The Binding Stone: The Dragon Below Book 1

by Don Bassingthwaite

  In the center of the chamber, a figure hunched over a grindstone. Orange sparks flashed from the long steel blade that it held to the spinning stone. The figure was nothing more than a silhouette against the fiery spray, but there was something about it that made Geth’s skin crawl. He bared his teeth and the whisper of a growl rose in his throat.

  The dark figure straightened. The rasp of metal on stone and the shower of sparks ended as it lifted the blade. The grindstone spun on in silence and the figure looked up at Geth and Natrac. The strange light of Jhegesh Dol fell on a man’s face so pale and beautiful that it might have been the model for Dah’mir’s own, except that where Dah’mir’s eyes were at least human, the eyes of the man below were pale, solid lavender without any iris or pupil. He paused and then stepped forward so that the light slid across shoulders and arms that rippled with muscle and flashed on a chunky amulet that hung against a broad, hairless chest. Shadows seemed to cling to him, obscuring his torso and legs like insubstantial black robes. Another spirit, Geth thought, another phantom.

  Then the lavender-eyed man stretched his arms and spread his hands with a clash of metal. His fingers were blades, long as swords, heavy as axes, and so sharp they seemed to cut the light itself. The blades weren’t stiff though. They bent and flexed with life, merging with the man’s flesh, a part of him. He hadn’t been sharpening a sword. He had been sharpening his own hand.

  Nine thousand years ago, Batul had said, Jhegesh Dol had been a daelkyr stronghold.

  The man was no mere phantom. He might have been put to the sword seven millennia before, but the master of Jhegesh Dol stood below them—at least in spirit. A shadow of a nightmare from a realm of madness.

  Geth’s growl rumbled louder; his fingers clenched the burning hunda.

  “That other passage,” Natrac urged, his breathing harsh. “The second one. We can still go back.” He started to turn.

  The daelkyr’s shadow brought its fingers together in a slow metallic scrape. The screams of the victims of the dark fortress echoed down the passage behind them. Natrac’s face turned pale.

  Around Geth’s neck, though, Adolan’s collar had gone cold again. Not painfully cold the way it had before, but sharp and bracing, like armor donned in winter. The sacred stones of the Gatekeepers’ tradition were offering him protection, just as they had protected him from Dah’mir’s influence in Zarash’ak and given him guidance at the intersection of passageways.

  Guidance that had led him and Natrac to the daelkyr’s shadow, not away from it. Geth’s belly tensed and he knew that they weren’t meant to run from this fight.

  His growl rose into a roar. He jumped up onto the rail of the balcony, caught his balance—and leaped to the floor of stone floor below. To the sound of Natrac’s frightened astonishment, he darted forward and thrust his flaming hunda at the daelkyr’s muscular chest.

  The spirit slid aside with an eerie grace and its hand came up to swipe at the hunda. The wood bucked in Geth’s grip, then fell into burning chunks where the daelkyr’s bladed fingers had cut it. Geth stared at the truncated section of staff still in his grasp.

  Ten flailing swords stabbed at him. Geth yelped and threw himself back. The daelkyr’s hands swept the air in front of his chest, so close he could hear the metal sing. He tumbled to the side, trying to stay out of the way of the shadow’s lethal reach. His shifting-granted toughness wouldn’t protect him from those steel claws; Geth wasn’t sure that even his gauntlet would have stopped them!

  And he wasn’t at all certain he wanted to put the protection of the Gatekeeper’s stones to the test.

  Geth spun again. He ducked and blades hissed above him. The daelkyr’s shadow moved in absolute silence except for the clash of its long fingers. Geth lunged in under its reach, extending himself to jab what was left of his hunda stick right into the shadow’s belly.

  It was like attacking mist. The flames that still clung to the stick flickered and dimmed. The daelkyr barely seemed to notice. Geth rolled quickly as its fingers darted at him again. “Tiger’s blood!” he spat. The spirit could hurt him, but he couldn’t hurt it?

  “Catch!” Natrac called. He had his hunda stretched out, offering it to him. Geth cursed and shook his head.

  “It’s not going to do me any good!” The shifter dodged back again as the daelkyr’s shadow pressed forward. “I need something else!”

