The Killing Song: The Dragon Below Book III

by Don Bassingthwaite

  Something in the world … shifted. For an instant, Geth felt very small, like a child in the presence of an incredibly old, incredibly wise grandparent. A gust of wind came welling up out of the south. He smelled flowers and a hint of rotting vegetation. He heard the trill of a songbird, strangely mingled with the hunting cry of an eagle.

  All around him, Gatekeepers groaned. Medala shrieked, clutching at her head and the weird crystalline song that had haunted his mind vanished. He twisted his neck around to stare at the kalashtar.

  Her eyes were wide, though the pupils were tiny dark holes. Her fingers scraped slowly down from her temples to her cheeks, leaving long red scratches behind—then once again, she laughed. “You’ve freed them!” she said. “You’ve freed them, but you can’t shield them. They will be mine again!”

  Geth felt like his heart was ready to stop. Medala’s face creased in concentration. The song of her power crept back into Geth’s head. It swelled into a chorus.

  And vanished. Medala’s mouth dropped open. Her eyes lifted to the sky, focused on something far in the distance. “No!” she gasped.

  Geth turned back to stare beyond Batul. Over the Gatekeeper’s shoulder, Rhaan shone like a blue pearl above the eastern horizon. There was something else in the eastern sky, though: a speck of brightness moving fast toward them.

  “He comes,” said Medala. Her voice was harsh as the edge of a broken knife. Geth looked at her again, his skin scraping in the grasp of the elementals as he turned. Medala’s face was pale, her eyes blazing. Her lips were drawn back. She glared at Geth and Batul. “Darkness take you, then! Fight for me or fight for your lives, you will still fight—and I will still take what is mine!”

  Silver-white light flared, and when it faded, Medala was gone.

  The voices of the Gatekeepers swirled up around Geth. Some seemed angry. Most just seemed confused. Batul’s voice rose over them all. “Be quiet!” he shouted. “Be quiet! Don’t worry about her! Brothers and sisters, stay close. Morak and Uta, dismiss your creatures and help me get these two out. Someone spread word among the warriors—battle is on us!”

  The old druid was still on his knees, the amulet of Vvaraak in one hand. He stretched the other out to Geth, as the elementals melted back into the mud. “Ring of Siberys,” he said. “Well done, Geth. You brought the amulet at the perfect time.”

  Geth could only stare at him for a moment until he found words. “The perfect time?” he choked. “Batul, Dah’mir’s coming!”

  There wasn’t much comfort in Batul’s grin. “Dagga,” he said, “but this was the right time.” The hands of other druids came down to help Geth out of the mud. The shifter slithered up onto solid land like an eel, and Batul leaned over him. “Medala was right. The amulet was able to break her power, but Gatekeeper magic isn’t able to block it. If you’d brought the amulet to me and I had used it any earlier, she would only have bent us to her will again.”

  Ekhaas was hauled up out of the mudhole. She dropped down next to Geth, sputtering and wiping mud from her face, but her ears stood high and her eyes were bright. “But with Dah’mir coming, she couldn’t have fought a battle on two fronts,” she said. “She had to decide who she would fight. Khaavolaar.”

  Batul nodded. “Your mind is quick, duur’kala.”

  Geth looked away from both of them to a figure waiting nearby—waiting and visibly trembling. Orshok took a step toward him, then hesitated. “I tried to kill you, Geth,” he said. His voice broke.

  “Twice,” Geth said. “But it wasn’t you, Orshok. It was Medala.” He climbed to his feet and held his fist out. “She’ll pay.”

  Orshok thrust out his tusks and stepped forward to punch his fist against Geth’s. “Kuv dagga,” he said. “For Kobus, Pog, and the others.” He looked up at Geth and grabbed him in an embrace that sent mud squirting out from Geth’s clothes. “Word of Vvaraak, if I’d killed you, Geth, I would have killed myself when I realized what I’d done.”

  “Tak, Orshok.” Geth slapped his arm against the young druid’s back. “I’m glad you didn’t have to.”

  A hunda stick rapped against his shoulders. “Don’t get too used to living,” Batul said. “This isn’t over. Orshok, find Patchaka. I want you to stand with her and her warband during the battle.”

