The Killing Song: The Dragon Below Book III Read online

  They left the high passage for a tunnel that was low but broad. Dolgrims flowed past them in the shadows to either side, lithe in spite of their deformities. Geth clenched his teeth. “How much farther?” he asked.

  “The influence of Xoriat bleeds through into this place,” said Batul. “The great seal is like a torch in the fog: it’s close, but you can’t tell what’s between you and it.”

  There was a sudden exclamation from the Gatekeeper who had taken the lead in their procession. Ekhaas’s ears rose. “She says there are no dolgrims ahead of her. They’ve fallen away.”

  Geth peered into the shadows once more. The dolgrims had indeed stopped moving. They stood still now, watching the procession move past them. Even their muttering seemed muted. Geth dropped his hand to Wrath. Whispers sprang at him.

  “… they enter the dark place.”

  “They won’t come back.”

  “We could follow.”

  “We wouldn’t come back …”

  They passed the last of the dolgrims. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel vanished. The green-tinted light of the reed torches was a pool of light moving through darkness. The cavern they had entered was vast. Even at the edges of his vision, Geth could see nothing but the smooth floor stretching into the gloom. He glanced at Ekhaas. “You see anything?” he asked softly.

  She shook her head.

  “The seal lies ahead,” said Batul. Even his confident voice was dwarfed by the space around them. No one else spoke. They moved in silence.

  The deep quiet was even more eerie than the muttering of the dolgrims had been. Around Geth’s neck, the collar of black stones grew icy cold. Geth drew Wrath. The feel of the byeshk sword in his left hand and the weight of his great gauntlet on his right arm were reassuring, solid anchors in a place that felt increasingly as if it were no longer a part of the world.

  Then something loomed ahead. It took several more paces before Geth saw what it was: a wall of rock that stretched up and to either side, vanishing into darkness just as the floor of the cavern did. Directly ahead of the procession, a narrow passage pierced the rock.

  They all stopped and stared at it. After a long moment, Batul spoke in hushed tones. “Surely we are the first of our kind to walk this path since before the dawn of this age.” He slipped the amulet from around his neck and pressed it to his lips with hands that trembled. “Vvaraak lend us the strength and wisdom to do what must be done,” he prayed. “Shield us from the madness that has waited for nine thousand years.”

  In the midst of the dark and silent cavern, the breath of a warm breeze stirred. Geth’s hair drifted back from his face, and his heart seemed to lift. The Gatekeepers murmured a collective invocation to the ancient founder of their sect, and even Ekhaas looked awed by the gentle but powerful force that touched them. Batul lowered the amulet. The procession started forward to the passage into the rock—

  —just as silver-white light flashed somewhere on its other side. The glare that burst through the passage and fell upon them was dimmed by distance, but after so long in the tunnels it was still blinding. Geth saw only a bright, jagged line in the darkness, like lightning through a storm. He bit back a cry and twitched his head away, but the light had already printed itself on his eyes in hazy afterimages. He blinked furiously, trying to clear it away.

  “Medala’s light!” Ekhaas hissed. “She’s back!”

  “Extinguish the torches!” Batul commanded in a whisper.

  Reeds ground against rock. Geth might have been afraid that Medala would hear the quiet noise, but there were noises coming from the other side of the passage now too. Groans. Whimpers. The sound of a body falling to writhe against stone. Medala wasn’t alone. Ekhaas’s ears twitched. “Other kalashtar! Khaavolaar, when she vanished she must have gone to the airship.” She bared her teeth. “This is her revenge against Dah’mir!”

  “By bringing any captives he had into the mound?” Geth growled under his breath as understanding woke in him. “By bringing servants to the Master of Silence first!”

  The last of the green light vanished, and for a moment Geth stood in utter darkness made even deeper by the false glow of the afterimages in his visions. He could see light, but it illuminated nothing. He was completely blind.

  Before his fear could turn into panic, Medala’s harsh voice—or rather her voice and another in a strange unison—called out a word. Geth’s sight returned as a dim blue radiance blossomed beyond the passage. He saw one of the Gatekeepers turn to Batul, and Wrath translated her words. “We can’t block her power! What do we do now?”

