The Binding Stone: The Dragon Below Book 1

by Don Bassingthwaite

  His elation was shattered by the screaming battle cry of the Bonetree hunters, and a sudden, brief clash of blades. Singe whirled around, but the fight was already over. Ashi was crouched over the quivering, wounded body of one of the young hunters. Her sword was drawn. So was his. There was blood only on Ashi’s blade, however. She reached down and wiped her sword on the young hunter’s shirt, then turned her back on him as the other hunters moved forward and surrounded their wounded comrade. To Singe’s surprise, Dah’mir and Medala, seated by the fire, did nothing more than glance up before returning to their conversation.

  The young hunters’ glares and mutters followed Ashi as she stalked across the camp to fling herself down beside Singe and Dandra. She pulled a whetstone out of a pouch and began stroking it along the blade of her sword as if utterly unconcerned by what had taken place. Singe could see her hands trembling though.

  “What was that?” he asked softly. He had discovered that unlike Ashi the young hunters spoke only their own language, though they seemed to understand Dah’mir’s commands well enough, reacting as much to the green-eyed man’s dominating presence as to his actual words. He had no fear that they would overhear him but Medala’s hearing sometimes seemed uncanny and he had no desire to attract her attention.

  “Any hunter can make a challenge for the huntmaster’s blade,” said Ashi. “If they’re successful, they become the new huntmaster. That pup has been working himself up to challenging me for the last two days. He won’t be the last.” She growled as she worked at the sword’s edge. “Stupid children. I don’t know if they honestly think they can lead the hunters or if they just want the sword!”

  “Why would they just want the sword?”

  “Because they’re greedy. By tradition, the huntmaster carries the best weapon in the clan. No one else is allowed to even touch it.”

  “I remember that,” said Singe. “You threatened to disembowel me when I unsheathed it.”

  “Don’t let anyone hear that you did,” Ashi said, “or I don’t think even Dah’mir would be able to save you. You’ve touched the blade and that puts you above everyone else in the Bonetree except me.” She held up the sword, turning it so that firelight flashed on the polished metal. After a moment, she lowered it and looked at Singe. “On Vennet’s ship, you called this a sentinel’s honor blade.”

  “An honor blade of the Sentinel Marshals of House Deneith,” Singe corrected her. “The patriarch of House Deneith would have given it to a Sentinel Marshal in recognition of some great deed. They’re rare, maybe one or two are awarded in a generation. This was the weapon of a hero.” He glanced up and saw a blank look in her eyes. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know what a Sentinel Marshal is,” Ashi muttered.

  Singe blinked in surprise. “I guess maybe they don’t get into the depths of the Shadow Marches too often,” he said. “The Sentinel Marshals enforce justice across the borders of kingdoms. When a criminal tries to flee from a kingdom to escape the king’s troops, a Sentinel Marshal will pursue him.” He pointed at the motto on the honor blade. “Words teach and spirit guides is a Sentinel Marshal saying. The words of the law teach and direct them, but the spirit of the law guides them in their duties. Because they’re members of House Deneith, ancient treaties put them outside of the laws of any one kingdom.” He gave Ashi a level look. “You know what House Deneith is, don’t you?”

  “A clan from beyond the Marches,” said Ashi. “A clan with magic in its blood.”

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Singe agreed with a nod. “House Deneith carries the Mark of Sentinel—magic of protection—the way that Vennet’s house, Lyrandar, carries the Mark of Storm.”

  “Do all children of Deneith have this Mark?” Ashi asked curiously.

  “Children never bear a Mark,” Singe told her. “If someone carries a dragonmark, it appears as they enter adulthood. Sometimes they grow larger and become more powerful—the rarest and most powerful appear fully formed—but usually they’re small. Most members of a dragonmarked house don’t carry a mark at all.”

  Ashi actually looked disappointed. Singe cocked his head and looked at her sideways. “Ashi?”

  The big hunter shrugged, then extended the honor blade. “Two generations ago, an outclanner was taken captive in the marshes. I’ve heard that he was so badly wounded that the hunters wanted to kill him, but Dah’mir insisted that he be kept alive and brought into the Bonetree—as you will be. The outclanner’s name was Kagan. If he had another name, it isn’t remembered. Kagan couldn’t fight anymore, but there was still enough man in him to bring many children into the clan.” She twisted the sword. “His weapon was so fine that the huntmaster claimed it.”