  He tried to duck around the thing, to get to its back at least, but it wouldn’t let him pass. It surged ahead in a storm of bright metal, forcing Geth back by three fast paces. Abruptly, his heels hit the low stone steps of the dais he had glimpsed across the room and he stumbled. The daelkyr’s claws flashed. Geth wrenched his body around, one palm planted on the steps, and tumbled out of the way as the blades met the stone in a skittering impact that sent sparks flashing in the shadows. He scrambled to his feet and leaped to the top of the steps, seeking the frail advantage of higher ground.

  The black stone altar atop the dais was like a block taken from the walls of Jhegesh Dol, rough but greasy slick. Blood had gushed over in the stone in centuries past, drying thick in its pitted crevices. The altar’s top was scarred, gashed and slashed by ancient blades like a butcher’s wooden board.

  In the middle of the altar lay a sword, its blade wide and heavy, flaring into a spreading fork like a serpent’s tongue at its end, deeply notched along one edge. The metal had a weird sheen to it, dark and purple as twilight—but the sword was clean, as if none of the horror and corruption of the place had clung to it.

  Geth vaulted onto the top of the stone and snatched up the sword. As the shadow of the daelkyr came charging up the steps, he whirled and swept the sword up to block its outstretched hands.

  The twilight blade clashed against the spirit’s steel claws—and cut through them. Falling metal clattered against the altar. The shadow staggered, mouth open in a soundless scream that revealed a dagger tongue. Its severed fingers trembled and black blood pumped out of the living steel.

  Geth slammed the sword up in a chopping blow that cut under the daelkyr’s arm and deep into its chest. The notched edge of the weapon bit deep in shadowy flesh. The spirit shuddered. For a moment it seemed that it might pulled itself backward off the blade. Geth grabbed the amulet around its neck, holding the foul ghost close as he jerked the sword higher.

  The shadow of the daelkyr made no noise, but suddenly it seemed as if all of the tortured spirits of Jhegesh Dol gave one last wail.

  The black fortress and the daelkyr faded into pearl-gray mist on an empty marsh. Geth froze. Natrac, standing on a low hillock of grass gasped and pointed with his hunda stick. The shifter spun around.

  Less than ten paces away, Batul, Krepis, and Orshok stood under the branches of the tree that marked the edge of Jhegesh Dol. Behind them, the eastern sky showed the pale pink of dawn. Geth leaped down from the broken chunk of rock that he stood on and sloshed across the wet ground to face them.

  “We’re here,” he spat, still breathing hard from his phantom battle. “Satisfied?”

  But all three druids were simply staring at him. Even Batul’s eyes were wide. Geth looked down at his hands. In his left he held the notched sword. In his right, the big amulet that had hung from the daelkyr’s neck. There was something inside the amulet he saw now, a coarse, dull black object nearly as large as his palm.

  “Gatekeeper legends,” said Batul in an awestruck voice, “tell that when the daelkyr lord of Jhegesh Dol was brought down, two treasures vanished from Eberron. One was the sword, forged by Dhakaani smiths, of the hobgoblin hero who struck the killing blow. The other was a sacred relic, a scale from Vvaraak, the dragon who taught the first druids.” He swallowed, his eyes fixed on the amulet.

  Geth held it out to him. “Keep your word and stand with us against Dah’mir,” he growled, “and you can have one of those treasures back.”

  CHAPTER

  14

  They arrived at the Bonetree camp with the sun high in the sky. The young hunters
leaped out of the boats and splashed through the shallows to draw the vessels up on shore. On the riverbank above, there were excited shouts that rose into one of the fluting trills that Singe had learned to identify as Bonetree hunting calls.

  “What are they saying?” he asked Ashi.

  “That Dah’mir has returned,” the hunter whispered. “That the hunt was successful.”

  There was no emotion in her voice. She’d said almost nothing to him since the night Dandra had woken screaming, but neither had she strayed far from his side. The young hunters were always watching Singe now, at least as much as they watched Ashi. True to Ashi’s prediction, there had been two more challenges for her sword. The second challenger she wounded as she had the first. The third she killed, her face hard.

  That hardness hadn’t lifted.

