The Binding Stone (The Dragon Below, Book 1) (40 page)

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Authors: Don Bassingthwaite

BOOK: The Binding Stone (The Dragon Below, Book 1)
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"I can try," Singe told her. "If I die, at least it would be better than living like this." He nodded around the hut. The walls had gaps, the tent-like ceiling had rips. The floor was dirt. The whole place smelled of mice and human sweat. "Especially if Hruucan has his way with me."
Ashi's face tightened. "At least you're not just killing yourself."
"I considered it. Then I thought, no, what would Ashi think?" His voice cracked.
The hunter took a step forward. "Singe ..." she said. His hands tensed. A spell rose on his tongue. She froze again. Singe could feel his chest heaving.
He lowered his hands and swallowed the magic. "Twelve
moons," he croaked. "Why did you have to come? If it had been Breff, I could have blasted him and half of this damn camp at the same time!"
Ashi said nothing. Singe sighed. "I'm sorry. They're your clan."
"We're Dah'mir's clan," Ashi whispered bitterly. She reached behind her back. "It's time, Singe. Hruucan is waiting." She held out his rapier. The edge had been honed bright. Singe gave her a crooked smile as he took the weapon.
"Thank you. Not that it will do much good. I drove this through Hruucan's arm in Bull Hollow and he barely even bled."
"Use magic," Ashi advised him. "Use magic or strike for a killing blow. A dolgaunt will shrug off anything less." She hesitated for a moment, then looked down at the dirt floor. "Singe, I'm sorry I didn't help you escape when I had the chance."
The Aundairian started. "Ashi?"
She looked up at him. "I think you were right. I think I changed while I was away from the Bonetree." She drew a deep breath. "It won't be an honest death, but if Hruucan lets you live, I'll kill you."
Singe winced. "I know you mean that in the best possible way, but it really doesn't sound reassuring. But thank you. I hope it won't come to that." He sighed and slid the rapier into his scabbard, then looked down at himself.
Two weeks' travel from Zarash'ak had left him and his clothes filthy. If he was going to end up dead or crippled shortly anyway, he thought, he might as well risk a little magic. He spoke a simple spell, straightened his clothes and ran his fingers through his hair. Dirt sifted down onto the ground and a pleasant smell of spices surrounded him. "Better?" he asked Ashi.
The big hunter nodded. Singe stood straight and steeled himself. "Let's go meet Hruucan." He marched to the doorway and ducked through.
The Bonetree encampment was abandoned. From somewhere up ahead, he could hear the murmur of an excited crowd. With Ashi following him close, he strode toward it. They were almost out of the camp when a roar rose on the air, a weird muttering
echo forming part of it. His bold step faltered. Ashi caught him and urged him on.
"That will be Hruucan entering the ring," she said grimly.
"And the echo?"
"Dolgrims. Dah'mir has brought the children of Khyber out of the mound to watch the duel."
Singe blinked. "The mound is empty?"
"Maybe," answered Ashi. "There's no way to know for certain."
The wizard looked at her. "Were you serious about rescuing me if you had the chance?"
She nodded.
Singe's guts twisted. "Then if you get the chance while I'm fighting, go into the mound and rescue Dandra," he said. "Get her out of here. Kill her if you have to. Just make sure that she's beyond Dah'mir's reach!"
Ashi's pierced lips hung open. "Into the ancestor mound?" she asked. "No one goes into the ancestor mound."
"Dandra's done it," Singe hissed. "Twice. Forget about me, but help Dandra." He searched her eyes. They were wide and frightened. "Please, Ashi!" he begged her. "Dah'mir has nothing in store for Dandra but torture. She needs your help."
Ashi swallowed. "I--"
But suddenly they were on the edge of the crowd and approaching a broad aisle that opened through the mass of the Bonetree clan. Breff and another hunter were waiting. They grabbed Singe and shoved him forward. Singe looked back for Ashi.
The crowd was already closing in eager anticipation. The tall hunter vanished behind him. Singe's teeth clenched. Was she going to help or wasn't she?
Either way he was on his own. "All right then," he growled to himself. "Let's put on a show." He shrugged his arms, pulled himself away from Breff and the other hunter, and fixed them with a cold glare.
"Touch me again and I'll remember it." The two hunters pulled up short. Singe turned and marched down the remainder of the rapidly closing aisle.
The "ring" was more like an oval, perhaps twenty paces at its widest point and twice as long. Dolgrims and the Bonetree clan stood all around it, a simple rope holding them back. Big torches burned atop six tall poles spaced around the ring, casting their flickering, ruddy glow down onto the dusty ground below and making the night beyond seem even darker.
The crowd fell silent as Singe stepped into the light. At the far end of the ring, the end closest to the mound, stood Hruucan, tentacles twitching hungrily. Behind him, Dah'mir and Medala sat like monarchs in great chairs raised up on a low platform. Dah'mir stood up. "Begin!" he shouted.
The roar that burst from the crowd was deafening, a buffeting wave of sound. Hruucan launched himself down the length of the ring, sprinting with a speed the wizard wouldn't have thought possible. Singe thrust out his arms and spoke the first of the spells he had carefully studied over the course of the afternoon. The words of the magic vanished in the roar of the crowd, but that didn't matter.
Light shimmered blue around him, then faded away. Singe could feel the protection of the magic clinging to him, though, an invisible skin of force that would help keep the buds and tendrils of Hruucan's skin from digging into his flesh quite so easily.
Then Hruucan was on him. From a dozen feet away, the dolgaunt leaped at him, curled fists leading, tentacles whipping around. Singe ripped his rapier free and threw himself to the side. Hruucan landed in a crouch and twisted back to his feet, turning smoothly to face Singe. His horrid, eyeless face was expressionless, but there was emotion in his every movement--he glided into a ready stance with a contemptuous grace.
