The Killing Song: The Dragon Below Book III Read online

  The Dragon Below has won.

  Beneath the Shadow Marches, one of the lords of madness stirs and schemes.

  In Sharn, a dragon holds the means to turn kalashtar to his master’s side, a new generation of servants for a dark and ancient power.

  The Binding Stones have been ripped from the heart of the Grieving Tree.

  The heights and depths of the City of Towers shiver to the sound of the Killing Song.

  Who will stand? Who will fight?

  THE

  DRAGON BELOW

  BOOK ONE

  THE BINDING STONE

  BOOK TWO

  THE GRIEVING TREE

  BOOK THREE

  THE KILLING SONG

  Thanks to everyone who helped

  The Dragon Below into being—and

  special thanks to Ole always.

  PROLOGUE

  The events of The Grieving Tree

  Although the attack by orc warriors under the leadership of Geth and Batul, the elderly Gatekeeper druid of the Fat Tusk tribe, had succeeded in freeing Dandra and Singe from Dah’mir’s power, victory in the battle at the Bonetree mound came at a price. Revealed as a dragon, Dah’mir was an even more powerful foe than any of them had guessed—and though he had vanished after being wounded by Geth’s sword, a relic of the ancient hobgoblin Empire of Dhakaan, Dah’mir remained alive and almost certainly angry. Dandra felt particularly frightened. With the destruction of the spirit of Tetkashtai’s lover, Virikhad, and her one-time friend, Medala, and the shattering of the great Khyber dragonshard Dah’mir had used to bind the three, Dandra was the last link to Dah’mir’s experiments in his quest to turn kalashtar into mad servants of the dark powers of the Dragon Below.

  Ashi—once a Bonetree hunter and now an ally—presented a possibility that would allow them to strike at the dragon rather than wait for his revenge. Bonetree legend spoke of the place where Dah’mir had dwelled before coming to the Shadow Marches, the place from which the enormous binding stone had also come. Perhaps clues to Dah’mir’s plans could be found in the Hall of the Revered, described in the legend as lying “below the Spires of the Forge” somewhere in the eastern Shadow Marches or beyond in Droaam.

  In search of information that could lead them to the Spires of the Forge, Singe, Geth, and Dandra, accompanied by Ashi, the half-orc merchant Natrac, and the young orc Gatekeeper Orshok, returned to Zarash’ak, the City of Stilts. Sources consulted by Singe and Dandra insisted, however, that no such place as the Spires of the Forge existed. A chance visit to Zarash’ak’s waterfront yielded an unpleasant surprise when Geth, Ashi, and Orshok stumbled across the treacherous captain Vennet d’Lyrandar—and Dah’mir in his human form! They hid and overheard Vennet and Dah’mir planning to take a boat upriver, likely back to the Bonetree mound. Geth was also able to see that Dah’mir still bore the horrible wound from the blow that had shattered the dragonshard embedded in his chest. They were discovered but escaped and reunited with Singe, Dandra, and Natrac. They found refuge with their final hope for information: Bava, a famous artist who was an old friend of Natrac’s and a collector of antique maps.

  With one of Bava’s maps, they were able to identify “the Spires of the Forge” as a location in Droaam once known as Taruuzh Kraat, an ancient underground stronghold of the Dhakaani Empire. Unfortunately, the ruins were now the site of Tzaryan Keep, home to one of the monstrous warlords of Droaam, an ogre mage named Tzaryan Rrac. Singe devised a plan to call on Tzaryan and gain access to the ruins in the guise of a scholar with the others posing as his guards.

  Discovering that Dah’mir and Vennet had abandoned the search for them to make their journey up river, Dandra boarded Vennet’s ship, Lightning on Water, and freed the crew who had been left behind. They told her and the others how Dah’mir had appeared on the ship in the form of a heron some weeks ago—magically transporting himself there after being wounded at the Bonetree mound by Geth—and enlisted Vennet’s aid in return for promises of wealth and power. In gratitude for freeing them from the nightmare of Dah’mir’s power, the sailors gave Dandra and the others passage to Vralkek in Droaam, the closest port to Tzaryan Keep, before continuing on to the city of Sharn to report Vennet’s corruption to the ministers of House Lyrandar.

