The Grieving Tree: The Dragon Below Book II Read online

  “If we’re safe,” Dandra said, “I want an explanation now. What’s going on?”

  “Listen while we move.” Ekhaas moved away from the wall and started along the lower hallway. The dancing lights she had brought into being moved with her, forcing Dandra and Ashi to stay with her as well or be left behind in the dark.

  By the smell in the air, Dandra could tell that they were back in the hallway that led to the ogre barracks. She tried to keep her eyes and ears on the shadows ahead, but as Ekhaas swiftly told them what had happened in the dungeon—of Vennet’s sudden appearance and Geth’s attempt to warn them, of Robrand’s treachery—she found all of her attention on the hobgoblin. Ekhaas’s story left her with a sickening hollow in her stomach.

  “He was going to torture Geth?” she asked finally.

  “By the six kings, I swear it. It sounded like the General wanted revenge on him for something. Maybe the same thing you argued with him about.”

  “Why did you take his sword?” asked Ashi.

  “It’s a relic of Dhakaan. I would die rather than let it fall into Tzaryan’s hands.” She raised at the sword, studying it by the light of dancing flames. “It belongs in the vaults of the Kech Volaar. I should have fled with it.”

  “But you didn’t,” Dandra said. “Why? And why help us?”

  Ekhaas was silent for a moment, then replied, “Geth told me he brought this sword out of Jhegesh Dol and used it to fight the dragon servant of the Master of Silence. Is that true?”

  Dandra frowned, trying to guess why the hobgoblin was asking. “It’s true,” she said.

  “Then your blond friend was wrong to call Geth a coward. No coward could wield this blade—and heroes shouldn’t die in chains. Geth won the sword. It belongs to him now.” Ekhaas’s voice tightened with disgust. “If I took it, I would be a thief. It must be returned to him.” She looked over her shoulder. “Finding help to free Geth just made going back easier. I know a way out of the keep, but I didn’t relish fighting Lor on my own.”

  “You only rescued us so we could help you rescue Geth?” asked Ashi.

  Ekhaas’s lips curled. “You are less important than what you can do, chaat’oor.” Her ears twitched. “Although I would enjoying knowing what you did to offend Tzaryan Rrac.”

  “Nothing.” Dandra ground her teeth together. “Tzaryan betrayed us. Dah’mir is here.”

  Ekhaas’s pace faltered for a moment. “Khaavolaar. The dragon? And the rest of you …?”

  “Dead? Captives? I don’t know.” Dandra drew a breath. “This way out of Tzaryan Keep—can you get us all out? Geth, me, and Ashi?”

  The words hurt her, left her feeling cold and sick. Fleeing the keep meant leaving Singe, Natrac, and Orshok behind—if they were still alive—but they didn’t have much choice. She had no defense against Dah’mir’s power, especially with Tetkastai still pounding at her mind as well. Even Ashi and Geth had little hope against the dragon. They needed to regroup, to find out what was going on, before they could come up with a way to rescue the others.

  Ekhaas’s ears flicked back. “My price is your story. Tell me how Dah’mir stole Marg’s stone and what he did with it.”

  “Done.” Dandra felt like a coward.

  Just ahead, the glow of torchlight marked the head of another flight of stairs—the stairs down to the dungeon. Ekhaas gestured and her lights vanished. The hobgoblin switched Geth’s sword to her left hand and drew her own sword with her right, then crept softly down the stairs. Dandra could hear sounds drifting up from the dungeon: labored breathing, the slow grinding of a blade. She tightened her hand around the shaft of her spear and followed with Ashi at her side.

  The door of the cell that had held Ekhaas was open and though a torch in one of the brackets on the wall outside cast the interior into shadow, Dandra recognized Lor’s broad back as he crouched over his victim.

  The sound of the grinding blade slowed, then stopped. Lor bent down. Ekhaas moved to the open doorway, her sword raised.

  With unexpected speed, Lor ducked his head and reared up on his hands like a kicking horse. His thick legs shot back and slammed into Ekhaas’s chest in a powerful kick that sent the hobgoblin staggering back. Lor twisted and rolled to his feet, a gleaming knife clutched in one hand, a whetstone in the other giving weight to his fist. He leaped out of the cramped space of the cell and charged, knife slashing, fist swinging.

