The Shattered Land: The Dreaming Dark - Book 2 (17 page)

While Gerrion seemed to have many friends in Stormreach, he had his share of enemies as well. More than a few people turned away with expressions of disgust when they caught sight of Gerrion, and a man with the look of a militiaman or mercenary soldier sneered and spat at the half-elf. It was hard for Pierce to tell if this anger was directed at Gerrion himself or if it was some sort of general prejudice toward his race. Over the course of two hours, Pierce only saw one other person with gray skin similar to Gerrion’s; she was a beggar, and like Gerrion she also seemed to have some amount of elven blood in her veins; her rambling conversation suggested deep-rooted mental instability.

Eventually, Gerrion came to the harbor. He made his way onto a small sailboat, entering the cabin. The vessel was battered and worn, the hull covered with peeling black paint, and as far as Pierce could tell from the movement of shadows against the window-blind, Gerrion was its sole inhabitant.

Eventually the lamp within the cabin was extinguished. Pierce continued to watch the vessel for another hour, waiting to see if Gerrion would emerge or if a guest might arrive, but the harbor was silent and dead. A human might have found the wait to be excruciatingly dull, but such thoughts never crossed Pierce’s mind. He was absorbed by the hunt, watching every sound, every motion, every ripple of water and shifting shadow. He was hidden against a mooring pylon, and between his superior view of the piers and his inhumanly sharp senses, no one should have been able to approach without his knowledge.

But she did.

“It is strange that we should meet in this place.” Her voice cut through the night, and if Pierce had been human he would have jumped in surprise. Instead he analyzed
the situation. The speaker was close but out of sight; he considered the possibility that she was invisible but came to the conclusion that she was standing on the other side of the pylon he was using for cover. At such distances his bow would be useless, and he prepared to draw his flail should the need arise, but even as he made this calculation, he was also considering the voice itself. Though feminine in pitch and inflection, it had an echoing timbre that reminded Pierce of his own voice—words formed from the rippling of a flowing stream.

It was a voice he’d heard before.

She stepped out from behind the pillar and into the light of the two moons that were full in the sky. Pierce’s instincts told him to draw his flail, but this time he restrained himself.

“Strange indeed,” he said. “I had not thought to see you again or that you possessed the skills to approach me unseen—your talents have grown since our last meeting.”

“Perhaps, or perhaps I wished to be seen.”

She wore a cloak of stained gray oilskin, and her clothes were ragged burlap. With her scarf pulled up to cover her face, she would have passed unnoticed on the street. Just another beggar. Her scarf was pulled down, and the face beneath the hood was that of a warforged soldier, coated with dark blue enamel that blended into the shadows of the night.

“What brings you to this place, brother?” she said.

For a moment, Pierce was at a loss for words. He had never forgotten their meeting on the streets of Sharn, and he felt an unfamiliar thrill at seeing her here. The stranger fascinated him on many levels. While the warforged had no true gender, her feminine voice and posture were intriguing; it was not a physical attraction in any way a human would understand it, but she raised a deep curiosity, a question of how else she might differ from him. Her skills were impressive. Reflecting on the hunt, Pierce now recalled spotting her once or twice over the evening, but he had never realized her true nature or considered the fact that she might have been watching him. Just looking at her, he could tell that she would be a deadly foe. Her hands might be empty, but they were made of steel and mithral. Studying her stance Pierce could tell that she was ready to strike if he took hostile action.

“I am here to protect my companions,” he said.

“Have you sold yourself to this gray-skinned breather, or do you still follow your old commander, bound by the chains of our ancient service?”

“I come in the company of friends, not as a slave following a master.” Pierce said. “Perhaps friendship is a concept you cannot understand.”

“I know it well,” she said, taking a step closer to Pierce. His instinct was to step back, moving away from her reach, but he chose to hold his ground. She was a foot shorter than he was, and she gazed up into his crystal eyes. “Those creatures of flesh created us to die in their wars. Believe what you will, you are nothing but a tool to your so-called friends. You are the shield: the strong wall that protects them from harm and the first to be sacrificed when the onslaught comes.”

“I think I know my companions better than you do,” Pierce replied. The first stirrings of anger burned at the back of his mind. “I fought in many battles alongside the captain, and I am still here. I would not be, if not for the magical gifts of my lady Lei.”

“Listen to your speech, brother. Your captain. Your lady. There is no war, not any more. You owe fealty to no one, but you have forged your own chains. Tell yourself they are your equals—your friends—if you wish, but in your deep thoughts, they remain your masters.”

Pierce looked away, breaking the eye contact. She was twisting his words, but there was some grain of truth to it. Though he had consciously sought to set aside these terms of rank, at his core he still saw Daine as his commander. There was comfort in that hierarchy, in that sense of purpose, but even as his doubts grew, so did his anger.

“You know nothing of my life,” he said.

“I
lived
your life, brother. I served in their war. I believed in the cause. I was almost destroyed more than once, only to be brought back from the darkness by their smiths and their spells, but that gift of life was not given freely. They made me to serve and brought me back so I could kill and die for them again.”

Curiosity warred with anger. “How did you serve? You carry
no weapons. Have you set aside the path of war along with your former loyalties?”

