Marked for Death

Chapter 55

The one-armed titan stomped up to Kandler and Sallah and raised its axe high. The two scrambled away in opposite directions. For a moment, the towering warforged hesitated, unsure which of the pair to attack first, then it swung down at the justicar.

Kandler realized he wasn’t going to be able to run away fast enough. Wedged in the corner of the arena as he was, there just wasn’t enough room. Instead, he charged the warforged, and the creature’s blow smashed down over his head. The swing came close enough that he could feel it brush against his hair, but Kandler rolled forward unharmed.

As the titan’s axe landed, Sallah spun around and slashed at the back of its legs with her burning blade. The creature rasped in pain and kicked out to shove the lady knight away. Its foot caught Sallah in the hip and knocked her to the ground. Her sword spun out of her grasp.

Kandler fought the urge to run to her side, knowing that it would only doom them both. His best option was to press the attack, although it was nearly impossible to find a chink the titan’s armor.

The titan turned its attention to the lady knight as she scrambled across the arena floor, reaching for her weapon. As it spun about, Kandler saw a slim chance. It was the only one that had presented itself so far, so he took it. He sheathed his sword and leaped upon the titan, finding a handhold on the many spikes sticking out of the creature’s back. He pulled himself up on them, crawling up the titan’s metal carapace, scratching himself on the sharp-tipped spikes, until he came to the creature’s neck.

The titan drew back its axe-arm to level a blow at Sallah. As it did, Kandler drew his sword, held it high, and threw all of his weight into driving his sword into the back of the creature’s neck. The blade jarred in his hands only a few inches into the creature’s exposed fibers. Panic shot through Kandler’s mind, and pain lanced through his shoulders. He growled and shoved at the blade again. It slid to the left, making its way around whatever iron bands the creature used for a spine.

The monstrous warforged tried to reach back with its missing arm but ended up flailing the shattered stump at Kandler instead. The justicar screwed his sword back and forth in the hole he’d made, sawing through the thick, raw fibers beneath the titan’s armor. Dark fluid spurted up from the wound and spattered across Kandler’s arms and chest. The quantity surprised him, as did the fact that the crimson liquid was hot.

The titan swung at Kandler with its axe, but its blow glanced off its own armored head instead. The resultant clang set the justicar’s ears ringing, but he kept at his horrible task, churning his sword in and out of the creature’s savaged neck.

Infuriated, the titan threw itself backward on the arena floor in an effort to crush the justicar with its bulk. Kandler felt the creature start to topple and leaped free, barely clearing the creature’s massive body. The spikes on the titan’s back and shoulders tore at the justicar, slashing his flesh. Kandler cried out in shock and pain.

The impact on the arena floor knocked the wind from Kandler, and he lay there on his chest for a moment. He hadn’t the strength to get back on his feet, and the titan’s fall had trapped the justicar in the same corner again. As he heard the titan start to rouse, he willed himself to move.

Kandler rose to his knees and turned. The titan rolled off its back like a gigantic bear. It growled and threw itself back onto its knees where it could raise its axe-hand over its head. It aimed another blow at Kandler, but before it could slam down its weapon, flames erupted along its back.

“Get off him, you monster!” Kandler heard Sallah shout from the creature’s other side. The smell of burning fibers filled the air.

Still on its knees, the titan whirled about. The move wrenched Sallah’s sword from her fingers but left the blade embedded in the titan’s back, its flames devouring the creature from within.

Kandler dashed around in front of the titan as it climbed to its feet. He grabbed Sallah by the arm and led her across the arena floor in a dead sprint.

The titan leaped into the air after the retreating duo and came down hard on all three remaining limbs. The floor beneath Kandler and Sallah bucked like a wave, throwing them from their feet. The titan was on them in an instant. It smashed down at Kandler with the stump left over from the ruin of its hammer-arm and pinned his leg to the ground. Sallah pulled on Kandler’s arm, striving to drag him free, but it was like trying to drag an anvil chained to an anchor. There was no escape.

The titan lined up its axe-hand over Kandler’s head, like a butcher measuring a cut of meat. The creature raised its arm to deliver the killing blow-

A bolt the size of a lance slammed into the back of the titan’s arm, and the axe-hand went spinning into the air. It landed inches from Kandler’s face, embedding itself a full foot into the floor.

The titan screeched in frustration. Still pinning Kandler to the floor, it turned its head about to see who had dealt it such a telling blow. Kandler looked over too and saw Burch grinning from behind a ballista as the shifter rushed to reload the device.

The titan swept Kandler and Sallah away with the stump of its hammer-arm. Tangled in each other’s limbs, the pair spun across the arena floor, toward the airship still resting in the stands.

The justicar saw the ring of fire rushing at them, and he flung himself between Sallah and the fire. When they spun to a halt, Sallah was clear of the blaze consuming the floor of the arena, but Kandler found himself lying in the flames.

The lady knight pulled Kandler from the edge of the fire, his clothes already burning. She wrapped her arms around him in an attempt to smother the flames, then rolled them around on the sawdust-coated floor until the tongues of flame licking at Kandler vanished.

When the flames were out, Kandler lay on the floor on his face with Sallah lying on top of him. His skin was flushed from the fire, and his eyes were squeezed closed tight.

“Kandler!” he heard her call. “Kandler!”

The justicar peeled open his eyes and looked up at the lady knight. He started to smile at her but coughed instead. “Thanks,” he said between hacks. Then where he was and what was happening struck him. He pushed free of Sallah and said, “Burch.”

The pair looked back in the direction from which they’d come. The titan had swung out wide so it could get a running start at the shifter, who was still reloading the ballista. He’d gotten the bow winched back and was lifting a bolt into place as the titan lowered its head and charged.

“Burch!” Kandler yelled, his clothes still smoking, as Sallah helped him to his feet.

The shifter slammed the bolt home and brought the weapon about to bear on the titan’s new position. Without its arms, the creature couldn’t reach up to tear Burch from the wall on which the ballista was perched. Barreling along at its top speed, it seemed determined to bring down the whole wall instead.

Kandler’s breath caught in his chest as he watched Burch sight down the bolt’s path and point the weapon to where the titan would be in an instant. The justicar didn’t see how the shifter had any time left to fire, but Burch calmly waited for the creature’s head to fall within his sights and then pulled the ballista’s firing lever.

The bow-wire snapped forward, hurling the bolt straight at the titan’s head. It slammed into the creature’s face and came splintering out the back of its armor-plated skull. Kandler and Sallah cheered, but their joy didn’t last long.

The titan’s headless form lost little of its forward momentum. It slammed into the wall beneath Burch’s position and tore through it like paper. The massive weapon and its shifter handler went down atop the titan’s corpse and disappeared in a crush of wood and steel fragments.