Son of Khyber

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Ashblack Lharvion 21, 999 YK

I thought I was done with sewers,” Thorn muttered. The Cannith forgehold was hidden deep below the foundry district of Ashblack, and the Tarkanan force had spent the better part of an hour trudging through muck and grime. It was fortunate for Thorn that she had a nose clip in her basic kit. Some of the others were still wincing from the stench. But even without the odor, she was still covered with mold and excrement. The glamorous life of the Dark Lantern, she thought.

It was hard to imagine Merrix d’Cannith coming through the sewers, and according to Daine, he didn’t. There was another way to reach the forgehold, but it was infested with wards and guards, and if they were pursued, the Cannith forces would know the lay of the land. Once he knew where the forgehold was, Daine had been able to plot a different route-less scenic, certainly, but safer for what they had in mind. If Daine was right, the gate to the forgehold lay just ahead of them. It was time to set the plan in motion.

Thorn and Xu’sasar took the lead, relying on darkvision as they crept forward through the light-less tunnels. This ability still bothered Thorn. Useful as it was, it was one more power that she couldn’t account for-senses sharper than even her elven mother had possessed. But now was not the time for doubts or questions.

She spotted a series of runes carved into the floor ahead, and she raised her hand. Xu’sasar froze as Thorn examined the sigils. They were painted black, barely visible against the dark stone, but there was no mistaking the purpose or power of these warding runes. Concentrating on them, Thorn could feel the energy surging, waiting to be unleashed.

“Aaren,” she whispered. For a moment, the runes were outlined in violet flames, and then the fires faded. A part of Thorn was surprised. For all his confidence and charisma, she still couldn’t entirely believe the story of the Son of Khyber. Yet he claimed to have plucked this password from the memories of the Cannith heir, and it had indeed shut down a ward she’d have been hard-pressed to break on her own.

Thorn pulled a piece of chalk from a pouch and made a mark along the floor. She didn’t know how long it would take the runes to recharge, and she wanted to make certain Daine and the others spotted the trap. Gesturing to Xu’sasar, she made her way forward.

The gate lay just ahead. A powerful illusion masked it, and most people would never guess that the cracked wall of the ancient tunnel was a magical facade. Even now, Thorn could feel the magic pressing against her mind, quietly suggesting that she look the other way. Of course, this was exactly what she’d been trained to spot, an illusion that hid the gate.

But the gate wasn’t what she was here for. The warding runes were just the first line of defense. The second was better hidden and far more dangerous. It was pure luck that the Cannith baron had decided to impress his son by revealing it. Thorn paused, closing her eyes. She listened to the sounds around her: the rustle of a rat moving along the dusty stone, the pounding of her own heart, the whisper of Xu’sasar’s movement. Now she listened to the wind, feeling the faint flow of air against her skin and building a picture of her surroundings. The greatest challenge was not trying too hard. This gift was most effective on an instinctive level. It was hard for her to consciously process this information. But if she could just let go of her thoughts and feel, she could There.

The invisible guardian was perfectly still, but Thorn had a clear image of it in her mind. An armored figure. Likely a warforged. Taller than a troll. Long, razor-sharp blades extended from each arm. Merrix had lowered the cloaking magic to show the guardian to his son, and according to Daine both armor and blades were made of adamantine, one of the hardest metals ever produced. A single stroke would cleave through bone, and Steel could never pierce the armored plates. But if she let her senses paint a picture, Thorn could see the gaps in the construct’s armor, the places where joints exposed fibrous bundles. Warforged anatomy was quite different from human, but they still had their weaknesses. And over the last thirty years, the assassins of the Citadel had made sure to learn them. Mouthing a silent prayer to Olladra, Thorn flung Steel.

The dagger flew straight and true, catching the invisible guardian in the neck. The enchantments woven into Steel pulled him back to Thorn’s hand, and viscous fluid began flowing from the gaping wound. The guardian turned to Thorn, but it was moving slowly, disoriented by the blow. It staggered as it looked for its enemy.

