The Binding Stone: The Dragon Below Book 1

by Don Bassingthwaite

  A gruff voice cursed in words he didn’t understand. His world shook a little more, but a shadow cut off the excruciating torment of the light. Geth forced his eyes open.

  An orc stood over him, a shroud in one hand and a club in the other.

  Geth shouted and tried to writhe away from him, but the orc cursed again, dropped the shroud and the club, and reached for him. “Rest, shifter! Rest or you’ll tip the boat!”

  Awareness forced itself on Geth. The house in Zarash’ak, Vennet, the cult, the monstrous chuul, the orc … Dah’mir’s spell. A vague memory of a plunge into foul water. An even more vague memory of something or someone nudging him to the surface. He focused on the orc.

  “You saved me,” he gasped. Another thought tugged at him. “Natrac!”

  He twisted again, looking around. Natrac lay close beside him, pale but breathing slowly in sleep. Both of them lay in the bottom of a flat-bottomed boat. Over the boat’s sides, Geth could see the tops of trees and the nodding heads of reeds. The hot light that beat down on him was the sun, sailing across a blinding blue sky. The club the orc had been holding, he realized, was actually an oar of some kind. The shroud was a blanket.

  “Where are we?” he croaked. “Where are Singe and Dandra?”

  The orc’s face tightened. “Your friends were taken upriver by the cult.” Geth cried out and tired to sit up. The orc held him back. “Be still!” he commanded.

  “My arms,” Get moaned. “I can’t move my arms!” He struggled to raise his head and look down his body.

  “I’ve bound them,” said the orc. “You’ve already come close to tipping us once before with your thrashing.” He eased Geth back down. “Dah’mir’s spell infected you with disease, and swallowing the waters of Zarash’ak didn’t help you. You’re too sick for my skill and knowledge to cure you. I’m taking you to someone who can.”

  He picked up the blanket and draped it across a kind of frame to make a rough sunshade. The scorching light of the sun vanished. Geth’s vision seemed to swim with the plunge back into fevered darkness. “Who are you?” he asked thickly.

  “My name is Orshok.” The orc’s rough hand reached out of sight for a moment, then reappeared cupping a number of knuckle-sized red-purple berries. He held the fingers of his other hand over them and murmured a prayer. Geth felt magic like a sweet breeze swirl around them. Nature’s magic.

  “A druid,” he said. “You’re a druid!”

  “Rest,” said Orshok. He picked a berry out of his hand and placed it in Geth’s mouth. The tiny fruit burst on his tongue, filling his mouth with tart-sweet juice. A feeling of ease spread though him, pushing back his fever and aches a little bit. His eyelids drooped …

  He was tearing the wet meat off a half-cooked chicken carcass when he felt the presence of someone watching him. The hair on his neck and forearms bristling, he whirled around, one hand still clutching the chicken, the other snatching up his sword from the grass beside him.

  Both ended up pointed at a man of about his own age, a human with red-brown hair and a beard that was just filling in. The man leaned casually on a heavy spear decorated with a spray of fresh green oak leaves and contemplated the blade and the bird. “I hope you don’t get those mixed up while you’re eating,” he said in a pleasant voice.

  Geth didn’t move. The other man shrugged. “Don’t mind me,” he added. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “You’re not,” growled Geth. When the man still made no move, he settled back down to the ground, though he made sure to keep one hand free and his sword close. The sack that held his great-gauntlet was nearby as well—he wouldn’t have time to don the armored sleeve, but its weight made a decent weapon on its own.

  The bearded man moved slowly out from among the trees, deliberately giving the shifter plenty of time to react. Geth’s eyes darted around the small clearing, trying to see if he had brought anyone else with him. The forest was thick with the new growth of spring and the shadows were growing deep as evening settled over the valley, but neither growth nor darkness were so dense that he couldn’t see through them. The man was alone.

  As the stranger settled down on the other side of the small fire, Geth became conscious of how he must look. Chicken juices shone on his face and hands, mingling with the grime of long travel. His thick hair was matted. His clothes were stiff with dirt and a foul stink rose from both them and his body. How long had it been since he washed? He choked off the thought and bit back into the chicken, sharp teeth ripping off a big chunk of flesh. He kept his eyes on the bearded man as he chewed.

