The Grieving Tree: The Dragon Below Book II Read online

  He fixed his gaze on the grieving tree and walked. He passed Robrand. Neither of them said anything. Geth leaped up onto the platform and looked at Singe. “Do you think you can walk?” he asked.

  The wizard grimaced and climbed unsteadily to his feet. “With help,” he said.

  “You may have to do it on your own.” Geth glanced up into the branches, then turned and faced Dah’mir. “Get them down,” he said.

  Dah’mir growled a word and the branches of the Grieving Tree shivered. Natrac groaned as the carved stone passed him toward the ground. The tree released him with surprising gentleness, lowering him to crouch on the platform in a shuddering, shaking heap. “See to him,” Geth told Ekhaas. “Carry him if you need to.” He looked back up to Dah’mir. “Orshok!” he demanded.

  Dah’mir’s voice growled and once again the tree moved. This time though, there was little gentleness. As if reluctant to give up its prey, the Grieving Tree thrashed rather than shivered. Orshok screamed, then twisted among the branches. His drop was sharp and hard; he hit the ground with a cracking of bones.

  “Orshok!” Geth threw himself toward the young druid’s twisted body. One of Orshok’s arms was bent at a hard angle underneath his body. His breath whistled in his throat. One of his legs shook in an uncontrolled spasm. Geth hesitated, then reached for him with his free hand. “Orshok.”

  The orc’s eyes fluttered. “Geth …” He lifted the arm that wasn’t trapped and groped for Geth’s hand.

  The instant that their fingers met, Wrath’s blade flared with a purple radiance that seared Geth’s eyes. There was a sharp crack like lightning striking close and the sword bucked in his hand. The branches of the Grieving Tree stiffened, its truck split—and, like an echo through the ages, Geth heard Taruuzh’s voice cry out.

  Three great works stand together as allies: treasure, key, guardian, disciple, and lord. The time has come again!

  The grinding of sliding stone rumbled over a chorus of shouts and fell apart into the deafening clatter of rock against rock. Geth blinked, fighting to clear the radiance of Wrath’s flare from his eyes, but all he saw were shadows as the Grieving Tree split and fell away from him. Orshok clung to him. He tore his hand away and staggered blindly to his feet.

  The broken stump of the Grieving Tree stood before him like pedestal. Resting on it was a box of dull gray metal.

  “Yes!” roared Dah’mir. “Yes! Vennet, seize that box and get it open! Tzaryan, forward! Secure your prisoners!”

  Geth stared at the box. It couldn’t be … there was no way … He stared down at Wrath, the blade once more dull as twilight in his hand. The key, the guardian, the disciple. “But I’m not a hobgoblin,” he whispered. “I’m not a warlord—”

  And in the same instant, he saw in his mind a gang of goblins running from his drawn blade in Zarash’ak and heard Ekhaas’s words in the dungeon beneath Tzaryan Keep. A lhesh shaarat was a warlord’s blade, she’d said, the weapon of kings and heroes. Anyone who drew one proclaimed his power.

  Anyone who drew one. Not necessarily a hobgoblin.

  Dah’mir had guessed it. The dragon’s words had tugged at Geth because he’d only mentioned his lack of a hobgoblin warlord—he’d known that he had a Gatekeeper in his possession. He’d known that he only needed to bring Geth and Orshok together under the Grieving Tree.

  A lithe body leaped up onto the platform and lunged for the box. Vennet. Geth howled and swung Wrath at the half-elf in a powerful arc.

  The blade cracked against the heavy shaft of an out-flung mace. An ogre’s strength thrust him back. Chuut stepped up between Geth and Vennet, mace raised to strike again—and abruptly Geth was aware once more of the chaos around him. He and Orshok were surrounded. At the mouth of the passage, Ashi tried to shield Dandra, her sword outstretched as she attempted to menace three ogres and Tzaryan himself simultaneously. Ekhaas, Natrac slumped against her, and Singe stood back to back, more ogres on one side of them and Hruucan’s fiery form on the other. Robrand stood with his sword drawn, but not moving, just turning around and around as if overcome by the rush. He looked older than Geth could have imagined.

  “Dah’mir!” Ekhaas’s voice rose out of the confusion. “Your pledge! You gave the word of a dragon that you’d let us leave!”