  While Lightning on Water made her way to Vralkek, Vennet and an increasingly weak Dah’mir reached the Bonetree mound, where they found the fiery spirit of Hruucan, Dah’mir’s dolgaunt minion. Hruucan had been burned to death by Singe, but his desire for vengeance against the wizard had brought him back. The three of them entered the passages beneath the Bonetree mound, eventually reaching a cavern with a tunnel ringed by a seal created millennia before by Gatekeeper druids. Dah’mir’s chants opened a window through the seal, and Vennet found himself staring at the being Dah’mir called master—one of the immortal daelkyr, archenemies of the Gatekeepers. The power of the daelkyr’s voice in Vennet’s head, coupled with the shocking discovery of Dah’mir’s true nature as a dragon, drove Vennet mad. The daelkyr restored Dah’mir’s strength and powers but, as a punishment, rendered him unable to transform into a human shape, leaving him only able to switch between dragon and heron forms and forcing him to rely on Vennet’s aid until Dah’mir was able to provide the daelkyr with the kalashtar servants he had promised.

  Furious but strong once more, Dah’mir used magic to transport himself, Vennet, and Hruucan to Lightning on Water, still enroute to Sharn. While his former crew was slaughtered, Vennet searched the stolen ship for Geth, Singe, and Dandra, but they weren’t aboard. From the lone survivor of the slaughter, he discovered that they had been put ashore only hours before and learned of their plans to travel to Tzaryan Keep. Dah’mir guessed what Dandra and the others were trying to do and formulated plans of his own …

  In Vralkek, meanwhile, Singe and the others sought the services of a guide to take them to Tzaryan Keep, but instead encountered the enigmatic General, a veteran commander of the Last War who had been hired by Tzaryan Rrac to train his ogre troops. Backed up by the ogres, the General insisted on taking them to the keep himself. During the journey they found themselves followed by a strange figure, eventually captured by Geth and revealed to be Ekhaas, a hobgoblin duur’kala or dirgesinger, and the self-appointed protector of the ruins of Taruuzh Kraat.

  Ekhaas’s capture provided clues that enabled Singe to uncover the General’s true identity: he was Robrand d’Deneith, once Singe and Geth’s commander in the Blademarks mercenary guild, brutally disgraced after the massacre of Narath. On hearing their story, Robrand agreed to aid them provided they did nothing to compromise his contract with Tzaryan. While Singe fell into easy reunion with the old man, Geth’s shame at his unspoken role in the fall of Narath isolated him from the others.

  Robrand’s assistance and the capture of Ekhaas appeared to put them in the favor of Tzaryan Rrac when they reached the keep, and the ogre mage granted them permission to investigate the ruins. In the depths of Taruuzh Kraat, they found a central hall that containing the Grieving Tree—a stylized tree fashioned of stone—as well as a millennia old version of the device used on Tetkashtai and Dandra by Dah’mir, and a strange ancient riddle. Returning to Tzaryan Keep, they questioned Ekhaas, imprisoned in the ogre mage’s dungeon, to see what she knew of the ruins.

  In return for promises of her release, Ekhaas spun a tale of ancient history for them, the story of a legendary Dhakaani wizard-smith or daashor, Taruuzh, who had allied with a Gatekeeper seeress named Aryd to fight a particularly vile daelkyr known as the Master of Silence. The Master of Silence had assembled an army of psionic creatures, but he and his army were defeated in a conflict called the Batt
le of Moths in which the minds of the psionic army were trapped within Khyber dragonshards specially crafted by Taruuzh. Shocked, Dandra recognized the shards as many, many binding stones, though much smaller and more powerful than the large stone Dah’mir had used on her.

  Ekhaas confirmed it and said that Dhakaani history recorded that Taruuzh’s apprentice attempted to recreate the stones but succeeded only in creating a single large, weak stone, the very stone Dah’mir had rediscovered. Details in the story of the Battle of Moths also enabled Singe to guess that the Bonetree mound was built on the site where the Master of Silence had been imprisoned after his defeat. Dah’mir, they realized, served the Master of Silence—which meant that the daelkyr stirred again and reached beyond his ancient prison!