  “My name’s Adolan,” the man said after a time.

  “Geth,” the shifter answered around a mouthful of meat. He looked over the other man’s well-worn leather clothing and the rough collar of polished, rune-etched stones that hung around his neck. He swallowed and, in between bites, grunted, “You’re a druid?”

  Adolan nodded. “I watch over this valley.” He twitched his spear toward the forest. “There’s a hamlet back that way. Bull Hollow. You might have noticed it?” Geth grunted and Adolan continued. “Some of the farmers on the edge of the Hollow have noticed someone suspicious skulking around the forest. One of them asked me to look into the theft of a couple of chickens.”

  “Might have been a fox,” said Geth, licking his lips.

  “Might have been,” agreed Adolan. The druid looked at him. “Are you just passing through?”

  The question sent a flash of heat through Geth. “Maybe,” he rasped angrily, returning his gaze. “Maybe not.”

  Adolan’s eyes seemed to sharpen with such intensity that, even in anger, Geth hesitated. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “Just passing through.”

  “Mind if I ask where you’re headed?”

  Geth seized a bone in his teeth and pulled it loose from the chicken, then spat it away into the night. “West,” he answered. “As deep into the Eldeen as I can.”

  The druid actually chuckled. “You can’t get much deeper into the Eldeen than Bull Hollow—unless you want to turn south and live with the fey in the Twilight Demesne.” He fell silent for a moment, then said, “I know you’re not from around here. Your voice has the sound of the northern Eldeen in it, though. Is that where you’re from?”

  Geth’s lips twisted. “A long time ago,” he said.

  To his surprise, Adolan let the matter drop entirely. Geth waited for the inevitable questions—where have you been? what did you do?—but they didn’t come. The druid said nothing. After a long silence, Geth looked back at him, then nodded at the fire and the other chicken that was roasting unevenly above it. “Want some?”

  Adolan glanced at the plump carcass and Geth could tell he was appraising the way its skin, tufts of singed feathers still clinging to it, was turning black on one side while remaining pale and raw on the other. “Was that the red one or the white one?” he asked.

  “Red,” said Geth. Adolan nodded.

  “That was a fine-looking bird.” With nimble fingers, he flipped the chicken on its spit, then produced a knife and sliced a leg free. He settled back and bit into the steaming meat. “Would be better with salt,” he said after chewing thoughtfully.

  “My chef took it all when he ran off with the chambermaid,” Geth said.

  Adolan laughed and stripped another mouthful of meat from the leg. Geth found himself laughing as well—and he hadn’t laughed since well before the last time he’d bathed. A feeling of peace settled over him and the faint warmth of tentative friendship stirred in his belly as he looked into the fire—

  —that rose all around him. He spun and blocked the blow of an Aundairian soldier’s sword with his gauntlet, then punched the man in the gut. The blood-smeared mail shirt that the soldier wore soaked up the worst of the blow, though, and he laughed.

  He stopped laughing when Geth’s sword sliced through his neck. Geth didn’t wait for his body to fall, but leaped away, sprinting through the madness that Narath had become, searching for the next Aundairian. He d
idn’t look at the carnage around him. The atrocities. The massacre. Rage gripped him, crushing his heart and snuffing the light in his spirit.

  Rage—and shame. He howled as he ran, screaming out names. “Nilda! Coron! Singe! Dew! Treykin! Frostbrand, answer!”

  More Aundairians fell to his blade and his black gauntlet. He took three at once, stabbing one from behind, gutting another, and crushing the throat of the last with a single punch. Their victim was already beyond his help. Geth left her and ran on.

  His head throbbed from the blow that had laid him low, his chest and face were still cold and wet from having lain unconscious in the winter snows of Karrnath. Blood and water had frozen his hair into thick clumps that slowly melted in the heat of the burning town. The flames around him scorched his skin, making him feel like he was burning as well. He was sweating heavily and he ached right down to his bones. He kept going, though, shouting for his friends, for any member of the Frostbrand. Narath seemed to have turned into a maze. Every corner he turned opened onto the same scene of fire and blood. Geth sobbed as he raced through horrors that in only a few short weeks would become infamous throughout the Five Nations …

  Some part of him knew that the tale of Narath couldn’t possibly have reached so far when it was still unfolding around him; another part wondered why he was back in Narath when he had just been in Bull Hollow with Adolan. The rest of him didn’t care. He shouted again. “Frostbrand, answer!”