  “What we must,” said Batul. “The Master of Silence has caused the creation of one servant who resists our magic. Soon he may have more. We can’t stop now—but we don’t stand alone.” His good eye fixed on Ekhaas. “On the Sharvat Vvaraak, you showed that duur’kala magic can still block Medala’s power.”

  Ekhaas’s eyes darted around the procession and she bared her teeth. “I wouldn’t be able to shield all of us.”

  “Shield yourself and Geth, then.” Batul looked at the shifter too. “Stop Medala, and we will be free to act.”

  Geth’s gauntlet creaked as he curled his hand into a fist and nodded. Batul tightened his grip on his hunda stick. “Sing, Ekhaas. We’ll hold Medala’s attention.” He raised the stick. “Gatekeepers, follow!”

  The druids dashed for the passage in the rock face, their shadows stretching out behind them to cover Geth and Ekhaas. Before the last of the Gatekeepers was within, Geth heard Medala’s shout of surprise and hatred. A cry of challenge broke out from among the orcs, wordless and angry. Geth whirled to face Ekhaas. “Sing!”

  Song rippled from her lips, and her face stilled as the magic settled over her first. As she sang, Geth closed his eyes, reached into himself, and shifted. The familiar sense of invulnerability poured into his veins at the same time as Ekhaas’s spell turned to him, and the exhilaration of shifting mingled with the sharpness and clarity of her song. Geth drew a breath so deep it felt like his chest would crack. When he opened his eyes, everything seemed hard-edged and distinct.

  Two sounds pierced that moment. One came from the passage, a wavering groan escaping an orc’s throat as a Gatekeeper fell to Medala’s power. The othercame across the dark cavern like echoes across a lake at night.

  The dolgrims were shouting, their voices rising in terrible joy. Waves of sound grew into a tide that swept closer with each moment. Geth couldn’t have picked words out of the tumult, but Wrath did—two simple words, repeated over and over again as soldiers might chant the nickname of a conquering general.

  Green Eyes.

  Dah’mir was coming.

  Geth spun around and threw himself into the narrow passage. The floor was rough, the walls sharp-edged, the far opening of the passage little more than a crack in the rock. Geth scarcely noticed. He thought he heard Ekhaas gasp in amazement as they emerged through the crack, but he couldn’t have been sure. His world had shrunk to the battlefield.

  The cavern beyond the passage was a bowl broken out of the rock, the blue light that lit it shining from within veins of crystal embedded in the walls. He and Ekhaas stood on a broad ledge halfway up the cavern’s height; more ledges all around the cavern made gigantic steps down to a wide, uneven floor. Across the floor, a broad tunnel opened in the far wall and descended into darkness. The tunnel mouth was surrounded by a ring of blue-black Khyber dragonshards and smooth stones etched with Gatekeeper symbols, all set in a dark and glittering mortar.

  The seal on the prison of the Master of Silence.

  On ledges to one side of the cavern, closer to the seal than to him and Ekhaas, were the kalashtar captives. There were more than a dozen of them, some moaning, some twisting, all looking as if they struggled against some unseen tormentor. Maybe they did. Gold bracers shone on their arms and Geth saw the flash of both bright crystals and Khyber shards trapped within the gold wire. Psicrystals and the ancient binding stones. He remembered what Dah’mir had don
e to Dandra—Tetkashtai’s psicrystal interacting with the binding stone to switch the minds of kalashtar and crystal.

  Loathing rose in his chest. The switch had already been made and in this place where madness was strong, the minds of the kalashtar would find all the strength they needed to kill a part of themselves and escape their crystal prisons.

  But before the writhing kalashtar stood Medala, her body rigid and her eyes wide, and on the ledges below Geth were Batul and the other Gatekeepers. Some of the druids were down. One looked dead, his face contorted by his final efforts to draw breath. Others were still alive, but rolling on the ledges and clutching at their heads as they screamed. Those who had not fallen wore grim determination on their faces. Geth saw two of them gesture, heard them call on the power of nature to strike at their enemy. Medala’s expression twitched, and the cavern seemed to ring with the sound of crystalline chimes. One of the druid’s eyes bulged, and his words were cut off as he dropped to his knees, clutching his throat. The other druid’s spell ended with the thump of a hunda stick into her belly as her neighbor, anger darkening his face, turned on her.