  Singe stared at the sword, then at her. “You’re saying that there’s House Deneith blood in the Bonetree clan?”

  Ashi grimaced and shook her head. “If Kagan was a member of your House Deneith, his blood in the Bonetree is thin,” she said. “The elders say that after a few years, Kagan went mad and managed to kill all of the children he had sired—except one.” She smiled softly. “The elders claim it was the will of the Dragon Below that he grew up to become the longest-lived huntmaster to ever lead the Bonetree hunters.”

  “Ner?” asked Singe.

  She nodded.

  “Did he have any children?”

  Ashi looked up at him.

  “Twelve moons!” Singe spat. “You?”

  Ashi nodded again.

  Singe sat back, stunned. After a moment, he asked, “Do you carry the Mark of Sentinel?”

  “It would be the only way to know for certain if I had the blood of House Deneith, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes,” admitted Singe.

  “Then I have no clan but the Bonetree,” Ashi said. She slid the honor blade back into its sheath.

  The orc-crafted boats skimmed through black water so still that it mirrored the night sky. Thick strands of reeds and grass made clouds; the trees that grew up through the water were like gnarled pillars pressed down by the weight of the sky above.

  The boats carried no lights. Like shifters, orcs could see well in the dark. Geth sat in the bow of Orshok’s flat-bottomed craft, Natrac in Krepis’s. Batul squatted between the half-orc and the big druid to keep the peace. No one spoke. Batul had forbidden it.

  The clouds of reed and grass grew broader, the stretches of open water narrower. Finally Batul spoke a word in Orc, and Krepis and Orshok guided the boats toward a grassy crest. Geth felt the wood underneath him crunch over solid ground.

  “Out,” said Batul. “We’re here.”

  Geth glanced at the sky. It was, he guessed, roughly the middle of the night: the thin crescents of three of the twelve moons had already dipped below the horizon and the full, pale orange disk of the moon Olarune was rising to its zenith. He picked up the long staff with the angled crook at the end, the same as Orshok’s and Batul’s own, which was all the old druid would permit him as a weapon. Natrac had one, too. “It’s a traditional orc marsh tool,” the half-orc had muttered before they’d climbed into the boats. “A hunda stick. It’s a probe, a support, a weapon …”

  “What the hook on the end for?” Geth had grunted.

  “Catching snakes,” Natrac had answered.

  Geth missed his gauntlet and sword. He even missed the paired axes he had wielded in Bull Hollow after he had put the gauntlet away in rejection of his past, but the little hamlet seemed more distant than Narath now.

  He leaped lightly onto land, then held the boat so Orshok could clamber out. Natrac tried to do the same, but ended up slipping halfway into the water, thrown off balance because he had only one hand to pull with. It earned him a sneer from Krepis. “City-born half-breed.”

  Natrac’s remaining hand tightened on his hunda. Batul grunted at them both.

  When they were all on solid ground, Batul led them forward. Geth looked around as they walked. Under the light of the moons and the Ring of Siberys, the marsh was still. It also stretched almo
st completely empty for nearly as far as he could see. The only feature that stood out was a lone tree, twisted and dead.

  Batul stopped under the shadow of the tree and stared ahead across the desolate marsh. After a moment, he spoke. “The Gatekeepers were created to defend the Shadow Marches against magical invasion from Xoriat, the realm of madness. For thousands of years, we waited and we trained. When the invasion finally came, though, even we weren’t ready. Our tribes were devastated. The hobgoblin empire of Dhakaan was beaten back. The daelkyr, the foul leaders of the hordes of Xoriat, held the Marches in their fingers until orc and hobgoblin, Gatekeeper and Dhakaan, came together to drive them back and close the pathways to Xoriat.” He stretched out a hand, sweeping it across the landscape before them. “Nine thousand years ago, before it was torn apart and its master put to the sword, this place was a daelkyr stronghold. Jhegesh Dol.”

  Geth studied the marsh. The only sign that a stronghold of any kind might once have stood here were a few large, scattered dark rocks. The grass and reeds of the marsh looked the same as anywhere else. The wind that blew over them smelled no different. The shifter glanced at Batul. “All we have to do is cross this?” he asked.