  He was running through corpses. Faceless. Broken. Bloody. The mass of them dragged at him, pulling him back. He had to force his way forward, as if he was walking against a powerful wind. The dead of Narath just kept piling higher. He started to recognize faces among the corpses, too. Treykin. Dew. Coron. Other mercenaries of the Frostbrand whose names had vanished from his head. Sweating and aching and burning from the inside out, Geth climbed a hill of death. His voice had fallen away to a constant moan.

  The faster he tried to climb, the slower his progress. All around him, the corpses began to slide, slipping and running like a slope of loose earth. Geth struggled to stay on his feet, to stay on top of them, but more bodies came at him. Singe slid by to one side. Dandra to the other. Sandar. Natrac.

  Red-brown hair flashed. “Adolan!” Geth screamed. He lunged, trying to get to the druid, but Adolan’s body just sank down among all the others. Geth dug down through death, desperate to reach him.

  Living figures rose above him. Geth looked up as Medalashana, her face drawn tight with madness, swooped close. “Let me take him, Dah’mir!” she shrieked. “I’ll shred his mind and lay his thoughts out before you!”

  But Dah’mir stood aloof, untouched by the death and fire all around. “Hush, Medala,” he said. “We have the one we came for. He’s nothing.”

  The green-eyed man reached out toward Geth. His hand was a scaly claw. As it plunged into Geth’s chest, all of the fires of Narath seemed to come together in the shifter’s body. Geth howled in agony and toppled into darkness.

  CHAPTER

  12

  He woke up shouting names he hadn’t spoken in years. Strong hands grabbed his shoulders, pushing him back down onto rough blankets, and a gruff voice muttered words he didn’t understand. Geth thrashed, trying to sit up, to climb out of whatever bed he lay in. The gruff voice rose sharply, grunting more gibberish. Geth picked out one word though: Natrac.

  A hand grabbed one of his arms while the weight of a body pinned his other. “Geth! Easy!” called Natrac’s voice. “We’re safe. Relax!”

  Geth squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. The weight across him was the half-orc, though it took Geth another heartbeat to be certain. Natrac’s face was drawn. The fine red coat and gray tunic he had worn on Vennet’s ship were gone, probably too fouled to be salvaged. He wore rough leather clothes like those Orshok had: patched pants and a pale shirt with sleeves that ended just below his shoulders.

  His right arm ended at the wrist. The burned and angry flesh had been replaced by skin that was still soft and smooth from magical healing.

  The sight of Natrac’s stump shocked him into relaxation. The pressure on his shoulders eased and the gruff voice grunted again—this time in approval. Geth twisted his head around to look up at the speaker. It was an old orc woman, her gray-green face deeply wrinkled and speckled with coarse white hairs, her tusks dull and yellow. In spite of her age, though, her limbs were thick with muscle. She patted his shoulders and said something else in what Geth guessed was Orc. Natrac answered her in the same language. The old woman patted Geth’s shoulders again, then stood and stepped away from him.

  Geth looked around. He lay on a low blanket-covered platform in a hut built from rushes and hides. The old woman picked up a shallow bowl from a packed dirt floor strewn with more rushes and waddled to a doorway that had been hung with a hide. When she brushed it aside, the red light of sunset flashed through.

  “She’ll fetch Orshok,” said Natrac. He rolled off Geth. “How do you feel?”

  The shifter lay back, taking stock of his body. “Good,” he answered after a moment. He was slightly weak and ravenously hungry. There was an ache in his chest, but the pain was spiritual rather than physical, the aftermath of the fevered dreams that had ravaged him. He drew a long, shuddering breath against the images—some half-remembered delusions, some all too real—and sat up.

