Son of Khyber_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [57]
The sharp sound of metal against metal drew her from her reverie. Up ahead, the hallway widened into a large chamber in which every surface was painted an unblemished white.
“Testing chamber,” Dreck said softly. “Battle ready.”
Once again, the battle was brutal and swift. Two Cannith magewrights were working with three warforged. The constructs were a strange design, something Thorn had never seen before. They were covered in thick armor, with barely any gaps she could take advantage of. Beyond this, each warforged warrior possessed four arms. The upper two arms ended in hands and gripped weapons. The lower two terminated in spiked maceheads, clearly capable of dealing massive damage.
Had the warforged been fresh, it could have been quite a challenging fight. But the Tarkanans had arrived at the end of the magewrights’ trial. One of the warforged was already stretched out on the floor, his armor split open to expose a mass of fibrous muscles and alchemical fluids. Another had lost one of his mace arms, and another limb was crippled and useless. Both survivors were covered with dents and moved unsteadily.
Thorn didn’t hesitate. The magewrights were the greater threat. There was no telling what mystical abilities they might possess. And although they were human, they were knowingly operating an illegal facility in her nation.
The female magewright gasped as Steel’s point emerged from her partner’s throat. She reached for a wand at her belt, but before she could pull it free, she cried out and dropped to her knees. This was the work of Koyna, a Tarkanan whose mark attacked its victims with their own worst fears. Thorn sprinted forward, finishing the woman as quickly as she could. She was prepared to kill, but the gruesome powers of Koyna and Ash still turned her stomach.
One of the battered juggernauts turned to Thorn as she severed the magewright’s spine. It moved surprisingly quickly, considering the amount of damage it had sustained. She saw a blur of motion, an iron giant bearing down on her with murder on its mind. Then Brom slammed into it, sending the construct spinning sideways. His war gauntlet rose and fell, each blow denting the armor of the warforged. It lashed out with a spiked mace, tearing a great chunk of flesh out of Brom’s stomach, but the dwarf never relented. The sound was like a hammer against an anvil, pounding over and over until the warforged lay still.
The final warforged proved to be more of a challenge. Ash sprayed it with fire, but the juggernaut charged through the flames, moving inexorably toward the giggling gnome.
Dreck stepped between them. The aberrant war-forged was no match for his armored cousin in terms of mass or strength, but his mark glowed as he struck. He simply slapped the juggernaut with his open palm, and each blow left spots of rust spreading across the guardian’s armor. One of its arms fell to the ground, the joint rotted through. Ash poured flame into the new gap in its armor, and the juggernaut staggered and collapsed.
“Friends of yours?” Thorn asked Dreck.
“No design that I have seen,” Dreck replied. “But this is a place for the unusual.”
So it would seem, Steel whispered. You’re lucky those soldiers were already damaged. If Merrix has the capacity to mass-produce such warriors down here, perhaps there is something to the claims of this Son of Khyber.
A moment later, they reached the chamber of the creation forge. But there was a problem.
A barrier.
“The child had no memory of this,” Dreck said, staring at the brass gate that stretched across the hallway. It shimmered in the light of the cold fire, and while it clearly was