The Killing Song: The Dragon Below Book III (5 page)

The kalashtar was holding an arm out to Dandra when his words sank into Singe’s head.
You’ve found him, Tetkashtai … I’m sorry, Tetkashtai
.

Twelve bloody moons, Singe thought. He can’t tell what’s happened.

The same thought must have worked its way through Dandra’s head. As rapidly as a cloud drifting past the sun, her face brightened and became confident. “Thank you, Nevchaned,” said Dandra, her voice unfamiliar and haughty as she fell into the role of her creator. “What happened—”

The old kalashtar cut her off with a shake of his head as he helped her to his feet. “The poor man,” he said sadly, and Singe noticed that he left the statement hanging to wave forward the two men who had come with him. The woman, the wizard realized, was moving among those who had been
on the street when the attack occurred, calming them and sending them on their way. Before the men bent to pick up Erimelk’s unconscious form, the small crowd had already begun to disperse.

The men’s touch, however, must have roused Erimelk. The scribe’s eyes snapped open wide and for an instant he seemed to stare straight at Singe—then his eyes rolled back and the tones of a strange wordless song rippled from his lips, clashing but somehow still musical.
“Aahyi-ksiksiksi-kladakla—”

The two kalashtar holding him stiffened. Nevchaned reacted instantly, pulling his hand from Dandra’s and reaching across to clap it across Erimelk’s mouth, muffling the song. “Take him to my shop, Fekharath,” he said swiftly. The men holding Erimelk began to move and Nevchaned went with them, hand still over the scribe’s mouth. The woman fell in beside them, staring at Erimelk. Nevchaned twisted around enough to nod a farewell to Dandra. “A poor homecoming,” he called back to her, “but it’s good to see you again. Are Virikhad and Medalashana …?”

“Still in Zarash’ak,” Dandra lied.

“Ah.” Nevchaned threw a brief glance at Singe and the others. For a moment, Singe thought he saw suspicion and disappointment in the old man’s eyes, then Nevchaned gave Dandra another nod and said, “
Patan yannah
, Tetkashtai.”

“Patan yannah
, Nevchaned,” Dandra answered coolly.

And then they were alone on the wet street once more.

  
G
eth’s, shoulders ached from the exertion of paddling. It was a good ache, though. It warmed him from the inside, just as the sweat on his skin cooled him from the outside. Everything was in balance. The quiet dip and splash of his paddle, in rhythm with Orshok and Ekhaas’s, was a soft echo to the sounds of unseen marsh birds and animals stirring in the gathering dusk. Only the steady passing of the reedy banks marked their progress across the smooth surface of the river, cutting against the slow, strong current. Neither shifter, nor orc, nor hobgoblin spoke.

Zarash’ak, where they had acquired the small boat, was three nights travel behind them. The camp of the Fat Tusk tribe was, according to Orshok, still a night ahead. Geth’s mind drifted, at ease.

When they’d first separated from Singe, Dandra, and the others at Tzaryan Keep, he’d had found it difficult to sleep at night. He hadn’t been the only one. The message they carried was urgent. News of Dah’mir’s schemes, of the daelkyr—remembered in Ekhaas’s stories as the Master of Silence—imprisoned beneath the mound of the Bonetree clan, had to reach Orshok’s old master, Batul. The druids of the Gatekeeper sect had to be warned of the ancient evil that was reaching out for new power.

As the wastes of Droaam and then the swamps of the Shadow Marches passed beneath their feet, though, the rhythm of
travel had blunted that frantic edge. They could only go so fast and no faster. Both Ekhaas and Orshok knew magic that could speed their journey and they used it, but even magic had limits. They’d fallen into a cycle of traveling hard from the late afternoon until just after dawn—all three of them could see as well at night as at day—then sleeping just enough to refresh themselves before rising and continuing on.

It was a pattern Geth remembered from his own years of wandering after he had fled the massacre at Narath and before he’d found haven in Bull Hollow. One morning as he’d taken the first watch of the day, he’d watched the rising sun chase the moons of Therendor and Dravago over the horizon and had thought back to Bull Hollow. To Adolan. What had begun as a mission of vengeance for the devastation of the village and the death of his friend at the hands of the Bonetree hunters had turned into something much larger. Confronting a dragon. Thwarting a daelkyr. It made Geth feel strangely small by comparison.

He’d wondered what Adolan would have thought of it all. He probably would have been pleased, though Geth wasn’t sure what would have pleased him more: that Geth was fighting the twisted, unnatural enemies of his ancient sect or that Geth had fought a more personal battle and confronted his own past. That Dandra, Singe, and his other allies knew now what had happened at Narath, that the terrible slaughter of a town and his old Blademarks company had been his fault.

Days and nights had passed since that morning, and Geth still didn’t have an answer.

Singe and Dandra still don’t know everything, Adolan, he thought, digging his paddle into the water once more. And Tiger’s blood, I’m fighting a dragon
and
a daelkyr! Who wouldn’t be scared?

There was no answer, of course, but the old collar of rune-carved black stones that had once belonged to Adolan slid around his neck with a reassuring weight.

And then turned shockingly cold.

Geth sat up straight, rocking the boat and nearly dropping his paddle. Kneeling in the center of the boat, Ekhaas grabbed for the sides and cursed.
“Khaavolaar!
What are you
doing?” The hobgoblin twisted around to glare at him with amber eyes, a scowl on her flattened face. “Are you trying to turn us over?”

“Adolan’s collar—” Geth grunted and reached up to touch the stones. The collar was an artifact of the Gatekeepers. It had shielded him from the mental powers of Dah’mir and the hideous mind flayers in service to the Master of Silence and given him warning of danger. If it had grown cold …

To his surprise, the stones were once again warm under his fingers.

