The Shattered Land

PROLOGUE

Daine dove across the makeshift barricade, but the enemy was right behind him. He caught a glimpse of the warforged soldier as it hurtled over the wall; in the firelight it was a nightmare of steel and sharp edges. Even as it landed, it lashed out with an elongated forearm covered with razor-sharp spikes.

Daine could barely remember the start of the battle. It might have been hours since the army of steel soldiers came bursting out of the night, tearing into the Cyran camp. The troop had been taken by surprise, and the butchery was all too fresh in Daine’s mind. It was this memory that gave him the strength to keep fighting, to overcome exhaustion and the pain of a dozen cuts and bruises. The reason for the attack was a mystery-and Daine wasn’t going to let the rest of his troop fall to this unknown foe.

Exhausted as he was, Daine had a lifetime of training to fall back on. The warforged was just a shadow in the darkness, and Daine let the image fall away. As the spiked limb flew toward his head, he remembered his days on the drilling fields in Metrol, duel after duel after duel. He could hear his grandfather barking instructions as he spun toward his foe and lashed out with his longsword, blocking the warforged’s clublike arm with all the force he could muster. Strength versus strength, speed versus speed. His forearm ached from the impact, but he forced himself to move. Close the distance, use the space! Pushing forward and twisting his blade, Daine held the ’forged’s arm in place as he stepped in close and thrust with his dagger. The adamantine blade slid into the gap in the ’forged’s armor where a human would keep his stomach, and Daine smiled as he cut through leathery cords and felt something shatter.

This triumph was short lived. Don’t expect one blow to end every fight, his grandfather whispered in his mind … too late. Pain lanced through his thigh, and he caught a glimpse of bloody spikes bristling on his enemy’s knee. Gritting his teeth, Daine stepped back into his guard position. His left leg burned when he shifted his weight onto it, but the ’forged was staggering as well; Daine’s blow had struck true.

The two wounded soldiers studied each other, waiting for an opening.

“You don’t have to do this,” Daine said. “Lay down your … arms, and you might live out the night.”

The warforged said nothing. For all Daine knew, it couldn’t speak. It was an unusual design, blackened metal studded with long spikes and sharp blades. Blue fire burned in its crystal eyes. It watched Daine and slowly stepped to the right.

Daine grimaced. It might be silent, but it wasn’t stupid; it wanted to force Daine to move on his wounded leg until the pain wore him down.

“Who are you fighting for?” he said. “What do they gain from your death?”

Silence. It continued the slow circle.

In truth, Daine hadn’t expected the soldier to surrender. Warforged were remarkably loyal to their causes; they were built for battle and knew no other life. But the conversation had served its purpose.

“It’s yours, Lei.”

Distracted by Daine’s words, the warforged hadn’t heard the woman approach. She rose up from behind a mound of rubble, a glittering crossbow in her hands. The warforged staggered as a bolt smashed into its back, and its eye-crystals flared with light.

Even as the bolt struck, Daine was flying forward in a swift lunge. He cried out with pain as his foot hit the ground, but his blade slammed into the gap in his enemy’s stomach. The warforged collapsed, an inert mass of metal and wood, and Daine fell to one knee.

Lei walked out from behind the rubble. Her coppery hair gleamed in the firelight, and the golden studs on her leather vest gleamed with the same faint radiance that surrounded her crossbow. She knelt by the fallen warforged, examining its body.

“I’m fine,” Daine said. “Thanks for asking.”

She looked up from the ’forged. Soot and dirt blackened her face, and her eyes were distant; the battle was clearly taking its toll. “Sorry. I … these warforged …” She gestured vaguely at the fallen soldier. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“A lot of things don’t make sense. Look, Pierce was taking the longer route back here, but as soon as he returns-”

“He’s already back.”

Warforged. “Fine. Get him, Jholeg, Jani, and Krazhal, and bring them to me.”

“Understood.” Lei’s eyes were back on the warforged. “What’s going on?”

“Get the others. I only want to explain this once, and now … I’ve got to see a halfling about this leg.”

Daine braced himself against the wall and stood up. The moons were hidden by clouds of black smoke, and the smell of blood and fire filled the air. Out in the valley, the wreckage of the fallen airship still burned amidst the ruined tents. Corpses were intertwined with shattered warforged, but no movement could be seen in the flickering firelight. Glancing around, he saw a few of his soldiers reinforcing the barricade and tending to the injured. Krazhal, the siege engineer, was standing over another warforged, hammering relentlessly on his fallen foe. His eyes were wild, and he struck again and again, heedless of the fact that his victim was already in pieces.

They’d lost most of their supplies in the initial attack, but Jode had done the best he could, assembling a makeshift infirmary in the midst of the camp. Lei arrived with Pierce and the other three soldiers while the halfling healer was examining Daine’s leg.

