The Road to Death (The Lost Mark) by Matt Forbeck

Author:Matt Forbeck [Forbeck, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780786964963
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Publishing
Published: 2013-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

We need to open that gate,” Kandler said. “If we do that without removing that guard, he’ll bring the entire fort down on our heads. It’s him or us.”

Sallah nodded, then shouldered past the justicar. “Wait here,” she said.

Flummoxed, Kandler watched as the lady knight strode straight up to the ladder. She climbed up into the guard’s post in a small niche along the narrow walkway that lined the upper edge of the wall just high enough to let a man peek his head out over the crenellations.

“Hello,” he heard her say. “I think I’m lost.”

“True enough,” the guard said, amused. “You’re a long way from Thrane.”

Kandler crept over to the barred gates, still listening.

“It’s been a long, lonely trip,” she said. “I was hoping to find some civilized company here.”

The guard laughed. “There’s little of anything civilized out here on the edge of nowhere, but I’d be pleased to do what I can to please you.”

Kandler heard Sallah try a girly giggle, but it fell flat.

“Are you all right?” the guard said. “Something caught in your throat?”

The lady knight coughed. “I’m fine,” she said. “It must be the night air.”

A pair of skeletal guards converged on the post from opposite directions. Kandler could hear their booted feet stomping along the wooden walkway above, and he pressed himself harder against the gates. He put his hand on the pommel of his sword, ready to draw it at a moment’s notice, but fearful that the sound of it clearing its scabbard would give him away.

“Just let me put these two at ease,” the guard said. “They don’t talk much, but they listen to orders.”

A moment later, Kandler heard the skeletal guards pacing back off in the directions from which they’d come. He breathed a silent sigh of relief.

“Now,” the guard said to Sallah, moving closer to her, “let’s see what I can do for you.”

“Why don’t you join me down below?” Sallah said. “I feel a bit too exposed up here. Anyone could see us.”

“An excellent idea,” the guard said. “Ladies first.”

Sallah came down through the hole in the flooring, picking her way carefully down the ladder to the ground. As she cleared the decking, she waved Kandler into a nearby patch of shadow to wait.

The lady knight stood at the foot of the ladder until the guard joined her. “Now,” he said with a leer, “just what was it you were hoping I could do for you, my pretty lass?”

Sallah sidled closer to the guard, running her hands up his chest until they rested on the front of his breastplate. “I just have one simple request,” she whispered in his ear. “Keep quiet.”

She shoved the man back into Kandler’s arms, where he put a knife to the man’s throat. The guard’s eyes grew wide, but he pressed his lips shut as if he feared some sound might accidentally escape.

Sallah tore off the guard’s tunic and used strips of it to gag and bind him. He didn’t struggle a bit. Just before she stuffed a ball of fabric in his mouth, he whispered, “My thanks to you.

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