Instead, it found Xu’sasar. The dark elf’s senses weren’t quite as sharp as Thorn’s, but she’d been trained to fight in absolute darkness. Now that her enemy was moving, she could track it by sound alone. Xu’sasar wielded her macabre weapon with its blade like a long, curved tooth set atop a haft of bone. Despite its appearance, Xu’sasar easily parried the blows of the adamantine blades with her strange glaive, and her return strike drove straight through the construct and impaled it against the wall. It struggled, waving its arms and trying to strike at the dark elf, but she danced out of its reach. It was left to Thorn to finish it. She struck with Steel, slashing away at the leathery cords binding its head to its body. Alchemical fluids poured down across its chest, and it finally flickered into view as the magic of its life-force faded.

The battle had taken less than a minute. If they were lucky, the first disorienting blow had kept the guardian from alerting its masters. They’d find out soon enough. As Xu’sasar pulled her weapon free from the metal corpse, Thorn jogged back along the corridor, signaling to the rest of the strike force. Move up!

Moments later, they were gathered outside the main gate. Thorn would have preferred a stealthy approach, but there were no other options. The forgehold had no windows. Its walls were thick stone hardened by mystical rituals. And if there were any other entrances, their young informant hadn’t been aware of them. There was only one option for the Tarkanans: the front gate. And this would take more than a simple word to bypass. Safe passage required an enchanted amulet, a form of key. But there were always other alternatives.

Daine gestured at the wall. “Scrapper. Thorn.”

Scrapper was a dwarf, an excoriate of House Kundarak. As Thorn had guessed, she was the one who maintained the wards protecting the Tarkanan fortress. Her aberrant mark helped her shatter spells-a potent gift, though it took a toll on her body. A touch of her hand was all it took to disperse the illusionary wall, revealing the adamantine door that lay beyond. Warding runes covered the gate, and the air around it rippled with mystical power.

“Sister?” Scrapper whispered. Her voice was raspy and dry, as if there was something unfinished in her throat.

Thorn stepped up to the gate, and the two set to work on the overlapping layers of defensive magic. Thorn was impressed by the quality. It was mostly Kundarak work, but clever dragonshard focusing lenses amplified the energies. If Thorn was reading the runes correctly, the wards would completely disintegrate anyone who triggered the trap. Apparently Lord Merrix was perfectly willing to sacrifice innocents to preserve his privacy. Fortunately Thorn and Scrapper were quite good at what they did. Runes began to glow, a flickering pattern of words blazing along the rim of the double doors. The runes blinked and burned and flared into brilliant light-then faded completely.

Scrapper nodded, and the two of them stepped back. It was time for others to take the lead. Brom took his place in the center as the door began to slide open. He was wearing his massive battle gauntlet and grinning as he prepared for his charge. To his left, the gnome Ash smirked and flexed his fingers. Black flames rippled along his scarred skin. Dreck stood to Brom’s right, and emerald energy flickered around his metal fingers as his mark glowed.

Guards stood just within the hall-six identical warforged, slender soldiers carrying silvered halberds. But it seemed that no alarms had been sounded. The guards weren’t even looking at the Tarkanans as the gates opened. They certainly weren’t prepared for the brutal attack that followed. Dreck shattered his victims with bolts of green light. Ash cackled maniacally as he sprayed streams of fire across two more guardians, metal melting and leather burning beneath his mystical flames. Brom took the direct approach, loping across the floor and slamming into the first of his targets with such astonishing force that he knocked its head and right arm from its body. The last of the sentries tried to respond, but their efforts were too little and far too late. Brom swatted the halberd aside with a casual blow, then grabbed hold of the guardian with his huge hand and dashed the warforged to the ground, again and again. Within seconds, the room was silent and still.

Daine strode into the room. His sword gleamed in the light of the cold fire lanterns, while his dragonmark crackled and burned around his left arm. “Break into your teams, brothers and sisters. You know your tasks. Be swift, and show your enemies no mercy-for they will show none to you. To work!”

Dreck took point with Thorn’s team. The aberrant warforged had memorized the plans of the building. He knew the path to the creation forge. Their task was to destroy the forge itself. Daine had taken Xu’sasar, Scrapper, and four of the others and had headed elsewhere in the base. Thorn didn’t know what he was up to.

“Be not afraid,” Dreck said. “The greatest dangers are past. This is a workshop, a place for research. It might have been hidden and hard to enter, but there should be no deadly traps within.”

“You’re placing your trust in the memories of a child-and a toy child at that,” Thorn said. “I’d be cautious.”

