Rune Song (Dragon Speaker Series Book 2)

by Devin Hanson

  Devin Hanson

  Rune Song is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Devin Hanson

  All Rights Reserved.

  Map design by Nolan Pitler

  Thanks go to my wife, without whom this book would never have been possible.

  Other books by Devin Hanson

  The Dragon Speaker Series

  Rune Scale

  Rune Song

  The world of Rune Song is not Earth. Resemblances and words used to describe flora and fauna are translations used to make it easier for the reader to relate. Mention of a chicken doesn't literally mean a chicken, rather it indicates a domesticated animal of some sort with features and uses similar to that of a terrestrial chicken. Since the story doesn't depend on the chicken-ness of the chickens, the author decided to just call it a chicken.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 1

  Prelude

  Sand. Sand for as far as the eye could see and a great deal farther. The great rock spires were carved by it, the sweeping winds laden with it, the hills and ridges made of it. Sand was as much part of the landscape as the bones of the earth thrusting up through it, more so, some would say.

  Iria crouched in a shadow cast by Maeis, the ruddy light of the moon making the landscape appear washed in blood. Sand drifted in little whorls and eddies about her feet, burying her halfway up her shins. She had not moved in nearly an hour, ever since the brief dust storm had deposited a heavy drift of sand on her hiding spot.

  An outside observer would pass by Iria unless they were looking very closely indeed. Her heavy dun robes pooled about her, imitating the sand-blasted rock. The folds of cloth were laden with sand drift, further blending her into the shadows. Her head was covered by a hood drawn tight about a full-face leather mask perforated with hundreds of holes small enough to keep driving sand from her face, but numerous enough to allow her to see out with ease.

  Maeis drifted across the sky, huge and bloated. To the east, Romeda, the second moon, lofted up over the spiked rim of the arroyo, adding a cool blue. Iria shifted minutely and sand cascaded down her robes. Moments later, the soft hoot of a desert owl sounded and Iria stood up, shaking out her robes and pulling sandaled feet from where they had been buried.

  Moving carefully, Iria leapt to an outcropping of rock, danced lightly along the spur then out across the open sand. She moved erratically, a mix of short mincing steps broken by long leaps and sudden sideways shuffles. Behind her, the sand remained undisturbed by her passage; not a footprint or puff of sand marked her path.

  She fetched up against the far wall of the arroyo, deep red sandstone turning black under Romeda’s blue light. With the ease of long practice, Iria climbed up the nearly vertical face coming to a sudden halt when she reached the upper lip. A leggy sage bush gave her cover as she carefully peered about, her breath coming deep but easy.

  The arroyo she had just climbed out of was but one leg of a twisting maze. Summer monsoons dropped a year’s worth of water in a few weeks on the distant mountains, and all of it came rushing downhill, to break into muddy rapids and surging torrents through the arroyos. To the east, the system of arroyos merged together into a single canyon so deep and twisting you could not see the water coursing below from the rim.

  Iria watched the tangle of arroyos for a few minutes while her heartbeat settled down and her breathing evened out. She pushed her mask up, releasing a pour of black hair, then placed two fingers between her lips and let out the whooping trill of a nighthawk. She waited a few seconds then repeated the call.

  The bushes to her left shivered and a man stood up from behind them, gave a short wave to Iria then moved deeper into the maze of arroyos. Iria followed, joining the man down in the cleft with a dozen others, all similarly dressed with perforated sand masks and robes covering them from head to foot. They spoke no words, using only quiet bird calls to coordinate, and then moved together as a group downhill where the arroyos got deeper and started to merge together.

  Iria found herself in the middle of the group moving in single file. They skipped easily from rock to rock, occasionally finding a ledge to run along for a few steps or a fall of scree that let them move freely for a dozen yards at a time. Not once did any one of the group touch the sand and leave a footprint, or brush against scrub and risk leaving behind threads or torn fabric on the thorns.

  Every few minutes, the leader of the file would race up the side of the arroyo and pause, scanning the desert for a few seconds, before jumping down and rejoining the file at the back. They moved in silence except for the odd bird chirp or animal cry.

  Iria’s turn at the front of the column came and she led the group confidently, choosing a path that would support repeated steps without leaving a trace. After a few minutes, she found a likely spot to climb up the short cliff and flung herself up using handholds and ledges that were certain not to break under her weight.

  Reaching the top, she crouched behind a tangled cactus and scanned across the desert. Something caught her eye and she gave a quiet prairie dog bark of warning. The file below her paused then scattered. Two men climbed up the cliff to crouch beside Iria. She pointed and the two peered into the desert, waiting patiently for the sign that Iria had spotted.

  A plume of sand dusted up out of a distant arroyo, backlit by a white flash of light, and one of the men grunted, clapped Iria on a shoulder and lowered himself back down the cliff. Iria stayed where she was, crouching behind the cactus, while the second man ran in a low crouch across the desert, following a haphazard path as he stuck to the bare rock.

