The Binding Stone: The Dragon Below Book 1

by Don Bassingthwaite

  No! Dandra thrust the presence away, then sent an image to her, a vision of what had happened while she huddled in fear. The hunters are waiting for us, she said. The dolgrims have crossbows ready—

  Tetkashtai stared at the vision—then whirled like an angry cat. You told them! she howled. You told them what happened!

  Dandra stumbled again, her shoulder scraping against cold rock. You wouldn’t answer me! she protested. I only told them what I had to.

  It was too much! Tetkashtai raged. Dandra forced herself back to her feet, staggering through the presence’s anger—and flinching as a hand gripped her arm. She looked up sharply.

  Adolan held her upright, offering her support. His eyes met hers. They were blue, she noticed. Soft blue, clear and direct, a stark contrast to the green eyes that haunted her thoughts …

  “You fight a silent battle, Dandra,” he said.

  Tetkashtai froze in the midst of her rant, her fury shrinking to a deadly, hate-filled point. He knows! she hissed. A sudden vision of flames washed through Dandra’s mind. Kill him. Kill him!

  The kalashtar’s throat constricted and she shuddered, squeezing her eyes shut. No, she gasped. No! I won’t! She gathered the flames and flung them back against Tetkashtai’s venomous light. Startled by the force of her rejection, the presence backed down. Dandra groaned aloud in release and her body sagged. Adolan held her up.

  When she opened her eyes, he was staring at the crystal around her neck. Dandra stiffened and pulled away reflexively. Adolan let her go. “How?” Dandra breathed. “How do you know?”

  The druid shook his head. “Gatekeepers are attuned to the unnatural.” He pointed at the psicrystal. “I don’t understand your powers, Dandra, but I can tell that something is wrong. Is this why the Bonetree—”

  Dandra clenched her teeth. “Don’t say anything else,” she told him harshly. “Just tell me why you needed me here.”

  Adolan’s eyes widened, but he said nothing and motioned for her to turn around. Her body stiff, Dandra turned.

  The stones of the Bull Hole clustered close together around the circle’s center like old warriors closing rank. Symbols and drawings were etched into their cold surfaces, some trick of the pale moonlight making them seem fresh and new though they should have been weathered into illegibility by untold ages. The stones surrounded an open space less than ten paces across and carpeted in coarse grass. Lying on the ground at the very center of the circle was a thick, irregular slab as broad as Dandra’s outstretched arms.

  Breek perched on the slab. The bird’s eyes were focused on the sky overhead. Dandra followed its gaze and saw the long, gangly shapes of two herons in the moonlit sky. Her breath caught.

  “They’re still watching us,” said Adolan. The druid stepped around her and over to one side of the slab. “Breek would attack them, but he knows that he would be a target as soon as he rose above the Bull Hole. We need to know what we’re facing. Lend me a hand.” He gestured and Breek hopped off the slab onto the ground. Adolan bent down, working his fingers between the soil and the stone.

  Dandra looked at the slab and allowed herself a thin smile. “I think I can do better,” she said. She focused her concentration on the stone and imagined the feel of its cold, dense surface under her hands, then drew that sensation into herself, wrapping her mind around it. Tetkashtai, help me, she said as she reached out to pull the presence closer to her.

  Except that Tetkashtai wrenched herself away with a chilly disdain. Dandra’s concentration wavered in surprise, her mental connection to the stone fading sharply. She sent a swift, angry thought toward the presence’s yellow-green light. Tetkashtai, what are you doing? I need your help. We have to move this rock.

  Why? Tetkashtai drew herself up, her light gleaming harshly. You know what I think needs to be done.

  More images of Adolan wreathed in flames, of herself fleeing the circle and leaving Singe and Geth to face the Bonetree hunters, flashed through Dandra’s head. She clenched her teeth. I’m not going to do that.

  Then you can move that stone with your hands like a dumb human. Tetkashtai pulled back. Dandra’s jaw dropped open in shock.

  “Dandra?” asked Adolan. He was staring at her in concern. “Are you all right?”

  The kalashtar closed her mouth. “I’m fine,” she said. In her mind, she snarled at Tetkashtai. Help me!

  No. Move it yourself.

