the marks carved faintly into the stone. Not a standard Kundarak glyph, but similar enough to those used by the House of Warding. Someone in the fortress ahead had been born into House Kundarak.

Xu’sasar led Thorn up to the barricade and around it. Half-a-dozen soldiers stood watch behind the wall, as motley an assortment as Thorn had seen in any mercenary crew. A massive half-orc in a battered breastplate towered over a gnome, a little man leaning on a crossbow taller than he was. A sour-looking dwarf wore a bandolier holding crystal-tipped rods and wands-the tools of an artificer. An archer wore the ragged uniform of an Aundairian commando, while the archer’s companion was clad in the armor of Breland’s elite infantry. All they shared was a sense of grim determination. Thorn had served in the Royal Guard before she’d been recruited into the King’s Citadel. She could recognize the recruit who would break in the first charge and the veteran who would hold the line with the last drop of his blood. These Tarkanans were a strange assortment, but they wouldn’t go down easily.

The hallway behind the barricade was open, but Thorn could see a portcullis ready to fall. The Tarkanans had chosen their sanctuary well. Narrow corridors. Wards and traps of unknown potency hidden across the hall. And a squad behind cover holding the gate. All in all, a strong position even without magic, and without a doubt the guards bore marks that made them dangerous opponents to an attacking force. It was exactly why she’d wanted to charm her way into the fortress. If she’d taken Steel’s earlier advice and had forced the location from Dreck, it would have been a challenging place to break on its own.

Fascinating, Steel whispered. It’s been well established that Sharn was built over Dhakaani ruins, but I’ve never heard of such a fortress.

Perhaps with good reason, Thorn thought. She couldn’t talk to Steel without Xu’sasar hearing, but she could always speak to both of them at once. “Some of the rubble in the last hallway-that was recent demolition, wasn’t it? You had to dig to find this place.”

Xu’sasar blew out her breath but said nothing more. But Thorn felt Steel’s approval.

Yes. Most of the damage to the tunnels above is ancient, likely dating to the War of the Mark. But the broken wall in the shrine of the Nine, that was recent work. Which begs the question of how they knew where to look-though I don’t expect your drow friend to answer that.

The hallway was narrow and sparse. Torches set into the walls shed pale cold fire light, and Thorn slipped Fileon’s glowing stone into a pouch on her belt. In truth, she hadn’t needed the light, but there had been no reason to let Xu’sasar or any of the others know of her ability to see in the shadows.

Thorn expected to get a tour of the place, perhaps to be shown to quarters. But it seemed Xu’sasar had little interest in prolonging their journey. Sound and smell revealed the nature of their destination before Thorn actually saw it. Laughter and voices raised in conversation echoed off the walls, and the smell of broth and ale filled the air. It was the canteen, and as they entered the room, Thorn saw a score of people spread among six long tables. Elves, humans, and halflings rubbed shoulders with dwarves, gnomes, and others, and accents and clothing suggested the diverse lands from which they hailed. There were a few who seemed to have suffered from their marks, much like Fileon-a man with rotting skin, a woman whose dragonmarked hands lacked fingers-but most seemed physically sound. The strangest figure in the common room was also the most familiar-the dwarf Brom, who sat on the end of a bench with his massive arm resting against the floor.

“Thorn!” he called to her. He’d changed out of his bloody clothes and seemed to have completely recovered from his ghastly injuries. “Come meet the wretches you’ll be bunking with. And the rest of you, give our youngest sister a fair welcome! The last man to cross her is feeding the beetles now, or I miss my guess.”

Thorn turned to ask Xu’sasar if she had other plans, but the dark elf had already slipped away. The crowd quickly engulfed Thorn. The ale was warm and weak, the bread and soup no match for the delicacies she’d had in the manor in Dragon Towers. But the company was certainly interesting. The woman missing her fingers was called Palmer, and she proved to be remarkably adept at manipulating objects despite her warped hands. Shrew was a halfling, who chose not to shake hands due to his poisonous touch. The most unusual was Whisper, an elf whose mark absorbed almost all sound in his immediate vicinity. He had to shout to be heard at all, and even then his voice was little more than a murmur.

It was Brom who stayed by her side, and the dwarf soon showed her around the fortress. It was smaller than she’d thought. Her guess was that there were a hundred people garrisoned in the subterranean keep. Barracks, armory, infirmary, storeroom, training hall. There was little of interest in any of these places. But there was one place Brom didn’t take her. Two guards stood at the top of a narrow stairwell leading down to a lower level of the citadel.

“What’s down there?” Thorn asked. She’d already guessed the answer, and Brom’s words confirmed it.

“The Son of Khyber takes his rest in the chamber below,” Brom told her. “Some say he sleeps on a bed of Khyber shards. Others say he has gathered the bones of dragons. Whatever the truth may be, dark Xu is the only one allowed in his chambers.”

“That doesn’t bother you?”

Brom laughed. “The stories say that it’s for our own good. Have you seen the way his mark reaches out from his skin? There’s those who swear that while Lord Daine sleeps, his mark can reach out of its own will and strike a man dead.”

“Not exactly an inspiring trait for a leader.”

The dwarf slapped the floor with his mighty palm. “Wait until you hear him speak, little Thorn. Wait until you see him in battle. He is a troubled one, yes, but he is not alone in that, not in this place. But there is a force within him. He walks the path of the Prophecy, or I miss my guess.”

“What about that Xu’sasar? She doesn’t even have a dragonmark, does she?”

Brom shrugged. “She was at Daine’s side when he came to us in Dragon Towers. I don’t know what binds the two of them together, but she never leaves his side unless he orders it.”

“Were you there? When he first arrived?”

Brom nodded. “Lady Tavin was our leader then. Daine walked into the hall as though he owned it, asked to see the ‘eldest child of Tarkanan.’ None of us had ever seen a mark of such size before, and he has such confidence. Lady Tavin came to the hall, and he said…” The dwarf tugged at his ragged beard, mismatched eyes closed in thought. “‘You have done your work well. You have prepared our people for the war that lies ahead. But it is I who must lead them in that struggle.’ Tavin took him to her quarters, and darkness fell before they emerged again. But when they returned, she ceded her role to him. It was he who led us to this place, who diverted funds from our business as a guild to establish these hidden fortresses.”