“Things are not always as they seem.” She crossed her arms before her chest and clenched her fists. Blades of black metal snapped out of her forearms. “I was born to kill generals and princes. I am the sword in the shadows, and many fell by my hand. I was built to bring death to creatures of flesh, and now that I am free, I choose my victims.”

“You did not live my life,” Pierce said. “I was not made to kill—I was made to protect. Now that I am free, I choose who I will defend.”

There was a flash of motion. A tiny creature came darting out of the sky, a delicate silver construct no larger than a dragonfly. It settled on the assassin’s chest. Pierce had heard of such devices but never seen one; they had been built to transmit memories and images from one warforged to another, facilitating communication between spies and scouts. The stranger’s eyes dimmed for a moment as she listened to a voice Pierce could not hear.

“So you are not alone?” Pierce said. He did not know the range of the messenger, but he was certain it could not fly across the sea.

“I did not cross the Thunder Sea just to argue with you, no. I have my own purposes here, and it is time I returned to my work.” She took a few steps back. “So return to your captain and your lady. Just remember—these creatures of flesh and blood are not as strong as we are. They are vulnerable to so many things: disease, hunger, the ravages of time. They will die eventually, and in a land as dangerous as this one, there are many ways it could happen. Defend them if you must, but we will be waiting for you when they are gone.”

She turned and sprinted down the pier, moving with astonishing speed and silence. A moment later she had passed through the harbor gate, and Pierce was alone again.

D
aine’s sleep was troubled. He dreamt of a thousand floating eyes surrounding him, peering, probing, trying to press inside his mouth and ears. There were multifaceted insect eyes, yellow eyes of cats and wolves, human eyes the size of his fist. He could feel the alien gaze as if it were a physical force, icy fingers tracing strange patterns across his skin.

He woke with a cold shiver. The room was dark, and he could still feel the chill touch of the eyes against his skin.

“I am sorry.”

Lakashtai was sitting on the floor next to his bed. She was still wearing her cloak, and even as Daine’s eyes adjusted to the dim light her face was hidden in the shadows of her hood. A sleek black cat was draped across her lap, and it peered up at him with yellow eyes that seemed all too familiar.

“I was arrogant, and I did not anticipate the actions of our enemies,” Lakashtai said.

Daine could not see her mouth, and her voice was a whisper in the darkness. For a moment he wondered if he was still asleep, and he stared at the cat with new suspicion. It ignored him, armored in feline pride.

“The crystal shard Gerrion shattered was a weapon designed to fight my people,” Lakashtai continued. “The pain you felt was but a taste of its true power. Kashtai … the attack has weakened my bond to her spirit, and without her strength my powers are diminished. I thought that I would be protecting you, but now I
fear that I shall be the one that requires protection.”

“The eyes …” Daine said, struggling with his thoughts.

“They are the least servants of il-Lashtavar. The Dreaming Dark can capture the spirits of those who die while sleeping and bind them in mindless servitude. Tonight, they are the hounds of Tashana, and they seek your dreams on behalf of their mistress. I have wrapped you in mystery, and I believe that you escaped unseen.”

“I’m safe?”

“For the rest of this night, I hope. I cannot shield you completely, but I can hold them at bay … for the moment, at least, but I cannot promise dreamless sleep in the nights to come.”

She stood, and in her dark cloak she seemed little more than a shadow. The cat seemed to have vanished. “Return to your rest. Hard times lie before us, and you must marshal what strength you can. We will need you in the times to come.”

Lakashtai walked over to the door, and her passage made no sound, but even as she left, Daine heard another whisper at the back of his mind.

Beware the gifts of the Traveler, my friend. Remember the words of the wind
.

“Jode?” he muttered.

For a moment he struggled to rise, to look around the room, but sleep weighed on his thoughts like an anchor, and he found himself falling down against the blankets. His last memory was of a pair of yellow eyes shining in the darkness.

If Daine had other dreams that night, he could not remember them in the light of the morning. He was the last of the companions to rise, and when he made his way downstairs the others were waiting for him. Gerrion and Lei were engaged in an animated conversation about the history of local ruins. Lakashtai sipped at a cup of tal, lost in her own thoughts. Pierce watched from a corner. Daine considered asking about his nocturnal patrol, but he knew Pierce would tell him if there was anything he needed to know. While he had come to think of Pierce as a friend and not simply a soldier, they rarely talked; they understood each other, and speech was unnecessary.

“These will strengthen you for the tasks ahead. Eat quickly,” Lakashtai said, pushing a bowl toward him.

It was filled with berries drenched in a watery white liquid, and Daine studied the unfamiliar fruit dubiously. Each berry had a thin yellow shell with a vertical black slash, and at a glance it looked disturbingly like a mass of eyes glaring up at him.

Lei glanced over from her conversation and smiled. “If the local fare is too rich for your delicate palate, I can see about getting you a bowl of gruel, Master Daine.”

Daine scowled and began to eat. He tried not to think about his dream and the eyes crawling into his mouth.

“Now that you have rested, there is no time to waste,” Lakashtai said. “We must conclude our business in Stormreach as swiftly as possible. The Riedrans may have other concerns than hunting you, Daine, but I think it best that we leave quickly.”