The Shattered Land_ The Dreaming Dark - Keith Baker [1]
In truth, Daine hadn’t expected the soldier to surrender. Warforged were remarkably loyal to their causes; they were built for battle and knew no other life. But the conversation had served its purpose.
“It’s yours, Lei.”
Distracted by Daine’s words, the warforged hadn’t heard the woman approach. She rose up from behind a mound of rubble, a glittering crossbow in her hands. The warforged staggered as a bolt smashed into its back, and its eye-crystals flared with light.
Even as the bolt struck, Daine was flying forward in a swift lunge. He cried out with pain as his foot hit the ground, but his blade slammed into the gap in his enemy’s stomach. The warforged collapsed, an inert mass of metal and wood, and Daine fell to one knee.
Lei walked out from behind the rubble. Her coppery hair gleamed in the firelight, and the golden studs on her leather vest gleamed with the same faint radiance that surrounded her crossbow. She knelt by the fallen warforged, examining its body.
“I’m fine,” Daine said. “Thanks for asking.”
She looked up from the ’forged. Soot and dirt blackened her face, and her eyes were distant; the battle was clearly taking its toll. “Sorry. I … these warforged …” She gestured vaguely at the fallen soldier. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
“A lot of things don’t make sense. Look, Pierce was taking the longer route back here, but as soon as he returns—”
“He’s already back.”
Warforged. “Fine. Get him, Jholeg, Jani, and Krazhal, and bring them to me.”
“Understood.” Lei’s eyes were back on the warforged. “What’s going on?”
“Get the others. I only want to explain this once, and now … I’ve got to see a halfling about this leg.”
Daine braced himself against the wall and stood up. The moons were hidden by clouds of black smoke, and the smell of blood and fire filled the air. Out in the valley, the wreckage of the fallen airship still burned amidst the ruined tents. Corpses were intertwined with shattered warforged, but no movement could be seen in the flickering firelight. Glancing around, he saw a few of his soldiers reinforcing the barricade and tending to the injured. Krazhal, the siege engineer, was standing over another warforged, hammering relentlessly on his fallen foe. His eyes were wild, and he struck again and again, heedless of the fact that his victim was already in pieces.
They’d lost most of their supplies in the initial attack, but Jode had done the best he could, assembling a makeshift infirmary in the midst of the camp. Lei arrived with Pierce and the other three soldiers while the halfling healer was examining Daine’s leg.
“You’re lucky your opponent had such poor aim,” Jode said, studying the wound. Daine was wearing a coat of chainmail over leather, but the spikes had punched through both layers to leave a bloody gouge in the thigh. “There may yet be little Daines frolicking on the battlefields of the future.”
Daine shook his head. Humor might be Jode’s way of dealing with the horror, but it wasn’t his. “Just deal with it.”
The halfling placed his tiny hand over the wound, and the intricate blue pattern traced across his bald head burst into light. When he lifted his hand, the gash had mended, leaving a dark bruise. “Good enough?”
“It’ll have to do.” Daine stood, flexing the muscle. Satisfied, he turned to the knot of people who’d come at his call. “None of this makes any sense. Leagues from any settlement, in one of the least hospitable regions of the ridge—this may be contested land, but it holds no strategic value. This should have been a safe path to the gap garrison, yet here we are. Lei, what have you found?”
“I examined the bodies that you recovered, and … I’m not sure what to say. They’re warforged, certainly, but they don’t have the markings of the house, let alone the symbols of any national allegiance.”
“Someone else is making ’forged, then?” Krazhal said. The dwarf tugged on one of the remaining tufts of his unruly brown beard; most of it had been singed away in the course of his duties.
Lei shook her head. “That’s impossible. Only an heir of House Cannith can