  Dandra’s hands curled into fists. All right, she spat. She stared at the slab, then stretched out her mind and wrapped her thoughts around it once more. “Step back,” she told Adolan. A startled look crossed the druid’s face. He snatched his fingers out from under the stone and scuttled backward away from it. Dandra turned her will against the slab, pushing against it in the same way that she pushed against the ground when she chose to glide above it.

  There was a word for the invisible force involved in attempting to move something with willpower alone: vayhatana. It literally meant “ghost breath,” a good word for something that was at the same time subtle, powerful—and often elusive.

  The slab didn’t move, but Dandra’s feet slid back and she almost fell to her knees. In the darkness of her mind, Tetkashtai sneered. Pathetic.

  Dandra didn’t answer her. Climbing to her feet, she focused on the slab again. When she rose above the ground, the vayhatana that she used was soft and gentle, taking no real energy at all. This time, though, she hardened the vayhatana, throwing it against the slab while willing herself to remain where she was. Without Tetkashtai’s aid, directing her powers was difficult, but the raw strength behind them—that was her own. Dandra wrenched at the core of her being, dredging up all of her reserves, and heaved at the stone.

  Nothing happened. She strained harder, like any human hauling at a great weight. A shudder shook her body, flesh faltering beneath the strength of her will. Tetkashtai flinched, though she still managed to mock her. Stop this! she said imperiously. You can’t move that. Who do you think you are?

  Anger flickered in Dandra’s heart. Her teeth grinding together with aching pressure, she seized it, weaving it into her effort, focusing the vayhatana until it was like a cocoon spun around the slab. She lifted her hand slowly and held her palm out toward the slab. She could feel the stone, feel the way it rested against the ground. It only needed something to slide on to make it move, the way that just a thin layer of water could make tiles slippery. Or the way that a gentle force could send her gliding over the ground …

  It took less than a thought to draw the cocoon of vayhatana under the slab, slipping invisible energy between stone and soil. The fingers of her hand pressed forward slightly.

  A faint ripple of force shimmered through the air. Dandra didn’t even dare to breathe as, with the slightest of tremors, the slab slid smoothly away from her. A few inches … a foot … another foot.

  Tetkashtai was silent in her head. On the other side of the slab, Adolan stared and moved his mouth in choked words of wonder. The moving stone revealed the edge of a hole in the ground. Adolan managed to find his voice again. “Open it all the way if you can.”

  Dandra gave a slight nod and pushed a little harder. Like a child’s toy boat set down on smooth water, the slab floated aside. When the hole—no larger around than the ring of her own arms—was fully exposed, she took a breath and pulled her mind away from it. The slab settled back to the ground with a soft thud that brought a squawk from Breek. As Adolan hastened to kneel at the edge of the hole, Dandra lowered her hand. A hot pride spread through her—a pride that turned swiftly to shame. Tetkashtai’s entire attention was turned toward her, the presence’s light as cold as a winter dawn. Without a word, Tetkashtai retreated, shrinking into a yellow-green spark, no brighter than a star.

  Dandra felt more empty and alone than she ever had before. She swallowed and stepped quickly to Adolan’s side.

  The druid was peering intently into the hole, his lips moving in quiet murmurs. Sounds were returning from the hole as well, though, soft, alm
ost animal sounds like the lowing of a cow. Or a bull. Cautiously, Dandra peered over Adolan’s shoulder, down into the hole. It might not have been very big around, but it was clearly deep. Far, far deeper than she would have expected. Frighteningly deep. She could feel a power in the hole, too, something very old and very primitive. Something that hated the abominations that had intruded upon the valley, something that remembered the ancient war that Adolan had described. The strength of that hatred seized her, pulled at her, tried to drag her down into the primal deeps. Dandra gasped and reeled back desperately, trying to escape it. Adolan’s hand reached up to steady her.

  “Easy,” he said.

  She swallowed, trying to recover her breath. “What is that?” she gasped. “If that’s what the Bonetree worship …”

  Adolan shook his head sharply. “The cults of the Dragon Below worship the powers of Khyber. The spirit of the Bull Hole was placed in the depths by the Gatekeepers to help make sure that they stay there.” He rose to his feet, his face grim

  “You were talking with it,” Dandra said.