Singe took a slow step back, putting a little distance between them, keeping his rapier up. Hruucan didn't move. Even his tentacles were still, poised like serpents. Singe risked another step.
Hruucan darted forward. His hands, open flat, thrust out in a flurry of short, sharp strikes that seemed to twine together with the attacks of his tentacles. Singe flung up his rapier, trying to put the blade in the way of that rain of blows. He stumbled backward as he parried, his feet raising little clouds of dust from the ground.
Then the dolgaunt pulled back, leaving him staggering--and wondering if he'd actually stopped Hruucan's attack or if the foul creature had only been toying with him.
The noise of the crowd was slowly dying back, overwhelming roars giving way to rippling shouts. Singe drew a hissing breath and moved to the side, circling around Hruucan. The dolgaunt moved to match him, always staying low and ready to strike. His tentacles swayed and stirred to either side of him as if each was trying independently to lure Singe into an attack. He didn't fall for it.
His free hand darted forward and he snapped a seething word of magic. Flames flared from his spread fingertips, splashing across the ring--but abruptly it was as if Hruucan was simply no longer there. To the soaring cheers of the crowd, the dolgaunt whirled aside, flowing away from the fiery magic in a tight spin of arms and tentacles. Singe turned to follow him but Hruucan was faster. His spinning form almost seemed to unravel, tentacles stretching out to slap at Singe. The wizard dodged away from one, but the other caught him with a hard slap across his face.
As he stumbled and reeled from the force of blow, the other tentacle snaked back and lashed around his legs, ripping his feet out from under him. Singe slammed down hard onto his back. He sucked in breath desperately and scrambled to regain his feet.
Hruucan met him with a pair of punches so fast and hard they lifted him up and threw him back. Singe hit the ground a second time, his chest aching, his lungs sucking hard for air.
The night shook with the roars of the Bonetree clan and Dah'mir's dolgrims. Singe rolled over onto his side and looked up to see Hruucan sinking back into his ready stance. The wizard cleared his throat, spat blood onto the dry ground, and climbed back to his feet. Forcing himself to stand straight, he lifted his rapier and offered the dolgaunt a taunting salute.
Hruucan's tentacles lashed the air angrily and he threw himself forward.
Ashi clenched her teeth and hissed as Hruucan unleashed another flurry of blows against Singe. Unlike his first furious
attack, though, it was clear that the dolgaunt was no longer playing with his opponent. His strikes were real and hard. A hand, fingers curled like claws, slipped past Singe's guard to tear at him.
Whatever magic the wizard had cast on himself seemed to offer him some scant protection though: Hruucan's blow skittered across Singe's torso without even tearing his shirt. Singe slapped away his arm and thrust hard with his rapier into the dolgaunt's side.
But not hard enough. Hruucan lurched away and stood upright easily without a mark on him. A tentacle darted at Singe, slamming at his side in return. Singe lurched as well, but he didn't stand upright so easily.
He was going to lose, Ashi knew. It was inevitable. Hruucan was too fast for the wizard's magic and too powerful for his blade.
Ashi glanced beyond the crowd toward the dark mouth of the ancestor mound. No one was watching it. Nothing moved within. The fire of the Bonetree hunter who should have been standing honor guard guttered low, abandoned.
She hadn't told Singe all the tales about the mound that were spoken around the fires of the Bonetree. Stories of passages into the sacred depths and shrines built from dragonshards, yes--but also whispers of halls home to ghosts, of dark vaults where Dah'mir "prayed" with the outclanners who were sometimes led into the mound, of the lairs of Khyber's children and monsters too horrible to bear the light of day.
The crowd let out another roar. Ashi twisted back to the ring. Singe knelt on the ground, clutching at his belly. His rapier lay on the ground several paces away. Hruucan walked over to it--and kicked the weapon back to him disdainfully. Singe grabbed it, but Ashi could see the pain on his face as he rose.
Her eyes darted to Dah'mir, watching the fight with the benevolent expression of a doting father. At his side, Medala wore the staring hunger of a hunting panther.
All around the ring, she could see a similar bloodlust on the faces of people she knew as friends and comrades in arms. Breff leaped and shouted, cheering for a monster who roused only disgust in Ashi, a monster who had--by Breff's own account--driven
the returning hunters almost to death. This is my clan, she told herself.
Would any of them have stood by her as Singe had stood by Dandra? Dah'mir hadn't stood by her, that was certain. By her or by the Bonetree.
Her hand fell to the huntmaster's sword. In spite of Singe's explanations, she wasn't sure she fully grasped the idea of Sentinel Marshals. "Honor blade," though--that was something she could understand. Maybe she carried the blood of Deneith, maybe she didn't. Either way, she knew that she carried the sword of a hero.
As Singe stumbled under another blow, Ashi slipped back from the crowd and darted for the mound. Scooping up a flaming brand from the absent guard's fire, she drew the honor blade and walked cautiously into the darkness of the tunnel.
"Someone's getting beaten bad out there," said Natrac.
"How do you know?" Geth asked. He checked the byeshk sword on his hip again, making certain the weapon would slide easily from the makeshift scabbard. Behind them, Krepis and the half dozen orcs that Batul had judged to be the best fighters among the raiding party were doing much the same thing and giving their weapons one last check. Orshok was offering up a last prayer for guidance and protection. Somewhere above them, Batul and the other raiders would be reaching the top of the mound.
"Listen to the crowd," said Natrac. "You can tell by the way they cheer. It's always the same voices--they're only cheering for one person. That means one person is giving all the good hits so the other must be taking them."

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