“You’re lucky your opponent had such poor aim,” Jode said, studying the wound. Daine was wearing a coat of chainmail over leather, but the spikes had punched through both layers to leave a bloody gouge in the thigh. “There may yet be little Daines frolicking on the battlefields of the future.”

Daine shook his head. Humor might be Jode’s way of dealing with the horror, but it wasn’t his. “Just deal with it.”

The halfling placed his tiny hand over the wound, and the intricate blue pattern traced across his bald head burst into light. When he lifted his hand, the gash had mended, leaving a dark bruise. “Good enough?”

“It’ll have to do.” Daine stood, flexing the muscle. Satisfied, he turned to the knot of people who’d come at his call. “None of this makes any sense. Leagues from any settlement, in one of the least hospitable regions of the ridge-this may be contested land, but it holds no strategic value. This should have been a safe path to the gap garrison, yet here we are. Lei, what have you found?”

“I examined the bodies that you recovered, and … I’m not sure what to say. They’re warforged, certainly, but they don’t have the markings of the house, let alone the symbols of any national allegiance.”

“Someone else is making ’forged, then?” Krazhal said. The dwarf tugged on one of the remaining tufts of his unruly brown beard; most of it had been singed away in the course of his duties.

Lei shook her head. “That’s impossible. Only an heir of House Cannith can activate a creation forge, and only the forges can produce true warforged. Although …”

“What?”

“They’re so different from one another. We must have seen a hundred different designs-I’m not sure I saw two soldiers that looked alike. The warforged were designed to serve specific roles in battle. There’s no need for this level of variation, and the forges were designed to facilitate mass production. Making so many unique designs-it would require a tremendous amount of work and resources. I don’t know who could do it-or why they would.”

Daine nodded. “House Cannith marks every ’forged it makes. These are unmarked. It’s an enemy that shouldn’t exist in a place with no need for an army. You don’t send a raiding party in a region with nothing to raid, leaving one simple answer.”

“They’re guards?” Jode ventured

“That’s right. No reason for anyone to be out here-which makes it a great place to set up shop. Pierce and I scouted the field, and there is a tunnel entrance not far from where we set up camp. Pierce?”

Pierce was the only Cyran warforged left in Daine’s unit. Over six and a half feet in height, he was a shadow formed from dark mithral and black leather. His voice was like running water, slow and deep. “I located four guard posts, equidistant from the entrance. Two guards per post. Magical weaponry seems likely, but nothing was brought to bear against our forces, so range would be limited.”

“We’ve got less than a third of our troop, but we inflicted heavy losses on our enemy, and the fact that they haven’t come out to finish us off suggests that they’re stretched to their limits. They’ve hurt us-now they want us to go away.”

“We’d be fools not to!” Krazhal said.

“I think not. We’re taking that base.”

“Launch an attack? Are you out of your mind?”

“Dolurrh!” Daine swore, glaring down at Krazhal. “We’re soldiers of Cyre! We are all that stands between the innocent and destruction! We’ve discovered an unknown and deadly enemy in the very borders of our land. We’re days from the nearest garrison-and who knows what horrors this place could spawn in that time. We are the shield of Cyre, and we shall protect our kingdom! Is that understood?”

Krazhal scowled, but eventually nodded, staring down at his feet.

“Good! Jholeg, you’re heading to Casalon, quick as you can. There’s a good chance we won’t survive this, and the queen needs to know of it.”

The goblin scout shrugged. “Yao’lhesh, but wouldn’t Pierce be a better choice? He can travel night and day.”

“We’ll need his skill with the bow. Pierce, you and the bulk of the troops will be protecting Lei.”

“Oh?” Lei said. “What will I be doing?”

“Preparing a siege staff, one capable of striking that base from the middle of the valley outside the range of their weapons.”

“We don’t have a siege staff!”

“You know that: they don’t. Make it look good, that’s all that matters-they can’t take the chance that it’s real.”

“Ah!” Krazhal said. “So they need to be sending their remnants out and then in you go.”

“In we go, Krazhal. With Saerath gone, I’ll be needing you to get through any barriers.”

“Joyous news, that.”

“Jode, Krazhal, Donal, Kesht, and I will make up the inside team. The rest of you, keep ’em busy. You’re in command, Jani. If you need to retreat, head west up the slopes. If we survive, we’ll meet you at the Dorn Peak by tomorrow evening. If not, I want you heading for Casalon at first light. Understood?”

Faces were grim, but this was not the first time they’d faced death together. Jani nodded.

“These metal bastards killed our friends, and who knows how many more will die if we don’t put an end to it now. If we die, we die for Cyre. Soldiers! Destiny awaits!”

Across the valley, a warforged soldier observed an increase in activity at the Cyran redoubt. It tapped the shoulder of its companion, a tiny scout covered with intricate silver tracery. The scout studied the enemy soldiers, nodded, and scampered out of the concealed post, racing down the tunnel and into the darkness. The masters would know what to do.