She wondered how long the forge had been operating in the depths of Sharn. It was an impressive facility. Surely they’d used one of the structures from the ancient undercity as the foundation of the hold. Still, to do something like this without alerting the local authorities would take time. Of course, this was Sharn. It was quite possible that a few well-greased palms had ensured that records of goods and transportation were conveniently lost, or that suspicious activities were ignored. Thorn knew that there were all too many in this wretched place who put love of gold above their duty to the nation. The time could come when the houses would just buy the Five Nations, Thorn thought glumly.

The sharp sound of metal against metal drew her from her reverie. Up ahead, the hallway widened into a large chamber in which every surface was painted an unblemished white.

“Testing chamber,” Dreck said softly. “Battle ready.”

Once again, the battle was brutal and swift. Two Cannith magewrights were working with three warforged. The constructs were a strange design, something Thorn had never seen before. They were covered in thick armor, with barely any gaps she could take advantage of. Beyond this, each warforged warrior possessed four arms. The upper two arms ended in hands and gripped weapons. The lower two terminated in spiked maceheads, clearly capable of dealing massive damage.

Had the warforged been fresh, it could have been quite a challenging fight. But the Tarkanans had arrived at the end of the magewrights’ trial. One of the warforged was already stretched out on the floor, his armor split open to expose a mass of fibrous muscles and alchemical fluids. Another had lost one of his mace arms, and another limb was crippled and useless. Both survivors were covered with dents and moved unsteadily.

Thorn didn’t hesitate. The magewrights were the greater threat. There was no telling what mystical abilities they might possess. And although they were human, they were knowingly operating an illegal facility in her nation.

The female magewright gasped as Steel’s point emerged from her partner’s throat. She reached for a wand at her belt, but before she could pull it free, she cried out and dropped to her knees. This was the work of Koyna, a Tarkanan whose mark attacked its victims with their own worst fears. Thorn sprinted forward, finishing the woman as quickly as she could. She was prepared to kill, but the gruesome powers of Koyna and Ash still turned her stomach.

One of the battered juggernauts turned to Thorn as she severed the magewright’s spine. It moved surprisingly quickly, considering the amount of damage it had sustained. She saw a blur of motion, an iron giant bearing down on her with murder on its mind. Then Brom slammed into it, sending the construct spinning sideways. His war gauntlet rose and fell, each blow denting the armor of the warforged. It lashed out with a spiked mace, tearing a great chunk of flesh out of Brom’s stomach, but the dwarf never relented. The sound was like a hammer against an anvil, pounding over and over until the warforged lay still.

The final warforged proved to be more of a challenge. Ash sprayed it with fire, but the juggernaut charged through the flames, moving inexorably toward the giggling gnome.

Dreck stepped between them. The aberrant war-forged was no match for his armored cousin in terms of mass or strength, but his mark glowed as he struck. He simply slapped the juggernaut with his open palm, and each blow left spots of rust spreading across the guardian’s armor. One of its arms fell to the ground, the joint rotted through. Ash poured flame into the new gap in its armor, and the juggernaut staggered and collapsed.

“Friends of yours?” Thorn asked Dreck.

“No design that I have seen,” Dreck replied. “But this is a place for the unusual.”

So it would seem, Steel whispered. You’re lucky those soldiers were already damaged. If Merrix has the capacity to mass-produce such warriors down here, perhaps there is something to the claims of this Son of Khyber.

A moment later, they reached the chamber of the creation forge. But there was a problem.

A barrier.

“The child had no memory of this,” Dreck said, staring at the brass gate that stretched across the hallway. It shimmered in the light of the cold fire, and while it clearly was not part of the walls around them, Thorn could see no handle or keyhole.

“Little to fear,” Ash said, chuckling. Even as Dreck raised his hand in protest, Ash unleashed a torrent of flame against the door. A moment latter, his giggles turned to screams. Though it seemed to be simple brass, there was power bound within it. It sucked up the fire and then unleashed a column of blue light back against the gnome. Even from a distance, Thorn felt a chill. Ash was frozen solid. He toppled as his cry faded. His corpse struck the ground and shattered into steaming chunks.

“Stop!” Thorn cried, before Palmer or Dreck could react. She walked slowly toward the brass barrier, holding Steel before her.

