Matt Forbeck - Marked for Death

“Where is everyone?” Kandler whispered.

“Patrol, most likely,” Xalt said. “Construct is a base of operations, not a home. We’re rarely all here at the same time.”

Kandler stared around him at the eerily empty platforms. “What do the people here do then?”

“Study, train, undergo repairs. They gather to watch our finest warriors battle each other in the main arena for sport, then it’s up to artificers like myself to piece the losers back together.”

“That’s barbaric,” said Sallah.

“It’s the curse of being a young people,” Xalt said. “We are still struggling to find our way. Most of us aren’t much older than five years old, although very few are less.”

“The Treaty of Thronehold barred the creation of more warforged,” Sallah said. “All known creation forges were ordered destroyed.”

“Good thing, too,” Burch said softly.

“It was a crime,” Xalt said. Kandler could tell by the artificer’s tone that this was no joke to him.

“Why is that?” asked Sallah.

“It was an atrocity. To deny a people the means to reproduce… it is one of the reasons the Lord of Blades finds so many of the warforged willing to flock to his banner.”

“But the treaty granted you all the rights of sentient beings,” the lady knight said.

“We were already sentient beings,” Xalt said. “That part of the treaty only recognized what was already a fact.”

Sallah frowned. “But we couldn’t let every country continue to produce warforged without restriction,” she said. “They would have outnumbered the other peoples in a matter of years.”

“Centuries, perhaps. It’s not so easy to create a warforged as you might think.”

“Still, I think you can understand the fear.”

Xalt nodded. “But I find it hard to accept the actions taken. Look around you, and you can see the direct results of these restrictions. The Lord of Blades is in the process of creating a nation of disaffected soldiers. Someday, the warforged of the Mournland will grow restless in their harsh homeland and start to look outside their borders. What do you think will happen then?”

Sallah shook her head.

Xalt turned to look past Kandler and Burch at the lady knight. “A conflict that will make the hundred years of the Last War seem like a pit fight.”

Kandler raised his eyebrows at Burch. “What do you say?” the justicar asked.

“Think more about Esprл and less about politics,” the shifter answered.

“I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

Burch smiled and lowered his head. He snorted and snuffed for a moment, flexing his arms and twisting his head. When he looked back up, his eyes were wider and more yellow than ever, and his nose a bit wider too. He sniffed at the air and then ran his tongue across his sharp, pointy teeth.

“What’s the word?” Kandler asked.

Burch turned his wolf’s eyes on his friend. “Esprл’s scent,” he said. “Roses. I got it.”

“You will like it in Karrnath,” Te’oma said to Esprл across the single table in the tiny room, “for as long as we’re there. Of course, after the Mournland, I think anything would be an improvement.”

The girl glared up at the changeling but didn’t say a word. She’d been utterly silent since the two had slipped into Construct just before what passed for dawn in the Mournland, and it was starting to grate on Te’oma’s nerves.

“It’s a long trip not to say a word the entire way,” Te’oma said. There was still no response.

The changeling sighed and stood up. She knew she’d been fortunate to find this abandoned warforged shelter-it was too bare for her to think of it as a home-before any of the guards had spotted them, but she was already tired of being in the dim room. She’d spent time in jail cells that were roomier and more welcoming.

Warforged needed no rest, water, or food-three things Te’oma wanted badly, and she suspected Esprл did as well. The girl had dozed with her head on the table for a bit, but Te’oma was too wary of every sound she heard outside their borrowed quarters to let sleep take her. The constant tromping of the walkers’ feet beneath the city’s floor didn’t help any, although it lent the entire place a gentle sway that Te’oma thought might have been able to rock her to sleep under more pleasant circumstances.

The changeling started to pace the room. The place was so small that she had to turn around after every few steps.

“I’m thirsty,” Esprл said.

The sound startled the changeling, although she tried not to show it. She covered by leaning across the table at the girl and saying, “Ah! She speaks!”

Esprл ignored Te’oma’s sarcasm. “I’m hungry, too.”

The changeling sat down in the rough wooden chair across the unpolished table from Esprл. She looked at the walls and ceiling around her, fashioned from thin panels of wood painted with something the color of ash. A flimsy wardrobe stood in the corner, empty but for a pair of threadbare tabards. The only light in the room streamed in through a high window above the place’s sole door, which was made of the same material as the walls.

The utilitarianism of the warforged of Construct astonished Te’oma. As a changeling, appearances were vital to her. She spent much of her spare time studying the way others looked and behaved, how they spoke, and what they wore. It seemed to her that imitating a warforged would be a simple thing, as most of them seemed almost identical, various styles of interchangeable cogs in a long-defunct war machine-if only she could make her skin seem like metal.

Te’oma leaned across the table, looked into Esprл almond-shaped, blue eyes, and said, “Why don’t you do something about it?”

The girl sat up straight in her chair with an offended look on her face. “Isn’t that your job? You’re not much of a kidnapper.”

Te’oma stared at the girl for a moment with wide eyes, then threw back her head and laughed. “Believe it or not, I don’t kidnap many children,” she said. “I wasn’t aware of the protocol.”

“What do you usually do then?”

Te’oma stopped laughing. “What do you mean?”

She suspected the girl was just trying to get her off guard so she could attempt an escape, but Esprл had been silent for so long that Te’oma was willing to indulge her for a moment.

“What do you spend your time doing when you’re not kidnapping innocent children?”

Te’oma flashed the girl a savage smile. “Don’t play innocent with me,” she said, leaning closer across the table. “I know all about you.”

Esprл screwed her face up at that. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Te’oma stood and walked around the table like a hunting cat on the prowl. As she crept behind Esprл, she pulled the girl’s collar back and looked down her shirt at the dragonmark that lie hidden there.

“Hello, killer,” Te’oma said.

Esprл jumped as if the changeling had stabbed her. “Get away!”

Te’oma danced away, feigning fear. “Don’t kill me,” she said in a falsetto tone. “Just like all those people you killed in your dreams.”

All the color drained from Esprл’s face.

“That’s right,” Te’oma said as she moved to put the table between her and the girl again. “I know all about that. Your mind is an open book to me. It’s been an interesting read. A little short though.”

“Shut up,” Esprл said sullenly.

Te’oma leaned across the table again and leered into the girl’s eyes. “You might as well face up to it,” she said softly. “You are a killer. Just like me.”

“I am nothing like you,” Esprл said, her voice just a bit louder.