  Ashi pushed past Dandra and surged forward to meet him, her pierced lips twisted in a snarl. Lor punched at her with his left fist, but the hunter just spun inside the reach of his outstretched arm and thrust—once—hard with her sword.

  Lor blinked, looked down at the hilt of the blade jammed between his ribs and up into his heart, and toppled over. Ashi grabbed his arm and pulled, twisting him around so that he fell back against a wall instead of face down on the floor. His incredulous expression ended up fixed on the ceiling. Beyond them, Ekhaas rose, one hand clutching her side, her face almost as astounded.

  Ashi stared into Lor’s unblinking eyes. “So that was fighting an ogre,” she said—then snorted. “I was expecting something more.”

  There was a cry from the cell. “Ashi?” Chains scraped and rattled. “Ashi, help.”

  Geth’s voice, but tight and strained. Dandra shoved Ashi to one side and sprinted for the cell, then caught herself on the doorframe. “Light of il-Yannah!”

  Geth sat on the floor of the cell, chained by the neck just as Ekhaas had been when they’d found her, but with his arms chained and stretched up over his head as well. His legs had been tied down to keep him from kicking. He was barechested, his great-gauntlet, coat and shirt stripped off and tossed in a corner. The thick hair on the shifter’s torso made it difficult to see the full extent of his injuries, but it didn’t look like Lor had started to use his knife on him. Geth held himself awkwardly, though, and his breathing sounded painful. Blood matted the hair on his head and turned his face into a sticky mask. One eye was swollen shut. The other, hazy with pain, fixed on her and cleared sharply.

  Geth drew a shuddering breath. “Dandra! Run! Vennet’s here. Dah’mir can’t be—”

  Dandra pressed her lips together and stepped all the way into the cell. “We know,” she said. “He’s here. Tzaryan betrayed us. Ashi and I barely escaped. Dah’mir’s strong again, Geth. That shard you shattered in his chest—it’s been replaced.”

  Geth sagged a little. “What about Orshok? Natrac?” His voice seemed to catch. “Singe?”

  She shook her head. “We’re going to have to try and come back for them.”

  The shifter groaned. His head fell forward. “I tried to warn you, but Robrand. He and Chuut ambushed me.”

  “We know that, too.”

  Geth raised his head to look at her, then his eye went past her and opened wide. Dandra looked over her shoulder.

  Ekhaas stood in the door. Geth bared his teeth and snarled like a wounded animal, but Ekhaas ignored him and held out a key of black iron. “Lor had this. You’ll need it.”

  Dandra took the key and the hobgoblin retreated. Geth stared after her. “What’s she doing here?”

  “She helped us so that we could help you. She’s got your sword.” Dandra knelt at Geth’s side and looked him in the eye. The shifter stared back at her with an expression that was halfway between defiance and fear.

  After a moment, the defiance fell away, replaced by a bleak loss that left Dandra more shaken that rage or hatred could have. “Dandra,” Geth said before she could speak, “I—”

  “You snapped at me.”

  “I’m sorry.” He turned his face away.

  The motion left the lock on the collar exposed. Dandra reached forward and shoved the key inside, giving it a hard turn. Geth stiffened as if she had prodded him. The lock sprang open and she pulled the collar away. Geth stared at her. Dandra pressed her brow to his bloody, sticky forehead. “I didn’t know you nine years ago, Geth. But I know you now and I’d trust you with my life.”

  He d
idn’t say anything and his body didn’t relax, but when she sat back, she could see that the bleakness was gone from his wide eyes. He looked at her in astonishment. Dandra gave him a smile and turned to the manacle that held his right arm—the same key fit the lock on it. “I think there’s something you’re not saying,” she said.

  The astonishment in his eyes hardened. He bared his teeth again. “You heard what Singe said.”

  “I heard what Singe said, but all I heard from you was ‘yes.’ I don’t know the whole story.” She looked at him. “Did Adolan know? Did he know everything?”

  Geth’s hand slid free from the manacle—and went to the collar of black stones at his throat. He nodded. Dandra smiled. “Then for now, that’s good enough for me.”

  Freeing his other arm and then his legs was the work of moments. Getting him on his feet was more difficult. He was unsteady and his legs were weak. When he sat forward, Dandra saw that the blood that covered his face was nothing compared to what had gushed from his scalp at the back of his head. His hairy back was streaked with red like an artist’s canvas. “Ashi!” Dandra called. “We need your help.”

