“Are you all right?” he asked.
“No,” Esprл said between sobs. “Did-did you do that? Pull her off the ship?”
The warforged hesitated, then nodded slowly. Esprл felt a terrible mixture of hatred and gratitude toward the warforged. She reached out to hold him and wept into his arms.
“Don’t cry for me, little one,” Te’oma’s voice said from above.
Esprл uncovered her eyes, and she and the warforged looked up to see the changeling hovering over the edge of the bridge on her bat-winged cloak. The girl gasped. The war-forged scrambled up and put his arm around her shoulders and their backs to the bridge’s console.
The changeling glared at the warforged. “Now,” she said, “where were we?”
The warforged stood between Esprл and the changeling. “I will not allow you to harm this child,” he said, his raspy voice trembling with emotion.
Te’oma threw back her head and laughed. She executed a sharp loop with her batwinged cloak and came back to where she’d been before. “You silly suit of armor,” she said. “She’s never been in any danger from me.”
The changeling’s smile faded from her thin, white lips. Esprл shuddered at the sight.
“You, though…” Te’oma said. “What’s your name?”
“I am called Xalt.”
“Well, Xalt, your time is now.”
Xalt reached back to squeeze Esprл’s shoulder and then sprinted toward the edge of the bridge. When he reached the damaged railing, he leaped into the air, pushing off hard, and spread his arms wide like a bird of prey soaring down out of the sky at a hapless meal.
Xalt smashed into Te’oma and wrapped his arms around the hovering changeling. Te’oma screeched with frustration and clawed at the warforged’s back, but he refused to let go, and the pair plummeted to the arena floor like a meteor from the Mournland’s gray sky.
Chapter 60
Burch pulled himself out from under the wreckage of the wall that he’d been standing on when the enraged titan knocked it down. The titan lay shattered around him. The creature had pushed though the wall and over the platform beyond to cascade over the city’s edge and onto the ground beyond.
As Burch tried to stand, the titan stirred. It raised its head to look around and spotted the shifter. It tried to reach out and grab him with its arm, but it only flailed a splintered stump at him instead.
Burch kicked the titan’s head, which hurt his foot more than the creature. As the shifter stood over the creature and pondered what he should do, a ballista bolt slammed into the titan’s chest, and the thing fell still.
Burch looked up and saw the ballista crew that had missed him cursing at each other as they hurried to reload the weapon again. This close to the arena, most of the stations along the edge of the city had been abandoned after the stampede away from the fire, but the warforged staffing this ballista seemed more determined than most.
Burch retrieved his crossbow from the wreckage and checked its action. Despite the wild ride and final crash, the weapon still worked. He slammed a bolt into it and glanced up to see the loaded ballista pointed straight at him. He dove left, and the bolt impaled the spot where he’d stood. He took a deep breath, aimed, and loosed a bolt of his own, and one of the warforged staffing the large weapon keeled over with Burch’s missile sticking out of its face.
Burch dashed toward the ballista mount as he reloaded his crossbow. The warforged at the ballista spun the winch and shoved another of the massive bolts into place. They tried to train the weapon on the shifter then, but the bolt went wild above his head.
Stopping long enough to get a good aim, Burch planted another bolt in the chest of the warforged working the weapon’s winch, and the two creatures still standing decided to flee. A quick reload, and the shifter shot one of them down as he fled. The fourth keep low as he sprinted away and disappeared around the nearest building before Burch even reached the city’s side.
The shifter noticed that the city had stopped moving and seemed to be much lower than before. He reslung his crossbow over his back and pulled himself up into the city, right beneath the empty ballista’s mount.
Burch looked up and down the city platforms. In the distance he saw lots of warforged scurrying about. As he watched, another ballista bolt from that area sailed over his head and struck the arena wall far behind him. The shifter ducked behind the nearby ballista mount and tried to think of a plan. As he sat there, he heard a horse whinny in fear. Burch looked over the platform’s edge. Not twenty feet away, four horses were tied to a hitching post. Probably mounts for the ballista crew.
The shifter smiled.
Kandler cheered as he saw Xalt tackle Te’oma out of the air and drag her like an anchor to the arena floor. The pair landed hard, but Te’oma managed to twist her way atop the artificer before they struck the ground. The force of the landing tore Xalt’s arms from the changeling, setting her free. She rolled off the warforged and staggered to her feet, still stunned from the fall.
Xalt reached out and grabbed one of Te’oma’s feet with his good hand. His fingers closed around her ankle like a vise. The changeling snarled and stomped at his hand with her free foot. Once did nothing, so she kept at it. He grunted with each blow but refused to let her go.
“Hey!” Kandler said as he stepped up to the changeling.
Te’oma looked up and Kandler backhanded her. She would have gone flying backward but for Xalt’s grasp still anchoring her to the floor. Still, she stumbled, and her hand shot to the sheathe tied around her calf. Too late, she remembered she had dropped her knife off the back of the airship.
Kandler dove down at the changeling and grabbed her wrists. An instant later, a sharp bolt of pain stabbed into his mind. The justicar’s head snapped back as he battled the alien thoughts. She laughed as he thrashed about, trying to force her out of his mind.
Kandler fought through the static the changeling forced into his brain. He looked down at her and saw her face grinning up at him, laughing with delight at the pain lancing through his skull. He thought of everything this creature had done to his daughter, how she kept coming back to threaten them again and again. As he did, his rage worked its way out of his heart and into his head. His fury at her focused his mind on a single, burning desire, and he put everything he had left into making that wish come true. Kandler hurled himself forward and smashed his forehead into the bridge of the changeling’s nose. Blood spurted from her face, and she fell limp in the justicar’s grasp.
Chapter 61
As Kandler and Xalt struggled with the changeling, Sallah cradled the unconscious Brendis in her arms.
“You can’t go to the Flame yet, my brother,” she said as she placed her hands on either side of his head. He was so pale that the blood on his face almost seemed to glow red.
“May the Silver Flame reignite the fire that burns within you,” Sallah said, enunciating each word. “May it commend you into the arms of the world so that you may continue to serve its sacred cause.” Her hands began to glow with a warm, silvery light. “And may it light your way throughout your life.”
The glow ran from Sallah’s hands until it covered Brendis from head to toe. It intensified for a moment, growing so bright that Sallah had to close her eyes, then it faded away in a heartbeat’s space.
Brendis’ eyes opened as he gasped in a chestful of air. He tried to sit up but fell back just as fast, and Sallah caught him in her arms again.
“It’s all right,” she said as she brushed the hair from his face. “You’re alive.”
As the words left her mouth, her eyes flicked over to the hole the airship had burned through the floor of the arena.