Son of Khyber_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [59]
“Strange.” The man was standing in the shadow of the central pillar. A tall man with short, dark hair. One hand rested against the stone column, while the other held a long metal rod tipped with the sculpted head of a gorgon. The stranger was reaching his middle years, but he was still handsome and confident. It wasn’t easy to forget that face, and Thorn had seen it before.
Merrix d’Cannith, baron of the house.
“I don’t know what that thing was, but it wasn’t one of my children,” he mused. If he considered them a threat, he didn’t show it. “I wonder what I could have learned from his corpse.”
“You’d best be looking to your own corpse,” Brom said. Thorn knew he was waiting on her word to charge, and he might not wait much longer. “You may have done in poor Dreck, but there’s four of us to the one of you.”
Merrix laughed, and as he did, the silvered lines in the floor burst into brilliant light. Thorn and the others shielded their eyes, and in that moment of distraction, Thorn could feel the lids sliding off the coffins. Six figures rose from these cradles. Blades extended and locked into place. Warforged soldiers, armed and ready for battle.
“Let’s finish this,” Merrix said. “And then we’ll see what I can learn from your corpses.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
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Lharvion 21, 999 YK
Thorn studied the two closest warforged, gathering as much information as she could in the seconds before they could act. The first was the same type as the juggernauts they’d encountered in the testing hall, a heavily armored warrior with blades and spikes bristling from its four limbs. But it was the second one that worried Thorn. This unusual warforged was lean and quick, and Thorn found that its slender build and graceful movements caused her to think of it as female. Dark enamel armor covered the warforged. The blade of a short sword extended from each of her arms, and the metal had the dark sheen of adamantine. And there were three more just like her, closing in.
“Pull together!” Thorn cried. “On me!”
Too late. To this point, the Tarkanans had done well when it came to following her lead. But none of them had known her for more than a day, and faced with this unexpected threat, each of her comrades acted alone. Brom crashed into a juggernaut, bringing the construct to the ground. Palmer lashed out with tendrils of energy, as though her dragonmark were stretching off of her ruined hands to entangle her enemies. And Koyna turned on Merrix himself, the purple and black strands of her dragonmark gleaming as she sought to unlock the fears hidden in the mind of the dragonmarked lord.
They’d done well in their initial assault and in the training hall. But now they were outnumbered, acting on impulse, and they’d lost the element of surprise.
Brom pounded at the juggernaut, leaving dents in its armored shell. But focused as he was, he didn’t see the lean warforged as it slipped up behind him and plunged both adamantine blades into his lungs.
Palmer was holding two warforged at bay with her lashing tendrils, but countering their attacks was as much as she could manage.
Koyna fell to the spiked fist of the juggernaut. If her psychic blow had any effect on Merrix d’Cannith, it didn’t show. He stood by the central pillar, smiling as the blood began to flow.
One of the slender warforged left Brom and slashed at Thorn with her adamantine blades, and Thorn dropped beneath the blow. He’s made his own Dark Lanterns, she thought. Nothing good can come of that.
The warforged was swift, and her adamantine blades could slice through Steel if Thorn was careless. She had to time every parry perfectly. But less than twelve hours had passed since Thorn had fought Xu’sasar, and as quick as this warforged was, she was no match for the drow. Thorn began to see the rhythm of her enemy’s attacks. Warforged could learn and improve, but this one had just emerged from her cradle. It was impressive to see such skill in what amounted