The Grieving Tree: The Dragon Below Book II Read online

  “You’re too clever, Lieutenant Bayard,” he said “I knew I should have left you in Vralkek.”

  A smile spread across Singe’s face and he leaped forward to embrace the man. “Robrand!”

  “Robrand?” asked Ashi in amazement. “Robrand d’Deneith?”

  “Robrand,” whispered Geth.

  They made camp for the night alongside the road. Robrand ordered his pavilion erected and invited Singe and the others to stay with him and to share his evening meal. Natrac and Orshok—pale with worry that something had gone wrong—were summoned up the column and were astounded to find the others settling down with an old friend. Robrand greeted them and Ashi with all the aristocratic charm that Singe remembered from years before. The old man even reintroduced himself to Dandra, apologizing for his deception.

  Chuut and the other ogres, meanwhile, seemed more confused by the sudden change in the status of the General’s guests than by Robrand’s shedding of his disguise. Robrand chuckled when Singe pointed it out. “They knew I was disguising myself. Do you think I normally run around faking crippling injuries?” His wrinkled, weathered face twisted and he rubbed at the leg he had been holding stiff. “Because I wouldn’t. It’s not very comfortable.”

  Singe reached across the blanket on the ground that served as a dining table for their group—Robrand had a small folding table, but it would hardly seat seven people—and helped himself to an apple. The food eaten by the General was simple, but still significantly better than the rations they had been supplied with. Not that Singe wouldn’t have eaten pig slop so long as it meant he was eating with Robrand again—except that they could have been eating together much sooner. He looked back to Robrand. “Then why disguise yourself at all, old man?” he asked. “You knew it was us.”

  Robrand grimaced again and eased back. “How long has it been since we saw each other, Etan?”

  Natrac’s eyebrows rose. “Etan?”

  The wizard took a crunching bite out of his apple. “Singe, Robrand,” he mumbled, then swallowed and added, “And it’s been almost five years since I even had a letter from you.”

  “Exactly,” said Robrand. “Five years and a lot has happened in the world.” He sighed. “The war changed people, Etan. People I thought I could trust.”

  His words had a bitter edge. Singe paused in the act of the biting into his apple again and looked up. Robrand’s gaze had drifted to a far corner of the blanket. To Geth.

  The shifter’s eyes were down, his posture huddled. He did little more than pick uncomfortably at his food. Singe realized that he wasn’t the only one to notice the tension between Geth and Robrand. Dandra and Natrac were both watching him and the old man as well. Since they had unmasked the General, Geth had been silent and withdrawn. If he could have, Singe guessed, he would have fled.

  A part of the wizard wished that he would. Another part wanted him to stay and squirm before Robrand, the man whose life he had destroyed in Narath.

  A third part reminded him of what he and Geth had accomplished since their ill-fated reunion in Bull Hollow. Until their argument in Bava’s studio, he’d been close to forgiving the shifter. One look at Robrand’s face, however, silenced any questions of forgiveness. His eyes were bleak. Singe could guess at what was in his head: he’d felt the same himself when he’d first faced Geth in Bull Hollow.

  He felt a surge of admiration for Robrand. He had confronted Geth with fire and steel. The old man had greater self-control. He didn’t deserve the ignominy that Narath had brought. Robrand hadn’t been the one who’d failed the town.

  Singe hardened his heart. “Robrand, I—”

  His old commander waved him to silence and sipped from a cup of watered wine, When he spoke again, his voice was calm once more. “One of Tzaryan’s ogres saw Ashi’s confrontation in the street and reported it. He was taken by her strength and—and by Geth’s gauntlet. When I heard him describe it, I recognized it myself. You don’t come across a gauntlet like that worn by a shifter every day. I tracked you down at the Barrel and discovered ‘Master Timin Shay.’” He glanced at Singe. “Didn’t I say you should chose a new alias?”

  “It does the job,” Singe said.

  “Either way,” Robrand continued, “you’re a distinctive pair. Although I’m surprised to see you together. I didn’t think that was likely to happen.”