  As they climbed out of the boats, one of the young hunters began shouting at the others, forming them up into a pack, ready to lead Dah’mir and Medala up the riverbank. A ragtag honor guard, Singe realized. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw anger flicker in Ashi’s eyes. She started to move toward the hunters but Dah’mir glanced at her. “Stay with the prisoners, Ashi,” he told her.

  “My place is leading the hunters, Revered,” she said, but the green-eyed man shook his head.

  “You have a greater honor,” he said and once again Singe could feel the persuasive touch of his presence. “Bring the prisoners behind me so that the clan can see them.”

  Even Ashi’s anger softened before his charm. She nodded and moved forward obediently. Dandra needed no encouragement to follow Dah’mir, of course. She stumbled after him like a zombie. Even after days of travel, it still hurt Singe to see the proud, bright woman reduced to a dim automaton.

  Singe, though, froze on the river’s edge. This was the end of their journey—and Geth hadn’t come for them. The hope of rescue that he might have nurtured over the past several days wavered like a candle flame.

  Ashi reached back and took his arm. “Come,” she said.

  At the top of the riverbank, the Bonetree encampment spread out around them, a scattering of rough shelters that seemed to be half hut and half tent. Men, women, and children—the first of the Bonetree clan he had seen, Singe realized, who were not hunters—hurried forward, calling out to the hunters and kneeling down to Dah’mir. The young hunters marched with all the self-conscious stiffness of fresh recruits to the Blademarks, but Dah’mir smiled and held out his hand, offering blessings freely. At his side, Medala’s eyes darted across the gathered clan as if seeking out any hint of a threat to her lord.

  Calls and praise turned to stony silence when Singe and Dandra passed.

  As they passed a cluster of better shelters, a handful of older hunters stood watching. Singe’s gut sank a little lower. He thought he recognized some of the hunters. They were the ones who had attacked Bull Hollow.

  Ashi’s face lit up. “Breff!” she called out to one tattooed man. Singe saw her eyes dart among the older hunters, then narrow. She said something to Breff in the language of the Bonetree clan. “Ches azams esheios?”

  Breff shook his head.

  For the last several days, Singe had been listening to the hunters as they traveled upriver, trying to unravel a little of their language. He strained to make some sense of Ashi’s words. Azams were other members of the clan. Shei was to hunt. Sheios—they hunt … Are the others hunting?

  “Ashi,” he murmured, “should there be more hunters?”

  “Yes.” She called to Breff again, waving him closer. “Gri’i ans kriri?”

  “We’re the only ones,” Breff said. Singe felt a shock at hearing him speak another language. The hunter’s words were low and his voice was brittle, as if he was discussing some terrible, haunting secret he wanted no one else to hear. “Hruucan set a hard pace on the journey back. Anyone who was too badly wounded …”

  He stopped, glancing up.

  Dah’mir stood beside them.

  Ashi’s face fell and Singe’s belly trembled, but Dah’mir ignored them both and instead looked at Breff. The tattooed man’s gaze slid to the ground.

  Dah’mir took a step back. “Hunters,” he said gently, “come to me.” He gestured to the younger hunters as well as the older. “All of you.”

  They clustered around him, pierced and tattooed savages kneeling before a dark, immaculate priest. Only Ashi stood back, staying in her place between Singe and Dandra. Dah’mir stretched out his hands, laying one on Breff’s shoulder. “First among the Bonetree,” he said, “my loyal servants, be glad! To fall at the command of a child of Khyber is an honor! The clan will tell tales of the fallen for generations. Yours was a hunt to be remembered.” He gestured with his free hand, indicating Dandra and Singe. “What you sought has been found and new blood for the Bonetree along with it.” He smiled and his green eyes flashed. “Be blessed, hunters of the Bonetree! May the Dragon Below restore your ferocity!”

  Singe felt the breath of magic as foul as Fause’s healing of his arm and shivered. He couldn’t imagine that more than few of the kneeling hunters understood Dah’mir’s words, but when they looked up, there was a new light in their eyes. Their fingers rose, darting to their lips and their foreheads. Breff’s eyes seemed brightest of all. “Harana!” he moaned, and leaned forward to kiss the hem of Dah’mir’s leather robes. The green-eyed man raised his hand and all of the hunters leaped to their feet, joining in his honor guard.

