The Grieving Tree: The Dragon Below Book II (9 page)

Dandra paced back and forth across the courtyard, her fine-featured face troubled. After a moment, she said, “Dah’mir will have guessed that we’re all here together. I don’t think we can stay in Zarash’ak.”

“You think he would delay his journey up river to hunt for us?” asked Orshok.

“What’s waiting for him at the Bonetree mound? Nothing.”
Dandra turned, stopping her pacing for a moment. “If he leaves Zarash’ak, he risks losing us.”

Geth squeezed his fists together, but nodded. “I wouldn’t walk away from us,” he said. “So where do we go? Have you found out anything about the Spires of the Forge?”

Dandra, Singe, and Natrac exchanged a glance, then Dandra shook her head. “House Tharashk told us nothing. We’ve tried a bounty hunter and two dragonshard prospectors. None of them have heard of the Spires of the Forge—the bounty hunter claimed they didn’t exist.”

“They exist,” said Ashi firmly.

“That doesn’t do us any good if we can’t find them,” said Singe. He tapped his fingertips together. “There’s still Natrac’s historian, but I don’t think going out to dinner is such a great idea. Natrac, if we can make it back to your house unseen, do you think your historian could come to us?”

Natrac’s face tightened. “Going back to my house might not be a good idea. Vennet knows where I live. I invited him to dinner once.”

Geth growled. “You
what?”

“We were on good terms at the time,” the half-orc snapped. “I didn’t know he was going to end up cutting off my hand!”

“He doesn’t know you’re still with us,” Ashi pointed out.

“No, but if Dah’mir has told him that a half-orc with one hand fought with Geth and Singe at the Bonetree mound, he’ll probably put it together.”

“Does Vennet know your historian?” Dandra asked.

They all looked at her. She spread her hands. “If Vennet doesn’t know your historian, we’d be safe there.”

Natrac looked doubtful. “I don’t want to expose her to danger.”

Her. A woman. It was the first time the half-orc had given away any information at all about his historian. In another situation, Geth might have teased him or tried to drag out more, but this was no time for jokes. “If we can get there without being spotted, she won’t be in any danger,” he said. “Besides, we need her information, don’t we? The sooner we get it, the sooner we can get out of Zarash’ak.”

“The hard part will be going anywhere without being seen,” said Ashi. “We might be able to avoid Vennet, but the herons can see anything in the streets.”

Natrac exhaled slowly. “I know a way,” he said. “We should wait here a while, give Vennet a chance to move on, then we’ll go.” He looked up, his eyes dark. “But if anyone gets hurt …”

“No one will get hurt, Natrac,” Geth said. He thumped his fist against his chest. “I promise. We’ll be like ghosts. No one will even know we’re there.”

Dah’mir was waiting by the river boat, sitting on a water cask as if it were a throne, when Vennet finally returned to the docks with his crew. Dah’mir’s green eyes flashed. “You didn’t catch them,” he said.

“No,” Vennet told him. “They got away.” He hesitated, then added. “Ashi was with Geth, lord.”

“I saw her,” said Dah’mir. “It doesn’t please me.”

Vennet’s crew moved around them, silently loading the last of the supplies into the river boat, resuming the tasks they had abandoned to take up the chase. The strength of Dah’mir’s control over them was, Vennet had to admit, astounding. Even during the chase, not one of the men had roused. It would take only one of the men escaping and passing on word of what had taken place on
Lightning on Water
for House Lyrandar to begin an investigation. There would be rumors enough soon—his passengers and cargo should have been delivered to Trolanport days ago.

“Be at ease, captain,” said Dah’mir. The green-eyed man must have guessed what was in his head—Vennet had wondered before at his uncanny knowledge, though Dah’mir insisted there was nothing magical about it, only practice in reading faces. “When I have regained my strength, the Dragon Below will see to all things. You will have the power and wealth you desire and your secret will be safe.”

Vennet pressed his lips together. “I’m risking everything for you, lord.”

“And your risk will be rewarded, captain. You have my word.”

The priest’s promise soothed the worshipper of Khyber within him. The first time he’d heard of Dah’mir—through Singe, then through Ashi—he’d seen the potential in allying himself with the priest. Betraying Singe, Geth, and Dandra had been little enough
and he had profited from it. Dah’mir had rewarded him with two large and valuable dragonshards, a blue-black Khyber shard and a golden Siberys shard, now hidden in a strongbox beneath the floor of his cabin. The shards had been, Dah’mir claimed, a beacon to him after he had been wounded in the battle at the Bonetree mound. The priest had used powerful magic to fling himself and his birds through a plane of shadow, traveling hundred of miles from the battlefield to
Lightning on Water
in only hours.

But Vennet had been a scion of House Lyrandar long before he’d joined the cult of the Dragon Below. As awed and honored as Vennet had been to wake and find Dah’mir in his cabin and in need of his aid, the training of Lyrandar had left him skeptical. The priest wasn’t telling him everything. There was something about the battle at the Bonetree mound that he had left out. Vennet believed his tale of the orc raiders and the Gatekeepers, of Ashi’s betrayal, of Medala’s destruction at Dandra’s hand, of the dolgaunt Hruucan’s fiery death at Singe’s—of Dah’mir’s own injury by the strange ancient sword wielded by Geth. The wound that scarred the priest’s chest still showed no sign of healing even a week later.

That Dah’mir had panicked at his wounding and fled to distant safety where his attackers couldn’t follow—Vennet could believe that, too. He’d watched Dah’mir’s frustration as the strength drained out of him. The priest tried to hide it, but Vennet knew that every command he issued to the crew made him weaker. He’d seen him attempt magic and watched his spells falter. The key to regaining his strength lay in returning to the Bonetree mound, the heart of his power. That was what he needed Vennet for.

