Matt Forbeck - Marked for Death

The crowd booed.

“If our champion wins, they die.”

The cheers returned louder than ever.

Bastard turned to the justicar. “How are you called?”

“Kandler?” said Sallah. “Who said that he would be our champion? It should be me.”

The justicar glared at the lady knight. “You’re a fine knight,” he said, “but I’m a better duelist.”

Sallah scoffed at that. Bastard ignored her and said to Kandler, “How many people have you killed in a duel?”

Kandler looked at Burch. “What would you say?”

“I lost count a while back. A score? More?”

“More, I think.” Kandler looked at Sallah tenderly. “People find out you’re something special, they come looking for you.”

“You are the breather champion,” Bastard said. “Kandler, is it?”

The justicar nodded, avoiding Sallah’s frustrated gaze.

Bastard spoke into the golden horn again. “The breather champion shall be Kandler!”

The crowd booed.

“The warforged champion shall be Gorgan!”

The assembled warforged roared so loud that even Bastard covered his ears.

“Who’s that?” Kandler asked. “Gorgan?”

Burch jerked his head at the arena. Kandler watched as one of the titans lumbered out into the middle of the floor and raised both of its weapon-hands in the air, soaking up the audience’s cheers.

When Te’oma reached the arena, she knew she d found the kind of trouble she’d been looking for. As she emerged into the arena, the roar of the crowd nearly stunned her senseless, but she managed to keep her wits about her. She reached out with her mind to her cloak, and with each step across the sawdust-covered floor her wings unfurled further.

By the time the changeling reached the center of the arena, the batlike appendages had her aloft. Before anyone in the arena could do something about it, she was soaring over their heads, the beating of her leathery wings pulling her higher into the sky and over the arena’s far wall.

As Te’oma banked down over the roofs of the warforged apartments beyond the arena, her mind wandered back to the day her patron had granted her the privilege of being bonded to her bloodwings. At first, the idea of being bonded-physically, mentally, and permanently-to the fibrous, living creature had repulsed her. She had heard tales of others whose bonding had not gone so well. Symbionts of that sort possessed their own animal intelligence, and sometimes their will proved more powerful than that of their hosts. As a psion, Te’oma had trained her mind to be dominant over all of those around her, but being attached to a symbiont potentially meant fighting that battle every hour of every day for the rest of her life.

Fortunately, Te’oma’s bloodwings had been young, fresh, and pliable. They had submitted totally to her will, so much so that they were even willing to shrivel up into little shreds concealed beneath her shirt when she so commanded.

Te’oma hung low over Construct, working her wings hard to move slowly. She had seen archers lining the arena’s upper bleachers. If she could stay below their line of sight, she would be unassailable.

As she flew, she reached out with her mind, scanning for the thoughts of the one she hunted-Esprл. She knew the justicar wouldn’t have abandoned the girl long before entering the arena to rescue his friends, so she guessed that Esprл was nearby. The shifter and knight had been with him, but not the warforged who had burst into the apartment. That meant this warforged was most likely with Esprл.

Thoughts of all sorts flitted through the changeling’s head. Nearly all of them came from nearby warforged who were wondering what was happening in the arena. Te’oma discarded these thoughts as she encountered them. She found them uniformly cold and lifeless. Humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and especially the halflings were a jumble of thoughts, emotions, desires, all mingling together like a muddied pool. Warforged were more like a stream-just as many particles perhaps, but all separate and flowing in the same direction. She found their single-mindedness disturbing.

After a few minutes, she risked swinging around closer to the stretch of open area that skirted the arena, and she heard a young girl’s mind cry out-Kandler!

The changeling smiled. She looked down and saw the warforged with the dirty white tabard standing next to the elf-girl as they leaned against an empty merchant’s stand. They gazed up at the arena’s wall, allowing Te’oma to glide in silently and land on the next street over. As she willed her wings to return to their cloaklike guise, she pulled out a black-bladed knife and listened, then slipped into the merchant’s stand via its rear counter.

“I’m sure your stepfather will be all right,” the warforged said to Esprл. “We just need to wait here to find out for sure.”

“Can’t you take me in to watch?” the girl asked.

The warforged opened his mouth to speak, and Te’oma saw her chance to strike. “Such violent places are no place-”

“What is it, Xalt?” Esprл asked. “What-?” She cut herself off as the warforged turned and she saw the black knife in his back.

Te’oma leaped over the merchant’s counter and kicked the warforged in the face. He turned, fell flat on his face, and did not move again.

Esprл screamed and whirled to run, but Te’oma was quicker. She reached out and grabbed the girl by her arm. Shrieking, Esprл slapped and clawed and punched. Te’oma caught her other arm and shook her.

“Stop that! Stop it, Esprл! You know it has to be this way!”

“You killed him! You killed-!”

“No!” Te’oma gave the girl a good, hard shake. “No, Esprл!”

The fight went out of the girl. She sagged to her knees and burst into tears.

“I just took the fight out of him,” Te’oma said. “He’ll live. Killing a warforged isn’t that easy.”

“H-he’s not dead?”

Keeping a tight hold on the girl, Te’oma turned to look at the warforged. He wasn’t breathing, but that meant nothing. Warforged didn’t breathe.

“The knife was just to get his attention,” she said, though she had no idea if it was true. It didn’t matter, as long as the girl believed it. “I needed him shocked long enough to knock him senseless. He may… leak a little, but he’ll be fine.”

“Where’s Kandler?” Esprл asked.

Te’oma smiled as she pulled the knife from the warforged and slipped it back into its sheath. She put an arm around the girl. “Still in the arena,” she said. “I expect he’ll be dead soon, along with the others.”

Esprл tried to break away from Te’oma. The changeling grabbed her by the arm and pulled the girl back in. “I have to help him!” Esprл said.

Te’oma shook her head. “You’ll just get yourself killed!”

Esprл glared at the changeling. “What do you plan to do with me now?” she asked.

“We need to find a way off this city,” the changeling said. “But that’s not enough.” She started walking, the girl in tow. “I’m not carrying you all the way to Karrnath. We’ll need horses, food, and-” Te’oma stopped in her tracks and stared out toward the horizon. “I’d wondered what had happened to that.”

Esprл squinted in the direction of the changeling’s line of sight. “Is that the sun breaking through there?” the girl asked.

“The sun never shines in the Mournland,” the changeling said with a grin, but then she remembered the light that had cascaded over that old elf wizard’s tower. “Almost never anyhow. That’s the ring of fire around an airship, and it’s coming this way.”

Te’oma looked back over her shoulder at the arena. “Yes,” she said as she pulled the girl along toward the towering wall. “This might be something worth sticking around for.”