  While they were in the dungeon, the conflict between Singe and Geth came to a head, and Singe revealed to everyone the reason Geth was ashamed of what had happened at Narath. The town had fallen because a sewer gate that should have been easily guarded was overrun after one of its guards had abandoned his post in cowardice. Geth had been that guard and was directly responsible for the massacre that followed. Singe left the dungeon in a rage, and the others followed him, leaving Geth—angry and ashamed—and Ekhaas behind.

  They weren’t alone for long, however. Also imprisoned in the dungeon was a bounty hunter who had pursued Geth and the others from Sharn, and as Geth talked with Ekhaas, he was shocked to see Vennet appear and free the hunter! And where Vennet was, Geth knew, Dah’mir couldn’t be far behind. Geth waited until Vennet and the bounty hunter were gone, then put his shame aside and went to warn the others. Rushing up the stairs from the dungeon, he was ambushed and dragged back down—by Robrand! The old man released Ekhaas, telling her to leave the keep, and imprisoned Geth in her place. Robrand had been biding his time, waiting until he could get Geth alone and take his revenge for all that he had suffered since Narath.

  In the keep above, Dandra and the others encountered Tzaryan, but the ogre mage didn’t want to talk about Ekhaas, instead insisting that they accompany him to another part of the keep. Even Robrand’s appearance with claims that Geth had released Ekhaas and fled the keep with her would not deter Tzaryan.

  It was a trap—Dah’mir waited for them. The dragon had guessed that they were trying to get to Taruuzh Kraat and had struck a deal with Tzaryan to betray them. Dandra’s sensitivity to Dah’mir’s presence gave her a moment’s warning of the ambush, however, and Ashi’s quick reflexes saved the two of them. Pursued by Tzaryan’s ogres, they fled into the bowels of the keep, where they would have been caught if not for the unexpected intervention of Ekhaas. The hobgoblin hadn’t fled when Robrand ordered her to but had stayed with the intention of rescuing Geth. She revealed that the Dhakaani sword he carried was an ancient artifact named Wrath, long believed lost—that he’d recovered it showed him to be a hero, not the coward Singe depicted.

  Working together, the three women rescued Geth and escaped from the keep through a secret passage unknown to Tzaryan that led into the deeper caves of Taruuzh Kraat. They planned to hide and attempt to rescue Singe and the others when the time was right, but discovered that the caves were not as safe as they seemed. Geth’s sword had in fact been forged by Taruuzh himself and its presence in the cave roused the ancient daashor’s ghost in a storm of unnatural cold. Geth was able to convince the ghost of their good intentions and they escaped to a passage hidden off the hall of the Grieving Tree.

  The ghost’s words revealed that Wrath was also part of the riddle in the hall, a riddle that concealed a lost cache of binding stones that had remained after the Battle of Moths. Dandra and Geth immediately realized the danger should Dah’mir ever learn this—but they were too late. Dah’mir had used magic to discover their refuge in the caves and while they discussed the sword, he’d been listening from the hall beyond. Tearing into the passage, he demanded that Geth surrender the sword or see Natrac, Orshok, and Singe die on the Grieving Tree, which was actually an ancient torture device. To spare his friends, Geth agreed to leave the sword outside Taruuzh Kraat for Dah’mir.

  As Geth went to rescue Orshok from the Grieving Tree, however, Dah’mir’s guile was revealed. The dragon had figured out the full answer to the riddle. The presence of the Dhakaani sword and a Gatekeeper druid together beneath the Grieving Tree revealed the binding stones—they had been concealed in an ancient metal box within the tree itself. While Tzaryan and his ogres held Geth and the others at bay, Dah’mir ordered Vennet to seize the box and use one of the stones on Dandra.

  Just as doom seemed certain, the desire to protect Dandra caused Ashi’s dormant House Deneith heritage to manifest and an extremely potent dragonmark—a legendary Siberys mark—to form across her body. Ashi used it to shield Dandra from Dah’mir’s power. The act also created a schism between Dandra and Tetkashtai, who had gone completely mad and was threatening to destroy Dandra. Confronting Tetkashtai within her mind, Dandra defeated her and absorbed her presence.

  Their sundered mind was made whole, and Dandra assumed full command of her powers. She attempted to destroy the binding stones but succeeded only in wounding Dah’mir. Geth also broke free and would have attacked Dah’mir. Fearing the shifter’s sword and knowing that he had the real prize of Taruuzh Kraat in his possession, Dah’mir used magic to transport himself, Vennet, and the binding stones away. Hruucan remained, still intent on killing Singe. Realizing that neither she nor Singe could damage the burning dolgaunt with their fire-based powers, Dandra tricked Hruucan into following them down to Taruuzh’s tomb where he was finally destroyed by the ghost’s icy cold.

