The Killing Song: The Dragon Below Book III

by Don Bassingthwaite

  A lesser creature might have been afraid, but the Master of Silence had burned fear out of Vennet’s heart. “Here!” he called back. Only a few moments later, Dah’mir settled out of the shadows onto the terrace beside him. As he had for most of the time since they had arrived in Sharn, he wore the form of a black heron. His majestic true form would have caused too much excitement and attracted too much attention when his plans required stealth and discretion. The bird was still a dragon, however. Vennet bent his head to his master.

  Dah’mir’s acid-green eyes flashed. “Speaking with the wind again, Vennet?”

  Vennet was abruptly aware of his naked torso. He turned away from the canyons and reached for his shirt, weighted down by a rock so it wouldn’t blow away. “Yes, master,” he said. He winced as the fabric of the shirt, as fine as he’d been able to get his hands on, scraped across his irritated shoulders. His growing dragonmark might have been a gift, but it also itched unbearably. “What do you need? What do you want me to do?”

  When he’d first met Dah’mir, the dragon had possessed a human form that allowed him to walk easily among the lesser races. With the same power that had granted Vennet his Siberys mark, the Master of Silence had taken Dah’mir’s human form away from him as a punishment for failing the daelkyr. Vennet had become Dah’mir’s emissary to the world, his face and hands in Sharn. It was a role he played with relish, a service to the Dragon Below—a step on his path to glory.

  “I want you to go to our host,” said Dah’mir. “Tell him to prepare.”

  Vennet’s heart caught in anticipation. “We’re ready? So soon? But the plans—”

  “Plans can be adapted. Give our host the details he needs. I will wait no more than a few days. My master waits for his new servants, and I will wear this body no longer than I must.” Dah’mir shook his wings. “Nothing must go wrong now.”

  “What could go wrong?”

  Dah’mir fixed him with a glittering eye, and Vennet felt his elation vanish. “Never ask that question in jest,” Dah’mir said. “I thought myself invulnerable and I was wounded. I will not allow it to happen again.”

  “But Geth, Dandra, and Singe must be dead,” Vennet protested. “Hruucan or Tzaryan Rrac—”

  “There’s been no word from Hruucan and no news of him either. If Hruucan failed, then Tzaryan Rrac wouldn’t have thrown his life away.”

  “But we don’t know they’re alive—and they couldn’t know we’re in Sharn.”

  Dah’mir’s bill clacked. “We don’t know they’re dead. And they seem to have a way of knowing things they shouldn’t. Learn, Vennet. Learn and make plans. I have made arrangements for our enemies.”

  He spread his wings and hopped up onto the crumbled remains of a wall, lifted his head and gave a whistling call. Within moments, another heron flapped out of the shadows and settled beside him. It looked similar to Dah’mir’s heron form—black feathers and green eyes—but it was subtly smaller and its feathers were ragged with a greasy sheen to them. Perhaps a dozen of the birds had accompanied them to Sharn, the remnants of a once larger flock. Vennet had often wondered if the herons’ similarity to Dah’mir was more than just coincidence. They were no ordinary birds; the one perched beside Dah’mir met the dragon’s gaze fearlessly, and it looked as if the two black birds were conversing. After a moment, the heron let out a call, spread its wings again, and flew off into the night. Other winged forms followed. Vennet watched them fly out over the raw canyon, then up among the towers until they vanished from sight.

  “Plan carefully, Vennet,” Dah’mir said. “I will not fail now.”

  CHAPTER

  2

  From the surface of the Dagger River, among the wharves that lined the base of the cliffs on which it was built, Sharn was a sight to inspire awe. When the sun shone, the City of Towers was a shining monument, soaring into the heavens, the unthinkable height of its massive spires pointing like spears at the underbelly of the sky. As the ragged ship that carried the name White Bull came alongside one of the wharves and mooring lines were thrown to waiting dockworkers, however, the sun wasn’t shining. The sky was heavy with clouds the color and weight of lead, and Sharn was less a monument than a warning. It was a looming, titanic thug, waiting to crush anyone who came within reach of its bulk.