There was something else though, Vennet knew. Suspicion crept in at the back of his mind, lifting the hairs on the back of his neck. He prayed to Khyber that he’d made the right decision in siding with the priest.

There was one thing about Dah’mir that he had worked out for himself, however. “Lord,” he pointed out, “if Geth is in Zarash’ak, Dandra probably is, too.”

Dah’mir’s mouth twisted in anger, the expression darkening his face like a cloud across the sun. He cut Vennet off with a snap. “I had guessed that myself, captain! Zarash’ak has too many hiding places, though. We can spare no more time. I
must
return
to the Bonetree mound. That is my only concern. I want to leave as soon as the boat is ready.”

For the first time, Vennet heard an edge of desperation in the priest’s voice. He bent his head, holding back a sly, self-satisfied smile. “I know, lord. I anticipated it. But just because we can’t stay to look for her and her companions doesn’t mean that someone else can’t search them out and hold them until we return. I took the initiative of contacting someone and offering him the job.” Vennet gestured for the heavily-muscled man who had been standing back in the shadows to join them. “I know his reputation. He’s said to be one of the best bounty hunters available.”

“I am the best,” the man growled as he came forward. He met Dah’mir’s eyes boldly. “I’ll get you your people.”

“Lord,” said Vennet, “meet Chain d’Tharashk.”

T
hey left the courtyard the same way they had entered. At the end of the narrow passage, Natrac muttered a few words in Orc to the merchants whose stalls hid the entrance to the bolthole, and the crates that blocked the curtain were shifted. Singe pushed past the curtain gratefully—after the stifling heat of the enclosed courtyard, Zarash’ak’s open streets felt cool as a spring morning. The ring that he wore, an inheritance from his grandfather, protected him from fire, but it did nothing to shield him from simple heat. At that moment, there was nothing he wanted more than a dunking in cool water. A swim, a bath, even a pump that he could stick his head under …

A horse trough, he thought, I’d take a horse trough.

They didn’t have time for even that dubious luxury. The crowds on the streets were thinning with the end of the day. They’d hidden in the courtyard for as long as they’d dared but there was still a good chance that Vennet, his crew, or especially Dah’mir’s herons might still be abroad, and the thinning crowds left them that much less cover. As soon as they had all emerged—sticky and sweating—from the bolthole, they set off down the street at a brisk pace. They moved in two groups, trying their best to blend in, all of them alert.

Natrac took the lead, Singe and Geth at his side. They hadn’t gone far before Geth growled under his breath. “You’re taking us back to the bridge.”

The half-orc nodded but didn’t slow down. Singe looked up at
the sky. There were no herons visible above the street, but the arc of sky overhead was relatively narrow, constrained by the buildings on either side. Once they were on the bridge—and in the plaza beyond—they would be exposed.

“Natrac,” Singe said, “the idea was to get under cover. The bridge and plaza—”

“We’re not crossing the bridge,” said Natrac.

“Running alongside the canal doesn’t seem much better,” Geth pointed out.

“We’re not doing that either.” Natrac’s voice was on edge. “We’re going down into the webs.”

Singe shot a glance at him. Natrac’s face was set as tight as his voice, as though he was preparing himself for something unpleasant. Before he could ask him more, though, Natrac held up his right arm, gesturing for them to stop. The bridge on which Geth, Ashi, and Orshok had escaped from Vennet was just ahead, the casual flow of people around it giving no hint of the panicked, tangled mob that had flooded across earlier. Singe scanned the bridge, the plaza, and the sky for signs of observers or an ambush.

The silhouette of a heron moved across a sky red with twilight. “Is that one of Dah’mir’s?” Singe asked.

Geth squinted, then shook his head. “I can’t tell.”

“We only need to get across the street.” Natrac pointed ahead. “There are stairs leading down to the canal just to the left of the bridge. That’s where we’re going.”

Singe twisted around and looked for Dandra and the others. They were less than a dozen paces away, pressed back against a wall. Singe caught Dandra’s eye and gestured to the stairs Natrac had indicated. She nodded. He turned back to Natrac. “Let’s go.”

Darting across the street and down the stairs for no other reason than the distant presence of a bird actually felt vaguely ridiculous. A half dozen similar—but much more deadly—situations that he had experienced over his years as a mercenary flitted through Singe’s mind. Running for cover on a battlefield in Cyre as arrows fell. Infiltrating an enemy camp. Leaping aside as a hostile wizard hurled bolts of lightning at him. Retreating through the shadows of Narath as the soldiers of Aundair, countrymen he had left behind when he joined the Blademarks of House Deneith, flooded the streets …

Dodging around strolling shoppers might have felt ridiculous, but his heart was still racing as he paused on the stairs to be sure that Ashi, Orshok, and Dandra made it into hiding as well. Dandra came last, shepherding the others before her even though, he knew, she could easily have outpaced them both. He fell in beside her as they hurried down the long flight of steps toward the canal below. “You saw the heron?”

She nodded. “Do you think it saw us?”

“I hope not.” Singe gave her a closer look. There was a particular set to Dandra’s chin and the line of her jaw that Singe had come to recognize as an expression of her unstoppable determination. It was an expression that she wore only when she was up against formidable resistance—most particularly internal resistance. His eyes flicked to the yellow-green crystal hanging around her neck, then away. “Is Tetkashtai bothering you?” he asked.