  Singe felt like Robrand had jabbed him with a knife. “There were … circumstances,” he said. It was a clumsy excuse.

  Robrand shook his head. “I have a contract with Tzaryan Rrac, Etan. I have a duty to him. You were trying to gain access to Tzaryan Keep under an assumed name. I had to find out more. I decided it would be best to keep you close until I knew exactly what was going on.”

  “And whether you could trust us?” Singe asked.

  The old man’s face tightened for a moment, then softened again. “It would have been less risk to have Chuut restrain you in Vralkek,” he said, “but I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt. I didn’t want to think you’d changed that much, Etan—that if you were trying to get to Tzaryan Keep, you had a good reason for it.”

  “And?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.” Robrand took another sip of wine, then set his cup aside and sat back. “When did you know it was me?”

  “I got suspicious this morning when Dandra described her meeting with you,” Singe said. “There was a familiar pattern in how you manipulated her: implicating House Jorasco in your supposed scars so that we’d be too busy speculating about that to question whether you really had scars at all, telling her you distrusted kalashtar so she thought it was her own idea not to betray you with her powers—”

  Dandra blinked. “But Chuut was supposed to bring Ashi from the tavern, not me.”

  Robrand’s eyes flashed and his mouth turned up in a wry smile. “Another lie. I beg your pardon. I know something of the skills of kalashtar. You might have been able to draw the truth out of me and you could have relayed that information to Singe or Geth, so you were the one I had to convince with my story—but I couldn’t let you realize it. Once I had you convinced, I knew that Singe and Geth would follow.”

  Singe found himself matching Robrand’s smile. “If I need a new alias, you need new tricks. There were things through the day, too, like your note to us—written by Dandra so I wouldn’t see your hand—or the way the ogres who supposedly helped you dismount all the time didn’t look like they knew what they were doing.”

  He looked at Robrand sideways. “You didn’t have Ekhaas gagged because she was a spellcaster—you had her gagged because she’d seen the General before. She could have given you away.”

  “A clever man is most vulnerable when he’s trying to be clever,” said Robrand with a shrug.

  Singe nodded. “I didn’t know for sure though until we actually met you. You were trying hard to hide your eyes in the shadows of the tree, but it was the hatred for House Deneith that gave you away.” He spread his hands. “Why even meet with us? You might have been able to get away with it if you hadn’t.”

  “It was a risk I had to take,” Robrand confessed. “If I hadn’t, you would have just kept pushing.” He smiled. “Don’t deny it. You would have. At least this way, it’s out in the open and I have a chance to see you again, Etan.”

  Warmth spread through Singe’s belly. “It’s been too long, Robrand. The last letter I had from you reached me in Karrlakton. You haven’t been in Droaam all this time, have you?”

  “Tzaryan Rrac sought me out two years ago, just after the War ended.” Robrand took up his cup again. His face creased with memory. “He found me in Shavalant in Breland.”

  “Shavalant’s hardly a village!”

  “I’d been living in Xandrar before a few heirs of Deneith realized who I was and started making my life miserable.” He shrugged. “Shavalant wasn’t so bad.”

  “You didn’t fight them?” asked Ashi.

  Robrand looked at her and shook his head. “It would just have exposed me
. Fighting doesn’t do much good when you’re one of the most reviled men in a dragonmarked house. No, I ran. Like a coward.”

  Across the blanket, Geth stiffened.

  Singe’s fingers clenched on the core of his apple. He flung it away into the gathering darkness outside the pavilion and wrenched the conversation in another direction. “Robrand, who is Ekhaas? Do you know what she would want with us?”

  The old man snorted. “She’s just what Chuut said—a pest. A thorn in Tzaryan’s side. Have you ever heard of the Kech Volaar? They’re a clan of hobgoblins in Darguun. They consider themselves the protectors of the glory of the lost Dhakaani Empire. Usually you don’t find them much outside of Darguun, but Ekhaas has appointed herself as guardian of Dhakaani ruins in this part of Droaam.” He nodded along the road in the direction of their destination. “That includes the ruins near Tzaryan Keep. Your interest in them probably attracted her attention.”