  More of her companions joined her on top of the cliffs and spread out, ghosting toward the point Iria indicated. Below, the rest moved through the arroyos toward where the sand had plumed up. She could not see them, but she knew they would be splitting up, approaching the area cautiously from multiple directions.

  The last of the file moved off and Iria left the cover of the cactus and moved across the desert carefully. She had her mask back on and her hood tightened about it. Her breath smelled stale in her mask; it had been a long time since she last was able to rest. Her eyes felt gritty with lack of sleep, but her muscles still moved smoothly and her breath came deep and easy.

  Distant chatter of a nightjar brought her to a jarring halt and she ducked down behind a water-starved creosote bush, both sandaled feet perched on an exposed rock. Moments later, a figure climbed from a nearby defile and stood, looking upward at the moons. He or she wore a long robe, but where Iria and her companions were dressed to blend in, this person wore robes of a brilliant maroon and a cloak trimmed with rich fur.

  The person, a man, Aria judged by the gait and width of shoulder, was dressed for a party in a city. The nearest town was a day�
�s journey to the south and the nearest party worthy of the robes nearly two days to the east.

  The nightjar call came again, reinforcing Iria’s own misgivings. What was this man doing here? She shifted position, moving to another rock to keep the creosote bush between herself and the man as he started walking across the desert.

  Was he not aware of the danger? Iria touched the hilt of one of her daggers, a solid presence beneath her robe. The man walked across the desert to the next arroyo and climbed down into it, walking as if he were in a park, completely unconcerned.

  She saw one of her companions rise up from his hiding place and ghost across the desert after the strange man. He would keep an eye on the maroon-robed man, and leave a trail so the rest of the scouting party could follow later. Iria settled back down to wait. The presence of the man had thrown all their plans into turmoil, and it would take time to figure out what to do about it.

  Aria held her balance on her rock and watched Maeis work its way across the sky. After nearly half an hour, the all-clear call was sounded and Aria started working her way over to the arroyo where she had seen the burst of sand.

  She smelled the dragon long before she saw it. Burnt cinnamon hung in the air, a thick miasma that made her breath hitch in her throat. When she finally laid eyes on it, it was not at all what she was expecting.

  The dragon was a typical specimen, if larger than purely average. Twenty feet long from the heavily spiked and ridged nose down to the last vicious barb on its tail. It was powerfully built, with broad, widely-splayed legs built heavily and knotted with muscle. Its knobby, leathery hide was marked by a speckled pattern across the back and broken by a triple row of serrated barbs along the spine. The head was heavy, the jaws broad and nearly four feet long from nose to the back of the skull.

  It was also very dead.

  Something had killed the creature with incredible force, caving in the ribs along the left flank and bursting through the other side. Blood painted the walls of the arroyo, both the initial gout from the wound and the following arterial spray as the beast bled out. Steam still rose from the pools of blood. Whatever had killed the dragon had done so recently.

  Iria crouched at the edge of the precipice and looked down on the slain dragon. Her scouting party had been dispatched because something had been driving the dragons into a berserk frenzy. Dragons from the Sunwell Arroyos were fiercely territorial, but they also mostly stayed inside their hunting grounds, very rarely venturing forth.

  Dragons had been traveling nearly twenty miles outside the arroyos and attacking a nearby village. They weren’t looking for food, as they had bypassed the goat pens entirely. The dragons had crashed through the painted palisade and started killing people. When four or five tons of angry rampaging dragon is running amok, the only thing you can do is get out of the way. A few buildings caught on fire and the growing light and heat scared the beast away, but not before nearly half the village was destroyed.

  The Rangers had been summoned the next day.

  Iria clutched her robes tighter, a chill raising gooseflesh on her arms that had nothing to do with the temperature. A few Rangers moved about the slain dragon below, stepping gingerly around the pooled blood. Using both hands, two Rangers hauled the dragon’s jaws open and Iria felt her stomach churn. The dragon’s jaw had been dislocated and raw sockets showed where the rearmost teeth had been excised.

  Humans had done this. The molars of the desert dragons were where they stored their vitae, the life force dragons accumulated. The same life force was used by alchemists to imbue altered laws of physics upon mundane material to transmute it into something new and different. Iron could be made light as air, fire conjured from nothing, all manner of impossible feats of engineering and artifice performed.

  She wrinkled her nose in disgust. Alchemy was unnatural. It wasn’t against the law, not exactly, but you would not find anyone openly practicing it in the cities of Nas Shahr. Most decent people would drive such a person away. It wasn’t unheard of for an unwary alchemist to get stoned in the streets. No, the Maar knew the proper way of things, not like those pale-skinned Salians to the north, with their fascination for the alchemical arts. Many of the Maar refused to have anything to do with alchemy in any fashion. Iria sympathized

  Alchemy might not be against the law, but hunting dragons for their teeth definitely was. The presence of the richly dressed man in the maroon robe could not have been a coincidence. She saw Malik, the captain of her Ranger party, come to the conclusion at the same time she did. He looked up, met Iria’s gaze, and gave a single nod.