“Well?” asked Ekhaas. Her voice was both smooth and coarse at the same time, like cedar smoke, and when she wasn’t feeling patient, it could carry a vicious sting.

Geth let his hand fall. “Nothing,” he said, and wondered if it had been his imagination.

The hunting call of a marsh cat rose and fell in the twilight, and this time it was Orshok, in the boat’s bow, who sat up. The young orc tucked his paddle under one arm—Geth swore and plunged his paddle back into water to try and hold their position against the current—and raised folded hands to his wide mouth, letting out a trill of birdsong. The hunting cat answered and Orshok’s eyes went wide beneath his heavy brow.

“Ring of Siberys!” he exclaimed and snatched up his paddle again. “Geth, steer us for that leaning tree up ahead.”

Geth didn’t need further directions. Along the riverbank, a bulky figure had risen beside the tree Orshok had indicated. As they drew closer, Geth recognized the figure with surprise. It was Krepis, another orc of the Fat Tusk tribe and Batul’s elder student. He looked much the same as he had the last time Geth had seen him—big even for an orc, wearing a necklace of crocodile teeth and carrying a heavy spear—except for the long red stripes that had been painted above and below each eye. They gave him an angry look, as if he was staring in perpetual, wide-eyed rage.

Beneath the paint, however, he looked pleased to see them, though he glanced at Ekhaas with some mistrust. He stepped down into the shallows as the boat glided up, and grasped the side near Orshok, holding the boat easily against the pull of the river. Orshok asked something in the guttural tones
of Orc, probably trying to find out what Krepis was doing there, Geth guessed. Krepis answered in the same language. Ekhaas’s tufted, wolf-like ears stood up as she listened. Orc, Geth knew, was just one of half a dozen languages that she spoke, but Orshok and Krepis might have been speaking gibberish for all that he could understand them.

At least for all that he could understand them on his own. He stretched a hand down and let it rest on the hilt of the ancient Dhakaani sword that was lashed to his pack in the bottom of the boat. He’d carried the sword out of the ghostly fortress of Jhegesh Dol and with it had wounded Dah’mir. Only recently, in the caves beneath Taruuzh Kraat, had he discovered that it was even more than it seemed. Its name was Wrath
—Aaram
in Goblin—and it was a sword of Dhakaani heroes, forged by the same legendary Dhakaani
daashor
who had created the binding stones. As if the visit to those caves and the tomb of its creator had roused the sword from long slumber, he’d found that it also had powers previously hidden. In Taruuzh Kraat, he’d learned that holding the sword allowed him to understand Goblin and the vile speech spoken by creatures of Khyber. Experimentation in their travels had revealed that Wrath let him understand other languages known to the hobgoblins of the lost Empire of Dhakaan—including Orc.

The instant his fingers closed around Wrath’s hilt, Krepis’s words were clear in his ears. “—waiting here for three days. Batul had a vision that you would come.”

“But why here?” Orshok asked. He looked vaguely troubled. “Why not at Fat Tusk?”

Krepis grunted. “Because we’re not gathering at Fat Tusk. There’s a lesser river just past here. Turn up it and go until you reach a sandbank. I’ll meet you there.” He looked at Geth, gave him a hideous smile, and switched out of Orc to greet him. “See you good, Geth!” he said with a thick accent. “You bring big fights with you!”

Geth straightened up and let go of Wrath. “Good to see you too, Krepis.”

The orc heaved against the boat and sent them sliding back into the open river, then climbed back up onto the bank and disappeared into the undergrowth. Orshok slid his paddle into
the water once more and looked over his shoulder. “Were you listening?” he asked.

“Of course,” said Ekhaas.

“Yes,” said Geth, putting his paddle into the water and pressing against the current. Now that he was looking for it, he could see the smaller river Krepis had told them to follow. “But I didn’t hear everything. Who’s gathering and what are those stripes on Krepis’s face?”

“They’re horde marks,” Orshok answered, his voice tight. “They mean that he’s taken an oath of war.”

They found the sandbank and Krepis. Geth was startled to see that they were far from the first to land there. More than a dozen boats—some small like theirs, others larger—were beached on the sand and still more had been dragged higher up the riverbank. Orshok started to ask Krepis about the boats, but the other orc just shook his head and said, “Come.”

They followed him along a well-worn trail, the meager packs that had seen them across Droaam and the Shadow Marches on their backs. Geth carried his great gauntlet in a bundle as there seemed little point in donning the armored sleeve in the company of friends, but he made a point of buckling on Wrath so he could reach the sword easily if he needed its abilities.

Away from the river, the ground made a slow rise, becoming slightly drier and a little firmer underfoot. The area was thick with bushy ferns, their leaves half-furled against the night, and shaded by a few trees with smooth bark and gnarled branches. Geth spotted a sentry reclining among the branches of one, tracking them with a stout bow until Krepis raised a hand and made a sign in greeting. The sentry relaxed and waved them ahead.

The shifter heard the camp before he saw it, a dull roar of activity familiar from any number of campaigns during the Last War. The rising path reached a crest and the camp spread out before them, filling a vast depression in the landscape with tents and huts and cookfires and the forms of hundreds of orcs. Krepis spread his arms wide. “The horde of Angry Eyes!” he said with pride. “Come. We find Batul.”

He led them down the interior slope of the depression and into the camp. In spite of its size, Geth realized, the depression wasn’t actually very deep—three long strides carried him from the top of the slope to its bottom. The ground within the depression was noticeably drier than that outside it, even though it clearly sat somewhat lower. Among the tents and huts, he could also make out the shapes of tall standing stones. He recognized them as markers erected by ancient Gatekeepers. “What is this place?” he asked Orshok.