  “The Bull Hole knows things,” the druid replied. “It told me what we face.”

  “The dolgrims? The Bonetree clan?” Dandra asked.

  Adolan shook his head. “The dolgrims, yes, but not the Bonetree—the Bull Hole only sees unnatural creatures. No, there’s something else in the valley. Something worse than the dolgrims.”

  Acid-green eyes flashed in Dandra’s memory and fear rose in her throat. “What?” she asked with dread.

  “Ado!” Geth’s voice rose from the outer ring of the circle before the druid could answer. “You’d better see this! Something is happening out there!”

  “You and Singe keep watch. Dandra, come with me.”

  Geth’s eyes narrowed as Adolan beckoned Dandra to follow him, then moved off among the stones toward the center of the Bull Hole. A growl rumbled into his throat. He twisted away from both druid and kalashtar before it could fight its way free.

  He found himself face to face with Singe. The Aundairian had been watching Adolan and Dandra as well, but with Geth’s sudden movement, his eyes flickered to him. Geth stiffened. Singe did the same. For a moment, both men were silent, then Singe turned back to scan the clearing beyond the circle. “Here’s a funny thing,” the wizard said. He nodded toward the dolgrims and the Bonetree hunters. “If it wasn’t for them, I’d be trying my best to burn you alive. But here we are. Like old times.”

  The growl Geth had trapped before slipped loose.

  Singe paid him no attention. “What Adolan said about druid history—is it all true?”

  “His tradition says it is.”

  “Huh.” Singe stretched his arms. “I didn’t think there was anyone left who still cared that much for tradition. I thought the Last War killed all of them—one way or another.”

  “Adolan never left the Eldeen,” said Geth. “He was lucky.”

  He turned to face out of the circle as well, leaning against the stone that had given them shelter. The great-gauntlet on his arm, a sword on his belt, one of the Frostbrand at his side …

  Memories of a dozen battles, of hundreds of nights of guard duty, of cities and towns and fortresses, swarmed over him. The fingers of his right hand, encased in the black metal of his gauntlet, began tapping out a ringing rhythm on the stone.

  Singe glanced down at the sound. Aware of what he had been doing, Geth forced his hand to be still. Old habits, he thought, came back too easily. Singe looked away again.

  “That gauntlet doesn’t look like it’s had nine years of use,” he said.

  “It hasn’t,” Geth answered.

  “I remember when you got it. A full year’s Blademarks wages—with bonuses—to that artificer in Metrol. You didn’t take it off for half a month. The smell was so bad Robrand was worried your arm was rotting inside.”

  The wizard’s voice was brittle. Geth could guess what was going through his head: nine years of bitter anger channeled into resentment at being made to stand as allies.

  He knew exactly how Singe felt. He closed his hand into a fist and looked out over the clearing. “The hunters have spread themselves out,” he said. The words came out as tightly clenched as his fist. “They’re not making themselves a target. They know we have a spellcaster.”

  “More likely they know we have Dandra and they want to avoid her psionics.” He darted a glance down at Geth. “That’s kalashtar mind-magic to you.”

  “Is it really? Maybe they did teach you everything at Wynarn,” the shifter grunted back. He looked up at Singe. The wizard had stiffened. Nine years had changed the man—Geth could see it in Singe’s eyes—but he still had the same sensitive points. Geth dug a little harder. “That big crystal she wears around her neck? It’s called a psicrystal—it’s like a familiar for psions.”

  “I know what a psicrystal is,” snapped Singe. He stared out into what Geth knew could only be shadows to his human eyes. “How may of them are there?”

  “Dolgrims?” Geth made a rough estimate of their opponents’ numbers—with so many arms waving and mouths champing in the moonlight, it was difficult. Every so often, a little pack would split off to circle the clearing while others would tumble out of the woods, making an accurate count even more difficult. Still, he grimaced at the odds. “Thirty, maybe forty. Less than half that of Bonetree hunters, assuming all of them are out there and not in the trees—”

  Even as he spoke, though, an eerie, fluting call floated through the night air and a ripple seemed to spread through humans and dolgrims alike. The humans rose silently, remaining where they stood, while the dolgrims shrieked and jostled themselves into a rough semblance of order. All of them turned to face the dark line of the trees. Both Geth and Singe stiffened.