  The hunter squeezed into the cell. Between the two of them, they got Geth up and out of the cramped space. Ekhaas’s ears drew back, however, when she saw the shifter, and she uttered a curse in Goblin. Dandra knew how she felt—Geth’s injuries weren’t going to make it any easier to get out of Tzaryan Keep. “We could use Orshok’s healing prayers right now,” she said.

  Ekhaas’s ears flicked. “I can help a little.” She put a hand against Geth’s chest, narrowed her eyes in concentration, and chanted a few sonorous words. The snatch of song tugged on Dandra, something utterly different than Orshok’s prayers. When the druid worked magic, nature seemed to stir in response, its power flowing through him. Something stirred in response to Ekhaas’s song as well, but somehow it felt much more energetic, old yet active, an echo of the primal song of the world. Geth’s eyes—both of them—opened wide and he drew a sharp, deep breath. He stiffened, all but jumping out of Ashi’s and Dandra’s grip.

  “Grandmother Wolf!” the shifter said. He still looked horrendous, but he moved with something much more like his normal strength and ease.

  “Better?” asked Ekhaas. Geth nodded. “Good. We need get out of here.” She thrust his sword at him. He blinked then accepted it back, shoving it into the sheath that still hung from his belt. Ekhaas looked to Ashi. “Bring the torch.”

  Ashi had scooped up Geth’s shirt and gauntlet in the cell. She handed them to him, then pulled the torch down from the wall. “What now?” Dandra asked Ekhaas. “Tzaryan’s troops are sure to be watching the gate. We’re not getting out that way and I didn’t see a back door.”

  “Tzaryan Keep doesn’t have back door,” the hobgoblin told her. “But Taruuzh Kraat did.”

  She turned away before Dandra could demand an explanation, and once more they were forced to follow or be left behind.

  At the top of the dungeon stairs, Ekhaas turned, heading toward the ogre barracks. “Try to keep the torch low,” she told Ashi.

  The hunter nodded. Dandra held her breath. Although the darkness ahead seemed quiet—she could only imagine that Tzaryan’s ogres had been turned out to search for them—the idea of venturing right into their lair was still daunting. Just when it felt like the stench of the monsters alone would choke them, though, Ekhaas turned aside and led them down a short passage to a long but strangely narrow room. A closed hatch that would have been a tight squeeze for an ogre pierced one wall. On either side of it stood complex arrangements of winches and pulleys threaded with heavy chains. Ekhaas walked over to the hatch and lifted the simple latch that kept it closed. Stale, cold air puffed out as she pulled the hatch open.

  “The back door of Taruuzh Kraat,” she said. She stepped aside to let them approach the hatch.

  Dandra stepped up and eased her head through. The space beyond was a dark and echoing shaft that smelled of cold stone. She could see almost nothing. “Ashi, give me the torch.”

  The hunter passed it to her and Dandra held it out into the shaft. The flame illuminated smooth walls that quickly became the unworked rock of a natural chasm. Just below the hatch was a ledge; from the ledge, a dark rope with knots along its length for easy climbing dangled down into the shadows. If Dandra strained her eyes, she could just make out the bottom of the chasm, a narrow rocky wedge in the shadows.

  Overhead, the ceiling of the shaft was much closer. The chains and winches from the narrow room passed through the wall and connected to an array of beams holding up the underside of a stone floor. Dandra traced the chains and beams with a glance. If the winches were tightened, key pieces of beams would be pulled away. The floor would collapse. She narrowed her eyes and turned to look at Ekhaas. “We’re under the landing in the great stairs. Robrand told Singe that the floor could be collapsed to drop invaders into a chasm.”

  Ekhaas nodded. “A chasm that has creased this land since the Age of Dhakaan. Tzaryan thought he could build away from the ruins of Taruuzh Kraat, but in deciding to use this chasm for his trap, he missed a passage. There’s a door at the bottom so cunningly hidden no one could have found it from the outside. It opens into a network of ancient caves. There’s another door in the hall of Taruuzh—I found it while exploring. It must have been intended as an escape route.” The hobgoblin’s ears stood straight with pride. “This hatch is here so Tzaryan’s slaves can maintain the collapsing mechanism. I don’t think Tzaryan ever expected anyone to come and go this way. I’ve been in and out of the keep under his nose for two years.”