  Orshok pulled away from Geth and started to protest, but Batul growled at him. “Obey your teacher! This is an honor, Orshok!”

  The young druid didn’t look happy, but he snatched up his hunda stick and went jogging off. Geth looked around. The carefully set lines of the horde were in disarray, though younger druids like Orshok were slowly beating the orc chieftains and warlords back into position. Closer at hand, the senior Gatekeepers were clustered together, praying and girding themselves for battle. Geth turned to look up at the speck of brightness moving out of the east. It was considerably closer now and he could make out a sleek dark shape surrounded by a ring of fire.

  “Rat!” he said. “That’s not Dah’mir! It’s an airship!”

  “If Medala thought it was Dah’mir, I’m inclined to believe her,” said Batul. “I suspect Dah’mir is on board.”

  “But why would Dah’mir need …?” Geth clenched his teeth and answered his own question. “He went to Sharn to capture kalashtar. Medala said he would succeed there. He’s got his captives on the airship.” He looked down at Batul. “Is there anyway for you to get me up there? If we can free Dah’mir’s captives, we can put an end to this.”

  Batul shook his head. “Freeing kalashtar won’t end this, Geth. Stopping Dah’mir won’t end it. There’s only one way to end it.” He held out his hunda stick and pointed.

  At the dark entrance in the side of the Bonetree mound. Geth growled.

  “The Master of Silence,” he said. “That’s why you sent Orshok away. You’re going to fight the Master of Silence.”

  “The seals on his prison must be renewed or his influence will continue.” Batul lowered his stick and leaned on it, looking even older than he was. “The younger Gatekeepers and the horde will try to hold back Dah’mir. The elder Gatekeepers will face the Master.”

  “And what do we do?” asked Ekhaas.

  Batul looked up at her. “It’s your decision,” he said, “but Gatekeeper and Dhakaani worked together to defeat the daelkyr. I would welcome you both.”

  Ekhaas’s ears flicked forward. “Try to keep me away.”

  Geth lifted his face toward the airship. Something pulled him toward her. Anyone on board was almost certainly in dire danger. He felt like he should try to help them, but Batul was right. The greatest danger was the Master of Silence. He looked toward the Gatekeepers who had remained nearby. Praying and girding themselves for battle, yes, but possibly for their last battle. Geth squeezed his hand tight around Wrath’s hilt.

  “I’m with you,” he said. “What about Medala?”

  Batul shook his head again. “I don’t know. If any of what she said is true, she’ll go after Dah’mir. More than that, I couldn’t say—”

  A shout interrupted him. A handful of orc warriors dragged forward four limp forms. The Bonetree hunters. “They live!” called the lead warrior. Batul glanced at Geth.

  Geth looked at Breff’s unconscious face, then growled, “Get them off the battlefield. Leave them somewhere safe to recover.”

  “Breff won’t thank you for that,” said Ekhaas. “His honor—”

  Geth snapped his teeth at her. “I’ve had enough of honor!” He turned to Batul. “I’m ready for blood.”

  CHAPTER

  21

  He’d passed through fever and delirium. At times he’d been surrounded by friends, and at other times by enemies. Occasionally, he’d been surrounded by family, which was almost as bad as being surrounded by enemies. He’d run through the vineyards of his youth in the sun, studied by lantern light in the libraries of Wynarn, trained for the Blademarks in the rain under Robrand d’Deneith’s gaze. He’d watched Narath burn, over and over again.

  There had be
en fire. Always fire.

  Sometimes he’d seen the deck of a ship with Vennet d’Lyrandar at the helm, singing lustily to a sky that curved above them with no end, while Dah’mir perched in his heron shape on a rail, utterly unmoving. Whenever he saw the ship, the dream had always seemed to end in the same way: a vague memory of Vennet grappling with a half-elf woman, then picking her up and throwing her over the side of the ship.

  And Singe had plunged down with her, screaming his way into darkness.

  The fever had broken at night. His first coherent memory had been of stars and moons and of the Ring of Siberys, shining in the southern sky as bright as he’d ever seen it. Except that he hadn’t been able to see all of the familiar dusty band at once. He’d had to turn his head to take it all in.