  “What’s going on?” muttered Singe.

  “I don’t know.” Geth raised his voice and called over his shoulder, “Ado! You’d better see this! Something is happening out there!”

  Adolan and Dandra were beside them in only moments, striding swiftly from the inner circle. Dandra looked strangely fear-haunted and Adolan oddly calm. Geth wondered what had happened at the Bull Hole’s heart—but only briefly.

  Out in the clearing, three figures emerged from the trees. One was a lean man with tattoos that swarmed up his arms. Another was a tall woman, as big as any man in Bull Hollow, with beads the size of finger bones strung through dark blonde hair and two pale rings piercing her lower lip over her canines. Both were dressed like the other hunters and carried swords. Of the third figure, though, Geth could make out almost nothing: it was shrouded in a cloak and cowl. One of the hunters approached the trio, speaking with them. His words were soft, but Geth saw him point at the stones and glimpsed his face as it twisted into an ugly grimace. The tall woman glanced back toward the forest and nodded. The lean man’s expression grew long and he bowed his head. They had found the bodies of the hunters he, Singe, and Dandra had killed, Geth guessed.

  Only the cloaked figure made no expression of sorrow. Its cowl turned not toward the trees, but toward the circle of stones. Adolan’s breath hissed between his teeth.

  “What is it?” asked Geth.

  Adolan shook his head. His eyes were fixed on the cloaked figure.

  It must have said something because the humans turned toward it. The hunter who had spoken first swept his hand through the air, palm up. The cloaked figure turned sharply and strode forward, the lean man and the tall woman in its wake. Hunters and dolgrims alike leaped aside to make way for them.

  At the same point where the magic of the Bull Hole had blocked the dolgrims, the cloaked figure was stopped as well. It cursed, a horrible word that carried all the way to the stones and that Geth didn’t recognize, though he understood the emotion behind it all too well. The figure turned away and spoke again in what sounded like the same language, this time addressing the dolgrims. The horrid creatures squealed with excitement and charged back toward the trees. Only the Bonetree hunters and the cloaked figu
re remained in the moonlight. The figure turned back to face the Bull Hole again.

  “Gatekeeper!” it shouted. “Gatekeeper!” Its voice was harsh and oddly broken, as if it did not often speak. It reached up to draw back its cowl. Geth’s guts tightened. Dandra gasped and Singe hissed. Adolan’s hands, Geth saw, curled where they rested on the stone of the Bull Hole.

  There were no eyes behind the cowl. Black pits stared out of an emaciated face. The creature’s flesh was pale and hard, drawn close to its bones and muscles. Its ears flared broad from the sides of its head before narrowing to fine points. Strange, thick clumps of hair fell from its head to its shoulders and a light, shimmering fur seemed to cover its arms and a chest that was bare beneath the cloak. Long, thin tentacles that resembled nothing so much as unnatural tongues sprang from the flesh of its shoulders.

  “Gatekeeper!” the creature roared again. “I know you hear me. There is only one thing we want here. Give us the kalashtar and we will leave your valley!”

  Dandra shrank back in fear, but there was also relief on her face, as if she had almost been expecting something even worse to lie behind the cowl. Geth’s eyes darted from her to Adolan. “What is that thing?” he asked in disgust.

  “A dolgaunt,” Adolan answered. “The Bull Hole felt its presence in the valley. It’s leader of the dolgrims. As foul as they are, it’s even worse.”

  “Hruucan,” said Dandra softly. Adolan glanced at her. So did Geth and Singe. Dandra looked at them without meeting their gazes. “The dolgaunt—his name is Hruucan.”

  Adolan’s expression was guarded. “This isn’t the first time you’ve encountered him?”

  Dandra shook her head. The look in her eyes was so haunted that even Geth flinched back. Adolan blew out his breath. “Ring of Siberys.”

  For a moment, conflict washed across Dandra’s face, then she blurted out. “If you want to avoid a fight, let me go. They’ve just spent a month following me. If I get out of the valley, maybe they’ll keep following me—”