  “I thought it seemed like you knew this place a little too well,” said Geth. He had his gauntlet on his arm and with Ashi’s help had fastened the straps that held the armored sleeve in place. He gave it a critical shake, then stepped up to the hatch as well, glancing down the chasm before looking to Ekhaas. “You’re sure this will get us away from Dah’mir?”

  “No one knows about the door,” Ekhaas said. “Tzaryan Rrac probably doesn’t even suspect the caves exist. We can take shelter in Taruuzh Kraat until we have the chance to escape.”

  “Until we can come back for the others,” Geth corrected her. He turned and looked at Dandra. “We may be retreating but we’re not abandoning them.”

  She gave him a tight smile, then watched as the shifter climbed through the hatch. He balanced for a moment on the ledge beyond before taking hold of the knotted rope and lowering himself down into the shaft. Ekhaas gestured for her to follow him. “You next,” she said. “Then your tall friend. I’ll come last and close the hatch.”

  Dandra drew a deep breath and leaned through the hatch once more. Geth was already a shadow on the edge of her vision. Her stomach tensed as she stared down into the darkness. With her powers, she wouldn’t have worried about the drop at all. She might not even have bothered with the rope. Unfortunately, she couldn’t be sure her powers would be there for her.

  Tetkashtai? she asked.

  The presence screamed back at her with a wail that made her stumble, though she caught herself against the edge of the hatch. Ashi stepped forward with concern on her face.

  Ekhaas bared her teeth. “Move, kalashtar. As long we stand here, we’re in danger!”

  Dandra nodded grimly. She could remove the psicrystal and break the link to Tetkashtai, but that would do no good unless she gave the crystal to someone else to carry—and in her terror-maddened state Tetkashtai was sure to attempt to seize control of anyone carrying her prison. Geth had carried it once in a pouch, but a mere pouch might not be enough to block the presence’s influence anymore. Tetkashtai’s frenzy gave her a frightening strength. The strength of madness.

  A sour taste rose in Dandra’s mouth as something else occurred to her. Madness was what Dah’mir had been trying to provoke in his kalashtar victims all along. Medala had found that strength and murdered her psicrystal to reclaim her body. Virikhad had eventually succumbed to madness as well and his fight for Medala
’s body had destroyed both of them. If Tetkashtai fell, too …

  Dandra lifted her chin, slid her spear into the harness across her back, and eased herself through the shaft onto the ledge beyond. The empty space of the chasm hung below her. For a moment, she wondered if giving in to Dah’mir’s power would be such a bad thing.

  She choked that thought off. She’d held Tetkashtai back so far.

  She turned slowly to face the hatch, then bent down, took the knotted rope between her hands, and slid backward off the edge. She could feel the rope jump and shudder as Geth continued his descent below her. Gut churning, she focused on moving her grasp from one knot to the next, sliding down into the cold dark.

  With one arm outstretched and his eyes closed, Chain spun like child playing a game. Vennet couldn’t stop himself from laughing and chanting out the nursery rhyme that went with the game. “Warding, warning, breeding, keeping, making, healing, storm and shade. Striding, scribing, always guarding, all as dark an end they made!”

  Chain’s face, already pale with fear, tensed at the mocking—but his spinning still stopped exactly when the rhyme ended. His eyes snapped open and he stared at his arm, the Mark of Finding seeming to shimmer on it, in surprise. It pointed down toward the floor. The big man swallowed and forced his eyes up to Dah’mir. “There,” he said. “She’s about a hundred paces away—and moving.”

  Beyond Chain, Singe struggled to conceal an expression of dismay. Hruucan’s burned face was inscrutable, though the movement of his tentacles betrayed pleasure and anticipation—the closer they were to capturing Dandra, Vennet knew, the closer Hruucan was to being given his chance for revenge on Singe. Tzaryan Rrac, however, just looked confused. “That’s impossible!” said the ogre mage. “She’d have to be under the keep!”

  Dah’mir’s eyes shone in the darkness. “She’s in the caves,” he said. His voice made eddies in the air, tiny whispers of wind that murmured the praises of the Dragon Below in Vennet’s ears.