  None of them looked at Ashi a second time, so caught up were they in reverent adoration of Dah’mir. Singe glanced at her, but her expression was once again hard. He turned away and looked ahead.

  The Bonetree mound rose above them. Singe bit his tongue. It was as large as a hill, but after the flatness of the Shadow Marches and with no other hills around, it looked enormous. “That can’t be natural!” he said.

  “It isn’t,” Ashi grunted. She didn’t look at him, but she said, “There are stories told by the elders that describe how the earliest members of the clan built it in honor of the Dragon Below. It’s said that once a Gatekeeper circle stood here, but that Dah’mir shattered it and raised the ancestor mound in its place. Now he lives beneath the mound with the children of Khyber. No member of the clan sets foot inside it, but there are other stories of passages that lead deep into Khyber and of Dah’mir’s treasure.”

  Singe knew that it could only be a sign of growing desperation that his mind fixed on the least appropriate fragment of Ashi’s words. “Treasure?” he repeated.

  “Dragonshards,” said Ashi. “For all the generations that he’s guided the Bonetree, he’s gathered dragonshards, like those he wears the and the ones he gave Vennet. The elders say that he’s building a great shrine to the Dragon Below and when it’s complete, the clan will be allowed to worship there.”

  She didn’t sound like she believed it, but Singe had a vision of a shrine as large as one of the great halls of Wynarn lined with ten generations’ accumulation of dragonshards.

  “Twelve moons,” he choked, feeling like a greed-maddened dwarf.

  It was a feeling that lasted only until Dah’mir’s procession reached the tunnel that gaped in the side of the mound. Standing inside the shadows of the stone-lined tunnel was a dolgaunt. His face and chest were terribly scarred, patches of the writhing buds that covered his skin replaced by tissue that was smooth, shiny, and raw. Clumps of his thick hair-tendrils were limp and dead, and the tentacle that sprouted from his left shoulder moved sluggishly compared to the right. Singe’s belly felt hollow and cold. It was Hruucan.

  The dolgaunt stood stiff as the crowd of hunters split apart. When Dah’mir and Medala stepped forward, he bent to them—stiffly—in respect. Dah’mir’s eyebrows rose. “Hruucan, when Medala said you had been injured …”

  “I recover,” Hruucan answered in the same harsh, grating voice that Singe remembered from Bull Hollow. “The scars are … inconvenient.” His shoulder tentacles lashed the air with an agitation that betrayed his words. “Dah’mir, you hav
e the one who did this to me with you!”

  Dah’mir looked over his shoulder and his eye fixed on Singe. “I have plans for Singe, Hruucan,” he said. “He will be brought into the Bonetree. His blood will make the clan stronger.”

  “Scars don’t pass through the blood,” Hruucan rasped. “If you command, any woman of the Bonetree will mate with him no matter how ugly he is. I’ll leave him a man. That will be enough.” The dolgaunt’s empty eye sockets turned to Singe. “A rematch, wizard,” he said. “A duel to finish what we started.”

  The smile that spread across Dah’mir’s face was at once both horrible and entrancing. “He’ll do it,” he said.

  Singe’s hollow belly shrank even further. He felt Ashi’s hand, still on his arm tighten sharply.

  Dah’mir swept his arms wide, his voice full of a terrible joy. “A spectacle!” he declared. “Here before the mound. To celebrate my return!”

  “Varda!” shouted Breff, translating for the Bonetree. “Varda su teith e harano!”

  Those were words Singe knew. The younger hunters had used them as easily as they drew weapons. A fight! A fight for blood and honor! He watched matching smiles break across the faces of the Bonetree hunters. Their arms punched the air and their voices rose enthusiastically.

  Dah’mir looked back to Hruucan. “Will tonight be soon enough for you, Hruucan?” he asked,

  The dolgaunt bent again. “I welcome the sunset!” His tentacles quivered as if in anticipation.

  “Excellent!” Dah’mir looked to Ashi. “You’ve taken care of these two admirably, Ashi,” he said, “but you can relax now. They aren’t going anywhere.” His charming smile broadened but it didn’t seem to Singe that Ashi relaxed at all. He turned to look at her, but she wouldn’t return his gaze. When she did force her hand to drop, it almost felt like she had to wrench it away. The instant she let go, though, she stepped back and looked away from him.