The Binding Stone (The Dragon Below, Book 1) (25 page)

Singe looked down at her, then away. "No, I haven't," he said.

"Being an inanimate crystal gives you a lot of time to watch what's going on around you. The only time I've seen people with the depth of anger you two have is when they were friends before they became enemies."

Singe's face twisted. For a moment, Dandra wondered if maybe she'd pressed too hard, but then his eyes closed and he let out a long sigh.

"Not too long after I joined the Frostbrand--our Blademarks company--the commander of the company, Robrand d'Deneith, took a few of us on a recruiting mission," he said in a low voice.
"Folk from the Eldeen Reaches generally make good scouts and the Frostbrand had developed a specialty in taking winter assignments, so we headed into the northern Eldeen. Not quite so isolated as Bull Hollow, but still more wild than civilized. In a little place that was hardly more than a crossroads, Robrand started his recruiting speech." Singe's expression grew nostalgic. "Twelve moons, the old man could talk! Recruiting was a hard sell in that region--the Eldeen Reaches had seceded from Aundair only a generation or so before and most Reachers didn't want to have anything to do with the world outside their forests. But there was one eager young shifter who came forward with a hunger for adventure in his eye and signed up on the spot."

"Geth," said Dandra and Singe nodded.

"There's a tendency in every Blademarks company for new recruits to band together. Eight of us joined the Frostbrand within a couple of months of each other. I was the first, Geth was the last. The bunch of us were practically inseparable for the next five years." He reached up and ran a finger along his cheekbone, high under his left eye. Dandra looked closely and saw a thin scar. "Geth gave me that during a tavern brawl in Metrol. He was aiming for the Cyran soldier who was holding me from behind and missed."

"That can't be what broke you up though."

"That
was nothing. We laughed about it."

"Then what happened?" Dandra hesitated, then said, "Tonight when Vennet mentioned 'Narath'... you've said that name to Geth before and he doesn't like to hear it either."

The wizard gave no response.

"Singe," Dandra said, "what happened at Narath?"

"Go to sleep, Dandra," said Singe. His voice was cold and empty. "Take the bed next to Geth if you want. I'll sleep on the floor."

Dandra glanced at the bed. There was plenty of room for three people to lie side by side. She looked back to Singe. He was still staring out of the window, his face a harsh mask. Dandra held her tongue and turned away, leaving him to whatever dark memories were running through his head.

The sound of the room's door closing woke her. Dandra sat upright, her mind snapping alert and the drone of whitefire throbbing on the air. On the floor under the window, Singe came to his feet with his rapier in his hand.

Geth stood inside the door, a big bundle of rags and three broad conical straw hats in his arms. He looked at both of them critically. "I walk out of here and you don't stir, but I come in and you're both ready to strike me down?" He walked over to the bed and dropped the bundle. "Here. I've been to market."

The rags were clothes, simple and well worn--by fisherfolk previously if the smell that rolled off them was anything to judge by. Dandra wrinkled her nose. Singe stared. "Did you actually
pay
for those?" he demanded.

"More or less." Geth tossed a muddy brown shirt to the wizard. "We can't just walk up to
Lightning on Water
. We need something to disguise ourselves."

"No one will recognize us by smell at least," Dandra pointed out with a grin. Singe gave her a dim glower.

It was the middle of the morning by the time they left the inn and stepped back onto the street. Zarash'ak was alive around them. The air was humid and close, but the people of the City of Stilts moved around in a hurry, as if eager to get their errands finished before day grew any hotter. Dandra found herself staring around as she, Geth, and Singe wandered back toward the docks, unexpectedly aware of what she had missed of Zarash'ak when she had passed through as a crystal around Tetkashtai's neck. The city had sounds, sights, and smells she hadn't really appreciated before. Musicians on a street corner made strange music that mixed a chirping stringed instrument with a deep, thrumming pipe. On streetside grills, vendors cooked long strips of meat brushed with a thin sauce that smelled both spicy and sour. Other vendors made thick rounds of dark gold bread, flapping a pale yellow dough back and forth between their palms before slapping it onto hot iron griddles. People seemed to buy the yellow bread at one stall, then wander on to another
to buy meat or blackened roast vegetables to stuff inside.

"What is that?" she asked as they passed one grill stall.

"Snake," said Geth. He pointed at the bread. "That's made out of a flour pounded from a kind of marsh reed called
ashi."

"When it's cooked, it's the same color as Ashi's hair."

Geth grunted at the observation. "Let's buy some and ask her about it, shall we?"

They followed a different route to the docks than the one that they had taken the night before and approached
Lightning on Water
from a distance. Singe had suggested they would find Vennet's crew busy unloading the ship--the half-elf might be a treacherous serpent, but he was also a Lyrandar captain and clearly took his business seriously. To Dandra's surprise though, they could see as they approached that activity on the ship was subdued. Most of the crew seemed to be hanging over the side, watching as crowds surged around on the dock below. Geth held both her and Singe back while he scanned the dock and the ship thoroughly for any sign of Vennet or Ashi. Finally, he shook his head.

"I don't see either of them," he reported.

"What do you think's happening on the dock?" asked Dandra.

"Let's find out."

Dandra tilted her hat slightly toward the ship as they passed, trying to conceal her distinctively dark skin from the sailors above. Although it didn't seem likely that any of the crew shared their captain's vile faith, even a casual greeting could give them away. Once they were among the crowd, it was a little easier to hide and she relaxed a bit--at least until she realized that the attention of the shifting, gawking crowd was focused on the narrow alley down which she, Geth, and Singe had made their escape. The three of them pushed their way carefully to the front of the crowd.

