The Shattered Land_ The Dreaming Dark - Keith Baker [54]
“I always knew you had the makings of a thief,” Daine said. “Greed suits you.”
He opened the chest as soon as she moved on. At first it appeared to be filled with shards of broken pottery, covered in gleaming enamel; as Daine sifted through the fragments to make sure no scale lay beneath, he realized that they were the remnants of enormous eggs.
Lei blushed. “I—this isn’t about gold. I’ve just never seen a collection like this.” She tapped the lid of a steel coffer. “Leave this one alone. I’ll come back to it.”
Daine nodded, sifting through a hamper of cloth bundles—old flags or battle pennants, he thought.
“That’s a Seren sculpture over there,” she continued. “I’ve only heard of them, and if what Gerrion said is right, this man doesn’t deserve these things.”
“Let it go,” Daine said. “If we only take the scale, he might not even notice it’s missing until we’re gone. I don’t care about his faith; I’d just as soon we didn’t have to deal with the wrath of the gods right now.”
“Very well,” Lei sighed. “Oh, this is interesting—”
“Daine!” Pierce’s thought was a hammer in his skull.
Copper flashed in the light of the cold flame lanterns, smashing the table beside Daine into splinters. A copper dragon crouched before him. It was the size of a tiger, and its head bobbed with the fluid grace of a snake, but its eyes were cold metal. A second ago, it had been a statue frozen at the door. Now it was all too alive—and if Pierce hadn’t slammed into it the instant it began to move, it would have been Daine lying beneath the creature instead of the shards of a shattered table.
The attack happened too quickly for Daine to recognize the nature of his foe. Without thinking, he drew his sword and launched forward in a lunge, striking the beast directly between the eyes. His wrist ached with the impact, and the point barely nicked the surface of the living statue. Then the creature was upon him. The blow slammed him to the floor. The dragon’s claws were pressing down through the rings of his chainmail, just piercing the skin of his chest. Metal jaws stretched wide and descended toward his face—but as glittering teeth filled his vision, there was a resounding clang! and the head was knocked aside. Pierce stood over him, and the spinning chain of his flail was a wall of steel in the dim light.
We don’t have time for this! Daine thought. While Pierce’s blow didn’t seem to have caused any serious damage, it had struck the creature off balance. Daine threw his weight into it, twisting to the side and knocking the dragon to the floor. Lei, keep searching!
Now the dragon was crouched in a corner of the room, and Daine could see his image reflected in its dead metal eyes. Any doubts about its nature were laid to rest: this was a creature of magic and metal, not flesh and blood. Somehow, it disturbed Daine in a way the warforged never had. At least the warforged were human in form and voice, and in some ways they weren’t so different from men in armor. Occasionally, especially when drunk, Daine had forgotten Pierce’s true nature, calling him to join the revels, but there was nothing natural about this creature. It shouldn’t even have been able to move. There were no joints, no hinges—it was solid metal, yet it had the flexibility of flesh.
There was a moment of stillness as the enemies watched each other. The only sound was Lei’s quiet curse as she fumbled with the lock on a stubborn coffer. Then the creature leapt forward, crashing into Pierce. The warforged raised his flail just in time to catch the dragon’s foreclaws, holding its upper body at bay, but it lashed out with its hind claws, and there was a terrible screech of metal on metal. Copper claws gouged Pierce’s armored plates and tore into the leathery cords that lay beneath.
The warforged did not cry out in pain, but the extent of the injury was plain to see. Cold fury welled up in Daine’s heart. Pierce might have saved