  “Dagga.” The old druid pointed. Geth followed his gesture; in the distance, he could make out the shape of another dead tree. “We will wait for you there. Cross Jhegesh Dol by dawn and Fat Tusk will fight with you.”

  Geth noticed that the orc didn’t bother to mention the alternative. He glanced at Natrac. “Ready?”

  The half-orc nodded. Geth took a breath and stepped out past the dead tree.

  Nothing happened. He walked a few paces more. There was still nothing. He twisted around. Natrac was right behind him, looking as puzzled as he felt. Batul, Orshok, and Krepis had turned away from the dead tree and were pacing back toward the boats. “Batul!” he shouted. “Is this a trick? Nothing—”

  Natrac sucked in a sudden, sharp breath and terror settled over his face as he stared beyond Geth. The shifter whirled back around.

  The marsh was empty no longer. A misshapen fortress, cold and black, rose above them.

  CHAPTER

  13

  ‘Where did that come from?” Geth growled in disbelief.

  Natrac shook his head. “I don’t know! One moment there was nothing and the next …” He swallowed and said thinly, “It happened when you turned around. When you took your eyes of the marsh. There are legends about what orc tribes and dragonshard prospectors have found deep in the Shadow Marches. Old ghosts from the dark times of the Daelkyr War.”

  “There are legends about the deep forests in the Eldeen Reaches, too,” Geth told him, a chill on his skin. He craned his neck back, looking up at the fortress. It was a hideous thing. The black stones that it had been built from were rough and irregular yet shone slick in the moonlight, as if grease or fat had been rubbed into them. High up on the fortress walls were tall windows that were no wider than his palm. Higher still, narrow platforms and towers jutted out, like vile growths. The battlements at the very top of the walls were jagged with blades set into the stone.

  The fortress sprawled out to either side of him and Natrac, but directly in front of them was a gate, tall and narrow like the windows, set with blades like the high battlements. “We can’t go around it,” said Geth. He jerked his head at the gates. “I think we’re supposed to go through.”

  Natrac nodded in reluctant agreement.

  The blades that covered the gates looked dull and weathered, but Geth didn’t feel like taking the chance of touching them. He and Natrac set the butts of their hundas against a flat space on one gate and leaned hard on the stout wood, pressing until the great gate swung open enough for them to slip through.

  A rank stench of blood engulfed them. Natrac doubled over, retching at the smell. Geth clenched his teeth, biting down on his tongue, and fought the urge to do the same. Instead, he forced his head up and looked around them. The moonlight that bled through the open door made a tenuous silver path through a great, shadowy hall. Even away from the sliver of moonlight, though, there was enough light for him to see clearly. He almost wished that he couldn’t.

  Every part of the walls was decorated with blades and spikes. Empty torch sconces were formed from jagged swords of strange design. Knives made fantastic pinwheels on the walls. Halberds and other pole arms were bound in ranks around columns, their heads jutting out like sharp-edged frills. Doorjambs and archways wore crowns of iron spikes. High above, the ceiling was shingled in the overlapping blades of battleaxes.

  The brown and black of long dried blood stained every surface.

  Geth turned around, staring. “Grandmother Wolf,” he murmured. The grating sound of Natrac’s retching filled the air, echoing off the cold, hard metal. His whisper and even the soft scuff of his feet rose to join the cacophony. There was something else as well, though. He froze and gestured for Natrac to do the same. The half-orc wiped his mouth and staggered upright. They stood still and listened.

  The echoes of their intrusion died out. For a moment there was silence—then a faint heart-wrenching scream of pain burst out from some unseen distance. Geth spun again, trying to locate the origin of the ghostly sound, but it seemed to come from everywhere at once. It rose and broke, falling away into a series of wordless, anguished sobs.

  “Mercy of Dol Arrah, what was that?” gasped Natrac.

  “It was the sound of someone with their tongue cut out,” said Geth grimly.

