Son of Khyber_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [56]
Daine gestured at the wall. “Scrapper. Thorn.”
Scrapper was a dwarf, an excoriate of House Kundarak. As Thorn had guessed, she was the one who maintained the wards protecting the Tarkanan fortress. Her aberrant mark helped her shatter spells—a potent gift, though it took a toll on her body. A touch of her hand was all it took to disperse the illusionary wall, revealing the adamantine door that lay beyond. Warding runes covered the gate, and the air around it rippled with mystical power.
“Sister?” Scrapper whispered. Her voice was raspy and dry, as if there was something unfinished in her throat.
Thorn stepped up to the gate, and the two set to work on the overlapping layers of defensive magic. Thorn was impressed by the quality. It was mostly Kundarak work, but clever dragonshard focusing lenses amplified the energies. If Thorn was reading the runes correctly, the wards would completely disintegrate anyone who triggered the trap. Apparently Lord Merrix was perfectly willing to sacrifice innocents to preserve his privacy. Fortunately Thorn and Scrapper were quite good at what they did. Runes began to glow, a flickering pattern of words blazing along the rim of the double doors. The runes blinked and burned and flared into brilliant light—then faded completely.
Scrapper nodded, and the two of them stepped back. It was time for others to take the lead. Brom took his place in the center as the door began to slide open. He was wearing his massive battle gauntlet and grinning as he prepared for his charge. To his left, the gnome Ash smirked and flexed his fingers. Black flames rippled along his scarred skin. Dreck stood to Brom’s right, and emerald energy flickered around his metal fingers as his mark glowed.
Guards stood just within the hall—six identical warforged, slender soldiers carrying silvered halberds. But it seemed that no alarms had been sounded. The guards weren’t even looking at the Tarkanans as the gates opened. They certainly weren’t prepared for the brutal attack that followed. Dreck shattered his victims with bolts of green light. Ash cackled maniacally as he sprayed streams of fire across two more guardians, metal melting and leather burning beneath his mystical flames. Brom took the direct approach, loping across the floor and slamming into the first of his targets with such astonishing force that he knocked its head and right arm from its body. The last of the sentries tried to respond, but their efforts were too little and far too late. Brom swatted the halberd aside with a casual blow, then grabbed hold of the guardian with his huge hand and dashed the warforged to the ground, again and again. Within seconds, the room was silent and still.
Daine strode into the room. His sword gleamed in the light of the cold fire lanterns, while his dragonmark crackled and burned around his left arm. “Break into your teams, brothers and sisters. You know your tasks. Be swift, and show your enemies no mercy—for they will show none to you. To work!”
Dreck took point with Thorn’s team. The aberrant warforged had memorized the plans of the building. He knew the path to the creation forge. Their task was to destroy the forge itself. Daine had taken Xu’sasar, Scrapper, and four of the others and had headed elsewhere in the base. Thorn didn’t know what he was up to.
“Be not afraid,” Dreck said. “The greatest dangers are past. This is a workshop, a place for research. It might have been hidden and hard to enter, but there should be no deadly traps within.”
“You’re placing your trust in the memories of a child—and a toy child at that,” Thorn said. “I’d be cautious.”
She wondered how long the forge had been operating in the depths of Sharn. It was an impressive facility. Surely they’d used one of the structures from the ancient undercity as the foundation of the hold. Still, to do something like this without alerting