  Singe stood on the deck of the White Bull, stared up at the dark stone of the cliffs and the city, and let out his breath slowly. “This is it,” he said. “We’re here.”

  To his right, Natrac grumbled and dug the point of the long knife strapped over the stump of his right wrist into the sun-bleached wood of the rail. “I didn’t think I’d be coming back here.”

  Singe turned to look at the half-orc. “You could have gone to the Shadow Marches with Geth—or home to Zarash’ak.”

  “Too late for that.” He twisted his arm, and a shaving of wood curled up. “Sharn. Bah. The only city in the world where you can fall to your death getting out of bed.”

  Singe would have smiled if he’d felt at all like smiling. Instead he turned to his other side. “What about you?” he asked. “How are you feeling?”

  Dandra’s long, black hair whirled in the breeze, tangling around the shaft of the short spear she wore strapped across her back. Her eyes were fixed on the heights of the city. “Sharn’s a big place,” she said without shifting her gaze, “but whatever Dah’mir has planned, he’s not going to get away with it. We’re going to stop him.”

  Her voice was determined, but it was seldom less than determined. Singe reached over and put his hand over hers where she gripped the rail. “That’s not what I meant.”

  A flush stained the bronze-brown of her cheeks. “I know.”

  Determination didn’t mean that Dandra wasn’t afraid. He lifted his hand and put his arm around her shoulders, holding her tight. “We can’t face Dah’mir alone again, Dandra. We’ve been lucky so far. If Dah’mir came to Sharn to turn kalashtar into servants of the Master of Silence, we need to warn them. And if we need allies—”

  “—we should start with the kalashtar elders.” Dandra sighed and leaned into his embrace for a moment. “You can keep saying that, but it doesn’t make this easier. You can’t understand. The kalashtar here know … knew Tetkashtai. How are they going to react to me? I’m not Tetkashtai. I’m not even a kalashtar. I’m a psicrystal in a kalashtar’s body. I killed Medala and Virikhad. I absorbed Tetkashtai. That’s going to scare them.”

  Her hand came up and clutched the yellow-green crystal around her neck that had once been her physical form and more recently a prison to Tetkashtai. Singe could feel the tension in her body. He held her tighter. “That’s all the more reason for them to listen to you,” he assured her. “Dah’mir exchanged your mind with Tetkashtai’s. Dah’mir drove Medala mad. Because of him, Tetkashtai would have destroyed you and turned on us if you hadn’t stopped her. You’re living proof of the danger Dah’mir represents. The elders have to see what will happen if we don’t stop him.”

  She gave a bitter laugh. “I don’t know which scares me more, Singe: that we might not find Dah’mir or that we almost certainly will.”

  “You can do this,” he murmured in her ear. “I know you can.”

  Footsteps came along the deck behind them, and Singe released her. The captain’s mate, a Brelish man, stopped a pace away from them. “See to your gear,” he said. “Captain wants you off and out of the way so we can unload our cargo.”

  If Singe had any lingering doubts that not all of the goods in the White Bull’s hold were strictly legal, the mate’s warning eliminated them. The ship had been the least questionable to call on the squalid port of Vralkek while they’d been there. She was far from the swift elemental galleon Lightning on Water—now lost if Vennet d’Lyrandar could be believed—but they hadn’t had much choice. Singe didn’t doubt that the ship could put on a turn of speed if she were being pursued, but day-to-day she traveled at a snail’s pace that left him grinding his teeth in frustration. Lightning on Water could h
ave made the passage to Sharn in days. The White Bull had taken nearly a month. “Tell the captain we’ll be off as soon as the gangplank touches the wharf.” He swept into a bow. “It’s been a pleasure sailing with you. I’ll recommend you to my friends.”

  His sarcasm passed over the mate without even ruffling his matted hair, and the man turned back the way he had come. Singe took another look up at the looming city, then stepped away from the rail and picked up his pack. “Come on.”