  Dah’mir stood tall in the shadows, his eyes bright and intense. “So long as I needed the sword!” he said with a triumphant hiss. “And now I don’t need the sword anymore. Didn’t I say that Geth would come out and give me what I want?” He looked down at Geth. “I’m certain,” he added, “that when Taruuzh made that lhesh shaarat, he had no idea that anyone other than a goblinoid or maybe an orc would ever wield it. The Dhakaani had a high opinion of themselves.”

  “So do dragons,” Geth growled.

  Immense teeth flashed as Dah’mir’s jaws snapped together. “In our case, it’s the truth.”

  “Master!” Vennet had the box. It was no longer or wider than the length of Geth’s forearm and no deeper than a hand span, but the half-elf hefted it as though it was heavy. An ogre reached out to help him but Vennet grimaced and twisted away. “Get back!” he snapped. He dragged the box off of the platform by himself and hauled it over to Dah’mir.

  “Open it,” said the dragon. Vennet set the box down, fumbled with the latch, then threw open the lid.

  Blue-black dragonshards, each no bigger than a finger, each wrapped in a filigree of gold, shone against rich red fabric. There were fewer than Geth would have guessed—twenty maybe, no more—but the sight of them brought an ache to his heart. He’d failed. He’d made the wrong choice. Somewhere below the great chamber, Taruuzh’s ghost let out a soft, fading wail.

  “Take one out,” Dah’mir told Vennet. “They won’t harm you. Hold it up for me.”

  The ancient fabric cradling the stones crumbled at Vennet’s touch, but the half-elf plucked out a stone and held it high. “They’re beautiful,” he said.

  “They’re more than beautiful.” The dark shard reflected the acid-green of Dah’mir’s eyes as the dragon bent close to examine it. “They’re seeds. From them will spring my master’s new servants.” He glanced up at Geth—and smiled. “Perhaps we should plant the first seed now.” His long neck twisted toward the passage. “Dandra,” he said, “come here.”

  Unblinking, her face expressionless, Dandra took a step forward.

  “No!” Ashi tried to push her back, but in the moment that she was distracted, the ogres facing her surged forward. Ashi’s voice rose in a scream of rage. Her sword thrust and darted, caught one ogre in the knee cap and another in the belly, then Tzaryan Rrac stepped close and snatched the sword from her, wrapping his hand around the blade itself. For an instant, black blood flowed, but when the ogre mage flung the sword away, his hand bore no injury. Tzaryan and his ogres lunged at the unarmed hunter in unison, dragging her down. Ashi twisted, punched, and kicked, still trying to grab for Dandra. Geth cried out and would have leaped to Ashi’s side, but Chuut swung his mace and he was forced to stumble back.

  “Dandra!” shouted Singe. “Twelve moons—Dandra!”

  Unmindful of anything that was happening around her, Dandra kept walking toward Dah’mir and the binding stone. Ashi squirmed out from among the writhing tangle of ogres that tried to hold her and grabbed at the kalashtar. “You won’t have her!” she spat. “You will not have her!”

  Tzaryan caught the hunter’s leg. Ashi’s grasp fell short. Her fingertips only brushed at Dandra’s back.

  But the air seemed to shimmer at that brief contact—and Dandra froze. For a heartbeat, her eyes opened wide, then she flung back her head and screamed. Against her chest, her psicrystal pulsed with a yellow-green glow. Her feet left the ground and she rose to hover an armslength above it, still screaming. Behind her, Tzaryan and his ogres sprang away from Ashi as if in shock at Dandra’s cry but Geth realized immediately that they were springing away from Ashi herself.

  Lines of radiant color were drawing themselves across the hunter’s
exposed skin, curling up from the hand with which she had reached for Dandra and racing across her arms, her legs, her face—

  “By the houses,” choked Robrand.

  “A Siberys mark,” Singe said. “The Siberys Mark of Sentinel!”

  “No!” howled Vennet, the binding stone slipping from his fingers to fall to the ground. “She can’t have a Siberys mark! I have a Siberys mark!”

  Ashi just knelt on the ground, staring at her arms.

  Then Dandra stopped screaming.

