Son of Khyber_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [60]
I’ve got to get to Merrix, she thought. But it was too late.
Palmer was only a few feet away, covering Thorn’s back. The others had fallen. Koyna lay in a pool of blood, and Brom was a ghastly sight. And there were still four warforged left—one juggernaut, and three of the assassins. The constructs circled them, waiting for the right moment to strike.
“Why don’t you drop your weapon?” Merrix asked. “We both know I can’t let you live, but there are certainly more pleasant ways to end this.”
Thorn looked up at him, but his eyes only lingered on her false dragonmark. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Perhaps I won’t live out the night. I know this. But if your tin soldiers take one step toward us, I’ll bury this blade in your throat.” She nodded at the warforged corpse lying at your feet. “I promise you I have the skill.”
She was bluffing. She could try, certainly, but Merrix was far away, and as a Cannith lord, odds were good that he had mystical protection. She needed him closer. Steel could analyze magical energies, but not from this distance.
“And I promise you that I have defenses you know nothing about.” Merrix smiled, but Thorn could see the tension in his eyes. He was a gambler, and a good one. But so was she. And she had another card left to play.
“Do you love your son, Lord Merrix?” The blood faded from his face.
“What do you know about my son?” he said. He took a step forward without thinking, knuckles white against the shaft of the gorgon’s scepter.
“Call off your dogs and let us finish our work, and you just might see him again.” In Dolurrh, she added silently.
“You lie,” he said. “Tharashk has sworn he’s nowhere in this city.” He took another step forward.
His robe is enchanted to absorb elemental energies, Steel said. There is a field emanating from the scepter that provides some defense against physical attacks, but it’s far from impenetrable. He’s also carrying a shard charged with a short-range teleportation effect—likely only good for one use, but enough to get him away from here.
She’d only have one chance. She needed that unnatural strength, but she still wasn’t completely certain how to control it. In the last two battles, it had come to her in a moment of tension and fury, not unlike a surge of adrenaline. Now she was calm and calculating—but she still didn’t know what to do.
And she still needed him closer to be sure of the shot.
“I took him from Ilena’s tower,” Thorn said. “I’m the one who silenced his cries. And I’m the only one who can bring him back to you. Kill me, and you’ll never see him again.”
Merrix’s eyes widened. Arcane energy crackled around his scepter. “You will not die tonight,” he said, taking another step forward. “You will not die for a long, long time. You will tell me everything that I wish to know, and if you have harmed my child—”
“Harmed him? Why would I harm anyone with an aberrant mark?”
That did it. Righteous anger turned to confusion and fear, and in that moment Thorn threw Steel.
It was a perfect throw, certain death for a defenseless man. But no fire flowed through her veins, no burst of inhuman might. There was a flare of ectoplasmic energy as Steel struck Merrix’s defensive enchantments, and the blade pierced the field and drew blood. But the spell saved the lord’s life. Merrix’s hand rose to his throat as Steel flew back to Thorn’s grip, and he staggered back. “Take them!” he called out to the warforged, choking on blood. “But take that one alive!