A long, thick stain of dried blood painted the wall to one side of the alley mouth. At the top of the stain was a deep ragged hole, as if a spike had driven into the wood. The hole was also bloodstained.

Beside the stain, two words had been scratched into the wood:
blue doors
.

"Rat!" breathed Geth. He nudged the man who stood next to him. "Do you know what happened here?"

"Dagga
. Word is that the ship over there"--the man gestured to
Lightning on Water
--"was transporting a mad woman. I hear she got loose, kidnapped someone from his cabin, and even tried to set fire to the ship. When that didn't work, she came down here, hacked off her prisoner's hand, pinned it up to the wall, and ran off with the rest of him!"

"It was more than his hand!" chimed in a half-orc woman on his other side. "It was a whole
arm
. My boy saw it hanging there before the watch and took it away!" She held up one hand and made a circle over it with the finger and thumb of her other hand. "Big ruby ring on it too! The woman would
have
to be mad to leave that behind."

Natrac's ring, Dandra realized. Her hand sought out Singe's and squeezed it tight. If they'd come back last night, they could have stopped this.

The wizard must have realized the same thing. He looked slightly pale. "The watch," he said, "will they investigate? Will they look for the man whose hand or arm it was?"

The half-orc woman laughed. "Not unless someone wants to come forward and pay the fee!"

"Or unless this mad woman starts cutting off more parts," said the man darkly with a glance at the woman. "Only the cult does that and not even the watch will stand for their type in the city!"

"Any idea what 'blue doors' means?" asked Geth.

The man and woman shook their heads, but Dandra seized Geth's hand as well as Singe's and pulled both men out of the crowd and down the dock. When they were out of sight of
Lightning on Water
, she stopped and looked at them. "I know what 'blue doors' means." She took a deep breath. "When Tetkashtai, Virikhad, and Medalashana came to Zarash'ak, they met Dah'mir in a house with blue doors."

"Are you sure?" asked Singe.

She nodded. "It's all a message for us," she said. "Do you remember what Natrac said after the fight with Ashi? The cult of the Dragon Below kidnapped his cousin and left parts of him in the
canals. Vennet and Ashi left Natrac's hand and ring as a message to say that they had him. They left the words to show where they've taken him, knowing I'd understand but not anyone else."

Singe's eyes narrowed. "But how could Vennet know about this house?"

"The crystal band," Dandra told him grimly. "Vennet has used it to contact Dah'mir and Medalashana. One of them must have told him what to do."

"Twelve bloody moons," cursed Singe. He looked at Dandra. "Suppose Dah'mir wants to come to Zarash'ak. How long do you think it will take?"

"More than a week," Dandra answered. "Even if he left the Bonetree mound as soon as Ashi told Medalashana we were coming to Zarash'ak, he'd still be days away from here."

"And you can find this house with blue doors again?"

She nodded.

A growl rumbled up out of Geth. "It's going to be a trap--and after all that last night about not going back because we'd deliver you right to them ..."

"I know," Dandra answered.

Tetkashtai's presence shook inside her.
Dandra, this is too much! We don't even know that Natrac's still alive. Light of il-Yannah, he's had a hand cut off!

Then we have to go to make sure he's dead
, Dandra said.
I won't leave him to the cult of the Dragon Below
.

Dah'mir and Medalashana will know we're in Zarash'ak for certain now
.

The suggestion sent a tremor through Dandra's belly, but she forced it away.
All the more reason to confront Vennet and Ashi and get the crystal band back
. She glanced up at Singe and Geth. "When should we go?"

"I don't think we have anything to gain by waiting." Geth tapped a fist against his right arm. Hidden under a loose sleeve, the metal of his great gauntlet rang solidly. "Let's go now."

Dandra looked to Singe. The wizard nodded. Dandra steeled herself. "All right then," she said. "This way."

The ship that Tetkashtai and the other kalashtar had taken from Sharn had made port at another part of Zarash'ak's dock.

Dandra led Geth and Singe along the waterfront until she found the point where the ship had berthed. Dredging her memory, she began pacing through the city, following landmarks and tracing the route that the kalashtar had taken those months ago. At one intersection, though, she had to stop. To the right, the plank street broadened into a wide and busy thoroughfare lined with fine, large homes.

To the left, it became narrow and crooked, leading away into an older, more rundown part of the city.

It would have made more sense for the house with blue doors to be to the right--it was big and very pleasant and would have fit that neighborhood. Memory, however, suggested that the kalashtar had turned
left
at this spot.

Tetkashtai
, she asked,
which way?

The frightened presence confirmed her memory. Left. Dandra moved on, turning where memory prompted her. The district, however, was nothing like she remembered. Empty windows gaped like black eyes form the faces of dilapidated houses. Occasionally, feet scampered on the wood ahead as figures scrambled back into the shadows.

"Squatters," said Singe.

Not all of the figures ducked away. A lanky orc--full-blooded, with coarse features, lean muscles under his gray-green skin, and heavy tusks that made Natrac's look small--stared at them from the shadows of one house, red eyes gleaming. His clothes were rough and swamp-stained; he looked like some kind of marsh nomad, looking for easier prey in the lawless places of Zarash'ak. Dandra's grip tightened on her spear and Geth made sure that the orc saw the heavy sword at his side.

"Dandra," he asked, "are you sure about this?"

"Yes," she said. She turned a corner.

In her memory, the house with blue doors was a grand and luxurious building, three stories high with dormers along the pitched roof. It stood alone on its own platform, surely a luxury in a city where walkways and platforms had grown haphazardly together over time. The doors that had stuck in her memory and in the minds of the kalashtar were tall and striking, their bright
polished surface painted a deep blue that was exactly the color of an autumn night's sky.