  CHAPTER

  20

  She saw and heard everything. Taruuzh’s howls from below at the wash of Dah’mir’s mad power. Natrac and Orshok’s torture on the Grieving Tree. Singe’s torment by Hruucan. Robrand’s cursing of Geth and Geth’s rejection of the old man’s anger. She saw the terrible decision that Dah’mir had forced on the shifter. She saw Orshok’s fall from the tree, Geth’s rush to the young druid, and the shocking consequences of his compassion. She watched Dah’mir roar in triumph as his allies surrounded her friends. Surrounded her, even as Ashi tried to hold them back.

  She saw everything—and could do nothing, not even turn away. Her gaze was fixed on Dah’mir and everything that happened around the dragon.

  Her mind’s eye saw nothing better. With each moment that Dah’mir’s power held her, the storm of Tetkashtai’s terror only grew stronger. Let me in, Dandra! Il-Yannah, let me in—I can’t take this anymore!

  No! Dandra thrust back against Tetkashtai with all of her will. It barely moved the presence. Once she’d been able to contain her creator, to hold her in the prison of her psicrystal. Now it seemed like the connection that bound them had burst open like a floodgate—it felt like she was try to hold back a raging river. Tetkashtai, work with me! she begged. Dah’mir’s power can’t hold you—maybe we can find a way to beat him!

  Beat him? Tetkashtai swirled and surged, her light flashing bright with new fear and pressing even closer. We can’t beat him! We have to run and you’re not running!

  We can beat him, Tetkashtai, but you need to—

  Beyond the storm of light, Dandra saw Vennet open the ancient box that had been hidden in the Grieving Tree and lift out one of Taruuzh’s binding stones. Even through the storm she could feel the stone on the edge of her awareness like a void in the fabric of the world. Il-Yannah, she whispered silently. For a moment, panic gripped her—

  —and gave Tetkashtai a grip on her. Light lashed through her defenses and wrapped around her like one of Hruucan’s flaming tentacles. Dandra grasped and writhed. Tetkashtai’s voice rolled through her mind. I will have my body back! the presence howled.

  But another voice spoke even louder. “Dandra,” said Dah’mir, “come here.”

  His acid-green eyes shone like beacons, drawing her to him. Dandra felt her body respond with a step forward. Ashi’s hand grasped her—then was torn away as Tzaryan and his ogres pulled her down. Tetkashtai! she shouted. Tetkashtai, stop fighting me!

  No! You stop fighting me!

  Another step. Fear surged within her—fear for Ashi as the hunter fell out of her field of vision, fear for herself as she walked closer to the blue-black void of Taruuzh’s stone, fear driven by Tetkashtai’s fear. More of her creator poured through her failing defenses. The floodwaters of terror rose around her.

  “Dandra! Twelve moons—Dandra!” called Singe.

  She could still see him, standing with Ekhaas as Hruucan and more ogres closed in on them. The wizard would never hear her but Dandra shouted back to him anyway. Singe! She struggled desperately, trying to keep Tetkashtai back, but she could already tell the battle was lost. It was only a question of what would take her first: Tetkashtai’s terror or Taruuzh’s stone.

  Ashi’s voice rose from behind her like a reminder of her own fading determination. “You won’t have her! You will not have her!”

  Something brushed against her back—and the flood within her grew calm. The storm eased. She could feel Dah’mir’s grip on her vanish. Her will was hers again.

  But not her body. Not yet.

  Dandra stood on the featureless plain of her mind and faced … herself. For the first time, Tetkashtai was more than just amorphous light. She had Dandra’s form—or rather, Dandra had hers.

  “What’s happening?” Tetkashtai asked. She seemed calm, but Dandra could see the fear inside of her. It leaked out through her eyes, making them look wide and wild.

  “I don’t know.” Dandra wondered what she looked like. She felt focused and determined, but at the same time oddly uncertain. “Dah’mir’s lost his power over us. Something’s holding him back—I think it’s holding us apart, too.”

  Tetkashtai’s wild eyes hardened. “The hunter touched us just before this happened. The brute dahr has done something to us!”

  “If she’s done anything, it’s save us!” Dandra’s heart clenched. “And don’t call her a dahr. She’s my friend!”

  “Your friend—not mine.” Tetkashtai moved slowly to the side, walking around her. Dandra turned to stay with her. “I don’t think she’s saved us. I almost had you before this happened. I almost had my body back.”

  A shiver crawled up Dandra’s spine. “Tetkashtai, you’d gone mad with fear. Whatever’s going on, it’s given you a second chance.”