  The final member of their little party waited for them by the gangplank, her lean body as tense and coiled as a hunting cat’s. Ashi was the only one of them who had never been to Sharn before. Singe wasn’t sure that she’d even believed their stories about the city until the White Bull had passed the headlands of the coast and Sharn had come into view that morning. Now she paced back and forth near the gangplank, looking out at the docks. When she turned at their approach, there was a strange mix of emotions in her eyes: the fear and wariness of a predator entering new territory, and the curiosity of an explorer on the edge of uncharted terrain.

  In fact, her eyes were all that could be seen of her face. A scarf hid everything below Ashi’s eyes and a wide headband covered her from eyebrows to hairline. Virtually every other bit of her skin was covered with clothing scrounged in Vralkek. Her shirt had long sleeves and a high collar, and she wore close-fitting leggings. Her palms and the backs of her hands were covered by fingerless gloves. Singe had even covered the pommel of the sword, a bright honor blade of the Sentinel Marshals, that had first led him to suspect that the hunter might carry the blood of House Deneith.

  There wasn’t a hint of the powerful Siberys dragonmark that had manifested during their confrontation with Dah’mir in the ruins of Taruuzh Kraat, tracing her body in bold and complex patterns. The mark had the power to shield Dandra from the terrible fascination that Dah’mir wielded over kalashtar. Unfortunately, Siberys marks manifested so rarely that the dragonmarked houses watched for them with proprietary avarice. Once House Deneith learned of Ashi’s mark, they were certain to seek her out and claim her for their own. Singe had served Deneith for nearly fifteen years as a mercenary in the Blademarks Guild. He knew what the house was capable of—and that his years of service wouldn’t mean a thing to Deneith.

  Ashi saw him inspecting her and gave him a glower. He raised his eyebrows. “People are going to stare at you,” he said. “It can either be because of the way you dress or because of your dragonmark. And we can’t let Deneith take you.”

  The glower deepened for a moment, but eased. “Betch,” Ashi cursed. “I know.” She regarded her shrouded arms with disgust, then flexed them. “At least I can still fight in this.”

  “Hopefully you won’t have to—at least, not for a while.” Singe looked from the hunter to Natrac to Dandra, then drew a long breath and nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Stepping onto the wharf was like walking into battle. Big, muscular men and women moved back and forth with deliberation, wielding their loads like weapons against anyone not quick enough to get out of their way. Carts and wagons rumbled like siege engines. Warforged—artificial creatures given life and intelligence by the artificers of House Cannith—trod heavily across the planks and stones as well. The sight of them only reinforced in Singe the sense that he was back on a battlefield.

  Warforged had been created for only one purpose, and even two years after the end of the Last War, it still seemed unnatural to see them engaged in something as routine as manual labor. Singe’s fingers itched with old instincts, ready to draw his sword or fling a fiery spell should one of the constructs turn on him.

  None of them did, of course. Still, it was a relief to make a strategic retreat from the wharf into the crowded streets that hugged the waterfront and were cut into the steep base of the cliffs. Ashi’s eyes were wide, and it seemed that every few steps, she stopped to stare in wonder at some new sight. At the warforged. At a wagon, driven by a hobgoblin and hitched to a pair of heavy tribex, their long horns blunted but still impressive. At the famous skydocks, cranes high on the cliffs lifting massive loads up to the city along lines of glowing light. At a group of five human men with faces identical down to the blotch of a birthmark.

  “Changelings,” Natrac spat in explanation. One of the men must have felt Ashi’s gaze or overheard the comment, because he turned and grinned at the hunter as his features melted briefly into a duplicate of Natrac’s face. The half-orc scowled and tugged Ashi onward.

  Natrac wore a tunic with a cowl, and Singe saw him pull the cowl up with a sharp motion to hide his face. Curiosity stirred in Singe. Natrac had always been close-mouthed about his past, and the only reason Singe and the others knew that he’d spent time in Sharn at all was because Bava, the half-orc’s old friend in Zarash’ak, had let a fragment of the tale slip. Singe eased closer to Natrac. “Expecting trouble?” he asked.

  “Only a dead man doesn’t,” Natrac growled. “Let’s get to the upper city.”

