The Shattered Land_ The Dreaming Dark - Keith Baker [86]
Lei had come up from the shore, and she was stopped short by the sight of the devastated body. “Claws of the Keeper,” she whispered. “What could do something like this?”
“Whatever it is, it’s long gone,” Daine said. “This boat’s probably been here for days. Weeks, even.” As he spoke, he signaled with his fingers, drawing Lei’s attention to their hidden foe. Moving in. Give ranged support—nonlethal if possible.
“Good,” Lei said. “We’ve got enough to worry about with the cold, but I would like to take a moment to study … this, if you don’t mind. I’d like to know what’s out there.”
She knelt beside the corpse and drew a crystal and a short wooden wand from her pouch. Doing her best to ignore the grisly spectacle and focus on her work, she ran the carved stick around the edge of the crystal and concentrated on infusing the shard with the energies she needed.
Daine could hear Lakashtai and Gerrion emerging from the river, but there was no time to explain, and in any case neither of them was familiar with Cyran military signals. Best to move quickly and hope they were smart enough to recognize the situation on their own. Under optimal circumstances Daine could have crossed the distance in the blink of an eye, but the deep snow slowed his movement. Moving calmly and carefully, he made his way to the hull of the opposing vessel. He took a deep breath, the chill air sharp in his lungs, and dove around the bow.
Nothing. Just shadows and blowing snow.
Pierce himself had disappeared. Daine hoped that he had drawn any enemy’s attention away from the warforged, allowing him to do what he did best. Daine put his back to the boat, studying the ground for any signs of tracks or recent motion, then he saw it—a small figure almost hidden in the falling snow and the shadows of night, a gnome or perhaps a human child. Daine couldn’t see a weapon in the silhouette, though in this age of magic the enemy without a weapon could be the most dangerous foe of all. This might be the child of the dead sailor, but Daine couldn’t take any chances.
“You! Step forward, hands where they can be seen.” Daine had his blade leveled at the shadow in the snow, and he was tensed to leap into the darkness. “Come forward slowly. If you engage in any sort of hostile action, you’ll have three arrows in your chest before you have time to blink.”
“I never blink.” The sound was like hissing steam in a kettle of tal—a warforged voice. The stranger slowly moved into the pool of light that emanated from the glowing coin.
Behind Daine, Lei drew in a sharp breath. It was all Daine could do to restrain himself from lashing out, striking the construct before it could come closer.
Beneath the layer of shimmering frost, the plates of the ’forged were blackened metal, engraved with strange patterns and words in a language Daine didn’t know. While its hands were empty, dozens of two-inch blades were folded back against its arms and torso, and Daine knew from experience that these could rise up and lock into place to serve as deadly weapons. Its arms were long and spindly, out of proportion with its childlike torso, and its head was the narrow wedge of a rat or weasel, complete with a mouth full of steel teeth. It was not the strange appearance of the construct that caused Daine’s fingers to whiten against the hilt of his sword. He’d seen a warforged like this before. He’d destroyed one, maybe more than one.
At Keldan Ridge.
“Where did you come from?” Daine snarled. Every instinct urged him to strike before the creature could act. Memories rose in his mind, fresh from recent nightmares—this rat-like construct leaping the barricade, only to be shot down by Lei. It couldn’t be the same one. They’d left it in pieces, but he’d never seen any warforged like this anywhere else—and it sure didn’t look like the work of House Cannith. “What are you doing here?”
The warforged had a slightly hunched posture, and its neck was just a little too long and too flexible. It turned its head to the right, scanning the landscape.
Daine