  The great hall narrowed ahead, shrinking down slightly to become a tall corridor that seemed to lead in the direction they wanted to go. Geth pointed his hunda silently. They crossed the hall and entered the corridor, both of them moving with swift stealth. Doors that bristled with clusters of long, tooth-like arrowheads lined the corridor, but neither Geth nor Natrac glanced at them, instead driving forward in unspoken agreement to get out of the fortress as quickly as possible. Geth’s gut tightened with every step, though. It couldn’t be that easy, he thought.

  It wasn’t. The corridor ended in another great chamber. At its far end stood a pair of metal-clad doors. To either side of them, stairs swept up, meeting at a broad landing and a dark archway. Natrac leaped forward to grab eagerly for the handle of one of the doors. Geth threw himself at the half-orc, holding him back. “Wait!” he ordered, and bent to examine the handles.

  Long, knife-edge blades lined the inside of them. Anyone grasping the handles to open the doors would likely lose several fingers. Natrac hissed and clenched his hand quickly. Geth reached out with the crooked end of his hunda, hooking it around the handle and giving an experimental pull.

  Nothing happened. The doors were locked or barred from the other side. Geth released his hunda—the wood now deeply scored from the blades in the door handle—and glanced at the stairs. “Looks like we’re going up.”

  The room at the top of the stairs was darker than the hall and corridor below and it lacked the bizarre bladed ornamentation of the fortress’s lower level. Geth wasn’t certain he found that comforting. The upper room was cold and stark. If it had been an alley, he wouldn’t have walked down it without a sword in his hand.

  “Can you feel it?” Natrac whispered. “There’s been murder here.”

  “More than murder, I think,” muttered Geth. There was another corridor. They moved down it cautiously.

  Natrac heard the whispers first. Geth felt him stiffen and turned to glance at him. The half-orc touched his hunda stick to an ear. Geth cocked his head and listened. After a moment, he heard the whispers, too. They were like a gentle wind blowing through the forest, each rustling leaf creating its own quiet sound. Leaves didn’t sound so frightened or desperate, though.

  Most of the whispers were the grunting, snuffling sounds of Orc. Mixed in among them were hints of another, harsher language—Goblin, Geth guessed. He looked Natrac. “Can you make out what they’re saying?”

  “They’re begging for release,” the half-orc said, his voice shaking. “They’re
in pain. They want to die.” He pressed his lips together. “I don’t hear any human voices.”

  “There wouldn’t be,” Geth pointed out. “There were no humans around to witness the Daelkyr War.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something shift in the shadows. He held back the urge to leap toward it and grabbed Natrac’s arm. “Keep moving,” he said tightly. The half-orc obeyed without question, though Geth could see his eyes darting around as they hastened on.

  The whispers stayed with them. So did the shapes in the shadows, except that soon they weren’t just in the shadows anymore. Geth staggered to a sudden stop as a pale orc, all color leached out of it, seemed to flow out of the very stones of the wall—he could see the corridor ahead through the filmy substance of its body. The orc’s mouth moved in a pleading whisper and it reached out to Geth. Or tried to. Its hazy arms ended in ragged stumps, hacked off at the elbow.

  “Tiger’s blood!” choked Geth. He grabbed for Natrac, but the half-orc seemed frozen. Geth twisted around.

  There were more phantoms emerging from the walls and shadows, rising from the floor and gliding down through the ceiling. There were bulky orcs and lean hobgoblins, scrawny goblins, and even hulking bugbears. Some looked almost as old as Batul. Others were little more than children. All of them were whispering. All of them had looks of horror and desperation on their faces.

  All of them held out the stumps of arms and the stubs of legs. Some were missing fingers, some feet, others whole limbs. Many had been disfigured in other ways as well, their ears or noses or lips or eyes torn away, their bodies flayed and gouged. Natrac was staring at all of them in stunned numbness.

  “Jegez,” he croaked, his eyes wide. He stretched out his right arm, holding up his own blunt wrist. The phantoms’ whispers rose and they pressed forward as if welcoming their kin.

  Geth snarled at them, trying to push back. It was like grabbing a broken egg—he could feel the phantoms’ insubstantial flesh, but not hold it. He seized a sharp-toothed hobgoblin by the neck and thrust it away from him for an instant. Even as he thrust, though, his fingers sank into the phantom, then through it. The hobgoblin clutched at him with pleading in its eyes. Geth jerked backward, plunging through several other phantoms and slamming into the floor.