  Geth’s voice tore at his throat. “Medala!”

  He threw himself toward her, bounding from ledge to ledge. The kalashtar’s eyes flicked toward him. The chimes rang again, and a pressure slammed into his mind. He staggered under the assault—staggered and recovered as Medala’s attack slid off the shield of Ekhaas’s spell. Medala’s face twisted.

  “Stop him!” she howled, and Geth nearly staggered again. There were definitely two voices speaking from her mouth! He clenched his jaw and leaped for the next ledge.

  On the edge of his vision, he saw struggle turn into blankness on an orc’s face. The druid’s hand twisted into a claw and jerked upward. Stone splintered and cracked as jagged spikes burst from the surface of the ledge ahead of Geth. It was too late for him to stop his leap. Sharp points and razor edges bit into his feet as he landed. A red lance of pain drove through his body and he stumbled forward, falling with his full weight toward more of the bristling shards.

  He twisted hard, arcing his body up and pulling his right arm under him. The thick metal of the forearm of his gauntlet crashed into the spikes. Chips of stone spit into the air and agony seared his elbow, but nothing else pierced his body—with his fall broken, the spikes only dimpled his shifting toughened hide. He thrust himself back up with a snarl and stalked on defiantly across the shattered face of the ledge, ignoring the pain that came with each step. Looking Medala full in the face, he snapped his arms straight. His sword and his gauntlet hissed in the air. “Try again!” he spat.

  The growl that grew of out Medala’s chest began thin and cold. Something about it made Geth’s skin crawl, and he bounded forward, running again. Somewhere behind him, he heard a lone orc chanting and thought that he recognized Batul’s voice. He didn’t dare look back though. He pushed himself into a sprint in spite of the agony in his feet. His arms pumped at his sides. His gaze was fixed on Medala’s—just as hers was fixed on him.

  The distance between them closed. Medala’s growl built into a scream that echoed with two voices and a hint of brittle crystal. The air around her began to shine with light. The other kalashtar grew still and silent. Batul’s chanting became deep and sonorous, and the cavern seemed to reverberate with the sound. Geth jumped down to the next ledge. There was only one more rocky shelf between him and Medala. He could see her eyes, the pupils shrunk to black pinpricks once more.

  Medala’s scream broke. The shimmer that had surrounded her burst outward in shining waves, sweeping over Geth and across the cavern.

  Something of her power blasted at his mind. Geth tried to cling to the clarity Ekhaas had sung into him, but this time Medala’s attack scoured it away and left him unguarded. The power tore at his body—no, not just at his body. At him and everything around him. It went all the way through him. He felt it on his skin and deep in his guts. He felt it on the air and in the stone under his feet.

  Batul’s chant ended in a cry from the old orc. The other Gatekeepers cried out too. Everything shook before the waves of power, as if the very substance of the world were under attack. Helpless before the waves, Geth stumbled and was flung back off the ledge.

  For an instant, he seemed to drift on the air. Then the hard stone of the cavern floor slammed into him. The waves continued to hammer at him. From where he lay, he could see them pounding at the Gatekeepers and Ekhaas as well, rolling on and on like a storm on some vast sea.

  Until another burst of silver-white light flashed from a ledge just above the one on which Batul and Ekhaas clung to each other. Four dark forms appeared against the glare.

  Singe, Dandra, Ashi, and a young kalashtar man. Geth knew he should have wondered how they’d reached the cavern or what they were doing in the Shadow Marches at all, but all he could think was, Grandmother Wolf, they’re alive.

  Alive, but not for long. The waves caught them too. The young man, Ashi, and Singe staggered back against the rock behind them. But Dandra … Dandra leaned forward as if trying to walk into a strong wind. Her hand thrust out—

  Dandra thought she’d prepared herself for anything, but the sight of the strange cavern—of the scattered orcs, of Batul and Ekhaas on the ledge just below her, of Geth lying on the cavern floor, of Medala and the kalashtar—made her freeze, even as the waves of power that radiated from Medala tore the others away.

  Anger rose up in her.

