Marsheila Rockwell - The Shard Axe

For my three wonderful sons, who put up with a lot of pizza, pleas for “Quiet!” and postponed Mommy time so that this book could be written: you guys make it all worthwhile.

This novel almost died more than once. The fact that it survived to sit on a bookshelf instead of languishing on my hard drive is due in no small part to the heroic efforts, staunch support, and spot-on advice of my wonderful editors, Erin Evans and Nina Hess. Thank you. The fact that it is so much better now than when I first typed the words “Chapter One” so long ago is due largely to the keen eyes, constructive criticism, and encouragement of a number of people, most notably Rebecca S. DeMoss, Erin M. Hartshorn, Stuart Etter, Steven Wilber, Jeff LaSala, Samantha Henderson, Joe Rixman, and Jaime Lee Moyer. Thank you. The fact that it even remotely resembles the world of Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimitedis due both to the helpful folks at Turbine and the devoted players who posted detailed walkthroughs on YouTube for newbs like me, especially James Gessner. Thank you. And the fact that I survived to write it at all is due almost entirely to the love and long-suffering of my husband and children (and, of course, Catherine). Thank you, most of all.

Sabira Lyet d’Deneith toyed with the glass in her hand as she watched her quarry from the far end of the Wavecrest Tavern’s semicircular bar. The warm tang of ironspice drifted up to tickle her nose and she grimaced, wishing again that she were not here on business. She’d been nursing this same tumbler of Frostmantle Fire for almost an hour now, and she wanted nothing more than to toss it back and signal for the tavernkeep to bring her another, and leave the bottle this time. But even as diluted as it was—and watered down was the only way to get it this far from Khorvaire and the Mror Holds—the potent dwarven spirit still had a dangerous bite that she remembered well from her days on the Karrnathi border. She couldn’t afford to indulge now, but maybe later, after she’d arrested this latest piece of offal.

Her gray eyes narrowed as she studied him over the rim of her glass. Riv Caldamus—probably a spy, definitely a murderer, and also, apparently, a card shark. The changeling—who today was masquerading as a fair-haired human “artifact collector” from Sharn—sat at a table near the bar, dealing out another hand of Jarot’s Bluff. He’d already knocked two players out of the game, and he had a respectable pile of coins in front of him. The pile was half again the size of that of his nearest competitor—a florid, flour-coated man who could only be the village baker—one of the Storrs, judging from the bald pate and paunch. The other remaining player, whose stack was smaller still, was an elf she didn’t know—a ranger by the looks of him, and a frustrated one at that. From the way he chewed on the inside of his cheek, he obviously didn’t care any more for this hand than he had for the last half dozen Caldamus had dealt him. Whether the elf suspected he was being swindled or merely thought he was having a run of bad luck, Sabira couldn’t say, but she was convinced the changeling was cheating. She just couldn’t figure out how.

He wasn’t dealing from the bottom of the deck or using any holdout device she could detect, either hidden up one of his long sleeves or under the table. And other than the players, herself, and Prynn, her partner for this job, no one in the common room had been there throughout the entire game. So the changeling couldn’t be working with an associate. She didn’t bother counting the serving girls or the tavernkeep—there was no chance Sigmund Bauerson or his daughters would collude with an outsider to cheat the locals who were their main source of income. If anything, it would be the other way around. This also precluded the changeling using marked cards, since the deck belonged to the tavern.

Magic was always a possibility, but the reports she’d gotten from Stormreach’s Sentinels Tower hadn’t indicated Caldamus was a practitioner of anything more arcane than subterfuge and disguise. Of course, if the changeling were a spy, he’d have access to all sorts of artificer-wrought toys, any number of which could give him a definite edge in a card game.

Not that it mattered. Whatever clever gadgets Caldamus might be carrying, they’d be no match for a pair of determined Marshals.

Sabira’s latest partner had slipped in unnoticed a few moments ago and was waiting in the shadows by the tavern door, crossbow in hand. Without glancing over at him, Sabira laid a silver sovereign on the bar, their agreed-upon sign. Pushing her stool back, she reached down for the shard axe propped against the bar, her hand curving reflexively around the familiar leather-wrapped haft. The weapon—an adamantine urgrosh, part axe and part spear, with a sharpened Siberys dragonshard forming its spear tip—had been a gift from her days back in the Holds, the only thing she’d taken with her when she’d left that Hostforsaken place. With it in her grasp, she was blessed with the strength, stability, and endurance of the urgrosh’s dwarven makers, and the weapon had served her in good stead over the years.

As it would again today.

She hefted the shard axe onto her shoulder like a jovial woodcutter and then moved casually toward Caldamus’s table. She paused as the baker laid his cards on the table—three queens and two heirs, a configuration commonly known as the Hags. A good hand, but not an unbeatable one.

Caldamus winced. “Oh, tough luck,” he said sympathetically as he spread his own cards out in a fan before him. A United Galifar, five dragons. Now that was an unbeatable hand.

“Damn it!” the baker cried, slamming a meaty fist down on the table and making his single remaining stack of sovereigns jump. He looked like he might lose his breakfast all over the last of his coins. Sabira sympathized; she knew that gut-wrenching feeling all too well.

“Bad beat,” the elf murmured, even as Caldamus began raking in his winnings.

Sabira laughed softly as she shook her head, drawing the players’ attention.

“Something funny?” the baker asked angrily, glaring.

Sabira ignored him, directing her comments at the changeling whose hands had stilled on the coins.

“You know, if you’re going to cheat, you might not want to be so obvious about it. Even hacks like these will catch on eventually.”

The baker spluttered indignantly at that, while the ranger’s almond eyes became slits as Sabira confirmed his suspicions. The elf’s hand began inching toward his belt and the dagger he no doubt kept sheathed there.

“Lucky for you,” Sabira continued, keeping her eyes on Caldamus as she pulled her brooch out from beneath her shirt, where she wore it pinned to a leather cord, “the Sentinel Marshals aren’t interested in copper-ante gamblers.”

“ Marshals? ” the baker repeated, dumbfounded. He ogled the three enameled heads—lion, dragon, and goat—that made up the chimera of House Deneith and served as the Marshals’ badge of office. The elf wisely pushed back from the table; he wanted no part of what was about to happen. Caldamus’s placid expression remained unchanged as he regarded her and her makeshift pendant with cool blue eyes.