  The real fight was lost—Dah’mir had escaped with the binding stones. His magic might have taken them anywhere. Thanks to the magic of Wrath, however, Geth had understood Dah’mir’s final words to Hruucan, a riddle that Ekhaas solved. Dah’mir, they realized, was going to Sharn, the great City of Towers where Tetkashtai, Medala, and Virikhad had once lived and which was the home to the largest concentration of kalashtar on the continent. He would certainly try to use the binding stones against them to create servants for the daelkyr. The kalashtar of Sharn needed to be warned!

  But the Gatekeepers of the Shadow Marches also needed to be warned of the danger presented by the Master of Silence. Reluctantly, they decided that they needed to separate. Dandra, Singe, Ashi, and Natrac—who knew the city—would go to Sharn while Geth, Orshok, and Ekhaas would go to the Shadow Marches to find Batul. Before they separated Singe confessed to Geth that what they had been through recently and his new disillusionment with his hero, Robrand, made him realize that perhaps there was more to the events at Narath than he knew. When Geth was ready to talk about it, he would listen.

  Elsewhere the shattered remains of the Bonetree clan—devastated by the battle with the orcs, the vengeful attacks of Hruucan, and abandonment by Dah’mir—fled their camp at the Bonetree mound for good after watching a figure suddenly appear in the night before the mound in a flare of light. A figure that vanished just as quickly, leaving only a clashing crystalline music ringing on the air …

  CHAPTER

  1

  Vennet d’Lyrandar stood with his eyes closed and surrendered himself to the wind. He let it buffet him, cool against the bare skin of his torso, let it pull at his long hair and push on him until he leaned. The breeze whistled into his pointed ears. You grow stronger every day, Vennet!

  The half-elf, former captain of the elemental galleon Lightning on Water, smiled and answered. “Just wait,” he said. “The power of my dragonmark grows. Soon I’ll have you dancing to my will.”

  Dancing? the wind asked in polite disbelief.

  Vennet’s smile grew sharp. “Do you think you could resist the Siberys Mark of Storm?”

  The wind had no answer for that. Its force eased. Their conversation was over for now. The wind was fickle. Sometimes it would answer, sometimes not. But Vennet had told it the simple truth. When his mark had grown into its power, the wind would be compelled to obey him. An early fl
ush of power warmed him. He opened his eyes.

  At his feet, the edge of the rough terrace on which he stood dropped away. He looked straight down into the dark depths of the canyon between Dura and Northedge, two of the plateaus on which Sharn had been built. The City of Towers soared high overhead—reaching up and up toward a narrow sliver of sky that had turned red with sunset. Across the width of the canyon and up and down its length as far as he could see in the gloom, the huge bases of the towers spread out like the roots of an enormous forest. Night had already fallen in the lower city. Lights shone in a swarm of bright specks, lit by those who needed lanterns and cold fire to see. Around Vennet, the district of Malleon’s Gate, inhabited mostly by goblins, hobgoblins, and other creatures who were at home in the night, remained conspicuously dark.

  He would rather have been amidst the heights of the towers, up in the open air where the wind was at its strongest, where the other members of House Lyrandar moved with the wealthy and powerful of Sharn and Breland. He belonged among their number. Soon, he told himself. Soon I’ll be with them.

  He flexed his arms and felt the hot skin across his back and shoulders stretch tight. He could feel his dragonmark growing, transforming into a powerful Siberys mark. Such a thing was supposed to be impossible—centuries of lore said that a Siberys mark never manifested on anyone already carrying a lesser mark. Vennet almost laughed. He’d joined the cults of the Dragon Below in search of power, and power he’d received. Nothing was impossible for the dark lords of Khyber. The mark of Siberys was a gift from the master. When it had completed its transformation, there would be no more hiding. He would come forward and take his place as the greatest scion of Lyrandar that the house had ever—

  “Vennet! Vennet, where are you?” Dah’mir’s voice interrupted his reverie. There was an edge to the oil-smooth tones. Dah’mir wasn’t pleased with something.