  His mind had done him a mercy by slipping into deep sleep before he remembered why that was.

  He’d remembered when he woke the next day, though. And he’d discovered that his fevered visions of the ship’s deck, of Vennet and Dah’mir, hadn’t been delirium after all. The elemental ring that encircled Mayret’s Envy burned in a constant, fiery arc above him. He’d been bound on the airship’s deck, his wrists tied behind him, the rope run through a ring driven deep into the wood.

  At first Vennet had taunted him. The half-elf seemed animated by a manic energy, though his face was strained. He had stood at the wheel of the airship with his chest bare to the wind and threatened Singe with the power of his “Siberys mark.”

  He had no Siberys mark. There could be no pretending that he did. In Tzaryan Keep, Singe had glimpsed Vennet’s naked skin and the dragonmark that spread across his shoulders had been red and inflamed as if Vennet had been scratching it. The inflammation had grown. From shoulder to wrist, across his chest, and along his side, Vennet’s skin was scratched and raw. Wounds oozed clear liquid and yellow-green pus.

  No trace remained of the bright pattern that had once crossed Vennet’s shoulders. His back looked like it had been flayed. Vennet had apparently mistaken Singe’s twitch of disgust for awe-struck fear and had ranted that “the powers of the Dragon Below rewarded those who served them.” Singe, he’d promised, would witness the blossoming of his Siberys mark when the dark lords of Khyber were presented with their new servants.

  Dah’mir—in heron shape and perched on a rail, just as he had seen in his delirium—had finally silenced him with an impatient hiss.

  There was no food. A bucket of clear water had been left within the limited freedom allowed by Singe’s bonds, set out as if for a dog. Singe had crawled to it and stared at his reflection in the water.

  His cheeks showed the growth of three days worth of whiskers. The left side of his face was swollen and red. His eye was crusted and sealed with blood. With nothing behind to plump it out, the eyelid seemed loose and sunken. It hurt to smile or frown or turn his head, but it looked like the wound was healing without infection.

  Have a good sniff when a battle’s over, and remember that no matter how bad things smell, you’re still breathing.

  With a determination that would have done Dandra proud, Singe stuck his face in the bucket and drank.

  The hollow in his belly actually seemed to make his thinking sharper—and there wasn’t anything to do besides think. Vennet stayed at the wheel almost constantly, alternating between sullen silence and an animated conversation, apparently with the wind. Dah’mir scarcely moved from his perch on the rail. His feathered face and form were stiff with concentration, as if Dah’mir focused on something unseen. Maybe he did. Singe hadn’t seen him show any difficulty in throwing his domination over Dandra, but there were seventeen kalashtar on board Mayret’s Envy. Even for a dragon, it must have taken some effort to hold all of those minds captive.

  Of the kalashtar, there was no sign. Singe presumed that they remained in the hold where he had last seen them. There was no further sign of Virikhad’s presence either, but then he had what he wanted, didn’t he? Dah’mir had succeeded in Sharn.

  He dismissed thoughts of escape almost at once. His bonds allowed him enough movement to stand and peer over the ship’s rail. Mayret’s Envy passed above land, not water. They flew west, and from the desolation of the wilderness beneath them, Singe guessed that they were somewhere over Droaam. Even if he had been able to get free, where would he have gone? Dandra might have been able to reach the ground, but he couldn’t. And even if he had been able to, he didn’t like his chance of surviving the wastes of Droaam.

  Better to conserve his strength and what spells remained to him and try to escape once they were on the ground. After all, he thought he knew where they were going—and when the wastes of Droaam gave way to the wetlands of the Shadow Marches, he was certain of it.

  Back to the Bonetree mound. Back to the ancient prison of the Master of Silence.

  Singe knew that the idea should have terrified him. Somehow, it didn’t. It only roused a new anger in him and made his thoughts seem even sharper

  Late in the afternoon of the second day after Mayret’s Envy had passed into the Shadow Marches—the eighth day by Singe’s reckoning since the night of Thronehold in Sharn—Dah’mir shook himself and shifted on his perch.