Interesting, Steel said. I sense no magical emanations, yet the rippling alone suggests arcane energy.

“It’s reversing spell energy,” Thorn murmured, intrigued. “Even your divination is a magical act.”

I believe you’re right. Impressive.

It was more than just impressive. It was amazing. Ash’s fire turned back against him in the form of ice. Steel’s divination returned a false report. Even abjuration was a magical effect. If they tried to dispel the field, odds were good they’d just reinforce it. But there was no lock or handle on the door. Magic had to be involved.

Thorn lifted a ring of crystal-tipped keys from the fallen magewrights, and she tested these against the door. But there was no keyhole nor any sense of mystical resonance between key and gate. As she studied the barrier, she felt a tingle run through the stones in her spine, as if a charge of energy had flowed across her and instantly faded.

Alarm, Steel said. From elsewhere. Daine’s team must have run into trouble. We need to act quickly.

Thorn produced her probes and lockpicks, testing the seal on the door. Nightwater had no effect. Then she had a thought. She turned to Dreck.

“Can you perform a sealing infusion? Lock the door?”

The warforged’s face was a metal mask, lacking any expression. But his confusion was easy to see. “Certainly. But why?”

“Do it. Seal the door.”

Dreck stepped forward and set one palm against the door. He wove patterns in the air with his hand, leaving shimmering trails in the air. At last he gripped the glowing pattern and thrust it against the door.

The door slid open.

Reversing the energy, Steel whispered. So “close” becomes “open.” Clever.

“Clever enough,” Thorn said. “Brom, take point. Dreck, we need you to destroy the forge. Stay back with Palmer until we’re sure the room is clear. Koyna, with me.”

They had entered the heart of the forgehold. Where the earlier halls had reused old walls, here the architects had broken down the ancient structures and built anew. Walls and floor alike were built from a dark green stone. Linear patterns were carved into every surface and inlaid with different metals, creating a dizzying labyrinth of designs spread around them. Soon the hall opened into a vast circular chamber with a domed ceiling, large enough to serve as a sporting arena. A massive pillar dominated the center of the room, built from the same green stone. The lines from the floor ran up along this central column. But the post was also studded with dragonshards-a pulsing mosaic of golden Eberron shards, shedding a brilliant light across the room. Large coffins were spread in a ring around the central pillar.

It is a forge, Thorn thought. The warforged must emerge from the coffins when the work is complete.

But at the same time, the image of the shard-studded pillar sent a shiver through her. These dragonshards were embedded in the column, not whirling around it. But looking at the pillar and knowing she was there to destroy it, she couldn’t help but think of Far Passage.

“Dreck,” she said. “You know what to do. Palmer, Brom, stay with him. Koyna, stay on watch. Anything comes through that doorway, send it screaming out again.”

“Yes, Dreck,” said a new voice. A man’s voice, deep and stern. “You know what to do.”

Flames engulfed Dreck. He cried out as the fibrous cords that served as his muscles strained and snapped, and cracks and spots of corrosion bloomed on his metal plates. There was a rasping gurgle, and he was gone. Nothing was left, not even ashes.

“Strange.” The man was standing in the shadow of the central pillar. A tall man with short, dark hair. One hand rested against the stone column, while the other held a long metal rod tipped with the sculpted head of a gorgon. The stranger was reaching his middle years, but he was still handsome and confident. It wasn’t easy to forget that face, and Thorn had seen it before.

Merrix d’Cannith, baron of the house.

“I don’t know what that thing was, but it wasn’t one of my children,” he mused. If he considered them a threat, he didn’t show it. “I wonder what I could have learned from his corpse.”

“You’d best be looking to your own corpse,” Brom said. Thorn knew he was waiting on her word to charge, and he might not wait much longer. “You may have done in poor Dreck, but there’s four of us to the one of you.”

Merrix laughed, and as he did, the silvered lines in the floor burst into brilliant light. Thorn and the others shielded their eyes, and in that moment of distraction, Thorn could feel the lids sliding off the coffins. Six figures rose from these cradles. Blades extended and locked into place. Warforged soldiers, armed and ready for battle.

“Let’s finish this,” Merrix said. “And then we’ll see what I can learn from your corpses.”