  The power that Medala had manifested was astounding and unlike anything Dandra had ever seen—Medala’s telepathy fused with Virikhad’s mastery of the far step into a single display of psionic strength. At the same time, the power sickened her. It arose out of madness. Medala would use it—did use it—to bring more kalashtar to madness.

  Ashi had used her dragonmark the moment they’d spotted Dah’mir’s airship, and the protection granted by the mark still lingered. The mental attack in the waves faltered against the power of the mark, no match for it. The physical attack of the waves ripped at Dandra but didn’t frighten her—Virikhad’s power unravelled the fabric of space, but she did something much the same every time she used the far step herself. Dandra fought back the pain the surged through her, thrust herself against the waves, and flung out her hand.

  Vayhatana passed through the battering waves with ease. Dandra seized Medala with her will and slammed her backward.

  The gaunt woman’s screaming stopped. The shining waves vanished. She sat dazed, but only for a moment. Then her eyes fixed on Dandra—and a voice that was as much Virikhad as it was Medala spat, “You will die for that!”

  “But you’ll die first!”

  Medala’s head jerked up at the roar. Dandra twisted around, saw Ashi and Moon look up as well, heard Singe curse—and just barely caught the blur of movement as a black heron darted through a narrow passage in the rocky wall above her.

  Dah’mir dropped to the cavern floor. His feathered wings beat on the air, then suddenly were feathered no longer. His small form swelled. Feathers became scales and heron became dragon. Dandra saw Geth’s eyes open very wide. The shifter seemed to convulse as he rolled over, thrust himself to his feet, and dashed for safety all in one movement. Dah’mir’s clawed feet slammed down where he had been.

  From all of the lower ledges, those orcs who were able climbed higher, their faces pale with terror. Three didn’t move from where they lay, nor did Geth get the chance to climb. Dandra saw him press himself into a crevice between two ledges. Batul and Ekhaas hauled themselves up from the ledge below to join Dandra and the others.

  “Khaavolaar,” Ekhaas said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Saving the kalashtar Dah’mir kidnapped from Sharn,” said Singe, grabbing Batul’s arm and pulling him up.

  The old Gatekeeper struck at him with his other arm as soon as he was over the edge. “Be quiet!” he hissed. “Word of Vvaraak, be quiet!”

  But neither Dah’mir nor Medala paid any attention to them or the climbing
orcs. Dandra stared as the kalashtar and the dragon who had once been like king and consort glared at each other.

  Dah’mir struck first, his massive head darting forward swift as a snake, but his great teeth snapped together on nothingness. Medala vanished in a flash of light only to reappear on the next ledge over. Her eyes narrowed in concentration and more light played across Dah’mir’s shoulder. The dragon roared as blood oozed between the black-copper scales, but his wing swept out and slammed Medala back before she could evade it.

  He whirled on her with a roar. “It would have been better for you to stay dead than steal from me!”

  “We stole nothing!” Medala shouted back in her strange double voice. “What you had wasn’t yours!” A crystalline chime seemed to ring on the air. Dah’mir roared in sudden pain and lashed out again.

  As they fought, Batul grasped Dandra’s arm. “You have to go, Dandra! Take Singe and Ashi and get out of this place while you can. It isn’t safe. I can’t protect you!”

  Dandra pulled her arm away. “Protect us?” She reached across her back and drew her spear, pointing with it across the cavern to where the kalashtar stood held prisoner by the binding stones. “We came for them. If we don’t leave with them, we need to make certain they die here.”

  On the ledge below, the surviving orcs were rallying. There were only five of them, all older than she would have expected, and Dandra realized abruptly that they weren’t warriors, but Gatekeepers like Batul. A desperate idea sprang into her mind. “You’re going to attack Medala and Dah’mir. We can use the distraction to reach the kalashtar—”

  He shook his head. “Medala and Dah’mir aren’t the danger! Dandra, get out!”

  “What about Geth?” Dandra demanded. “What about Ekhaas?” Geth was still somewhere down on the cavern floor. The hobgoblin was at Singe’s side, speaking urgently to him, Ashi, and Moon. Dandra saw the wizard stiffen in surprise, then look down toward the cavern floor and a tunnel that was ringed with stone and dragonshards.