  He was naked under the blankets except for Adolan’s collar of stones. Natrac reached out and grabbed his clothes from on top of a chest. They looked and smelled like they had been washed. There was the sour odor of illness in the air, though. Geth’s skin felt damp and he realized abruptly that the old orc had been washing him. He looked up Natrac.

  “Where are we? How long have I been sick?”

  “We’re in an orc village called Fat Tusk,” the half-orc told him. He sat back, his amputated arm cradled in his lap. “From what Orshok tells me, it’s been five nights since you tried to rescue me from Vennet and the cult—and he ended up rescuing both of us from someone he’ll only describe as the ‘Servant of Madness.’”

  “Dah’mir,” Geth growled. “Five nights? Rat, Natrac! Do you remember what we told you about Dah’mir and the Bonetree clan?”

  Natrac grimaced and thrust the stump of his arm forward. “Dagga, I remember,” he said.

  Geth flushed and words stumbled on his tongue. “Natrac, you shouldn’t have gotten caught up in this. Vennet was using you as bait. He drugged you on the ship to keep you quiet, then when we discovered he followed the Dragon Below and escaped—” His fists knotted in his clothes. “I can’t make it up to you.”

  The half-orc waved away his apology—or tried to. There was no hand for him gesture with. His face twisted in frustration and anger. “You came for me, Geth. What more could I have asked for?” His remaining hand curled tight. “But by Dol Dorn’s mighty fist, I swear that Vennet is going to wish he killed me outright! That bastard should have known better than to leave me alive!”

  There was a hardness to Natrac that he hadn’t shown onboard Lightning on Water. The façade of the blustering merchant had been stripped away to reveal a raw fire underneath. It would have taken a lot more than just bluster, Geth realized, to deal with the thugs Natrac had brought onboard Vennet’s ship. He wondered what the half-orc had done in his younger days.

  “I’ll stand with you, Natrac,” he promised. “There’s a lot that Vennet needs to answer for.”

  He held out a fist. Natrac bashed his fist against it, knuckle to knuckle. “Kuv dagga!” he said in harsh agreement. He looked at Geth. “Singe only told us part of your story on the ship. I’ve told Orshok what I know, but there’s more to it. What did Singe leave out?”

  The hide covering the door flipped back and Orshok stepped into the hut. “Wait, and tell us all,” the young druid said in his thick accent. He nodded at Geth’s clothes. “If you feel well enough to walk, get dressed and come with me.”

  There was apprehension on Orshok’s face. Geth scrambled to his feet and pull
ed on his clothes quickly. “I feel fine, tak to you,” he said. “What happened? I remember Dah’mir casting a spell on me—and then waking up in your boat.”

  “You stumbled into the water,” Orshok told him. “The Servant of Madness must have thought you were already dead. I was close enough to go back and pull you both to safety.”

  “Then twice tak—that’s two times you saved me,” said Geth as he pulled his vest on over his shirt. “What were you doing in Zarash’ak anyway? When you saved me from the chuul, you said you were only supposed to be watching the house.”

  “My teacher had a vision that the Servant would go to Zarash’ak and sent me to watch what he did there.” Orshok’s gray-green skin flushed dark. “When I saw that you were in danger, my hatred for the cults of the Dragon Below moved me more than my teacher’s instructions. I couldn’t stand by any longer.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t.” Geth nodded to the door of the hut. “Tak to your teacher as well. You said curing me was beyond your skill. Was she the one who broke the disease?”

  The young druid looked confused. Natrac said something briefly in Orc and Orshok’s eyes widened—then narrowed. “Meega was only tending to you, Geth,” he said. “She isn’t my teacher—and it wasn’t my teacher who cured you.”

  Geth paused in the act of buckling on his belt. The scabbard was empty, his Karrnathi sword lost in the water below Zarash’ak, but the pouch on the belt’s other side was still intact. His great-gauntlet was sitting on the chest where the rest of his clothes had been. It would need some time to check the straps and plates—he had already decided to leave it for now.

  “Who cured me then?” he asked Orshok.

  A loud voice shouted from outside in Orc. Geth caught Orshok’s name, but didn’t understand the rest. The voice’s owner didn’t sound pleased, though. Orshok shouted back and glanced at both Geth and Natrac. He threw back the hide covering on the hut’s door.