  “I feel like I’ve been nothing but afraid since Dah’mir used his device on us!” Tetkashtai stopped sharply and swept her arms out, gesturing to the open space around them. “Do you know what this place is?”

  “My mind,” said Dandra, then hesitated. “Our mind.”

  “My mind,” Tetkashtai said. “This is where I came to create you.” She pointed.

  Off in the distance, a memory took shape: Tetkashtai in meditation, pouring her determination into a yellow-green crystal, creating an aid to bolster her will. Dandra felt a strange chill. She was witnessing her own birth as a tiny fragment of Tetkashtai’s personality.

  “That’s right,” said Tetkashtai. “A fragment of me—and by il-Yannah’s light, that’s what you’ll be again!”

  A spear flashed, shimmering into being in Tetkashtai’s grip as she lunged forward. Dandra spun aside but the spear’s sharp edge grazed her side. Pain burned in a bright line. Somewhere in the distance, someone began screaming. Tetkashtai lunged again, but this time Dandra was ready. She twisted, then twisted again, staying just ahead of the spear—then twisted back with a spear of her own, and knocked Tetkashtai’s weapon aside. The uncertainty that had been inside her resolved itself into a sharp point.

  “Don’t do this,” she said.

  “If I don’t,” hissed Tetkashtai, “what is there for me to go back to?” She stepped into the air and slid forward. Dandra matched her, gliding backward. They moved faster and faster with each exchange of blows until the wind of their momentum shrieked around them.

  “We’re stronger together!” Dandra shouted over it. “That’s why you created me!”

  “Would you go back to being a psicrystal? Would you go back to being all but powerless, a prisoner unable to do anything but wait for your doom to catch up with you?” Tetkashtai twisted suddenly, sweeping low with her spear. The shaft of the weapon caught the back of Dandra’s knees and knocked her feet out from under her. Dandra fell, momentum sending her tumbling across the flat earth. She caught a glimpse of Tetkashtai leaping high and flung herself to the side just as her creator’s spear stabbed down. It pierced the ground where her head had been an instant before. Tetkashtai yanked it free and whirled to face her again.

  “Would you give up Singe?” she snarled through clenched teeth. Dandra’s heart caught. Tetkashtai’s lips drew back. “No? Then why should I give up my life, my body for someone—for something that isn’t even really a kalashtar? That scarcely knows what being a kalashtar means? That would use one of us as a weapon against another?”

  Dandra rose to a crouch, spear held low in one hand. “Virikhad and Medala?” she asked. “Tetkashtai, I’ve told you, I did what I had to! Medala would have killed Si
nge, Geth, Batul—everyone—and handed us to Dah’mir to become like her. Virikhad …” She took a breath, trying to calm herself, to find her focus. “I’m sorry I had to use Virikhad that way, but the situation was desperate.”

  “Then you’ll understand how I feel right now!” Tetkashtai threw herself forward.

  Dandra flung up her hand. Within her mind, her powers came freely. Vayhatana rippled through the air in a wave, caught Tetkashtai, and sent her sprawling backward. Dandra dropped her spear and stood, gesturing as she wove a web of force to hold her other self. Tetkashtai struggled, then looked up sharply. The droning chorus of whitefire rang in Dandra’s ears. Pale flames burst around her and she gasped. Her web of vayhatana vanished. Tetkashtai rushed at her, fingers curled like talons. “This body will be mine again!”

  Dandra caught her hands, twining her fingers against Tetkashtai’s. Whitefire leaped from her to Tetkashtai. Dandra met her creator’s eyes and the mad terror that burned in them. “Please,” she said one last time.

  Tetkashtai’s answer was a scream.

  Dandra raised her chin. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to do this.”

  She seized the fire and drew it into herself. All of it.

  The screaming stopped. The only thoughts in Dandra’s head were her own. The yellow-green crystal that hung around her neck was a prison no longer. She opened her eyes and glared at Dah’mir. There was shock on his face but he hadn’t moved at all—her confrontation with Tetkashtai had taken place at the speed of thought. She was aware of everyone around, paused in amazement, but all of her attention was on Dah’mir. Dandra’s lips curled in disgust and anger at the dragon. “You dahr,” she whispered.

  “This isn’t possible,” said Dah’mir. His shock flared into rage and he roared, “This isn’t possible!” He reared back and his head almost brushed the ceiling of the great chamber. “You are mine! Submit to me!”