  “What’s going to happen to her?” Dandra asked.

  “It will likely depend on Tzaryan Rrac’s mood when we arrive. What Chuut said was no idle threat—Tzaryan has warned her to stay away. The Kech Volaar carries no weight here.” Robrand took another sip of wine. His dark eyes watched them over the rim of his goblet and when he lowered the vessel, he wasn’t smiling. “But we’re drifting from my problem,” he said seriously. “Tzaryan is my master and you’re approaching him under false pretenses.”

  Singe shifted uncomfortably under his former commander’s sharp-eyed gaze. “Not all that false,” he said. He glanced at Dandra, then back to Robrand. This was more than just a reunion. If he handled this right, they would have an unexpected ally in Tzaryan Keep. “If I tell you what’s going on—the truth of it—will you help us?”

  “You know better than to ask that, Etan. You’re an old friend, but you’d be asking me to turn against a contract.”

  “You’re not part of House Deneith anymore, old man,” Singe reminded him. He gestured to the ogres outside the pavilion. “Do you think the lords of Deneith would have approved this?”

  Robrand’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t leave Deneith,” he said. “Deneith abandoned me. Tzaryan gives me something like what I used to have. He respects me. He doesn’t try to forget that I exist.” He set his goblet down and frowned, then looked up again. “I can’t promise to help you, but for the memory of the Frostbrand, I won’t give you away either—so long as whatever you’re doing poses no danger to Tzaryan Rrac or Tzaryan Keep.”

  “It doesn’t. You have my word.” He drew a breath and began their story with the one detail that the old man needed to know whether he was going to help them or not. He owed that much to a friend. “Robrand, your nephew Toller is dead. He died defending a hamlet called Bull Hollow in the Eldeen Reaches, but he’s dead because of a man named Dah’mir.”

  Robrand listened just as Singe had known he would, saying nothing and absorbing everything. Singe considered leaving things out of the story—Robrand would understand that there were things he couldn’t share—but found that he couldn’t. He laid everything before his one-time commander. When he finished, the circle within Robrand’s pavilion was silent. Robrand closed his eyes as he had after every battle Singe had fought at his side, committing the names and faces of the dead to memory. It was, the wizard knew, his way of mourning.

  “Toller would have made a great commander, Robrand,” he said after a long moment. “He died too soon.”

  Robrand drew a deep breath and opened his eyes again. “We die when it’s our time. No sooner and no later. It’s how we die that’s important. Toller died well. I think he must have had a good teacher.” He stood and offered Singe his hand. “I trust you, Etan. I’ll help you however I can.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  Dandra could scarcely believe that Robrand d’Deneith was the same man she had ridden with the first day out of Vralkek. The man she had known as the General had been dour and tight with words. Robrand was charming, talkative, and pleasant. She knew that it had been an act intended to deceive Singe and Geth, but Robrand’s self control was still remarkable. He was a joy to be around. Over the next three days, he spent most of his time talking with Singe, swapping shared reminiscences and stories of the things they had seen and done in the years since they had last been together, but he also opened up to all of them. He talked with her about her experiences, discussed business with Natrac, and made the most of what little common ground he shared with Orshok. He even attempted to address Tetkashtai—an attempt the presence answered with a terse response that earned her a laugh from Robrand but the mental equivalent of a glare from Dandra.

  The old man was particularly interested, however, in Ashi. “I had a feeling that you were Deneith the moment I saw you,” he told the hunter.

  Singe’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “How could you possibly have known?”

  “The members of House Deneith may be spread wide across Khorvaire, Etan, but we still share ties of blood.” Robrand took Ashi’s chin between his fingers and tilted her face up. “She has a Deneith jaw, Deneith eyes.”

  Ashi flushed “Isn’t a dragonmark the only way to know for certain?” she asked.

  “It’s one way, but not the only way. There are rites of divination that will confirm it, though I can tell you their results now: you are Deneith.” He patted her shoulders in a fatherly gesture and Ashi’s pierced lips stretched into a smile.