  If Ashi had been awed by the sight of the skydocks, she nearly cried out when they stepped onto one of the passenger lifts that carried people instead of cargo from the waterfront up into the lowest levels of the city. The particular lift that they boarded was a ramshackle affair, an old skydock long since retired from heavy work. The glowing line of force that connected lift and crane pulsed visibly as they rose, making the passenger platform shudder and jolt. Heedless of any danger, Ashi leaned out over the rail, staring at the ships and street as they shrank below. Between the hunter’s masking scarf and Natrac’s shrouding cowl, Singe couldn’t help thinking they made a suspicious party. When the lift reached its destination at the top of the cliffs, he slipped a few copper crowns into the hand of the goblin operating it. Singe didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to—the goblin lost interest in them with professional swiftness. He probably made a tidy profit ignoring who and what rode on his lift.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” said Natrac. “He’s going to know we have something to hide.”

  “Only a dead man doesn’t expect trouble,” Singe repeated. “We’re stalking a dragon. I don’t think we can underestimate Dah’mir—or Vennet. They’ve had more time in Sharn than I would have liked. Whatever magic Dah’mir used to transport himself, Vennet, and the binding stones out of Taruuzh Kraat, you can bet it got them to Sharn faster than the White Bull.”

  The district where the old lift left them was dominated by warehouses and large workshops built among and into the bases of the great towers of the city. Away from the cliff’s edge, the streets quickly became dank and dark, the air stale and still. The steady light of huge lanterns that burned with cold fire replaced the natural light along the busiest routes. Singe let Natrac take the lead, and the half-orc kept them among a steady parade of traffic crossing the district toward one of the large lifts that would take them all the way up to the airy reaches of the upper city. For all that they walked a well-traveled route, the feel of danger lurked in the air. When the sounds of violence echoed out from a gloom-choked sidestreet, Singe’s hand jumped for his rapier. He kept moving though, pushing Ashi ahead of him when the hunter would have stopped to investigate.

  “Trust me,” he told her. “You don’t want to get involved. That’s the way to Malleon’s Gate. Dol Arrah would think twice about going there alone.”

  The warning only brought new light to Ashi’s eyes. “Why? What’s Malleon’s Gate?”

  “Once it was the heart of Old Sharn,” Dandra said. “Now it’s where the goblins—and other monsters—live.”

  “Like Droaam?”

  “Worse than Droaam.”

  Warehouses gave way to grimy inns and taverns as they approached the lift to the upper city. It was more than twice as large as the first, and much more recently constructed. The floor of the platform looked like a disc of solid metal only a handspan thick. The rails—likewise made of metal—that ringed it were solid and polished; the roof overhead was tinted glass. The lift was also more crowded, though the p
assengers studiously ignored one another. Once everyone had stepped on board, a section of rail slid across to close the entrance, and the lift rose so smoothly Singe barely noticed when it started to move. Half of the disc fit snugly into a curve in the outer wall of a tower; the other half hung out over open air. Ashi jostled for the best view, and the jaded inhabitants of Sharn gave it to her. The hunter watched as stone dotted with flickering chips of dragonshards—the focus of the magic that supported the lift—rushed past on one side and the face of another tower, complete with dirty or broken windows and cluttered balconies, flew past on the other. Every few minutes, the lift would stop and the railing on one side or another of the platform would part allowing passengers on or off through arches in the tower wall or along bridges to neighboring towers.

  “How far up do we go?” Ashi asked.

  “Almost to the top,” said Dandra. “We’re going to Overlook district. That’s where most of the kalashtar in Sharn live.”

  The nature of the view and of the passengers on the lift changed as the lift climbed. The windows they saw became increasingly cleaner and more decently covered. The balconies became larger and neater. The passengers likewise seemed more respectable. A busy marketplace marked the midpoint of their ascent. Ashi stared with such fascinated longing at the seething crowds that she almost tumbled over when the lift began moving again. All the while, the ground slipped farther away. Birds and more exotic flying creatures swooped through the canyons between towers. A flock of pigeons broke before the diving form of a hawk, swirling in a feathery storm around a passing harpy, leaving her cursing violently as she fought to climb above the birds. Finally even Ashi stopped looking over the edge of the lift and retreated toward the middle of the platform. Dandra gave her a faint smile. “You get used to the height,” she said.