The Shattered Land

CHAPTER 9

Pierce emerged on the deck of the Kraken’s Wake. The ship was entering the waters of the Thunder Sea, and the coast of Breland was falling behind and disappearing into the night. Pierce had never seen an ocean before, and he was fascinated by the scope of it-water stretching across the horizon, as far as the eye could see. To the southwest, occasional flashes of light suggested the presence of one of the storms the region was known for, but for now the waters were calm. Pierce gazed down along the side of the ship, watching the prow cut through the water. He could sense the spray and the moisture against his skin, and as he often did, he tried to analyze these feelings, to justify them. He had no nerves, and his “skin” was steel and mithral, so how was it that he could feel the drops of moisture rolling down his arm?

Most warforged had been created with the capacity to read so that they could convey messages and read maps and instructions. In the past, the warforged had no time for leisure pursuits, but recently Pierce had taken to reading while the others were asleep. He was particularly intrigued by the subject of spirit binding, and the creation of the warforged, though he could find little reliable information on either subject. Much about the warforged was a mystery-either secret knowledge hidden away in the vaults of House Cannith or simply unknown. From what Pierce had learned so far, the process leading to the creation of the warforged was as much luck and chance as it was skill. House Cannith had produced magical constructs for many centuries. These golems were powerful creatures; they had the strength of stone or steel and felt neither pain nor emotion, but they lacked true awareness; they could follow simple instructions but could not adapt to unexpected situations, display initiative, or learn from their experiences. When Galifar collapsed into civil war, Cannith artificers sought to improve their golems, to produce sentient constructs with enough intelligence to employ strategy on the battlefield-tireless soldiers that could be sent into enemy territory with only general instructions, who could devise their own plans based on the tactical situation. The early stages of the project met with limited success. The warforged titans were living siege engines, and possessed a basic intelligence and self-awareness-but this was little better than that of a human child. A generation later, an artificer named Aaren d’Cannith led the team that made the critical breakthough, creating a truly sentient soldier with the skills of an elite warrior. Somehow Aaren’s soldiers had gained more than just human intelligence. They could feel pain. They could smell, and even taste, despite the fact that they could not eat, and they possessed the capacity for emotion. An ideal soldier should be able to ignore pain and act without being influenced by emotion, but somehow, these things were magically bound to the warforged sentience: with the ability to think came the power to feel.

While the artificers could not remove emotion entirely, House Cannith at least worked to suppress it. Every aspect of the warforged consciousness that could be shaped was directed toward its chosen path, and the warforged were given minimal information about anything besides their purpose. A warforged soldier didn’t need to know the reason for the battle: all that mattered was that he was built to fight it, and for as long as there was war, that was enough.

Now the war was over. The treaty that had secured the peace had also freed the warforged, recognizing their rights as sentient beings, not just weapons of war.

What did freedom mean for the warforged?

Pierce turned away from the horizon to study the ship. Beyond the sail that billowed even on this windless night, there was little to distinguish the Kraken’s Wake from a mundane vessel. A tall, muscular human was minding the ropes, and as he looked at Pierce there was an unmistakable charge of hostility. Pierce instantly evaluated the threat presented by the sailor. Size and build were taken into consideration, along with the cudgel hanging from the man’s belt and the leather jerkin he was wearing. Scars surrounded his filmy left eye, and Pierce had already considered ways to take advantage of this handicap in close combat. It took only a second for Pierce to decide that the man presented little threat to him-and that despite his apparent hostility, he lacked the resolve to act on his aggression.

If Pierce had lungs, he might have sighed. Cyre had fallen, but war was still the essence of his existence; forged to serve as scout and skirmisher, it was an effort for him to walk in the daylight without clinging to the shadows. Slowly, he was exploring other paths of thought, other aspects of life, but it was only in battle that he felt truly alive. Even now, despite his evaluation, part of him hoped this Brelish sailor would attack him so that for a few minutes, he could feel the satisfaction that came from serving his true purpose.

This was the paradox of freedom. Compared to humans, there was little that warforged needed. The warforged could feel physical sensations, but they did not feel physical pleasure in the same way as organic creatures. They did not eat or sleep and were immune to all but the harshest weather conditions, making shelter an option as opposed to a necessity. Few felt any need to amass possessions beyond their weapons or the tools they required to fulfill their function. For a human, freedom meant the opportunity to do whatever he wanted, but for the typical warforged, what he wanted was to perform the function he was made for.

A memory surfaced in Pierce’s mind-a slender, cloaked warforged, its skin plated in dark blue enamel, its voice that of a human female. He had only met her for a few moments, but he’d never forgotten the encounter. She’d sought to recruit him, hinting that somewhere a group of warforged was building a new future for his kind. He’d turned her down, choosing to remain with his three friends, but ever since that night, he’d wondered what would have happened if he’d gone with her. Recently, he had been reading a history of Galifar and was amazed by what one human had accomplished. The warforged had no history to look back to, but what future lay ahead? Was there a warforged Galifar, waiting to be built?

There was no wind, but the main sail billowed and fluttered, and Pierce turned to study it. The kraken-and-lightning emblem of House Lyrandar gleamed in the darkness. It had been charged with cold fire, and set amid the black sail as it was, it would seem to be floating in mid-air to any approaching vessels. The wind was the result of an elemental bound into the fabric-a spirit of the air that could generate a pinpoint gale just behind the sail. Studying the rippling sail, Pierce wondered about the life of the bound spirit. Was it conscious, aware of its surroundings? Most of the books Pierce had found claimed that elementals were simple creatures and that binding them was no different than domesticating horses. Pierce couldn’t help but wonder: Was the sail a prison for the spirit, or was it doing what it loved most-was the wind its one joy in life? Looking at the sail and imagining the spirit trapped within, Pierce didn’t know whether to feel pity … or envy.