  After that, she and Robrand spent a part of every day talking together as he told her something of life as part of the great house. In spite of an obvious distaste for Deneith, the old commander’s eyes took on a wistful nostalgia when he spoke of past heroes and ancient glories. Dandra could tell that he still had pride in his house’s history.

  One night, as she and Singe watched, he even stripped off his shirt and showed Ashi his dragonmark. The Mark of Sentinel covered his age-softened chest, a colorful pattern like a tattoo but far more vivid and elaborate. Ashi stared at it in wonder. “It’s bigger than I thought it might be,” she said. “Did it hurt?”

  “Hurt?” Robrand blinked in surprise. “Dol Dorn’s fist, no. A dragonmark only looks like a tattoo. This is a part of me. When it first manifested, it was smaller—dragonmarks grow as bearers learn to channel their powers. My power is only middling.” He slipped his shirt back on. “The most powerful dragonmarks—the Marks of Siberys—are supposed to cover their bearers from head to toe.”

  “The lords of the dragonmarked houses must be astounding to see,” Ashi said in awe.

  Singe hadn’t been able to suppress a laugh at the hunter’s wonder. Robrand gave him a disapproving glance—and Ashi a shake of his head. “The lords of the houses gain power through skill and guile, not the strength of their marks. The Marks of Siberys may be powerful, but they’re rare. My mother used to tell stories of meeting an old gnome of House Sivis who carried the Siberys Mark of Scribing. He could draw a magical symbol of such power that it would kill anyone who looked on it but he was virtually a slave to his house.”

  Ashi looked confused. Robrand gave her a brittle, bitter smile. “You have a lot to learn about the dragonmarked houses, Ashi. You may wish you’d stayed in the Shadow Marches.”

  For all that the rest of them found companionship in Robrand, however, there was one person left out of the old man’s pleasant circle. Geth took to riding apart from the rest of them, a little ahead of the column of ogres, silently but blatantly avoiding Robrand. As far as Dandra could tell, though, it was a mutual avoidance. Geth stayed away from Robrand and Robrand made no move to reach out to Geth.

  Unfortunately, the shifter also took to keeping his distance from the rest of them, and the more withdrawn he became, the more tempting it was—in spite of what all of them had been through together—to spend time with Robrand instead, listening to his stories. Over three days, though, Dandra noticed something else as well. Among all the stories that Robrand and Singe swapped between themselves, they never mentioned Narath, and it seemed to her that if they e
ver got close to it, one or the other of them would glance toward Geth and quickly change the subject.

  They traveled the last stretch of the road to Tzaryan Keep in the dark. Rather than make camp when they were almost within sight of their destination, Robrand pushed Tzaryan’s troops onward as the sun sank below the horizon. Night or day made no difference to the ogres—they could see as well in the dark as shifters or orcs. Those few traveling with the column who couldn’t rode together, laughing like revelers, in the pale glow of magical light called by Singe.

  Geth rode alone beyond the light. Dandra watched him for a long while as Robrand spun out an account of how he had bested a squad of knights in Thrane as a young man on his first command. The others hung on the old man’s words. When Dandra leaned over to Natrac and murmured, “I’m going to talk to Geth,” the half-orc just nodded and grunted. Dandra urged her horse away and trotted ahead to join Geth.

  He looked up at her approach, bared his teeth, and snarled. “Go away, Dandra.”

  “No,” Dandra said. She pulled her horse around so that it walked beside his. “What’s going to happen when we get to Tzaryan Keep?”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “What are you going to do when we get to Tzaryan Keep?” She nodded back toward the others, now well out of earshot. “You’re supposed to be a guard. A guard’s place is with his master.”

  The shifter growled under his breath. Inside Dandra’s mind, Tetkashtai gave a derisive snort at his sullenness. Pathetic. No concern for anyone but himself.

  You’re not one to talk. Dandra pushed the presence away “This is part of what’s between you and Singe, isn’t it?” Geth stiffened. She pressed him. “You need to get past this. We need to work together. All of us.”

  He glared at her. “Have you given Singe this lecture, too?”