  A tight grin forced its way to Iria’s face and she whirled away, pursing her lips to trill out a summons. Four of the Rangers left their watch posts and joined her. They were her team, her spear, the sharp end of the Ranger party. They were balai.

  All Rangers could handle themselves in a fight, it was a requirement before a prospective recruit even made it into the training tents, but the balai were trained above and beyond. They were the knife in the dark, the grim certitude of lawful vengeance. Killers, every one of them, and proven over years of service to the emperor.

  Iria ran her mind back, roughing out a map of the arroyos, estimating where the man in maroon had emerged and where he had gone. With it fixed in her mind, she set out swiftly. A rocky ledge ran parallel to where she wanted to go, and she led the balai at breakneck pace through the moonlit desert atop it. She slowed as she neared the area where she had seen the robed man and soon spotted a trail of footsteps. Amid the virgin sand, they stood out plain in the moonlight, the very reason why the Rangers took such care to avoid leaving traces as they traveled.

  Iria pointed to two of the balai, Hashim and Yusef and gestured for them to pick up the left flank, then pushed forward with Rajya and Saifu on her heels. She started picking up signs left behind by the Ranger assigned to trail the robed man: a carefully bent branch, a scuff in the sand, a rock shifted out of place.

  Slower now. The signs left by the Ranger were growing fresher, the footprints more crisp. Abruptly, the steady pace of the robed man changed. The evenly spaced walking prints lurched into a run and slewed around. Scuff marks appeared and a second set of footprints joined the first: the Ranger had abandoned stealth and given chase.

  Iria gestured and Rajya trilled out a warning call. Something was not right here. Iria slowed to a halt, breath coming hard from her sprint. Hashim and Yusef should have responded to the warning, but she hadn’t heard anything. She repeated the call herself and froze, listening intently.

  She heard the grit of sand shifting beneath a hard-soled boot behind her and spun, caught a flicker of maroon cloth in the moonlight and dove to the side. A wash of scorching heat and blinding light rushed through the air where she had been standing moments before. She rolled to her feet, dashed to the side in a low crouch and slipped between clumps of desert scrub.

  A low laugh rumbled into the night. “My, my. Aren’t you the wary little thing. It’s too bad your friends didn’t have your alertness. They might still be alive.” The voice was deep, languidly certain of itself, and speaking the northern tongue.

  Iria struggled to force her breathing back to normal, the shaking in her limbs to settle down. This was not the first alchemist she had taken down.

  She wet her lips, called back using the same language, relying on the leather mask to muffle her voice and make it hard to pinpoint her location. “Hardly likely you killed all three.” Maybe he had not seen the full balai spear.

  “Well, I hate to brag,” the voice drawled, “but I counted quite a few more than that.”

  “And they’re all dead?”

  “Soon, my dear. Soon.”

  Iria let out a sigh of relief and a tightness in her chest eased. This alchemist was going to die, there wasn’t any doubt about that. But if any of her balai were still alive, she would not have to do all the work herself.

  She started shifting her position, once again putting the extra effort into keeping off the san
d. She didn’t know how aware this alchemist was but even the most urban could not help but spot footprints in the soft sand.

  Light flared and Iria flinched. Smoke boiled skyward from a position a few dozen yards away. The alchemist was blasting random bushes trying to find her. A desert owl hooted sleepily and Iria’s determination was tempered by hope. At least one of her balai lived.

  Iria risked a peek over the top of the brush and spotted the alchemist a few dozen yards off. He held a dragon tooth in his hand nearly eight inches long, the root still glistening with gore. As she watched, he growled something arcane under his breath and a gout of flame burst from his outstretched hand. A swath of brush thirty feet long shot crackling flames into the night.

  She ducked down as the firelight lit up the desert. Behind her, hidden in a shadowed cleft of rock, Iria caught the gleam of fresh wetness. If the alchemist hadn’t set the brush on fire she would have missed it in the moonlight. Throat tight, she eased over to the cleft and peered inside.

  Hashim, or what was left of him, oozed blood into the thirsty sands. He had been killed with almost fastidious neatness, a single puncture wound coming from the side and passing cleanly through both carotid arteries. He would have died almost instantly, though his heart would have continued to beat for nearly a full minute. Plenty of time for his assailant to cut it still beating from his chest. The open chest wound was almost exactly the opposite of the killing wound; his chest had been ripped open, seemingly from the inside, with brutal force. Splintered bone and a wide splash of blood thick with tatters of shredded flesh contrasted sharply with the surgical precision of the neck wound.

  Bile rose sharp in her throat and she fell to her knees. Who could have done this? How? The desert owl called again and Iria’s blood suddenly ran cold. Her balai, whoever was left, was preparing to attack the alchemist. Or whatever he was.