  Singe glanced at him, then quickly dropped his gaze and watched the heron from under his eyelid. The ruffling of feathers was more movement than Dah’mir had made in days, and he didn’t seem to be finished. A short while later, his head ducked under his wing and his beak poked among his feathers. If Singe had been looking at a human, he would have said Dah’mir was fidgeting with excitement. He felt an urge to peer over the ship’s rail and search the landscape below for landmarks he recognized. They must have been getting close to the mound.

  He forced himself to remain still and watch Dah’mir. Until they were actually on the ground, it didn’t matter how close to the mound they were.

  When Dah’mir straightened his long neck again, acid-green eyes that had been dim with concentration flashed bright once more. “Vennet!” he said. “It is time.”

  Vennet broke off a one-sided conversation in praise of his own growing power and stared at the bird. “Now, master?”

  “Now.” Dah’mir stalked along the rail like a pacing general. “The instant we land, I want to be able to take my master’s new servants to him.”

  “But I can’t—” Vennet began to protest.

  Dah’mir whirled on him, eyes blazing, and as strange as the image of a heron menacing a man might have seemed, even Singe shrank back in spite of himself.

  Vennet flinched. “Master, I’m flying! There was a reason we planned to do this after we landed!”

  “Plans change, Vennet. I want no delay.”

  “If I leave the wheel, there will be a delay.”

  Dah’mir’s wings beat the air. “You are my hands, Vennet! My master commanded that it would be so and you offered yourself to me. Perhaps if you hadn’t thrown our spare pilot overboard you would have had someone to take your place. Now be my hands!”

  A dragon’s voice rolled out of the heron’s throat, but Vennet still managed to withstand it, though his voice sounded thin and weak by comparison. “Let Singe do it!” he said.

  Dah’mir turned to look at Singe. The wizard felt like he wanted to shrink back even further than he had before. His plans for escape, concocted in the stillness of hours on the airship, were suddenly very far from his mind. Dah’mir nodded slowly, and Singe had a feeling that although his beak couldn’t have managed it, the heron was smiling.

  “Yes,” Dah’mir said. “I like that idea. Free him.”

  Quick as a leaping flame, Vennet was down from helm and standing over Singe. The half-elf had two swords hanging around his waist. One was his own cutlass; the other was Singe’s rapier. Vennet drew the rapier and pulled Singe to his feet. “Don’t try anything,” he said, “or I’ll make sure you can’t see anything at all.”

  Singe held very still as Vennet slid the thin blade of the rapier among the knotted bonds at his wrists. It took him a couple of h
ard jerks to cut through, but the ropes fell away and Singe’s arms swung free. For a moment, they just hung at his side, numb and useless after being tied for so long. Vennet laughed and swatted at one of them.

  Singe turned around and glowered at him. Vennet, in response, punched him hard across the mouth. The blow sent bright pain sparking across Singe’s face and through his still healing eye socket. He staggered, gasping at the intensity of the pain. The sound of a flurry of wings brought him upright again. Vennet was already returning to the helm, the rapier thrust back into his belt, and Dah’mir was settling onto the rail beside Singe.

  “Vennet has made it clear what you have to lose, I think,” the heron said with cool indifference to his pain. “I may not have hands, but I could pluck out your remaining eye with ease.”

  Singe’s lips pressed tight together for a moment as he tried to shake feeling back into his arms, then he said, “You can’t become human again, can you? We haven’t seen you in your human shape since Geth saw you on the waterfront at Zarash’ak. That was before you went back upriver with Vennet. You were still injured, then. The next time were saw you, you were healed. Was the price of your healing the loss of your human shape?”

  Dah’mir blinked. “You’re a clever man, Singe. Too clever.”

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think lately, thanks to you.”

  “No thanks to me. Vennet is the one who begged to keep you alive. You should have been the one to go over the side.” His wings rustled. “But I will have my full power back, and you’ll play a part in it. Go to the forward hatch. We’re going down into the hold.”

  A dark fear grew in Singe. “Why?”

  “You’re clever,” said Dah’mir. “You’ll figure it out.” He hopped down onto the deck, and his beak darted at Singe’s leg. The sudden pain sent Singe stumbling across the deck. Dah’mir stalked along behind him, pecking and jabbing until Singe ran to keep ahead of him.